Introduction
Since the days of Otto I’s conquest of the Kingdom of Italy in 951, Italy was ruled by the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. Although Henry II brutally suppressed Italian revolts in 1004 and stabilized his rule in 1014, his successors had a difficult time maintaining their lordship. But Emperor Frederick I, nicknamed ‘Barbarossa’ by the Italians, was determined to reestablish imperial German control over Italy. An alliance of northern Italian cities organised in the Lombard League against the German emperor, to wage a war for the liberties they had grown accustomed to during the absence of assertive German rulers on the peninsula. This military confrontation, which coincided largely with the emperor’s conflict with the papacy over the papal schism of 1159, was accompanied by a bitter literary war in which the ancient Latin phrase furor teutonicus was readily employed by Italian authors to describe the German national character. The period of Barbarossa’s six Italian Expeditions is a veritable goldmine of medieval Italian anti-German sentiment.
Negative views on the Germans were by no means limited only to Italians or the conflicts that the Italian cities had with the Imperial authorities. Medieval Europe did not love the Germans. The Italians, the French, the English and the Slavs were all united in their dislike of the Germans. But it is the Italian side that we will concentrate on.
Furor Teutonicus
The phrase that seemed to sum up the German national character well is best known from the lines in Lucan’s (b.39-d.65 AD) historical epic Pharsalia:
“Nos primi Senonum motus Cimbrumque ruentem vidimus et Martem Libyes cursumque furoris Teutonici.” (“We were the first to behold the commotions of the Senones, the Cimbrian, too, rushing on, and the Libyan god of war, and the onslaught of Teutonic rage.”)In the Middle Ages the word Teuton, the name of an ancient Germanic tribe, was used by the Latin-speaking world to refer to the Germanic peoples living to the east of the Rhine in the Holy Roman Empire. Soon after the adjective teutonicus had become associated with the mediaeval Germans, those who criticised the Germans invoked the ancient phrase furor teutonicus, comparing them to their barbarian ancestors that had threatened the Roman Republic between 120 and 102 BC.
It has been observed that the number of instances the phrase furor teutonicus occurs in mediaeval Italian sources peaks in the mid-1100s, in the context of Emperor Frederick I’s Italian expeditions. This is hardly surprising, considering the circumstances. The actions of Frederick Barbarossa in Italy provoked a large amount of verbal attacks against his own person as well as against his fellow German countrymen, and in this situation it is understandable that Italians wishing to express their anger revived the ancient phrase furor teutonicus to characterise the aggressive emperor as the ruler of an uncultured race of irrational barbarians.
The Latin poem Carmen de gestis Frederici I. imperatoris in Lombardia, written between 1162 and 1166 by an Italian author from Bergamo, mentions a confrontation between the troops of Milan and Barbarossa’s army on the banks of the river Adda in July 1158. When Frederick tries to cross the river his opponents taunt him with the words “Non datur hic transire tibi, rex ruffe, furoris Teutonici ductor!” (“Here you are not allowed to cross, redheaded king, leader of Teutonic savagery!”)
The formula is used next in the direct context of the papal schism of 1159. In the Carmina ad schisma Alexandrinum pertinentia the anti-pope Victor IV, the emperor’s candidate, is told in no uncertain terms that he lacks legitimacy, because “Erigit in statuam te cursus et ira furoris Teutonici.” (“He raiseth up a pillar of wrath and Teutonic savagery.”)
In his account of the siege of Rome in the summer of 1167, Cardinal Boso refers to “illa Teutonicorum seva barbaries,” (“that cruel Teutonic barbarism,”) as well as the furor that possessed the imperial troops attacking St Peter’s.
When, finally, a peace treaty was about to be arranged between the Pope, the Emperor and emissaries of the Lombard League in 1177, these parties convened at Ferrara. In the account of Archbishop Romuald of Salerno of the meeting both the Pope and the Lombards make use of the notorious phrase. The fact that Pope Alexander III (‘the aged and unarmed priest’) was able to get the Emperor to relent (and ‘resist the fury of the Teutons’) is presented as nothing less than an example of divine intervention:
“Non ab homine, sed a Domino factum est istud, et est mirabile in oculis nostris, quod senex presbyter et inhermis furori Theutonico potuit propugnare et sine bello imperatoris potentiam potuit debellare.” (“Not the power of man, but the power of God has brought it about, and it is wonderful in our eyes, that an aged and unarmed priest has been able to withstand Teutonic fury and overthrow the might of the emperor without a blow.”)In the Liber de obsidione Ancone, which deals with the siege of the strategically important maritime city of Ancona by the troops of Archbishop Christian of Mainz in 1173, Boncompagno da Signa informs us that a number of women offered themselves as a source of food to the nearly starved soldiers defending the city, “quia minus malum credimus esse mori, quam in illorum pervenire potestatem, qui furorem pro lege habent...” (“because we believe that it is better to die than to fall into the hands of those who are full of fury...”).
The Italian usage of the phrase in the context of Barbarossa’s policy towards Italy is not insignificant. If a term like furor teutonicus suddenly reappears with such frequency after centuries of near disuse and then almost exclusively referring to the subject of the emperor wanting to subject Italy then there must be a reason.
Peter Amelung would see the transfer of the phrase furor teutonicus to the Germans as a good example of the mediaeval Italians’ habit of transferring what was known of antiquity’s verdict on the ancient Germanic tribes to the Germans of the day. These venerated ancient verdicts generally supported the ideas the Italians had on who were culturally superior to whom.
But there are other considerations. Ludwig Schmugge has noted that the 12th century was in general a time of proliferation for ‘national’ stereotypes in Europe. Although the ancient stereotypes and generalisations would not have been totally replaced, the 12th century nonetheless appears to have featured a new trend leading to an abundance of subjective firsthand experiences in the sources. In Schmugge’s opinion, this development is a direct consequence of an increase in popular mobility in this period. As examples he cites the prejudices that arose in the context of the Crusades, pilgrimages and the renaissance of scholarship that brought young men from all over western Europe to Paris. 12th century Italy could draw on both sources of prejudice for its verdict on the Germans trying to enforce Imperial rule on the peninsula, and the actions of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and his subjects certainly provided ample provocation to do so.
After all, the Germans’ violent reputation in mediaeval Italy is understandable in the context of Barbarossa’s Italian expeditions. Many cities were besieged and destroyed with the help of new siege engines, and huge armies and bands of cruel mercenaries roamed the land as the emperor tried to assert his authority with the use of violence. For the mediaeval inhabitants of Italy who were confronted with this brutality, ‘Teutonic fury’ probably was the most salient feature of German behaviour.
Whether this was in itself a valid reason to elevate furor teutonicus to the defining German ‘national’ characteristic is another question.
Beyond the Furor
The barbarian image of the Germans so effectively conveyed by the phrase furor teutonicus is complemented by a number of further accusations in mediaeval Italian sources. For instance, Donizo (died after 1136), considered the Alemanni as intemperate drunkards. According to Peter Amelung, in the Italians’ view the ‘national’ characteristics of the Germans also included gluttony, bad table manners and dipsomania, the latter of which was not reserved for the “Teutons”, but also attributed to the English, Bohemians and Normans. These negative traits were topped by a general lack of hygiene. Salimbene of Parma, for instance, tells us of a Podestà of Cremona appointed by Barbarossa’s grandson Frederick II who was suffering from such a revolting disease that nobody would stay with him “except for a German girl” (“excepta juvencula theutonica”) who was used to dirt.
It appears as though these characterisations were at least in part an expression of political powerlessness on the part of the Italians, suffering from a succession of invasions until the Lombard League succeeded in providing an efficient resistance which culminated in victory at the battle of Legnano in 1176. The victims of constant invasion comforted themselves with the thought that their enemies were a race of uncultured barbarians against whose cruelty (furor, rabies) resistance was nigh futile. It certainly seems as though such “barbarians”, as Bishop Guglielmo of Pavia called the Germans in 1167, were not credited with possessing much more in the way of higher mental faculties than was necessary to burn and pillage a civilised town. The populace of mediaeval Rome liked to refer to these people as stulti Alemanni, or ‘the stupid Germans’.
But was the mediaeval Italian view of the Germans exclusively negative? It would seem so. The Italians attached no noticeably positive characteristics to their northern neighbours. Unlike the French, in whose eyes German loyalty was one of their few redeeming features, the Italians had no time for the Germans’ reputed obedience and loyalty towards their authorities since these qualities made them the blind tools of their lords.
Outside of the urban context of the northern and central regions of the peninsula (the Kingdom of Italy, as it were), the Germans apparently were none too popular either. According to the Historia Pontificalis, in the days of Barbarossa’s predecessor Conrad III (1139-52) many Germans sought refuge at the court of the Norman King Roger of Sicily, “‘who might have received more of them’ ... except that the Germans were a race whose barbarism he could not endure”. When Barbarossa’s son Henry VI was about to inherit the Sicilian-Norman throne in 1189 due to his marriage with the late king’s aunt, those favouring the native claimant, Count Tancred of Lecce, claimed German rule would result in Henry’s barbarian hordes bringing destruction to the island’s prospering towns and robbery, violence, rape and slavery to the populace.
Conclusion
Anti-German stereotypes obviously already had existed in Italy before the massive intervention under Frederick I, Barbarossa but were nonetheless increasingly widespread in this period. Some of these stereotypes were merely lifted from ancient sources, some may have been the products of personal experience, but all of them had a political edge to them in the struggles taking place in Italy in this time. All these negative traits ascribed to the Germans seem to be neatly encapsulated in the proverbial furor teutonicus.
References:
• Lucan (Pharsalia, 61 A.D.)
• Anonymous (Carmen de gestis Frederici I imperatoris in Lombardia, 1162-1166)
• Anonymous (Carmina ad schisma Alexandrinum pertinentia, 1163)
• Boso Breakspeare (Gesta Romanorum Pontificum, 12th century)
• Romualdo Guarna (Chronicon sive Annales, 12th century)
• Boncompagno da Signa (Liber de obsidione Ancone, 1198-1201)
• Salimbene de Adam (Chronica, 13th century)
• John of Salisbury (Historia Pontificalis, 1336-1374)
