The death of Henry VI led first to the abandonment and then to the total ruin of the Imperial system which he and his father had so persistently striven to establish in Central Italy. No sooner did the news of his decease reach Tuscany than the Samminiatesi destroyed the German fortress which had given to their town its title of al Tedesco; and, in Borgo S. Genesio, the Roncaglia of Tuscany, where feudatories and Consuls had been wont to do homage to the Emperor and to his Legates, the representatives of the greater part of the Tuscan cities assembled to organize a Guelf League, after the pattern of the Lombard League, for the vindication of their rights and liberties. On the IIth of November, 1197, in the Church of S. Cristoforo, in the presence of two Cardinal Legates “et eorum parabola et mandato,” the Bishop of Volterra, as seignior of his city, and the Consuls and rectors of Florence, Lucca, Siena, Prato, and S. Miniato, made oath to maintain it.

The terms of this alliance, its character and its scope, have been so often and fully discussed that it is necessary to deal with them in this place.