Laws of Roncaglia

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The laws of Roncaglia were enacted by Frederick I Barbarossa at the Diet of Roncaglia (November 11-26, 1158). They pursued the goal of pushing back the self-governing communes in northern Italy and regaining the power for the king as he was able to exercise until the Worms Concordat (1122).

prehistory

The political situation in Imperial Italy had changed significantly since the beginning of the 12th century. Since the Worms Concordat (1122) and the associated loss of the king's right to investiture , the “balance” between secular and spiritual power was unstable. More and more municipalities achieved self-government and tried to evade royal power. They took over the regalia , the sovereign rights originally reserved for the king, and the high judiciary .

Friedrich I. Barbarossa found this situation at the beginning of his reign. This was due to the indifference to the events in Italy on the part of the previous kings. Neither Lothar nor his successor Konrad intervened in the interests of Italy.

Frederick's goal was to restore imperial rule in the urban landscape of northern Italy and thus to secure his sole claim to power. His first Italian campaign in 1154 was unsuccessful after he called a court day on the Roncaglian fields to resolve the situation and asked the defendants to go to court. The subsequent absence of the defendant resulted in immediate imperial ban and punishment with armed force, since such an offense was regarded as an insult to majesty. The ban later also hit the strongest of all municipalities, namely Milan . Against the ban, Milan allied itself with Brescia , Piacenza , Genoa and Tortona and increased the military pressure on Pavia and other cities loyal to the emperor. The siege of Milan by Friedrich and some municipalities loyal to the emperor ended with a victory for him. Milan fell on September 7, 1158 and had to return all regalia to the emperor. For the Milanese, the surrender ended with a humiliating plea for forgiveness from the emperor, as they marched barefoot and with bared swords around their necks into the emperor's camp. The military goals of the second Italian campaign had been achieved.

The Diet of Roncaglia

Now military success had to be translated into permanent law. This happened at the Diet of Roncaglia, which took place from November 11th to 26th, 1158 in the Roncaglian fields. According to contemporary historians such as Rahewin von Freising and Otto Morena , delegates from the Italian cities concerned (consules) and legal scholars (four Bolognese legal scholars, 24 judges).

The laws of Roncaglia

Legislation based on Roman law, which is considered timeless, comprised four laws:

  • 1. Lex Regalia
  • 2. Lex Omnis iurisdicio
  • 3. Lex Palaci and Pretoria
  • 4. Lex Tributum.

Lex Regalia

For the Lex Regalia, it first had to be clarified with the help of the legal scholars present which privileges were allocated to the king alone. Only after the regalia had been defined could the laws and regulations be drawn up in the Reichstag. A list was drawn up with the following regalia: Disposal of all duchies, marquisates and the entire transport network as well as its income, such as B. Customs duties, road and harbor dues, coin and market law. The king also had the right to appoint consules. In summary, these regalia resulted in the first law that was later incorporated into the Libri Feudorum and thus remained accessible to research in its original wording.

Lex Omnis iurisdicio

Through the Lex Omnis iurisdicio, the second law, Friedrich was emphasized as the origin and sole disposer of the law. The high jurisdiction and the ban were now part of royal law. As a result, Friedrich was able to pass further laws in imperial Italy. In addition, all judges had to obtain the ban from the king and render him official service. The municipalities had previously acquired this right.

Lex palaci et pretoria

The third law, the Lex palaci et pretoria, gave Barbarossa the right to build a palace on any location . The law turned against the efforts of the cities to oust the royal castle from the city.

Lex tributum

The last law, the Lex Tributum, gave the emperor the right to increase or decrease the tax in imperial Italy at will.

The resolutions of the Diet of Roncaglia were to be secured by means of a land peace and a ban on conjuration, i. H. a ban on future oaths against the emperor and empire.

In addition to these four main laws, Friedrich tightened the feudal law passed in 1154 and placed the priority of the duty of loyalty to the emperor in the first place. The feudal system should be geared towards the king / emperor at all levels. Furthermore, he renewed the protection law for the traveling scholars .

The failure of the Roncaglian laws

On paper, Barbarossa has clearly won. The Roncaglian laws, together with the conjuration prohibition of the country peace, lead the political situation in imperial Italy back to the state before the Worms Concordat and even beyond. In theory, Friedrich had more power than any emperor before him. But precisely that aroused resistance. The municipalities were used to a life of self-government and, especially after the destruction of Milan, did not want to bow to "tyranny". Uprisings followed the proclamation of the new regulations and the peace. Milan and Crema rebelled as early as the spring of 1159. The election of the Pope in 1159 also had a destabilizing effect, which led to a schism between Alexander III. and Viktor IV came. Some cities submitted to the emperor; Milan was conquered by imperial troops in 1162. In the long term, however, Friedrich could not prevent the economic rise of the cities from being followed by an increase in political power. It was not until the Peace of Constance in 1183 that a permanent balance was reached between the emperor and the northern Italian cities.

swell

  • Johann Friedrich Böhmer (ed.): Regesta Imperii . Vol. IV, 2: The Regests of the Empire under Friedrich I. 1152 (1122) –1190 . 2nd delivery: 1158–1168, revised by Ferdinand Opll , 1991.
  • Heinrich Appelt (arrangement): Monumenta Germaniae Historica . The documents of the German kings and emperors . Vol. X / 2: The documents of Friedrich I. 1158–1167 , 1979, No. 237–240, pp. 27–32.
  • Otto Morena: Italian sources about the deeds of Emperor Frederick I in Italy and the letter about the crusade of Emperor Frederick I (= selected sources on German history in the Middle Ages, Freiherr vom Stein memorial edition, vol. 17a). Darmstadt 1986, p. 37ff.

literature

  • Paul Arras : The Ronkal Decisions of 1158 and their implementation. A contribution to the Italian policy of Emperor Friedrich I. Menzel, Zittau 1882.
  • Vittore Colorni: The three lost laws of the Reichstag near Roncaglia, found again in a Paris manuscript (Bibl. Nat. Cod. Lat. 4677) . In: Adalbert Erler, Walter Schlesinger , Wilhelm Wegener : Investigations into the German state and legal history . Aalen 1969, pp. 1-50.
  • Jürgen Dendorfer : Roncaglia: The beginning of a feudal rebuilding of the empire? In: Stefan Burkhardt, Thomas Metz, Bernd Schneidmüller, Stefan Weinfurter (Hrsg.): Staufisches Kaisertum in the 12th century. Concepts - Networks - Political Practice. Regensburg: Verlag Schnell and Steiner 2010, pp. 111–132.
  • Adalbert Erler : The Ronkalischen laws of the year 1158 and the northern Italian city freedom . In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History 61 (Germ. Abt.), 1941, pp. 127–149.
  • Paul Willem Finsterwalder: The laws of the Reichstag from Roncalia of November 11th, 1158 . In: Journal of the Savigny Foundation for Legal History 51 (Germ. Abt.), 1931, pp. 1–69.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Ernst Mayer : Italian constitutional history from the Gothic period to guild rule , Vol. 2. Leipzig 1909, pp. 526-530.
  2. ^ Paul Arras: The Ronkal decisions of 1158 and their implementation. A contribution to the Italian policy of Emperor Friedrich I. Menzel, Zittau 1882. S. 8f.
  3. ↑ Dieter von der Nahmer : On the rule of Friedrich Barbarossa in Italy . In: Studi Medievali. Rivista della Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo , 3rd part, Vol. 15 (1974), pp. 587-703.
  4. ^ Gerhard Dilcher : The Hohenstaufen Renovatio in the field of tension between traditional and new thinking. Legal conceptions as a horizon of action in Friedrich Barbarossa's Italian policy . In: Historische Zeitschrift , Vol. 276 (2003), Issue 3, pp. 612–646.
  5. ↑ Knut Görich : The ruler as a partial judge. Barbarossa in Lombardy . In: Frühmittelalterliche Studien 29, 1995, pp. 273–288.
  6. ^ Paul Arras: The Ronkal decisions of 1158 and their implementation. A contribution to the Italian policy of Emperor Friedrich I. Menzel, Zittau 1882. p. 15.
  7. ^ Paul Arras: The Ronkal decisions of 1158 and their implementation. A contribution to the Italian policy of Emperor Friedrich I. Menzel, Zittau 1882. p. 29.
  8. ^ Karl Jordan : Investiture and early Staufer period . (= Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte , 9th edition, vol. 4), dtv, Munich 1973, p. 129.
  9. ^ Karl Jordan: Investiture and early Staufer period . dtv, Munich 1973, p. 131.
  10. ↑ Heinz Stoob : Forms and change of Hohenstaufen behavior to urbanism . In: Ders .: Research on urbanism in Europe 1: Spaces, forms and layers of central European cities , Wiesbaden 1970, pp. 51–72.