period of Frankish rule about one third of the soil of Italy had been yielded to the Church, which had the right of freeing its vassals from military service; and since the ecclesiastical sees were founded upon ancient sites of Roman civilization, without regard to the military centers of the barbarian kingdoms, the new privileges of the Bishops accrued to the benefit of the indigenous population.  Milan, for example, down-trodden by Pavia, still remained the major See of Lombardy.  Aquileia, though a desert, had her patriarch, while Cividale, established as a fortress to coerce the neighboring Roman towns, was ecclesiastically but a village.  At this epoch a third power emerged in Italy.  Berengar had given the cities permission to inclose themselves with walls in order to repel the invasions of the Huns.[1] Otho respected their right of self-defense, and from the date of his coronation the history of the free burghs begins in Italy.  It is at first closely connected with the changes wrought by the extinction of the kingdom of Pavia, by the exaltation of the clergy, and by the dislocation of the previous system of feud-holding, which followed upon Otho’s determination to remodel the country in the interest of the German Empire.  The Regno was abolished.  The ancient landmarks of nobility were altered and confused.  The cities under their Bishops assumed a novel character of independence.  Those of Roman origin, being ecclesiastical centers, had a distant advantage over the more recent foundations of the Lombard and the Frankish monarchs.  The Italic population everywhere emerged and displayed a vitality that had been crushed and overlaid by centuries of invasion and military oppression.

[1] It is worthy of notice that to this date belongs the war-chant of the Modenese sentinels, with its allusions to Troy and Hector, which is recognized as the earliest specimen of the Italian hendecasyllabic meter.

The burghs at this epoch may be regarded as luminous points in the dense darkness of feudal aristocracy.[1] Gathering round their Cathedral as a center, the towns inclose their dwellings with bastions, from which they gaze upon a country bristling with castles, occupied by serfs, and lorded over by the hierarchical nobility.  Within the city the Bishop and the Count hold equal sway; but the Bishop has upon his side the sympathies and passions of the burghers.  The first effort of the towns is to expel the Count from their midst.  Some accident of misrule infuriates the citizens.  They fly to arms and are supported by the Bishop.  The Count has to retire to the open country, where he strengthens himself in his castle.[2] Then the Bishop remains victor in the town, and forms a government of rich and noble burghers, who control with him the fortunes of the new-born state.  At this crisis we begin to hear for the first time a word that has been much misunderstood.  The Popolo appears upon the scene.  Interpreting the past by the present,