excellentiam,' and contained this remarkable passage: 'Orbis
imperium affectas, coronam præbitura gratanter assurgo, jocanter
occurro ... indebitum clericorum excussurus jugum.' If the words are
faithfully reported, the Republic separates itself abruptly from the
Papacy, and claims a kind of precedence in honor before the Empire.
Frederick is said to have interrupted the Legates in a rage before
they could finish their address, and to have replied with angry
contempt. The speech put into his mouth is probably a rhetorical
composition, but it may have expressed his sentiments. 'Multa de
Romanorum sapientia seu fortitudine hactenus audivimus, magis tamen
de sapientia. Quare satis mirari non possumus, quod verba vestra
plus arrogantiæ tumore insipida quam sale sapientiæ condita
sentimus.... Fuit, fuit quondam in hac Republica virtus. Quondam
dico, atque o utinam tam veracitur quam libenter nunc dicere
possemus,' etc.

Strengthened by their contest with Frederick Barbarossa, recognized in
their rights as belligerent powers, and left to their own guidance by
the Empire, the cities were now free to prosecute their wars upon the
remnants of feudalism. The town, as we have learned to know it, was
surrounded by a serried rank of castles, where the nobles held still
undisputed authority over serfs of the soil. Against this cordon of
fortresses every city with singular unanimity directed the forces it had
formed in the preceding conflicts. At the same time the municipal
struggles of Commune against Commune lost none of their virulence. The
Counts, pressed on all sides by the towns that had grown up around them,
adopted the policy of pitting one burgh against another. When a noble
was attacked by the township near his castle, he espoused the
animosities of a more distant city, compromised his independence by
accepting the captaincy or lieutenancy of communes hostile to his