Henry VII’s Big Mistake

Henry VII had gained control of most of Northern Italy in less than three months. It will take him 9 months to lose it all again. How did he go from bringer of peace and justice and all out savior of Italy to brutal conqueror and godless tyrant? Let’s find out.

TRANSCRIPT

Hello and welcome to the History of the Germans: Episode 147 – Brescia or Bust – Henry VII’s big mistake, part of season 8 of the podcast.

Henry VII had gained control of most of Northern Italy in less than three months. It will take him 9 months to lose it all again. How did he go from bringer of peace and justice and all out savior of Italy to brutal conqueror and godless tyrant? Let’s find out.

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Now back to the show

Last week we left Henry VII at his coronation as King of Italy in Milan. Within mere months he had tamed the fractious Italian peninsula, returned the exiles to their cities and had brought peace and justice. He and his beautiful and clever wife Margarete can now look forward to a triumphal journey to the eternal city where pope Clement V will be eagerly waiting to crown the “Hectorian shepherd who holds the rod of temporal correction” as the always enthusiastic Dante called him.

All that happened and they lived happily ever after – the end.

Nah, I am afraid there will now be 30 minutes of betrayal, gratuitous violence, disease and impossible political conundrums before the “shining roman prince” has become the “mugger who brings ruin to the Italian communes”.

Inauspicious omens had already appeared when the desperate search for the venerable crown of the Lombards turned up empty handed leaving the future emperor wearing a hastily fabricated replacement.

But doom builds up slowly – and so the day after the great coronation feast all the leaders of the Lombards gathered in the presence of their king, praising him. At which point Henry’s right hand man and now imperial vicar of Milan, Niccolo de Buonsignori brings up the topic of a suitable present to be given in honor of the new king. Everyone present knew that what he meant by present wasn’t some jewel encrusted ceremonial sword or robe made from silk or cloth of gold. No, this was one of those cash only presents that involved only a modicum of voluntary giving. Think dark suit, husky voice and dead fish in the post.

The Milanese got the hint and after a brief exchange of views they designated Guglielmo Pusterla to determine the size of a the present. And Guglielmo sets the sum at 50,000 gold florin, a generous offer, but not overly so. Seeking even more favor with the emperor, Matteo Visconti then jumps up and demands a further 10,000 for the empress. All very noble and chivalric. Guido della Torre is not best pleased about the whole process and comments cynically, why not 100,000 Gold florin then? That was clearly a cynical aside, not a serious proposal. Still the imperial notary recorded that the city of Milan was offering a present of 100,000 Gold florin as a present to the emperor.

A gold florin contained 3.5grams of gold, which at today, 7^th of Mai 2024 prices equates to $260, i.e., we are talking about $26 million dollars in today’s money. This was more than the King of Bohemia, the richest of the Imperial princes collected in a year from his lands, which as we know contained some of the most abundant silver and gold mines in Europe. It was also 10 times what the imperial lands in Germany generated for the crown.

In other words, it was a colossal sum, but still not enough. Similar demands were sent to the other Northern Italian cities that had submitted to the emperor. Padova for instance was asked to make a one-time contribution of 60,000 gold coins and an annual tax of 15,000 gold coins plus quarterly 5,000 gold coins to pay for the army of the imperial vicar.

War was and still is the most expensive of human endeavors. And by the 14^th century warfare had become a lot more costly than during the times of the Hihenstaufen. Vassals fighting under feudal obligations had become a smaller and smaller part of the armies. Mercenaries were now the norm, in particular in Italy where the fighting aristocracy was in the decline and the merchants, bankers and artisans had other things to do than spending their time banging swords on the enemy helmets.

Where was this money supposed to come from? 100,000 Gold Florins was far too much for a simple whip-round amongst the great Milanese families. This kind of expenditure required the city council to raise taxes. At that stage, taxation inside the cities was introduced on an ad hoc basis to fund either war or major public works. One of the reasons Henry VII was so enthusiastically received in Italy was his promise to put an end to the endless wars between the various cities. And end of war meant first and foremost no more war taxes to fund these conflicts.

So one can imagine how disappointed the population was when they heard that the longed for reign of peace and justice would kick off with a huge special tax funding not the defense of the city, but an imperial campaign to go god knows where. All across Northern Italy did “one hear people cursing the emperor on the market square, in the churches and in the streets. As the chronicler Albertus Mussatus wrote.

Henry VII tried to calm things down by lowering the total sum owed to 50,000 gold florin. But then he made things worse again when he demanded that 50 of the most senior members of the city elites should accompany him to his imperial coronation in Rome, including Guido della Torre and Matteo Visconto. Now it would be rude to call the imperial hospitality hostage taking, but then the citizens of Milan were saying much ruder things about the policies of king Henry VII.

Rumors of the imperial luster dulling quickly reached the ears of Guido della Torre, the now ex-signore of Milan. But there was nothing to do about it as long as his sworn enemies the dreaded Visconti supported the imperial camp.  It was with mixed feelings when he received an invitation for a secret meeting with the Visconti in a monastery outside town. Given the quite justified fear that he may end up dead on the church floor, Guido della Torre sent his son to meet up with the Visconti who were represented by Matteo’s son Galeazzo. Nobody knows what happened at this meeting. According to Vilani, Galeazzo complained to the della Torre that they had enough of the harsh imperial rule and that they would much rather live under the regime of the della Torre. Hence the two families should bury the hatchet, agree a marriage alliance and throw the emperor and his rowdy soldiers out of Milan. That went down like honey with the della Torre and they began planning for a great uprising.

The date was set for the 12^th of February, 1311. The della Torre had been gathering their supporters for several days and as morning broke saddled their horses and put on their armor. Meanwhile the imperial forces, aware that something was going on, had taken to patrolling the streets day and night. One of these patrols noted a gathering of 30 armed men outside the house of the Della Torre. The della Torre instantly set upon the patrol even though they had not finished their preparations. The leader of the patrol, duke Leopold of Austria and his men escaped but were able to alert the rest of the imperial forces. It was quickly established that the epicenter of the uprising was in the della Torre quarter. That is where the forces then attacked and they fairly rapidly overwhelmed the della Torre. The Visconti were nowhere to be seen. Matteo Visconti had gone to see the emperor as soon as the disturbance had begun and offered his help to put down the uprising. His son Galeazzo had finally left his house with some of his retinue to see where the wind was blowing. Upon realization that the della Torre had lost, he and his men participated in hunting down the remaining Guelphs. The della Torres, Guido and his two sons fled from Milan.

This was a failed uprising that could have been dealt with fairly easily. Declare the della Torre a disgruntled bad apple amongst the Guelph and continue with the general plan of appearing as a just and impartial ruler, prince of peace etc. But no. The imperial army was let loose and began a three day long sack of Milan’s Guelphs. They raided and then burned down the houses of prominent Guelph families, including the houses of the della Torre. All the cash they could find was either stolen or contributed to the imperial war chest. Only once the fury of the soldiers had burned out did Henry VII order an end to the violence.

The Visconti’s role in all that was doubtful to say the least, but Henry VII who had initially exiled them called them back shortly after the massacre and made them imperial vicars of Milan. It is from this point forward that the Visconti ruled Milan, eventually rising to dukes of Milan.

But for Henry VII this uprising had a much less beneficial outcome. His public relations image had been severely damaged. The della Torre who had escaped to Cremona reported their ordeal to the broadly Guelph cities of Lombardy. They accused Henry VII. He wasn’t the bringer of peace and justice as he claimed. All that was just a smokescreen hiding a Ghibelline takeover intended to bring about imperial tyranny.

As more and more Guelph refugees arrived from Milan and tales of the Teutonic Fury made the rounds, Crema, Cremona, Lodi, Brecia and Bergamo came round to the della Torre view. They ejected first the Ghibellines who had only recently returned under the imperial reconciliation policy and then also sent the imperial vicars packing.

As news of the breakaway of the Lombard cities spread across Italy, imperial power crumbled.  Padova which had just submitted to the emperor now refused his demands for cash. In several of the cities of the Romagna the Ghibellines and the vicars were ousted.

Henry VII needed to do something about that and quickly. He sent out two emissaries. One was Antonio di Fissiraga previously the ruler of Lodi, Crema and Cremona who was supposed to be good cop and promise cities who returned to the imperial fold forgiveness, whilst Amadeus of Savoy was the bad cop, sent out with an army to devastate the lands around the cities.

This policy of harassment and promised mercy did work. Lodi and Crema quickly bowed down and were forgiven. Cremona, the largest of these three hesitated a bit, but when Henry VII approached in person, they threw out their hardcore Guelph leadership and replaced him with moderate Guelphs and Ghibellines. This new city council now came out to submit to the king and accept whatever punishment he would find appropriate.

What happened next would fall into the category of: “It was worse than a crime, it was a blunder”.

Henry VII had the burghers of Cremona who had thrown out the rebels and just submitted to the emperor, thrown in jail. Then he entered Cremona and ordered all fortifications as well as all the towers in the city torn down. The city was fined 100,000 Gold florin. All of Cremona’s ancient rights and privileges were rescinded and their Contado, the land surrounding the city was given away to others.

The harsh treatment of Cremona showed the Italians another side of this prince of peace. Could the brutality in Milan be attributed to his lieutenants or be described as a not uncommon loss of control over the soldiers in the army, the suppression of the commune of Cremona was unquestionably an act of the emperor elect himself.

Why he did that is as so often not clear. One reason may have been that he felt that he needed to assert his authority as ruler of the empire. And since he had already brought Crema and Lodi back under control, he felt he now had the leeway to make Cremona an example of what happens to defectors.

Another theory is that Henry VII himself realized that his policy of peace and reconciliation was ultimately flawed. Italian politics were too convoluted and the leading families too focused on the grand prize to actually settle into a co-operative system of government. Therefore he might have reverted to the previous Hohenstaufen policy of leading the Ghibellines in their fight to wipe out the Guelphs.

Whether or not he had changed his overall policy, his heavy handed approach worked, at least initially. Several of the cities that had just broken away returned to the imperial fold. Those that still hesitated like Padova were shown the error of their ways. To subdue Padova, Henry VII handed Vicenza, which at that point was a commune dependent on Padova to CanGrande della Scala, the signore of Verona. Padova immediately changed tack and sent an embassy to Henry, submitting to his mercy and offering to pay vast amounts of money if Vicenza was to be returned to them.

Whilst most cities in Lombardy relented, there was one, Brescia, where the situation was more difficult. Originally a Ghibelline city, the latest incarnation of that party had made themselves unbearable to the populace. Therefore Henry VII had put Tebaldo Brusato, a Guelph in charge of Brescia. The Ghibellines revolted against Tebaldo, failed to overthrow him and their leaders were imprisoned. And once the Milan uprising had begun, Brescia had joined the other Lombard cities in their defection from the imperial cause.

Henry VII now demanded the city returns under his absolute control and that these Ghibelline prisoners are released. As a gesture of goodwill Tebaldo had the prisoners smuggled out of town. But surrender to the imperial mercy wasn’t something the citizens of Brescia were prepared to accept. They had heard what had happened to the Cremonese and they were not keen to be subjected to a similar treatment.

They did offer however to come back under imperial control if the emperor would promise that the Ghibelline Maggi family would never be allowed back in the city and presumably a couple of the things about ancient rights and privileges, city walls, fines and the like.

We are now reaching the crucial juncture in Henry VII’s journey to Rome.

At this point Henry has a very sizeable army made up of troops from Germany and the western, French speaking parts of the empire as well as Lombard supporters from Milan and Verona as well as mercenary troops paid for with all the fines and presents he had received from the various cities. After his initial success many German nobles had come down in the hope of seizing some of the riches of Italy that seem to be so easily obtainable.

Pope Clement V had sent him three cardinals authorized to perform the coronation at any time of his choosing should the pope himself not be around to do it himself. If you remember, this imperial coronation was the whole point of the undertaking in the first place.

On the road to Rome lay Florence, the center of Guelph resistance to his rule. The most powerful of the Tuscan cities had opposed Henry right from the beginning of the campaign. Florence had formed an alliance with Bologna and then with king Robert of Naples to block the imperial army’s progress.

That was a bold move on their part. We know from Giorgio Vilani that at this time the city of Florence had no viable defenses. The city had grown so fast, the original walls were now half way inside the city. A complete new ring of walls and towers needed to be erected should an imperial attack be repelled. Ever since the autumn of 1310 the citizens of Florence had therefore been working day and night digging trenches and building walls and towers around their city. By the time Henry VII had subjugated Cremona and was considering to go after Brescia the work has not yet been finished. There were gaps in the fortifications that his army could break through with comparative ease.

Moreover, Italian politics were so fragile that the Florentines could not be certain that their Tuscan allies, Lucca, Siena, Pistoia, Volterra and the cities of the Romagna would really stand with them should the imperial force appear. There were still Ghibelline factions within each of these cities and even some of the Guelphs may prefer peace with the empire should Florence look as if it was to fall.

Henry VII must choose. Either he could accept Brescia’s conditions of surrender, play the magnanimous emperor and then turn south to face his real opponents. Or he could push on to Brescia, break their resistance and make clear to the Italians that his peace and reconciliation came at the cost of total submission.

Henry VII chose absolute power and therefore he chose Brescia. And that was more than a mistake, it was the compounding of a mistake. As the Florentine Giovanni Vilani reported with huge relief: quote “And indeed, if he had refrained from besieging Brescia at that time and had turned against Tuscany, he would have conquered Bologna, Florence, Lucca, and Siena, and then Rome and the kingdom of Apulia and all the lands hostile with absolute ease, for nowhere was anyone armed and prepared, and the attitude of the people was wavering, for the emperor had the reputation of being a just and gentle ruler. But it pleased God that he should move before the city of Brescia, and the struggle against it, as we shall see, caused him a great loss of men and power by means of great pestilences and deadly diseases. unquote.

Brescia it was and as the great army of the king of the Romans moved towards the city, first signs of what awaited them could be seen all around. Unlike Cremona, Brescia had used the last months to prepare for a siege. Not only had the walls been strengthened, but the defenders had brought in the harvest early to replenish the stores in the city. What could not be harvested had been burned. Even the vines, which take years before their produce is truly delicious had been uprooted. All the surrounding area had been turned into an empty wasteland, unable to feed the besieging army.

Sieges in that period  were usually unsuccessful, unless the first attack breaks through. If that initial assault is repelled, as it happened in May 1311, the only way to force a surrender was by starving the defenders out. And as we have just heard, the citizens of Brescia had deployed all possible measures, humane and otherwise to ensure they cannot be starved out.

For months did the imperial army lay before Brescia, waiting for the defenders to fall victim to hunger. But for months little evidence of an imminent fall appeared. In fact most of the action came from the defenders staging raids into imperial positions. On one of these sorties, Tebaldo Brusato, the leader of Brescia captured an outlying tower and proudly raise the Guelph colors. But that turned out to be a massive miscalculation. The imperial forces rapidly shut down his escape route and then systematically slaughtered his smallish force. Tebaldo fought with his men to the very end, but just before he was about to receive the coup de grace one of the attackers recognized him.

Tebaldo was shackled and brought before Herny. Henry by now no longer the prince of peace but at best an avenging angel if not the brutal tyrant the Italians increasingly claimed he was, condemned his erstwhile friend and ally to a most painful death. He was sown into a cowhide and then pulled by wild donkeys through the imperial camp. On account of the cowhide, he was still alive after this ordeal. He was then attached by his limbs to four oxen who pulled him apart. Finally the executioner cut off his head and paraded it on top of a lance before the city walls.

If this horrific spectacle was intended to break the morale of the city, it did have the opposite effect. A few days after the execution of Tebaldo, one of the three cardinals who were to crown Henry VII, was dispatched into Brescia in order to convince the citizens to surrender on honorable terms. The cardinals did the necessary speeches and entreaties, urging the city to surrender and let the emperor go to his destiny in Rome as the Holy Father intended. The Podesta of Brescia, speaking for his people, refused, claiming “they would rather die than submit to a tyrant. Then he leads the prelates to the storerooms of Brescia that are full with all the produce collected. He then goes on to say that they have food for half a year and that once this has run out, they would eat the lower orders of animals, the rats and bats, and then they would devour the women and children and those unable to fight unless they can feast on the giant corpses of these Suedes and vandals and other Germans. All this we will do until Christ puts an end to this and judges this cruel and brutal king.”

Contrary to the Brescians’ hopes it wasn’t the king himself who became the first prominent imperial victim of this siege, but his brother Walram. A crossbow bolt penetrated his armor as he attacked the walls of the city.

Henry took the loss stoically. Others believed it was now time to end the siege. Brescia was clearly well defended and had the necessary food and determination to hold out. Meanwhile the time window for a coronation in Rome was slowly closing. Margarete, his wife and probably his best council too argued for a withdrawal.

But there was no way back. If he negotiated a deal with Brescia now, his position would be fatally undermined. All of Italy was staring at this siege of Brescia and if Brescia could withstand, all the allies of Florence would gain confidence and many Lombard cities would join the resistance. No, Brescia must fall, come what may.

And come it did. A late medieval siege is a messy affair at the best of times. But this one was a particularly messy one. The summer climate of Italy meant camp hygiene was paramount for the survival of the army, in particular an army of men unaccustomed to the diseases prevalent in that country. But Henry’s forces neglected these fairly basic requirements. Horses who had died in the fighting or from lack of food had been dumped not far from the main camp. As summer approached and then arrived the decomposing bodies became hosts for all kinds of pathogens. Which ones exactly is not clear, chroniclers only talk about a foul air that brough great pestilence.

Of the leaders of the imperial army died 71, of the knights and armed men, 7,700 and of the lower classes innumerable men as Mussatus tells us. The dead were piling up so fast, they could not be buried, let alone receive the proper Christian rituals. The corpses were first dropped outside the camp, but later dragged over into the moats underneath the city walls until these were filled to the top with decaying human flesh. Still fighting continued ferociously.

Many noblemen, happy to take on any human opponent without fear, capitulated before the invisible bringers of death and fled. But still died in their litters on their way home. Very few survived, amongst them duke Leopold of Austria who returned home in haste.

The disease did not only affect the imperial army, but also spread across the tightly packed city of Brescia. There too the cemeteries filled up quickly and bodies were buried in the streets, if at all.

All that horror was too much for the cardinals, and one of them cardinal Fieschi went into Brescia and convinced the citizens to surrender on the promise that they could keep their walls except for one small section and their city constitution, privileges etc.  basically the same deal they had offered four months earlier. Whatever cardinal Fieschi then told Henry VII we do not know, but Henry VII accepted the surrender. A section of wall where some German prisoners had been hanged was broken down. The emperor and what remained of his once large army entered Brescia. The siege is over. Still Henry is full of vengeance for what had happened and he ordered his soldiers to take down the walls of the city, promise or not.

The siege of Brescia had cost Henry not only two thirds of the army he had brought from Germany and even more of his Italian supporters, but also precious time, time his enemies in Florence, Bologna and Naples have used to strengthen their defenses, to raise funds, gather armies and to ferment revolt in the cities so far loyal to the emperor. It is also time he had needed to get to Rome before either the city fell to his enemies or the pope changed his mind.

Within days of the fall of Brescia we find Henry VII in Cremona. There he summoned all the cities of the kingdom of Lombardy to send him four of their leaders, each named individually to follow him to Rome  for his coronation. Some of them show up in Pavia where he had ordered them to go, but not all. Still on October 15^th, 1311, about a year after he first set foot on Italian soil, did he begin his actual journey to Rome. There was no way he could take the land route. The Via Francigena, the ancient pilgrim route from Canterbury to Rome leads via Lucca, Florence and Siena, all cities firmly in the Guelph camp and unwilling to let him and his army pass. And even smaller passes across the spine of Italy are blocked by Bolognese, the Florentines and the king of Naples.

The only way to go is now by ship from Genoa. So to Genoa he goes.

In Genoa he experiences the worst tragedy. His wife, Margarete, still beautiful at the advanced age of 37 succumbed to the disease that had spread before Brescia. Margarete had been his steady companion throughout his meteoric rise from minor count to king of the Romans and then ruler of Northern Italy. She had given him three children, but most importantly, she had been his most honest advisor and thanks to her charity and approachability a huge asset in his campaign for the hearts and minds of the Italians. Mussatus writes that quote “the king bore this loss with manly dignity and never shed a tear in public. But as improbable as it sounds, before this union there had never been a couple that was so serious in love with each other than these two.” end quote.

Margarete was buried in the church of the Franciscans in Genoa and Henry commissioned a splendid funerary monument by Giovanni Pisano. This was a fascinating and intense work of art, one of the most original and free European sculpture of the fourteenth century. There is nothing medieval about this. Henry Moore had called Giovanni Pisano the first modern sculptor. Sadly only parts of the work survive. She is depicted as angels carry her soul up to heaven, her face “enlightened by the hope of the divine”.

Now next week, and I am sorry that I have been so carried away by the events in Milan and in Brescia that there has to be another week of Henry VII, but there will be one. The sorry tale needs to come to its conclusion and we need to talk a little bit about the fallout, both for Italian and for German history. I hope you will join us again.

And just a final reminder that if you want to support the History of the Germans go to patreon.com/historyofthegermans or to historyofthegermans.com/support.