Year 1158 (MCLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Frederick Barbarossa, also known as Frederick I, was the Holy Roman Emperor from 1155 until his death 35 years later. He was elected King of Germany at Frankfurt on 4 March 1152 and crowned in Aachen on 9 March 1152. He was crowned King of Italy on 24 April 1155 in Pavia and emperor by Pope Adrian IV on 18 June 1155 in Rome. Two years later, the term sacrum ("holy") first appeared in a document in connection with his empire. He was later formally crowned King of Burgundy, at Arles on 30 June 1178. He was named Barbarossa by the northern Italian cities which he attempted to rule: Barbarossa means "red beard" in Italian; in German, he was known as Kaiser Rotbart, which means "Emperor Redbeard" in English. The prevalence of the Italian nickname, even in later German usage, reflects the centrality of the Italian campaigns to his career.
The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in the Italian city-states of Central Italy and Northern Italy.
The Lombard League was a medieval alliance formed in 1167, supported by the popes, to counter the attempts by the Hohenstaufen Holy Roman emperors to assert influence over the Kingdom of Italy as a part of the Holy Roman Empire. At its apex, it included most of the cities of Northern Italy, but its membership changed with time. With the death of the third and last Hohenstaufen emperor, Frederick II, in 1250, it became obsolete and was disbanded.
Podestà was the name given to the holder of the highest civil office in the government of the cities of Central and Northern Italy during the Late Middle Ages. Sometimes, it meant the chief magistrate of a city state, the counterpart to similar positions in other cities that went by other names, e.g. rettori ("rectors").
The Battle of Legnano was a battle between the imperial army of Frederick Barbarossa and the troops of the Lombard League on May 29, 1176, near the town of Legnano in present-day Lombardy, in Italy. Although the presence of the enemy nearby was already known to both sides, they suddenly met without having time to plan any strategy.
The province of Lodi is a province in the Lombardy region of Italy. Its provincial capital is the city of Lodi. As of 2017, it has a population of 229,541 inhabitants over an area of c. 783 square kilometres (300 sq mi), giving the province a population density of 293.2 inhabitants per square kilometre. The provincial president is Francesco Passerini.
The history of Italy in the Middle Ages can be roughly defined as the time between the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the Italian Renaissance. The term "Middle Ages" itself ultimately derives from the description of the period of "obscurity" in Italian history during the 9th to 11th centuries, the saeculum obscurum or "Dark Age" of the Roman papacy as seen from the perspective of the 14th to 15th century Italian Humanists.
Rainald of Dassel was Archbishop of Cologne and Archchancellor of Italy from 1159 until his death. A close advisor to the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa, he had an important influence on Imperial politics, mainly in the Italian conflict of Guelphs and Ghibellines.
A Carroccio was a large four-wheeled wagon bearing the city signs around which the militia of the medieval communes gathered and fought. It was particularly common among the Lombard, Tuscan and, more generally, northern Italian municipalities. Later its use spread even outside Italy. It was the symbol of municipal autonomy. Priests celebrated Mass at the altar before the battle, and the trumpeters beside them encouraged the fighters to the fray.
Frederick, a member of the Přemyslid dynasty, was Duke of Bohemia from 1172 to 1173 and again from 1178 to his death.
The Treaty or Peace of Venice, 1177, was a peace treaty between the papacy and its allies, the north Italian city-states of the Lombard League, and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily also took part in negotiations and the treaty thereby determined the political course of all Italy for the next several years.
The Kingdom of Italy, also called Imperial Italy, was one of the constituent kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, along with the kingdoms of Germany, Bohemia, and Burgundy. It originally comprised most of northern and central Italy but lost its eastern parts later to Venice and the Papal States. Its original capital was Pavia until the 11th century.
Dominium mundi is an idea of universal dominion developed in the Middle Ages. Inspired by the memory of the Roman Empire, dominium mundi implied the recognition of one supreme authority, which generated a prolonged political and spiritual struggle between imperial and ecclesiastical power. This struggle can be said to have begun with the Investiture Controversy, and was mainly embodied by the Holy Roman Empire and Catholic Church, which elevated the emperor and Pope, respectively, to the status of supreme ruler. The idea of universal dominion divided Italy into the warring faction of Guelphs and Ghibellines. Guelphs supported the Church, while the Ghibellines supported the Empire. After two hundred years of division during the 12th and 13th centuries, neither one of the powers had prevailed, due to their mutual dependency and the rise of the powerful and practically independent reigns of Church and the State. The idea of dominium mundi did not reappear in its original form, despite the fact that both universal powers subsisted.
Vitale II Michiel was Doge of Venice from 1156 to 1172.
Milan, Italy is an ancient city in northern Italy first settled in about 400 BC by Celtic Insubres. The settlement was conquered by the Romans in 222 BC and renamed it Mediolanum. Diocletian divided the Roman Empire, choosing the eastern half for himself, making Milan the seat of the western half of the empire, from which Maximian ruled, in the late 3rd and early 4th century AD. In 313 AD of Milan, which officially ended the persecution of Christians. In 774 AD Milan surrendered to Charlemagne and the Franks.
Events during the year 1158 in Italy.
Barbarossa is a 2009 Italian English-language film set primarily in northern Italy during the late 12th century. Despite the film's title, Friedrich "Barbarossa" features only as a supporting character in this film, which is primarily concerned with the struggle of the Lombard League, which struggled to maintain independence from the Holy Roman Empire, led by the legendary Guelph warrior Alberto da Giussano.
The siege of Crema was a siege of the town of Crema, Lombardy by the Holy Roman Empire from 2 July 1159 to 25 January 1160. The Cremaschi attempted to defend their city from the Germans, but were eventually defeated by Frederick Barbarossa's men. Frederick seized Milan in 1162, shortly after he took Crema. These events started the wars of Guelphs and Ghibellines, leading to the formation of the Lombard League, a league of northern Italian communes allied against the emperor, supported by the Pope.
The Visconti Castle of Lodi is a historical building in Lodi, Lombardy, northern Italy. As it appears today, it is the result of transformations made on a Middle Age castle founded in the 12th century by Frederick Barbarossa. Its name derives from the Visconti family, lords and dukes of Milan, who in the 13th and 14th centuries took possession of and then rebuilt the original fortification.
