It’s the year 1325 and the Bologneze and Modenze armies are about to square off at
what has been called one of the “bloodiest medieval battles” in Italy but also one
of the dumbest, because this was, the war of the Bucket.
To understand why the war started we have to look at the political climate it started
in.
And for that we’ll have to go back all the way to 800 CE, with the crowning of the first
Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne by the bishop of Rome.
And even though Charlamagne didn’t realise it back then, his crowning by the bishop of
Rome set in to motion the centuries long struggle between the European kingdoms and the church.
Specially as it pertains to the Holy Roman Empire.
How did this happen?
Well the first thing you have to understand is that the bishop of Rome is the pope and
Charlemagne was the one who appointed the bishop of Rome, who was then the one who crowned
Charlemagne as the Holy Roman Emperor.
Which created a weird circular division of who actually had power over whom.
On top of that Charlemagne's appointment of the pope, set the precedent of European kings
appointing their own bishops and other church officials in their own lands, because if a
King can appoint the bishop of Rome why can’t he then appoint any other bishop.
However Charlemagne also set the precedent of the pope crowning the Holy Roman Emperor.
So if you were the ruler who controlled the appointment of the Bishop of Rome, you were
also the one who controlled the crowning of the Holy Roman Emperor, in theory anyways.
This resulted in the fact that after Charlemagne the Germanic and northern italian lands that
became the continuation of the HRE turned in to a political battleground over the control
of the Papal succession.
With often times the ones who controlled it being unsurprisingly also the Kings of the
Germans and Holy Roman Emperors.
But all this, changed around 1050 when the Papacy actively started to reform the appointment
of the bishop of Rome and diminish the nobilities control over them.
And when Henry the 4th became the 6 year old king of the Germans, he clearly didn’t have
enough experience at the time to handle the delicate relationship between the king and
the pope.
So the church council in Rome seized on the opportunity and restructured the rules of
the Papal succession creating the college of cardinals as the sole body fit to appoint
a pope.
This meant that no longer could a ruler control the appointment of the pope at least to such
an extend as they did up until now.
This created many problems within Europe although I am going to be focusing on just the Holy
Roman Empire.
For one, Henry the 4th now no longer a kid, denounced the current pope Gregory the 7th
as iligitement since he wasn’t appointed by any king.
The Pope on the other hand denounced Henry the 4th for being an illegitimate ruler of
the HRE since he wasn’t officially crowned by the Pope.
On top of that even though the bishop of rome wasn’t appointed by the nobility anymore,
all the other bishops and church officials around Europe still where.
Which meant that they were more loyal to their feudal lord then the church.
The Pope tried to remedy this through several dubious power grabbing moves of using the
tradition of investitures to control the appointment of church officials.
This resulted in a lot of political intrigue and instability throughout europe and even
a 50 year old civil war in Germany, as the factions loyal to the nobility and the pope
fought over who had the rights of appointing church officials.
It ended in 1122 with an agreement called the Concordat of Worms.
Where the Nobility could retain some of its control over the appointment of church officials
but the Pope was finally recognized as having some power in the actual appointment process.
And even though this treaty settled certain problems, it resulted in the fact that now
you had two opposing factions roughly on equal footing.
Meaning that throughout most of the middle ages there was lots of continuous political
maneuvering, intrigue and battles, between the supporters of the church and the state.
And as it pertains to the Italian part of the HRE, these divisions played a vital part
in the political landscape of the various Italian city states.
This is because the area was kind of a proxy battle ground between the HRE and the Papacy.
It properly started off 45 years after the concordat of worms in 1167 with the foundation
of the Lombard League.
This league was a coalition of various Italian city states that didn’t like the fact that
the Holy Roman Emperor declared direct imperial control over them.
And suprise suprise the league was supported by the Papacy.
The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick 1st lead an army to italy but was defeated by the lombard
league at the battle of Legnano, and had to sue for peace several years later.
This peace treaty recognized the Holy Roman Emperor as the ruler of northern Italian city
states, but it also gave the Italian cities a lot of autonomy, which proved problematic.
This is because after gaining all this autonomy many, in fact all the Italian city states
started to have a big rivalry amongst each other.
And this political environment proved to be perfect for the next stage of the church vs
the HRE power struggle.
With cities either starting to be loyal to the “Church Party” called the Guelphs
(Guelfi) or the imperial party called the Ghibellines (Ghibellini).
However these divisions developed their own little weird dynamics outside of the overarching
church vs HRE plot.
Cities would sometimes not even care what each party stood for and chose their allegiances
according to what was the most politically and economically beneficial to them.
For example the church party tended to be more prominent in large mercantile cities
as the Emperor was the main threat to their wealth and trade networks.
On the other hand the imperial party tended to be more prominent in smaller cities and
the countryside that often times felt threatened by the bigger mercantile cities.
On top of that, even though some cities where starch pro church party or pro imperial party,
other cities didn’t mined switching their allegiances if it suited them.
Plus some cities had bickering imperial and church factions that would often times fight
against each other over the control of the city.
And even though it was the power struggle between the Holy Roman Emperor and Pope that
started these parties, the northern italian city states took it up a notch.
Your allegiance to one or the other party started to affect many other things outside
of just your pro church or pro empire leanings.
Any big and small issues or disagreements started to be split amongst party lines.
And not just that, depending on what party you were associated with, it affected what
taverns and shops you where allowed in to, what cities you could trade in, how you dressed
and what side you put the feather on your hat on, and even the way you cut certain fruits.
The allegiances of some cities to its party bacem so strong that you can tell what party
a city supported by just looking at its coat of arms today.
If has a white cross on a red field it supported the imperial party, if it had a red cross
on a white field it supported the church party.
These divisions came to a boiling point during the 13th century interregnum of the Holy Roman
Empire.
This was a 67 years long succession crisis within the HRE where the princes were unable
to agree on a new king.
This instability combined with the various pretender kings and the continues power struggle
between the HRE and the papacy was the final straw for northern italy.
And even though there were battles between the imperial and church factions prior to
the interregnum, the interregnum period took it in to an overdrive.
The imperial vs church faction struggle took a bit of a respite after the 1289 church party
win at the Battle of Campaldino.
This battle drastically diminished the power and consequently the threat of the imperial
party in Italy, and because Florence was the one leading the church faction in this battle,
they became a prominent if not the main power within the party.
But now since the church party seemingly won, with the imperial party being on its back
foot.
The Florentine church faction ironically started to be concerned with the increasing Papal
influence within the city.
So a split within the church faction happened.
With the supporters for more papal control being called black guelphs (black church party)
and the supporters for less papal control being called white guelphs (white church party).
The black church party with the support of the pope eventually won and most of the white
church party members were exiled from the city.
Which included the famous Dante who after his exile went on to write the Dante’s inferno.
But I digress.
Even though this church party division was most prominent in Florence it showed the underlying
problems and disunity within the faction.
And the imperial party wasn’t any better with Emperor Henry 7th stating that he was
disgusted by both sides actions, pointing out how some members strayed vary far from
the initial party goals.
This was because at this point the church and imperial parties meant much more and many
other things to many other people then just the power struggle between the church and
the Holy Roman Empire.
Plus if you think about it, it isn’t that big of a stretch that after so much fighting
through multiple generations, the reasons for ones loyalty to their party became skewed
to say the least.
So at the start of the 14th century, the prelude to the war of the bucket, was a multiple centuries
long power struggle between the church and the Holy Roman Empire that turned so out of
hand and created so many feuds in northern Italy, that now even the Pope and the Emperor
denounced some of the acts committed by both factions.
Hope you enjoyed the video.
To be honest the whole church vs empire factions of medieval Italy is a subject so complex
many of dissertations have been written on it and therefor I had to skip or simplifi
a lot of nuencoses or details that shaped certain overarching decisions.
Thus there’s a lot of footnotes in the description that are trying to explain some of it and
if you want to know more there’re always sources in my scripts.
Lastly, if you’re looking forward to the War of the Bucket video that will be coming
out on my channel at some point, consider subscribing and maybe hitting that bell icon,
because the truth is, the war of bucket, actually did not happen as portrayed in all of these
youtube videos.