ABSTRACT
In his famous letter to the Emperor Anastasius I Pope Gelasius I at the end of the fifth century had expressed what was to become a medieval commonplace: “There are two powers by which this world is governed in chief, the consecrated authority of priests and the royal power.” Numerous Popes had been created or deposed on the initiative of Emperors. Nor was it enough to reply that this control of the Church had been a usurpation. In the disturbances at Milan in Conrad II’s reign, the archbishop Aribert and the capitanei had been opposed by the valvassores. In 1056, the year of Henry III’s death, another and a much more serious rising began, known as the revolt of the Pataria, from the contemptuous nickname of “rag-pickers” given by the nobles. The Milanese clergy were recruited from noble families, and the attack upon them was part of a general attack upon the political and social position of the feudal nobility.
