I don't think it would be unreasonable to assume that he would retain influence due to his fathers fortune. It would be interesting to see him rise to a position as Consul, or Proconsul. (Depending on the Communes fancy).
"Patrician" was the highest position the Commune had. It may have been basically a podesta, or perhaps it was purely a military commander-in-chief sort of position (the Senate refers to him in a letter as their "standard-bearer.") Unlike patricians in ancient Roman times, who were a class of people,
patricius in the 12th century was almost always used as a title for a singular leader of a city or principality. They deliberately didn't use "consul" because that was traditionally a title of the high nobility; at the time they rebelled, "consul" was a title held by Ptolemy II, Count of Tusculum, who was most definitely not on their side. Arnold may have suggested that they revive the old dual-consul system, but as far as I know there's no evidence to suggest that was actually implemented.
"Senator" was used the same way, as the title of a single leader, before the revival of the senate by the commune. Alberic, for instance, titled himself "Prince and Senator of all the Romans" even though no senate actually existed at that time.
Giordano basically vanishes from the historical record once he's kicked out. He's basically a blank slate, you can sort of do what you want with him with some credibility.
Could the commune not just take the Pope prisoner? That would probably be the best result for the commune and Giordano, at least for controlling the Papacy. However, if Lucius is still an ineffective Pope, it may well be best for him to alienate others from the Papacy towards the Commune and the Emperor.
They could. I suppose the best-case scenario is that Giordano forces Lucius to accept his demands - that the Pope renounce all temporal authority over the city and lives like a common priest. But this has complicated reprecussions - what happens to the Papal Curia? The Pope hears cases from all over Europe, is the court still functioning? What happens to the rest of the cardinals? What happens to all of the feudatories and friends of Lucius?
Despite their victory, at that moment the Commune doesn't even control all of Rome because of the Frangipani fortresses within its walls. I'm not sure if control over Lucius will be enough to force the Frangipani to withdraw from their positions. If not, there's going to be a campaign for control of the city itself before the Romans can do anything about their neighbors. That's why I mentioned it might be easier if Oddone Frangipani gets killed instead of Lucius; that throws the commune's most dangerous foe into disarray.
Completely nuts? I must have missed something, did they lose their metaphorical marbles when he arrived?
Well, this is a discussion I've sort of been having with
LSCatilina - it's arguable that the Commune was further "radicalized" by Arnold's teachings, though we can't be sure how much of their thought was influenced by him and how much already existed. But certainly the commune did become rather foolish, doing things like writing arrogant and delusional letters to Barbarossa about how it was only Roman consent that made him emperor, and so on. What they needed more than anything was to be led by a competent and realistic diplomat. I don't know if Giordano was that man, but he certainly couldn't have been worse than the people who took over later.
Oh, I understand that it wasn't meant to hurt the peasantry, but the alienation/lack of support may be lessened if the price-controls weren't as strong. Probably a bit of a dead end though.
Maybe, but I just don't think it's much of an issue. I can't recall any urban communes being serious threatened or destabilized by their grain policies or rural discontent.
This is good. I imagine that the urban communes tried to win over the prosperous peasant leaders/lords. I can't help but think that if they COULD fix the aqueducts near to Rome, we could see a large number of these rural communities move closer to Rome.
One possibility is that such structures are created to organize the countryside under the petty nobility, who seem to have been at least partially on the commune's side (as opposed to the high nobility). It's sort of a longshot, but if the commune can appropriate church and high-noble land and organize it into grants to the lesser nobility, it might shore up their loyalty with that class and give them some semblance of an army that's not just made up of the urban poor. I haven't really thought that through though.
I wonder, we keep mentioning Arnoldism, could that be in any way used to tie Milan and Rome closer together?
I sort of doubt it. Though there are other similar movements that emerge later in the century closer to home - Orvieto, for instance, becomes a significant Cathar center, and I think there's a number who emerge in Viterbo as well. Cathars are different than Arnoldists, but the concepts share some of the same appeal, idealizing a poor, saintly, pure priesthood. LSCatilina seems to know more about the Cathars than me. Maybe if Arnoldism of some sort takes root there before the Cathars, you could get a sympathetic movement among the major cities of Latium.
I think Milan is just too distant. They have their own problems to worry about. They're not even involved in Tuscany, let alone Latium.
Could it happen if Pope Lucius was made prisoner? Sign over loads of powers to the Commune, and endorse an Arnoldist bishop to be his successor. (I can't remember how "Flexible" the appointment of a Pope was at this point.) At the very least they could have their own Arnoldist Pope, stripped of most of the powers of the office, whilst having Lucius in prison (the advantage being is that he can't ask for help particularly easily if he is in prison).
At this point, you need the college of cardinals to elect a successor, and having Lucius captive doesn't give you the college. Selecting a pope with no college while the existing pope is still alive has no legitimacy whatsoever; I doubt even the Romans themselves would take it seriously.
There is some dubious precedent to annul a pope's election and appoint a new one while he still lives (see Antipope Gregory VIII) but you still need the college of cardinals, or at least some of them, to make a go of it. I'm not sure how many of the pro-Pierleoni cardinals that elected Anacletus II in 1130 are still alive in 1145, and I also don't know whether any of them would even for a second consider backing an Arnoldist candidate.
Notably, Cardinal Octavian - who would go on to proclaim himself pope and become the pro-imperial antipope Victor IV in 1159 - was part of the college in 1145. He's a Roman nobleman of a once-great but now seriously fallen family. But he proclaimed himself Pope knowing that he had the backing of the empire, and with their military support; I don't know if he would be as willing in 1145, or if any of the other cardinals would back him. Also, seeing as he's a nobleman who owns land of his own despite being a cardinal, he's basically the embodiment of what the Arnoldists hate.
I only came back to it as Ostia is closer to Rome (I think), and therefore makes it easier to make a Roman middle class, rather than a Civitavecchian or Antium-based middle class. Perhaps I put too much stock in the middle class wanting to be close to their trade ports. *shrug*
You're not wrong, it's just a really awful place to have a port. Look at where the coastline is now, the rate of silting up is incredibly high. It took massive engineering projects at the height of Rome's greatness to make a good replacement port for silted-in Ostia (specifically, Portus). It's silty, it's in a malarial marsh, there's no shelter from either storms or hostile attack... it's just bad. That's one of the reasons why if Rome has any future as a commune, it's as an agricultural-and-manufacturing inland commune, not as a maritime commune like Pisa or Genoa. It's the only way to make the best of their awful geography.
It may not be as valuable until the commune has more political legitimacy, but they could always try and sell their garments with various Roman symbols, or even try to start a fashion trend in the Roman Empire for "Roman Robes, made in Rome, worn by Romans" - bit of a long shot, but a fun idea at least.
Well, all I can say is that I'm not aware of branding being a major thing at this point in time. Prince (and quality) seem to generally be the deciding factors.
It would be helpful for a Roman wool industry if they could somehow disrupt Pisan control over Sardinia, since that's where the Pisans got a lot of good-quality wool. Rome is never going to accomplish that themselves, but since the Pisans only have claim over the island through a Papal grant, if you can get the Papacy to turn against them you might be able to do something with that.
From the sound of things, the Commune did look like it wanted to supplant the Popes role as confirming the Emperor.
Yeah, but the commune had no credibility, and the soon-to-be-emperor in question (Frederick "Barbarossa" von Hohenstaufen) threw a fit at the idea of even having the
hold the pope's horse while he dismounted to get his imperial crown. He had to call a timeout and call his Bolognese lawyers and make a full inquiry into whether this was really a thing that previous emperors had done, because it deeply offended his ideas of imperial supremacy. He certainly wasn't about to acknowledge the superiority of a bunch of Italian townsfolk. I get the feeling he would rather have burned Rome to the ground than agree to "receive" the crown from their senate. Indeed, when the Romans got uppity during his coronation, his response was to slaughter them in droves.
Then again, any titles offered by the Commune would become more valuable as it gained more power and clout.
It's not going to match the
international power and clout of the man who is literally the Vicar of Christ on Earth. The big noble families aren't going to join them unless Rome either achieves hegemonic power in Latium or Rome acquires its own subject pope who has at least some international recognition.
With more words, it then appears that only with significant economic success could Rome be made defensible on its own. Yes, short to medium term, field armies are the saviours of the day. References could be made to a medieval Sparta. However, they could circumvent the issues with the Aurelian Walls with a "Honeycomb Wall" (to coin a term), where they have multiple smaller walls, protecting the various important quarters, designed to allow the defenders to fall back along the walls, to a main fortification. - probably a prohibitivly expensive idea, but it would be interesting to see.
You should check out
this pdf. It's a paper about the plans of an architect named Sangallo for the fortification of Rome in the 16th century. Obviously this is a much later era - the age of cannons - but there's some detail in there about the feasibility of making a shorter wall and the difficulties posed by the city's geography.
Using data from that, I once tried to see if I could make a good wall circuit on a lark. Using Sangallo's plan as a template, I got the wall circuit to about 8.36 miles, which is a lot better than the original 14 or so but still really long by 12th century standards. Getting any smaller than that without cutting out major inhabited regions, losing the forum or other major features, or losing important high ground is really hard.
Either that or just acknowledge that in a siege, Roma needs an Urban Motte and Bailey approach, with one major fortification, and using the entire Aurelian walls as the Bailey (if they hadn't already). The Leonine City or the western bank could serve quite well for this. (I think, I may be misreading a map).
What they did was basically fill the city with fortresses, so the city was essentially a hardened urban environment. Old ruins like the Colosseum, the Tabularium, and even the Arch of Titus were turned into fortresses. Towers sprang up everywhere.
The Leonine City is the citadel of Rome. It has the newest walls (built by Saracen slaves in the 9th century), it has a defensible perimeter (about 2.5 miles on its own), and it includes the Castel S. Angelo, which is the strongest fortress in the city and the keystone of Roman defense. Anyone who controls the city militarily is going to have their headquarters there.
See, this is where I find it hard to see why they couldn't fix it IOTL. If the Roman Commune is going to insist on its Roman heritage, there is one VERY easy place to get someone who can help fix the aqueducts. The Roman Empire. They still know how to build and repair these things. Sure it won't be cheap (it actually might be if they get lucky but anyway) either using the gold from the wool trade (uh, no, earmark that for an army), or from the loot of capturing other towns (much better idea) this expert can be paid for, and the repairs begun. (The price of the repairs I do not know).
It is sort of a mystery to me why it wasn't attempted until nearly the Renaissance, particularly since the Aqua Virgo is said to have been repaired in the 8th century. But the Aqua Virgo is underground for most of its length, and very carefully engineered - it may be that they "repaired" the above-ground part but the udnerground part remained too damaged or silted-up to do much with it. I really don't know if the Komnenid Byzantines had the technology to fix that or not.
I certainly don't think it's an impossible project, but it seems to have needed some kind of expertise, funding, and/or political will that Rome IOTL didn't manage until the end of the Middle Ages.
Avoiding the sacking of the city could be an interesting PoD. Problem is that you've got to throw up butterfly nets for about 50 years, to ensure the rest falls into place. If you avoid the sack in 1084, Rome is still a VERY important city. Having a Republic of Rome emerge after that could be interesting, but it would need a different impetus to move to a more banking and mercantile state.
The sack happened only after Guiscard "won;" basically, Henry backed off and the Pope was in Guiscard's hands, but the citizens then rose up, got crushed, and got sacked for three days for their troubles. If the Romans just weren't so damn angry, there probably wouldn't have been a sack (maybe still some looting though) without much else in terms of repercussions at the time.
You are correct that a more prosperous Rome itself might change some things, but since the factors that caused the communal revolt (including the loss of Rome's regional preeminence) were probably going still going to happen regardless, the butterflies for this might be fairly minimal.
Hilariously, if you want to just go a bit out of left field, if Robert Guiscard is defeated and made to submit to the Byzantines, this puts Rome on the edge of the HRE and ERE once again. Neither party wants the other to have control over the Papacy - so either after an opportune revolt, or through political agreement, Rome is made a Commune, the Papacy has most of its temporal powers in the Commune taken away (and granted to the Commune), and everyone wins but the Pope.
If you want to thrash the Normans and re-introduce the ERE you don't have to go back to Guiscard. Go to the Papal-Byzantine invasion of Sicily in 1155 and have King William, who was apparently sick to the point that everyone thought he was going to die, actually die instead of miraculously recovering and kicking the Byzantines back to Greece. Even better for you, it happens a decade
after the Commune's founding, so you don't have to worry about butterflies killing the Commune in the first place.
If you do that, congratulations, you've just triggered a war between Manuel Komnenos and Frederick Barbarossa. The papal schism probably still happens four years later, and presumably then all hell breaks loose. Things get really complicated when the ERE is suddenly a power in Italy again.