Guelfes and Gibelins

With the the Middle Ages, the Guelfes and the Gibelins qualify the factions which support the Papauté or the Saint Germanic Roman Empire and which clashes in Italy with.

Guelfes

The term Guelfes is a Francization of the Italian name Guelfo (pl. guelfi) which comes itself from the German name of the dynasty E of the “Welfs” and indicates the faction which supported papacy in opposition to holding of the Empire, the Gibelins . The expression leave imperii is used as noble synonym for the nickname Gibelins, while leave ecclesy to the same function for Guelfes.

Guelfes black white and Guelfes

At the end of the 13th century, the party guelfe is divided into two factions: white and blacks. At the origin of this division is still a quarrel of clans, that which opposes the Vieri dei Cerchi (white) to the Donati (black). This division is also social, Cerchi being close to the people and Donati of the elite florentine. The latter intend to be opposed to the Ordinances Justice emitted by Giano della Bella.

In 1300, on the Place of the Holy Trinity with Florence, bursts a battle which will mark a final cleavage between the two parties. Guelfes blacks, very close to Boniface VIII will prevail on the white unable to be defended suitably, and Charles de Valois, from France in support of the pope, will invest Florence without meeting any resistance. As of January 1302, one starts to exile the white, of which Dante Alighieri. It is the count de Gabrielli de Gubbio which reigns then on the city.

According to Machiavel in the Prince, Guelfes and Gibelins were both an emanation of the city of Venice to sit its capacity on the north of Italy.

Dante and guelfism

It is often considered that Dante, which lived these events fully, since it belonged to various political assemblies florentines, was guelfe white. Indeed, it was exiled the January 27th 1302, following an official trip to Rome, to meet Boniface VIII there, it will be imprisoned there before escaping. But if the political vicissitudes of its time and its relations obliged it to be combined with several parties, it is clear that from a doctrinal point of view, Dante was gibelin, as proves it its treaty De Monarchia , which pleads very clearly in favor of an emperor, single Souverain, reigning of Rome, with the blessing of the Pape. Besides he put his hopes of imperial restoration in the person of the Roman Emperor Henri VII, which died too early to achieve what Dante awaited from him.

Érasme

Érasme indicates that the man who seeks to keep his autonomy of judgment will be always regarded as “gibelin by Guelfes, and guelfe by Gibelins”.

Posterity

The trace of Guelfes perdure in the Holy roman Empire and the Germanic confederation; it finds until in the influence of the Welfes of Hanover in the German Empire of the 19th century.

At the XIXe century, German philosophy took as a starting point the guelfes and gibelins to define what is on the left and what is on the right, which is liberal and what preserving.

Gibelins

The Gibelins constitute an Italian political party with the Moyen-âge which was opposed to that of the Guelfes .

Gibelins draw their name from Italian Ghibellino (pl. Ghibellini) coming from the name from the castle from Waiblingen in Bade-Wurtemberg, remains Hohenstaufen, one of the two dynasties which disputed the throne of the Saint Germanic Roman Empire - Guelfes supporting that of the Welfs.

Then when the Hohenstaufen eliminated Welfs, Guelfes took party of the Papauté whereas Gibelins supported the Empire.

The most known members of the family of Hohenstaufen are Frederic Ier Barberousse ( Barbarossa in German) and Frederic II “ Stupor Mundi ”, emperor, king of Sicily and king of Jerusalem.

The dynasty of the Hohenstaufen died out in 1268 with died of Conradin, grandson of Frederic II, with the Bataille of Tagliacozzo. However the ideology gibeline still survived several centuries, mainly in Italy (for example His), in Germany and Spain under the Habsbourg. At the time of the Reform, Gibelins became the champions of the catholic cause against of Guelfes become Protestant.

The Guelfes-Gibelins conflict

The reason of the conflict which saw being born these factions was the succession, in 1125, of the emperor Henri V deceased without direct heir. Those which will be later the Guelfes supported a political line of autonomy against any type of external intervention and the privileges peerage-books and presented the Church like guarantees opposition and of independence vis-a-vis the Empire. The adversaries, future Gibelins , were opposed to the capacity pontiffs by affirming the supremacy of the imperial institution: with died of Henri V, the “papists” installed on the throne of Germany Lothaire II, duke of Bavaria, to which Conrad III was opposite of the family Hohenstaufen that the pope Honorius II did not hesitate to excommunicate.

In 1138, to died of Lothaire II, his/her son-in-law does not manage to succeed to him and the “imperialists” triumphed by installing Hohenstaufen durably over the throne over the Empire, Conrad III then Frederic Barberousse.

Starting from a properly German conflict, the opposition between Guelfes and Gibelins will be spread in various parts of Europe at different times.

The conflict between Welfs and Hohenstaufen was transposed to Italy. The Emperor Frederic II, reigning on the Sicily and the Italy, was Hohenstaufen. Later, when the opposition between papacy took place and the Saint Worsens, the partisans of the pope named naturally “Guelfes” ( Italian Guelfo in ), by reference to the opponents in Hohenstaufen in Germany. It was thus indeed finished by it papal agreement with the Emperor, who dated from the Renaissance ottonienne (fine of reign in 1002). The conflict was shown particularly violent in the financially flourishing Italian cities, such as Genoa and Florence.

With Genoa, one of the four maritime republics of Italy, the conflict had as a base the internal quarrels between the four dominant families: Grimaldi and Fieschi, which asserted party guelfes against the families gibelines Doria and Spinola. Not only these families could align armies, but more still, the pope and his allies, just like the emperor, sought to join powerful the galères génoises.

With Florence, the conflict also had as a base the quarrels between families, the Buondelmonte and the Arrighi, which were identified respectively in Gibelins and Guelfes. In Tuscan, however, the tragedy of these wars took very an other dimension under the feather of the poet Dante.

Guelfes were in favor of the pope at the same time as they had nationalist claims. In 1249, Guelfes florentins are subjected to a massive exodus, when the son of Frederic II, Frederic d' Antioche, penetrates in the city accompanied by his German riders. But with died of Frederic II (1250), Gibelins lose ground and are obliged in their turn to leave Florence in 1258 to take refuge with His, by hoping for an intervention of the second wire of Frederic, Manfred. Guelfes, then returned in force, are again demolished at the time of the Bataille of Montaperti. They take their revenge in February 1266, with the battle of Bénévent. In April of the following year it is thus Charles of Anjou, main ally of the pope, who returns to Florence with his riders and drives out the gibelins definitively city. The government guelfe will last of 1267 with 1280. It is at that time that the pope Nicolas III, anxious of the increasing prevalence of the France, sends to Florence the cardinal Latino, in order to establish a government also divided between Guelfes and Gibelins.

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