alliance represented an Italian national party banded together against foreign invaders from beyond the Alps. Frederick yielded on all substantial points. He was restored to the communion of the Church, and on 24th July 1177 was suffered to enter Venice to make his submission to Alexander. Frederick was conducted in great state to the Piazza, where the Pope, surrounded by cardinals and prelates, waited for him in the portico of St. Mark’s. ‘Then,’ says a contemporary, ‘he was touched by the spirit of God, and, abandoning his imperial dignity, threw himself humbly at the feet of the Pope.’ Alexander, with tears in his eyes, raised his fallen enemy, and gave him the kiss of peace. It was exactly a hundred years since Henry IV. had gone to Canossa. In August the Peace of Venice settled the details of Frederick’s reconciliation with the Papacy. All the lands usurped from the patrimony of St. Peter were to be restored. The Pope and Emperor promised mutual aid against each other’s enemies, and were lavish in vows of future friendship. A truce was secured for the Lombards, the Normans, and even for Manuel Comnenus, while the detailed conditions of a final settlement were slowly adjusted under the mediation of the papal legate. [Sidenote: End of the schism in the Papacy, 1178.] In August 1178 the Antipope Calixtus renounced his pretensions, and, though a few obstinate schismatics sought still to carry on the line of Antipopes, their nominee was soon forced into a monastery. The permanent treaty with the Lombards was finally signed on June 1183 at Constance. [Sidenote: Peace of Constance, 1183.] By it the Emperor granted to the cities of the Lombard league all the royal rights (_regalia_) which they ever had, or at that moment enjoyed. The cities were allowed to build fortifications, to continue their league, and make such other combinations as they wished. They had complete jurisdiction over their own members, could levy troops, coin money, and exercise practically all regalian rights. The imperial _podestàs_ disappeared, and henceforth the _podestâ_ was but a foreign judge called in by the citizens, in the hope that his strangeness to local factions would make him an impartial magistrate. The only clauses which upheld the supremacy of the Emperor stipulated that the consuls should receive imperial confirmation, that a right of appeal should lie to the imperial court, and that the Emperor should still have a claim to receive the _fodrum_ as a contribution to his military expenses. Such rights as thus remained to the Emperor were henceforth exercised by legates and vicars, very careless of their absent master. For all practical purposes, the Treaty of Constance made the Lombard republics self-governing city-states. The barest overlordship henceforth alone remained to him who in past generations had aspired to be their effective master. The Empire was by no means destroyed by this great blow, but henceforth Italy and Germany have each