But the wrong date repeated in Villani and many other chroniclers, regarding a war that lasted several years, and was apparently only recommenced in 1117, does not justify us in denying a fact so constantly affirmed by many writers.[111] The Balearic expedition certainly took place, and there is equal certainty that it was led by the Pisans, with the help of various friends and allies. Their fear lest the city should be attacked by the Lucchese in their absence was justified by the fact that this had really happened in former times. The Pisans were now foes of Lucca and friends of Florence, whose loyalty during that early period was very generally recognised. Why should it be incredible that these friendly Pisans should have entrusted the city to their care, or that they should have proved worthy of the confidence reposed in them? Paolino Pieri not only repeats the story as told by all the other chroniclers, but also adds that the bit of ground upon which the guilty soldier was executed had been purchased with the help of Bello the Syndic, and that even in his own day he saw that it was still left uncultivated in memory of the deed: "it was on the fourth day of July, three hundred and two years more than one thousand, when I saw that ground untouched." At any rate, this is a proof that the tradition of the fact still survived in the fourteenth century, and that every one had the fullest belief in it. VI. The death of Countess Matilda, in 1115, was followed by a period of so much disorder as to mark the beginning of a new era for all Central Italy, and more especially for Florence. The countess, as we know, left a will bequeathing all her possessions to the Church; but this donation could only affect her allodial estates, since all those held in fief naturally reverted to the Empire. It was not always easy to precisely distinguish these from those; often, indeed, impossible: hence an endless succession of disputes. And such disputes became increasingly complicated by the pretensions of the Pope and the emperor, each of whom asserted his right to the whole inheritance, the one as Matilda's universal legatee, and the other as the supreme head of the margraviate. Then, too, as we have seen, many considered themselves to have been unjustly deprived of their estates, in favour of others with no rightful claim. All this led to a real politico-social crisis that brought the disorder to a climax. Thereupon the emperor, Henry IV., sent a representative, bearing the title of _Marchio, Iudex, Praeses_, to assume the government of Tuscany in his name. Of course, no one could legally contest his right to do this; but the Papal opposition, the attitude of the cities now asserting their independence, and the general disorder split the margraviate into fragments. Accordingly the representatives of the Empire could only place themselves at the head of the feudal nobility of the various _contadi_ and, by gathering them together, form a Germanic party