The Guelphs and Ghibellines

The Guelphs and the Ghibellines were the two great political parties whose conflicts make up the history of Italy and Germany from the eleventh century to the fourteenth.

Guelph is the Italian form of "Welfe," and Ghibelline of "Waiblingen;" and the origin of these words is this:--

At the battle of Weinsburg, in Swabia, in 1140, Conrad, Duke of Franconia, rallied his followers with the war-cry, "Hie Waiblingen!" and Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, rallied his with "Hie Welfe!" (the family names of the rival chiefs). The Ghibellines were the supporters of the emperor's authority in Italy; while the Guelphs were Anti-Imperialists, or supporters of the supremacy of the Pope.

In 1334 Benedict III. proscribed, under penalty of the censure of the Church, the further use of these once stirring words which had been for so long the rallying-words of a sanguinary warfare. From the fourteenth century, therefore, we hear no more of the Guelphs and Ghibellines.