HISTORY •• Marozia & Matilda: How to Make (& Break) Popes 29
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© Lonely Planet Publications 28 lonelyplanet.com HISTORY •• Marozia & Matilda: How to Make (& Break) Popes 29 Little did the Romans suspect when they paved the road that they were also paving the way for their own replacements in the 5th to 8th centuries AD: History first came German emperor Theodoric, then Byzantine Emperor Justinian, then the Lombards and finally Charlemagne in 800. Any truthful account of Tuscan and Umbrian life over the past three millen- nia is more than just a history – it’s an opera, and we’re all still humming its MAROZIA & MATILDA: HOW TO MAKE (& BREAK) POPES tune. You’re probably already familiar with its famous libretto, which goes Social standing was hard to maintain with medieval power constantly chang- something like this: ing hands, but a couple of women managed to pull it off. The daughter of a I Drinking gives way to nefarious intrigues Roman senator and a notorious prostitute-turned-senatrix, Marozia already II Debauchers denounce their wicked ways and promise reform had one illegitimate son by her lover Pope Sergius III and was pregnant III Tragedy meets heroism and beasts find beauty again when she married the Lombard Duke of Spoleto, Alberic I in 909 AD. Learn to speak Etruscan IV Offence is taken and treasures stolen He was hardly scrupulous himself: he’d achieved his position by murdering at Etruscology Online: V Ideals are lost, found and misplaced the previous duke, and soon had Sergius III deposed. When Alberic was http://www.etruskisch VI The cast gathers on stage for an encore killed in turn, Marozia married Guy of Tuscany and conspired with him to .de/pgs/vc.htm. Favourite smother Pope John X and install (in lethally rapid succession) Pope Leo VI words: netshvis (a No overture is needed; the action is already well under way. and Stephen VIII. fortune-teller who reads After Guy’s death, she wooed his half-brother Hugh of Arles, the new animal entrails) and thuta WINE, WOMEN & THE OPEN ROAD King of Italy. No matter that he was already married: by then Marozia’s son (which can mean either Italy’s oldest known wine No one knows exactly why the ancient Etruscans headed to Tuscany and had been named Pope John XI, and Hugh’s previous marriage was soon an- ‘chaste’ or ‘only married is Chianti Classico, with Umbria from parts east (probably Anatolia) in the 9th century BC, but Etrus- nulled. But at the wedding ceremony, the happy couple was arrested by the once’). favourable reviews from can artefacts give some idea why they stayed: dinner. The wild boar that still Marozia’s son, Alberic II, who was reportedly scandalised that his mother way back in the 14th roam the hills of Umbria and Tuscany were a favourite Etruscan menu item, and grandmother had turned the papacy into a ‘pornocracy’. Marozia spent century and a growing and boar hunts are a recurring theme on Etruscan ceramics, tomb paintings, the rest of her life in prison, but her legacy lived on: no less than five popes region clearly defined even bronze hand mirrors. Just in case the odd boar bristle might tickle the were her direct descendants. by 1716. throat or a truffle shaving might head down the windpipe, Etruscans washed Another woman who wielded power effectively despite frequent medi- their meals down with plenty of wine, introducing viticulture to Italy. eval power shifts was Countess Matilda of Tuscany (1046–1115). Rumour Tomb paintings show Etruscan women keeping pace with men in banquets has it that she was more than just an ally to Pope Gregory VII, but there’s so decadent, they scandalised even orgy-happy Romans. Many middle-class no doubt that she was a formidable strategist on and off the battlefield. To and aristocratic women had the means to do what they wished, which appar- consolidate her family’s Tuscan holdings, she married her own stepbrother, ently included music, romance, politics and ordering about a vast underclass Godfrey the Hunchback. She soon arranged for him to be sent off to Ger- of servants. Roman military histories boast of conquests of Etruscan women many, annulled the marriage, and found herself a powerful prince 26 years along with Etruscan territory starting in the 3rd century BC, but these ac- her junior to marry. counts are probably exaggerated. According to recent genetic tests, Etruscans When Matilda’s ally Pope Gregory VII excommunicated Holy Roman did not mingle much with their captors – their genetic material is distinct Emperor Henry IV in 1077 for threatening to replace him with an Antipope, from modern Italians, the descendants of ancient Romans. the emperor showed up outside her castle barefoot and kneeling in the snow Etruscans didn’t take kindly to Roman authority, nor were they keen on to beg the pope’s forgiveness – and Matilda kept him waiting there for three being enslaved to establish Roman plantations. They secretly allied with days. Henry retaliated by conspiring with Matilda’s neighbours to seize her Hannibal to bring about the ignominious defeat of the Romans at Lake property, and even turned her trophy husband against her – but Matilda soon Trasimeno, where some 16,000 Roman soldiers were lost in about three dislodged Henry’s power base in the north with the support of his own son hours. Afterwards Rome began to take a more hands-off approach with the Conrad. Henry’s wife also joined the feud, claiming that her husband had Etruscans, granting them citizenship in 88 BC to manage their own affairs forced her to participate in orgies and satanic rituals. In 1106 Henry died in the new provinces of Umbria and Tuscia (Tuscany), and in return secur- disgraced by his own family and humbled on the battlefield by a woman, ing safe passage along the major inland Roman trade route of Via Flaminia. and was left buried in unconsecrated ground until his term of excommu- nication was revoked. Matilda outlived him by nine years, and at her death 9th century BC 265 BC 59 BC AD 476 570–774 773–74 Etruscans bring wine, women Etruria falls to Rome, but After winning an election by German king Odovacar (aka The Lombards rule Italy as far Charlemagne makes his move and song to the hills of Tuscany remains unruly and conspires ballot box–stuffing means that Odoacer) snatches Rome out south as Florence, and man- on Italy, and grants himself and Umbria, but fail to invite with Hannibal against Rome would make the Bush administra- from under Romulus Augustu- age to turn the tiny Duchy of the modest title Holy Roman the Romans; war ensues during the Punic wars; Roman tion seem honest, Julius Caesar lus, and becomes the first of Spoleto into a booming trade Emperor with a crown to match headaches are solved by mak- establishes a soldier- many foreign kings of Italy empire on Christmas Day in 800 AD ing Etruscans Roman citizens retiree resort called Florentia in 88 BC 30 HISTORY •• Agony & Ecstasy lonelyplanet.com lonelyplanet.com HISTORY •• Democracy Among Deviants 31 left behind her substantial holdings to the Church, a line that would claim of confession, not to mention its steady business in indulgences, pardons among its descendants one Michelangelo Buonarroti, and mortal remains and tithes. The Flagellant movement was banned in 1262, only to regain to be interred at St Peter’s in Rome. Her husband never remarried, and died momentum a century later during the plague and recur periodically until Born an Assisi heiress, childless not long after Matilda. the 15th century, when the Inquisition subjected Flagellants to the ultimate introduced to the joys mortification of the flesh: burning at the stake. But self-flagellation proces- of poverty by St Francis AGONY & ECSTASY sions continued to be held in Tuscany under the Church’s guidance into the himself and cofounder of Lashings, starvation, solitary confinement: in the middle ages, it wasn’t always late 19th century, and self-flagellation continues to be practised privately by the first Franciscan abbey, easy to distinguish religious practices from criminal punishments. Among the zealous penitents today. St Clare gained another The undisputed master privileged classes it became a mark of distinction to renounce worldly ties for claim to fame in 1958 as of pious masochism was a life of piety – not to mention a handy way to winnow the number of eligible DEMOCRACY AMONG DEVIANTS the patron saint of TV. Umbrian Benedictine heirs to a title. A nobleman from Norcia named Benedict set the example and Not all agony came with a side order of religious ecstasy in medieval Tuscany monk San Domenico started a monastery-building spree in AD 500, when he ditched his studies to and Umbria. Legal records indicate that no one was exempt from violence: Loricato, who in a single seek a higher purpose among hermits in the hills. His rule of peace, prayer leaders of powerful families were stabbed by rivals while attending Mass, week is said to have all and work was taken up by Benedictine religious orders, which limited food peasants were ambushed by brigands roaming the deceptively bucolic land- but flayed himself with intake and downtime but didn’t require the vows of silence, fasting or hard scape and bystanders were maimed in neighbourhood disputes that all too 300,000 lashes while labour practised by more hermetic believers. Some Benedictine orders even easily escalated to kill-or-be-killed brawls. reciting psalms. had help tilling their fields from tenant farmers and hired workers, freeing But if crime seemed vicious, medieval criminal justice was often worse. up monks for reading and creative tasks like manuscript illumination and Even petty crimes such as theft were subject to some combination of steep wine-making.