Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Part I General Themes
- Part II The States of the West
- 13 The British Isles
- 14 France
- 15 Italy in the age of Dante and Petrarch
- (a) The Italian North
- (b) Florence and the Republican Tradition
- (c) The Italian South
- 16 The empire
- 17 The Low Countries, 1290–1415
- 18 The Iberian Peninsula
- Part III The Church and Politics
- Part IV Northern and Eastern Europe
- Appendix Genealogical Tables
- Primary Sources and Secondary Works Arranged by Chapter
- Index
- Frontispiece
- Plate section
- Map 4 Europe's trade, c. 1300
- Map 5 Europe's trade, c. 1400
- Map 7 The Hundred Years War to 1360
- Map 15 Russia, c. 1396
- Map 17 The Byzantine empire in the 1340s
- References
(a) - The Italian North
from 15 - Italy in the age of Dante and Petrarch
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Part I General Themes
- Part II The States of the West
- 13 The British Isles
- 14 France
- 15 Italy in the age of Dante and Petrarch
- (a) The Italian North
- (b) Florence and the Republican Tradition
- (c) The Italian South
- 16 The empire
- 17 The Low Countries, 1290–1415
- 18 The Iberian Peninsula
- Part III The Church and Politics
- Part IV Northern and Eastern Europe
- Appendix Genealogical Tables
- Primary Sources and Secondary Works Arranged by Chapter
- Index
- Frontispiece
- Plate section
- Map 4 Europe's trade, c. 1300
- Map 5 Europe's trade, c. 1400
- Map 7 The Hundred Years War to 1360
- Map 15 Russia, c. 1396
- Map 17 The Byzantine empire in the 1340s
- References
Summary
the expedition of henry vii
on 23 October 1310, the emperor-elect, Henry of Luxemburg, completed his crossing of the Alps. A principal reason for his expedition was to receive an imperial coronation in Rome; he was also determined to recover his rights within the kingdom of Italy, a constituent part of the western empire whose frontiers encompassed much of the north of the peninsula. Connected to both aims was a desire to achieve a general pacification of his Italian lands. But that task was formidable. The area had no recent tradition of centralised let alone imperial rule. It was composed of a mosaic of lordships (signorie) and communes, protective of their autonomy while generally jealous of their neighbours. Rivalries had economic roots: the control of land and the trade routes within the region which connected it with the rest of Europe and the Mediterranean. They also had a political dimension polarised around allegiances which made up in ferocity and tenacity what they lacked in consistent ideological content. The Ghibellines looked to the empire and its Italian allies for support and justification. The Guelfs allied themselves with the papacy whose leading protagonists in Italy were the commune of Florence and the Angevins, who as well as being counts of Provence and kings of Naples, had lands in Piedmont. And not only did these allegiances express divisions within the region and Italy as a whole; they were also linked to factions struggling for ascendancy within individual cities.
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- Information
- The New Cambridge Medieval History , pp. 442 - 468Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000