By the end of the eleventh century Milan was, in all its external relations, practically a free city, owning little more than nominal allegiance and a ceremonious reverence to the Emperor, and allying herself now with him, now with his resolute foe Matilda, or defying the one and the other, as it pleased her best. Within the community itself the principle of popular freedom and representation was recognised in the government, and by means of constant insurrections the lower orders had forced the nobles to recognise their rights. The Commune, whose birth historians have dated from the great revolution of 1066 when Lanzone kept Archbishop Ariberto and the nobles in exile for three years, was now in full being. The institution about this time of elective magistrates, whose title of _Consuls_ revived the old Latin tradition of the city, marks the emancipation of the young Republic from the archiepiscopal despotism. But the share of the ordinary citizens in the privileges of this Constitution was still much restricted. The Consuls appear to have been chosen exclusively at first from the higher class, whose hereditary habit of authority fitted them to govern, and under a constitutional form these officials tended to repeat the old aristocratic oligarchy. But the nobles had no longer any legal support in their attempts to tyrannise, and the whole system of government was in a state of flux, and subjected to ceaseless modifications and change by the continual revolts of the people, who, by the simple force of numbers, made their strength felt, and vindicated their growing pretensions to a larger part in the affairs of their city. The same vitality which had won Milan her own freedom impelled her to the oppression of the weaker communities around her. Her first fulfilment of this tragic law of progress was the destruction of her neighbour, Lodi, a strong and flourishing community, whose rivalry was a constant menace to her own trade and prosperity. There was a long-standing hatred between the two cities. The times lent abundant pretext to the Communes to make war upon one another. The quarrel between Empire and Church entangled them all in its immense web. Each, in embracing the one or the other cause, was guided by its local sympathies and antipathies, and reflected the general strife on a smaller scale in its relations with its neighbours.