THE news of the emperor's death was received with exult-
ation by the pontiff: "Let the heavens rejoice, and let the
earth be glad." With insolent triumph he wrote to the city
of Naples, declaring that he took her forthwith into his pos-
session, and that she should never again be under the control
of a temporal sovereign. He also declared the Hohenstaufen
to have forfeited their right upon Apulia and Sicily, and even
upon Swabia. The Alemannic princes made a lavish use of
the freedom from all restraint granted to them by the pope.
The Alpine nobles became equally lawless. Baso, bishop of
Sion, a papal partisan, whom William of Holland had em-
powered to confiscate the lands of the Ghibellines, counte-
nancing the tyranny exercised by Mangipan, lord of Mörill,
over the Valais peasantry, they applied for aid to Peter, earl
of Savoy, by whom he was humbled [ A. D. 1251]. In 1255,
the Ghibelline bishop, Henry of Coire, took the field against
the Rhætian dynasts, who discovered equal insolence, and de-
feated them and their allies, the Lombard Guelphs, at Enns.
The imperial cause was sustained in Upper Italy by Ezzelino,
in Lower Italy by Manfred. This prince, Enzio's rival in
talent, valour, and beauty, was a son of the emperor by
mistress Blanca Lancia, whom he afterwards married. Born
and educated in Italy, he was the idol of his countrymen, and
as prince of Tarento, was by no means a despicable antagonist
to the pope.

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