§ 29. ALEXANDER Til. IN CONFLICT. 113
cious siege, scattered the population, and sent the venerated relics of the Magi to the cathedral of Cologne, March, 1162.
Victor IV. died in April, 1164. Pascal III. was elected his successor without regard to the canonical rules. At the request of the emperor, he canonized Charles the Great (1165).
Alexander III. put himself at the head of the Lombard league against the emperor ; city after city declared itself for him. In September, 1165, he returned to Italy with the help of Sicily, and French and English gold, and took possession of Rome.
In November, 1166, Frederick crossed the Alps a fourth time, with a strong army, marched to Rome, captured the Leonine city, put Pascal III. in possession of St. Peter's, and was crowned again, with Beatrice, Aug. 1, 1167. Alexan der defended the city on the other side of the Tiber, but soon withdrew to Benevento. The emperor, victorious over armies, found a more formidable enemy in the Roman fever, which made fearful ravages among his bishops, noblemen, and soldiers. He lost in a few weeks his bravest knights and two thousand men by the plague. He broke up his camp in great haste, and marched to Pavia (September, 1167).1 He found all Lombardy in league against him, and recrossed the Alps for safety, alone and almost a fugi tive, but with unbroken spirit and a determination to re turn.
The second anti-pope died, Sept. 20, 1168, and with him the power of the schism collapsed. Calixtus III. was elected his successor, but he was a mere shadow, 1168-1 178. 2
1 Thomas a Becket, in a letter congratulating Alexander, compared Fred erick's discomfiture by pestilence to Sennacherib's defeat at Jerusalem. — 2 Chron. xxxii : 21.
2 His few acts are recorded in Jaffe-Wattenbach, Regesta, pp. 429-430. He submitted to Alexander, and was made archbishop of Benevento. Of the fourth anti-pope, Lando Sitino, who called himself Innocent III. (1179-1180), nothing is recorded but his election and imprisonment, ibid., p. 431.
114 THE MIDDLE AG*]S. A.D. 1123-1198.
Barbarossa undertook a fifth campaign to Italy in 1174. He destroyed Susa, and, descending through Piedmont, besieged the new city of Alessandria, which was named in honor of Alexander III., and strongly fortified. Here he found determined resistance. His forces were weakened by a severe winter. He was forsaken by his strongest ally, the Saxon duke, Henry the Lion. He fought a pitched battle against the Lombards, near Legnano, May 29, 1176. He rushed, as usual, into the thickest of the fight, but was defeated after terrible slaughter, and lost his shield, banner, cross, lance, and coffers of silver and gold. He retired with the remnant of his army to Pavia. He was left without a single ally, and threatened in Germany by the dangerous rivalry of Henry the Lion. He now took serious steps towards a reconciliation with Alexander, the spiritual head of his enemies.
The emperor sent Archbishop Christian of Mainz (his chancellor, ablest general, and diplomat), Archbishop Wichmann of Magdeburg, Bishop Conrad of Worms, and Protonotary Wortwin to Anagni, with full powers to treat with the pope (October, 1176). Alexander received the commis sioners with marked respect, and in private conferences, last ing over a fortnight, he arranged with them the preliminary terms of peace, which were to be ratified at Venice during a personal interview between him and the emperor.
The pope, provided with a safe-conduct by the emperor, left Anagni on Christmas, 1176, in company with his cardi nals and the two commissioners of the kingdom of Sicily, Archbishop Romuald of Salerno and Count Roger of Andria, and arrived at Venice, March 24, 1177. The emperor tarried at Chioggia, near Venice, till July 23. The peace negotia tions between the pope and the imperial commissioners began in May and lasted till July. They were conducted on the basis of the previous negotiations in Anagni.