The siege lasted for seven months. No noble deeds of valour and chivalry distinguished the German Paladin’s emprise; he accomplished his work by the slow and cruel hand of famine. Every gate was closely blockaded, and all compassionate bearers of food from outside to the starving people were almost without exception captured, and either ruthlessly scourged or maimed of the right hand. Frederick showed the besieged none of the respect due to gallant foes. He strung up his prisoners on gallows, nobles and plebeians alike, in the view of their kinsfolk and friends within, or sent them back sightless into the city. Within the walls, hunger reached such a pitch that in their madness husbands and wives, fathers and sons, turned upon one another. The hideous selfishness of bodily need disfigured the gaunt faces in the streets, while the spectacle of the mutilated wretches who had passed through the Emperor’s hands, breathed into all hearts dreadful apprehensions of their future fate. In their despair the people cried out for surrender, and at last the Consuls, aware of the inflexibility of the foe, and fearing that to resist longer was to sacrifice the entire people to the extremity of his vengeance, threw themselves upon the mercy of the Emperor, and surrendered the city at discretion (1162).
The scenes which follow paint vividly for us the tragedy of the great city’s downfall. The magnitude of the punishment which Frederick meted out to Milan invests him with a kind of sublimity. This was his opportunity to deliver a blow which should resound to the four corners of the earth, and accomplish, once for all, by the horror of its mere narration, the subjugation of the rest of rebellious Lombardy. None knew better than this mediæval monarch how to surround his revenge with all those awful aspects and illusions of terror that impress the minds of men. Day after day, processions of citizens, with bowed heads, and ropes round their necks, presented themselves before him at his command, as he sat enthroned in state in rebuilt Lodi, the Empress Beatrice at his side, his vassal kings and princes on either hand, and still the doom of the city remained unspoken. The eight Consuls—some of the noblest patricians of Milan—came, holding their naked swords in their right hands, and swore to do the will of the Conqueror. Next appeared three hundred cavaliers, and kissing the Emperor’s foot, delivered up to him the Milanese standards; while to Mastro Guitelmo, a man much revered by his fellow-citizens, was committed the bitter charge of laying the keys at his feet. Still another mark of humiliation was demanded of them, and a day or two later came the Sacred Car itself, with the banner of the Cross, and all the most venerable insignia of the Republic, to be surrendered for the completion of Milan’s shame.