Battle of Legnano (1176): Lombard League Defeats Barbarossa

The Battle of Legnano was fought on 29 May 1176 near the town of Legnano, north-west of Milan, between the army of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and the forces of the Lombard League, an alliance of northern Italian cities. The citizen militia, rallying around Milan’s war wagon, defeated the emperor’s knights. The victory forced Frederick to negotiate and led to the Peace of Constance in 1183, which confirmed the right of the Italian communes to govern themselves.

Background: emperor against the cities

Frederick I, called Barbarossa (“Red Beard”) by Italians, became King of Germany in 1152 and was crowned emperor in Rome in 1155. As emperor he was also King of Italy, and he set out to recover royal rights, known as regalia, that the wealthy cities of Lombardy had taken over: tolls, mints, taxes and the appointment of officials.

The cities had grown rich on trade and manufacture and ran their own affairs through elected magistrates called consuls. At the Diet of Roncaglia in 1158 Frederick’s lawyers defined the regalia broadly and claimed them for the emperor. Milan, the strongest city, resisted.

After a long siege Milan surrendered in March 1162. Frederick expelled its inhabitants and had much of the city destroyed. His harsh imperial governors soon made him unpopular even in cities that had supported him.

The emperor was also in conflict with the papacy. He backed a series of rival popes against Pope Alexander III, elected in 1159, who in turn supported the cities. The struggle echoed earlier conflicts between emperors and popes, such as the one that led to the Walk to Canossa in 1077.

The Lombard League

In 1167 several cities, including Cremona, Bergamo, Brescia, Mantua and Ferrara, formed an alliance and helped the Milanese rebuild their city. Tradition places the founding oath at the abbey of Pontida on 7 April 1167, though that detail is not recorded in contemporary sources. The alliance grew into the Lombard League, eventually including more than twenty cities.

In 1168 the League founded a new fortified city in Piedmont and named it Alessandria in honour of Pope Alexander III. When Frederick returned to Italy in 1174 with a new army, he besieged Alessandria for about six months over the winter but failed to take it. A truce agreed at Montebello in April 1175 soon broke down.

Frederick needed more troops. He asked his powerful cousin Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, for help, reportedly at a meeting at Chiavenna in early 1176, but Henry refused. Instead, smaller reinforcements came over the Alps from Germany. The emperor met them near Como and then marched south to rejoin his allies at Pavia.

What happened at Legnano

On 29 May 1176 Frederick’s army, mostly heavy cavalry, was moving south toward Pavia. The League’s forces had gathered near Legnano to block him. Numbers are uncertain; modern estimates put each army in the low thousands, with the emperor having perhaps 3,000 to 4,000 men and the League probably similar or somewhat more.

The League’s cavalry vanguard ran into the imperial knights and was driven back. Frederick’s horsemen then pressed on to the main League position, where infantry from Milan and its allies stood in close ranks around the carroccio, a large ox-drawn wagon carrying the city’s standard and an altar. The foot soldiers held their ground behind their shields and spears. Infantry rarely withstood a charge of mounted knights in this period, which is why their stand at Legnano impressed contemporaries.

The carroccio mattered for more than tactics. It carried the city’s banner and a crucifix, Mass could be said on its altar, and losing it to the enemy would have been a deep humiliation for Milan.

While the imperial knights were tied down attacking the wagon, the League’s cavalry, including contingents from Brescia, regrouped and returned to strike them in the flank. The imperial army broke. Frederick’s standard-bearer was killed and the emperor was thrown from his horse and disappeared in the confusion.

For several days Frederick was believed dead, and his wife, Empress Beatrice, is said to have gone into mourning. He eventually reached Pavia alone or with a handful of companions. Many of his men were killed, drowned in the Ticino river or captured, and the League seized his camp and treasure.

Key people

• Frederick I Barbarossa (c. 1122–1190): Holy Roman Emperor from 1155, an energetic ruler determined to restore imperial authority in Italy.
• The Lombard League: an alliance of northern Italian communes led by Milan; its leaders were city consuls rather than any single commander.
• Pope Alexander III (pope 1159–1181): Frederick’s main opponent in the Church, who allied with the cities and gave his name to Alessandria.
• Henry the Lion (c. 1129–1195): Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, whose refusal to send troops weakened Frederick and later contributed to his own downfall.

Consequences: peace with pope and cities

Legnano convinced Frederick that he could not win by force. He opened negotiations and in 1177, at the Peace of Venice, recognised Alexander III as the rightful pope, ending an eighteen-year schism. With the Lombards he agreed a six-year truce.

The final settlement came with the Peace of Constance on 25 June 1183. Frederick kept his position as overlord, and the cities swore loyalty to him, but they won the right to elect their own consuls, build walls and exercise most regalia within their territories in return for payments. In practice the communes of northern Italy had secured their self-government.

Frederick turned against Henry the Lion, who was deprived of his duchies in 1180. Frederick himself later took the cross and drowned in Anatolia in June 1190 while leading his army on the Third Crusade.

Legacy and legend

Legnano became a symbol of liberty against foreign rule. Later chroniclers added colourful details, especially Galvano Fiamma in the fourteenth century, who told of a “Company of Death” of young warriors sworn to defend the carroccio and of their leader Alberto da Giussano. No twelfth-century source mentions either, and historians treat them as legend.

During the Risorgimento, the nineteenth-century movement for Italian unification, the battle was presented as an early victory of Italians over Germans. Giuseppe Verdi’s opera La battaglia di Legnano premiered in Rome in 1849, and the Italian national anthem, written in 1847, mentions Legnano. The town still holds an annual Palio commemorating the battle, and 29 May is the official day of the Lombardy region.

Historians today stress that the conflict was not a national war: Italian cities such as Pavia and Como fought on Frederick’s side, and the League fought for the rights of individual cities rather than a united Italy.

Timeline

• 1155, 18 June: Frederick Barbarossa is crowned emperor in Rome.
• 1158, November: The Diet of Roncaglia defines imperial rights in Italy.
• 1162, March: Milan surrenders and is largely destroyed.
• 1167: Northern Italian cities form the Lombard League.
• 1168: The League founds Alessandria.
• 1174–1175: Frederick’s siege of Alessandria fails.
• 1176, 29 May: The Lombard League defeats Frederick at Legnano.
• 1177, July: At the Peace of Venice, Frederick recognises Pope Alexander III.
• 1183, 25 June: The Peace of Constance confirms the cities’ self-government.

Why it matters

The Battle of Legnano showed that disciplined citizen infantry, fighting for their city, could stand against the knights of the most powerful ruler in Europe. It ensured that the communes of northern Italy, the future home of Renaissance city-states, kept their independence. Its later reinvention as a national myth shows how medieval battles can take on new meanings centuries afterwards.