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Identifier: cu31924028378812 (find matches)
Title: Siena, the story of a mediaeval commune
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Schevill, Ferdinand, 1868-1954
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, C. Scribner
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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g commonwealth were atstake, and every time an opportunity offered they re-turned to the attack. The case became one of thefamous law-suits of mediaeval history, dragging itsinterminable convolutions through five hundred years.Not till 1224 did the matter come to a definitive closewith a new solemn sentence by the Roman pontiff infavor of Arezzo. Although the quarrel has some slight interest on itsown account, it merits our attention chiefly by reason ofthe light which it throws on the reborn city. For Sienawas reborn! The issue of the eighteen parishes, in itsorigin nothing but a technical question between twobishops, took a lively and even warlike turn, for the singlereason that the town was aglow with youthful vigor.Siena wanted her saint, a characteristic mediaeval desire;but more than that, she wanted no foreign bishop onher political territory. Nor did she handle the casewith polite calm through the official channels of bishopand gastald. It developed into a clash at arms for no
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Picture of a Monk of S. GalganoFrom a Book-cover in the Archivio di Stato / THE ORIGIN OF MEDIEVAL SIENA 25 other reason than that the people insisted on playinga part in the affair. We have the assurance that it wasthe universus populus senensis which encouragedGodipert in his nagging of the bishops followers, andthen, when Godipert was slain, set upon the Aretinesand their bishop and drove them home with bruisedlimbs. This was no longer the inert human masswhich once let itself be plundered and slaughteredwithout resistance by the Barbarian hordes. Indubita-bly life was stirring here, not a thin stream of officiallife, which is nothing, but broad currents of strongvolition filling the whole people and giving evidence thata new race was in the process of formation. And whata stream of light the little riot with its murdered judgeand routed bishop throws on the traditional view, stillrepeated in many books, that the communal liberty ofthe Italian towns was born suddenly and without wa

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