than real, was given to the Commune at the outset.  Moreover, it must be remembered that Rome herself had suffered no substantial interruption of republican existence during the Dark Ages.  Therefore the free burghs, though their vitality was the outcome of wholly new conditions, though they were built up of guilds and associations representing interests of modern origin, flattered themselves with an uninterrupted municipal succession from the Roman era, and pointed for proof to the Eternal City.

[2] The Italian word contado is a survival from this state of things.  It represents a moment in the national development when the sphere of the Count outside the city was defined against the sphere of the municipality.  The Contadini are the people of the Contado, the Count’s men.

[3] Even Petrarch, in his letter to four Cardinals (Lett.  Fam. xi. 16, ed.  Fracassetti) on the reformation of the Roman Commonwealth, recommends the exclusion of the neighboring burghs and all strangers, inclusive of the Colonna and Orsini families, from the franchise.  None but pure Romans, how to be discovered from the colluviet omnium gentium deposited upon the Seven Hills by centuries of immigration he does not clearly say, should be chosen to revive the fallen majesty of the Republic.  See in particular the peroration of his argument (op. cit. vol. iii. p. 95).  In other words, he aims at a narrow Popolo, a pura cittadinanza, in the sense of Cacciaguida Par. xvi.

[4] In some places we find as many as twelve Consuls.  It appears that both the constituent families of the Popolo and the numbers of the Consuls were determined by the Sections of the city, so many being told off for each quarter.

In the North of Italy not a few of the greater vassals, among whom may be mentioned the houses of Canossa, Montferrat, Savoy, and Este, creations of the Salic Emperors, looked with favor upon the development of the towns, while some nobles went so far as to constitute themselves feudatories of Bishops.[1] The angry warfare carried on against Canossa by the Lombard barons has probably to be interpreted by the jealousy this popular policy excited.  At the same time, while Lombardy and Tuscany were establishing their municipal liberties, a sympathetic movement began in Southern Italy, which resulted in the conquest of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily by the Normans.  Omitting all the details of this episode, than which nothing more dramatic is presented by the history of modern nations, it must be enough to point out here that the Normans finally severed Italy from the Greek Empire, gave a monarchical stamp to the south of the peninsula, and brought the Regno they consolidated into the sphere of national politics under the protection of the Pope.  Up to the date of their conquest Southern Italy had a separate and confused history.  It now entered the Italian community, and by the peculiar circumstances of its cession to the Holy See was destined in the future to become the chief instrument whereby the Popes disturbed the equilibrium of the peninsula in furtherance of their ambitious schemes.