ROMAGLIA, IMPERIAL DIETS OF. - A hamlet of Piacenza, on the border between this city, Lodi, and Pavia (Runcalea, from runcare), near the Lambro and Po rivers, at the crossroads of the land and river routes from Lombardy to Genoa, Lucca, Bologna, Ravenna, and a preferred location for the diets convoked by the emperors. Participants included not only the major feudal lords but also the greater and lesser valvasors, arimanni, and citizen milites.
As in the early Middle Ages, political matters concerning the stability of the Church and the kingdom were discussed here, and the supreme royal tribunal was held, along with the display of the army before the Emperor at the beginning and end of the Diet. The first assemblies of R. (confirmed by Solmi) were convoked by the archbishops of Milan: Arnolfo in 1002 and Ariberto in 1021; the first historically confirmed imperial assembly dates only to May 1055. This was followed by those of the royal vicars: Otto in 1068 and Everardo in 1075, by Henry V in 1110, by Lothair II in 1132 on the status of the Church and Empire and in 1136 on the alienation of fiefs, by Frederick I from 30 November to 5 December 1154 with the consuls of the cities, and the most solemn of all, from 11 to perhaps 28 November 1158. Another followed in April–May 1159; then came war. The Emperor Henry VI merely passed through on 7 June 1194 with his army, and from then on R. housed only Milanese troops.
At the Diet of 1158, the German side was represented by bishops, great feudal lords, and the imperial army encamped on the left bank of the Po. Feudal laws were promulgated there, and the imperial tribunal functioned. After crossing the Po on a bridge built in two days, the Emperor moved to the right bank in the Piacenza territory (in Cotrebia), where the Italian faction was encamped: the great feudal lords, the consuls and judges of the cities, the jurists Bulgaro, Martino, Jacopo, and Ugo as advisors, and the milites of Lombardy and Emilia. Here, on the 23rd, he decided the question of regalia and the peace was sworn, the concluding act of the Diet. This assembly aimed to restore to the authority of the State the public functions and rights that had been dispersed and fragmented into the hands of ecclesiastical bodies, lords, and communes (Solmi), and it also marked the first great affirmation of revived Roman law in medieval life, preventing the oppression of one party over another: the principal merit of the four doctors. When questioned by the Emperor, they replied in veritate omnia regalia iura, but refused to pronounce judgment sine consilio aliorum iudicium universarum Langobardiae civitatum ibi astantium. Two judges were elected from each city, twenty-eight in total, who, after careful examination with the four doctors, established the royal rights: roads, public roads, navigable rivers, ports, riverbanks, tolls, coinage, fines, vacant goods, goods confiscated by unworthy laws, goods of those contracting incestuous marriages and of the condemned and outlawed, provisions for angariae and parangariae, blasphemies and ships, extraordinary levies, power to appoint magistrates, silver mines and palaces, fishing revenues and salt pans, goods of those committing treason, and half of any treasure found in the Emperor’s presence. By equating the communal cities with the feudal lords—no longer reinstated in their old privileges but replaced by officials directly dependent on him—Frederick sought to hasten the decline of feudalism and begin the establishment of the State. However, the creation of imperial judges to head the cities, to collect tribute and administer justice, was immediately opposed by the Lombards, and soon their administration provoked revolts in Milan, Piacenza, Cremona, Bergamo, Brescia, Parma, Mantua, and the March of Verona against what was called the Teutonicum imperium, while feudal hierarchy and communal organization hindered the full application of Roman law to the needs of the Empire, severely limiting Frederick’s effective power. In vain were ancient terms invoked to exalt him as the sole legislator and arbiter of politics. More truthful seems the ironic saying: De tributo Caesaris nemo cogitabat. Omnes erant Caesares, nemo censum dabat. Already in May 1159, Frederick declared to Bishop Albert of Freising that he would prefer an honorable death among enemies to the ruin of the Empire: malumus honestam mortem inter hostes.