By : Oscar Browning (1837 - 1923)
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At the beginning of the 13th century, Philip of Swabia, a Hohenstaufen, and his son-in-law Otto of Brunswick, a Welf, were rivals for the imperial throne. Philip was supported by the Ghibellines as a relative of Frederick I, while Otto was supported by the Guelphs. Philip's heir, Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, was an enemy of both Otto and the Papacy, and during Frederick's reign, the Guelphs became more strictly associated with the Papacy while the Ghibellines became supporters of the Empire and Frederick in particular. Frederick II also introduced this division to the Crusader states in the Levant during the Sixth Crusade.
After the Sixth Crusade, Frederick II quelled a rebellion led by his son Henry in Germany and soon invaded Lombardy with a large Army. Pope Gregory IX attempted to stop the invasion with diplomacy but failed. Frederick defeated the Lombard League in the Battle of Cortenuova and refused any Peace treaty with any of the Guelph States. He then laid siege to Brescia but was forced to lift it. He was then excommunicated by the Pope, and in response expelled the friars from Lombardy and placed his son Enzo as Imperial vicar in Italy; he quickly annexed Romagna, Marche, the Duchy of Spoleto, and part of the Papal States. In the meantime Frederick marched through Tuscany hoping to capture Rome, however, he was forced to retreat, sacking the city of Benevento. Soon however the Ghibelline city of Ferrara fell and Frederick once more marched into Italy capturing Ravenna and Faenza. The Pope called a council but an Imperial-Pisan fleet defeated a Papal fleet carrying Cardinals and prelates from Genoa in the Battle of Giglio and then Frederick continued marching towards Rome. However Pope Gregory soon died and Frederick, seeing the war being directed against the Church and not the Pope, withdrew his forces, releasing two cardinals from Capua, although Frederick did again march against Rome over and over throughout 1242 and 1243.
A new Pope - Innocent IV - was elected. At first, Frederick was content with the election since Innocent had relatives in the Imperial camp. However, the new Pope immediately turned against Frederick. When the City of Viterbo rebelled, the Pope backed the Guelphs. Frederick immediately marched to Italy and besieged Viterbo. The Pope signed a Peace treaty with the Emperor, relieving the city. However, after the Emperor left the Cardinal Raniero Capocci, as the leader of Viterbo, had the garrison massacred. The Pope made another treaty but he immediately broke it and continued to back the Guelphs, supporting Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia as King of the Romans and soon plotted to have Frederick killed. When the attempt failed the Pope fled to Liguria. Soon the tide turned against the imperial party as the Lombard city of Parma rebelled and Enzo - who had not been present - asked his father for help. Frederick and Ezzelino III da Romano, the Tyrant of Verona, besieged the city. However the imperial camp was ambushed by the Guelphs and in the ensuing Battle of Parma the imperial party was routed, losing much of their treasury. Frederick retreated and gathered another army but the resistance of Parma encouraged other cities to rebel and Frederick was powerless to do anything. Things became worse for the imperial party as the Ghibellines were defeated in the Battle of Fossalta by the Bolognese, at which Enzo was captured and imprisoned until his death. Although the Ghibellines did start recovering, defeating the Guelphs in the Battle of Cingoli, Frederick by then was ill. Before he died much of his territory was recovered by his son Conrad, King of the Romans, thus leaving Italy at peace for a very few years.
After the death of Frederick II in 1250, the Ghibellines were supported by Conrad IV of Germany and later Manfred, King of Sicily, while the Guelphs were supported by Charles I of Naples. The Sienese Ghibellines inflicted a noteworthy defeat on Florentine Guelphs at the Battle of Montaperti (1260). After the Hohenstaufen dynasty lost the Empire when Charles I executed Conradin in 1268, the terms Guelph and Ghibelline became associated with individual families and cities, rather than the struggle between empire and papacy. In that period the stronghold of Italian Ghibellines was the city of Forlì, in Romagna. That city remained with the Ghibelline factions, partly as a means of preserving its independence, rather than out of loyalty to the temporal power, as Forlì was nominally in the Papal States. Over the centuries, the papacy tried several times to regain control of Forlì, sometimes by violence or by allurements.
The division between Guelphs and Ghibellines was especially important in Florence, although the two sides frequently rebelled one against the other and struggled for power in many of the other northern Italian cities as well. Essentially the two sides were now fighting either against German influence (in the case of the Guelphs) or against the temporal power of the Pope (in the case of the Ghibellines). In Florence and elsewhere the Guelphs usually included merchants and burghers, while the Ghibellines tended to be noblemen. They also adopted peculiar customs such as wearing a feather on a particular side of their hats, or cutting fruit a particular way, according to their affiliation.
The struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines was also noticeable in the Republic of Genoa, where the former were called "rampini" (lit.: "grappling hooks") and the latter "mascherati" (lit.: "masked"), although there is no clear etymology for these names. Genoese families like Fieschi and Grimaldi conventionally sided with the Guelph party, in contrast with the Doria and some branches of the Spinola families. While Genoa was often under Guelph rule in the early years of the 13th century, in 1270, Ghibellines Oberto Spinola and Oberto Doria managed to revolt against Guelphs and started a dual government which lasted a couple of decades. In the meanwhile, Guelph families fled to their strongholds east (Fieschi) and west (Grimaldi) but were forced to cease their resistance with several military campaigns, which ended with their readmission to the Genoese political life, after paying war expenses.
White and Black Guelphs
After the Tuscan Guelphs finally defeated the Ghibellines in 1289 at the Battle of Campaldino and at Vicopisano, the Guelphs began infighting. By 1300 the Florentine Guelphs had divided into the Black and White Guelphs. The Blacks continued to support the Papacy, while the Whites were opposed to Papal influence, specifically the influence of Pope Boniface VIII. Dante was among the supporters of the White Guelphs, and in 1302 was exiled when the Black Guelphs took control of Florence. Those who were not connected to either side or who had no connections to either Guelphs or Ghibellines, considered both factions unworthy of support but were still affected by changes of power in their respective cities. Emperor Henry VII was disgusted by supporters of both sides when he visited Italy in 1310. In 1325, the city-states of Guelph Bologna and Ghibelline Modena, clashed in the War of the Bucket, resulting in Modena's victory at the Battle of Zappolino, which led to a resurgence of Ghibelline fortunes. In 1334 Pope Benedict XII threatened people who used either the Guelph or Ghibelline name with ex-communication.
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