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Frederick Barbarossa And The Lombard League: Imperial Regalia, Prescriptive Rights, And The Northern Italian Cities, David R. Carr

Quidditas

The struggle between Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and the Lombard League illustrates conflicts between not only imperial and municipal ambitions but also regalian and customary rights. The ability of the emperor to assert and to profit from regalian rights reflected the efficacy of imperial power. Conversely, the power of the Lombard city-states lay in the recognition of the validity of customary rights. While this conflict centers on the differing principles of Roman and "Germanic" law, the present study argues that the purported devotion of Barbarossa to Roman law and of the Italian communes to customary law misrepresents their positions. The Lombards' …