Guelphs and Ghibellines

The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting, respectively, the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire in central and northern Italy during the 12th and 13th centuries. The struggle for power between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire had arisen with the Investiture Conflict of the 11th century.

History

Guelph (often spelled Guelf, plural Guelfi) is most probably an Italian form of Welf, the family of the dukes of Bavaria (including the namesake Welf, as well as Henry the Lion). The Welfs were said to have used the name as a rallying cry during the Battle of Weinsberg in 1140, in which the rival Hohenstaufens of Swabia (led at the time by Conrad III) used Waiblingen, the name of a castle, as their cry. Waiblingen became subsequently Ghibellino in Italian. The names were likely introduced to Italy during the reign of Frederick Barbarossa. While campaigning in Italy to expand imperial power there, the Lombard League and its supporters became known as Guelphs, supporting the liberties of the urban communes against the Emperor's encroachments, while those who supported Frederick became known as Ghibellines (Ghibellini). The Lombard League defeated Frederick at the Battle of Legnano in 1176.

The division between two distinct "Guelph" and "Ghibelline" parties became defined during Frederick Barbarossa's reign (12th century). Ghibellines were the imperial party, while the Guelphs supported the Pope. Broadly speaking, Guelphs tended to come from wealthy mercantile families, whereas Ghibellines were predominantly those whose wealth was based on agricultural estates. Guelf cities, of course, tended to be in areas where the Emperor was more a threat to local interests than the Pope, and Ghibelline cities tended to be in areas where the enlargement of the Papal States was the more immediate threat. Smaller cities tended to be Ghibelline if the larger city nearby was Guelf, as Guelf Florence and Ghibelline Siena faced off at the Battle of Montaperti, 1260. Pisa mantained a staunch Ghibelline position in contraposition to her fiercest rival, the Guelph Genoa. Adhesion to a party or another could be therefore motivated by local or regional political reason. Within cities factions broke down guild by guild, rione by rione, and a city could easily change party after internal upheaval. Moreover, sometimes traditionally Ghibelline cities allied with the Papacy, while Guelph cities were even punished with Papal interdict.

It must be noticed that contemporaries did not use the terms Guelph and Ghibellines much until about 1250, and then only in Tuscany (where they originated), with the names "church party" and "imperial party" preferred in some areas.

At the beginning of the 13th century, Philip of Swabia, a Hohenstaufen, and 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, 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 of Frederick in particular. Frederick II also introduced this division to the Crusader States in Syria during the Sixth Crusade.

After the death of Frederick II in 1250 the Ghibellines were supported by Conrad IV and later Manfred, while the Guelphs were supported by Charles of Anjou. The Sieneses Ghibellines inflicted a noteworthy defeat to Florentine Guelphs at the battle of Montaperti (1260). After the Hohenstaufen line went extinct when Charles of Anjou executed Conradin in 1268, the Guelphs and Ghibellines 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 of the papacy, as Forlì was nominally in the Papal States. Over the centuries, popes many times tried to resume the 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 against each other and took 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.

After the Guelphs finally defeated the Ghibellines in 1289 at Campaldino and Caprona, they began to fight among themselves. By 1300 Florence was divided into the Black Guelphs and the 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. Emperor Henry VII was disgusted by supporters of both sides when he visited Italy in 1310, and in 1334 Pope Benedict XII threatened excommunication to anyone who used either name.

In the 15th century the Guelphs supported Charles VIII of France during his invasion of Italy, while the Ghibellines were supporters of emperor Maximilian I. Cities and families used the names until Emperor Charles V firmly established imperial power in Italy in 1529.