When however following the Donation of Constantine23 the popes became temporal sovereigns and began to concern themselves more with their own material interests than with the moral interests of the people they gradually lost the authority which to the benefit of society at large, they had previously wielded in civic matters
The last days of the Empire saw the growth of our free towns composed for the most part of a Roman element which was never suppressed of a Christian element and of a new Germanic element
During the Middle Ages it was these free towns that kept the torch of freedom alight in Italy. They aroused and sustained in their citizens the sentiment of human dignity and they insured the protection of their cottages by forcing the nobility to abandon their castles and to live among the free citizens in the towns and villages. It was they who even before the birth of the Hanseatic League formed the Lombard League to defend their rights against the Empire24 And it was they who after defeating Barbarossa's army at Legnano then for the sake of peace and of compliance with customary law acknowledged in Barbarossa imperial authority in all except said they in the presence of Pope Alexander IIIwhat concerns the honor of Italy 25 Moreover they added we will never allow ourselves to be deprived of our liberty This we have inherited from our fathers and our ancestors and this we will yield only with life itself we would rather die than live in slavery