the confederacy, a new contract was written. Besides the Swiss , there were similar rural alpine communes in County of Tyrol, but these were destroyed by the House of Habsburg. Other such rural communes developed in the Graubünden, in the French Alps (Briançon), in the Pyrenees, in northern France (Roumare), in northern Germany (Frisia and Dithmarschen), and also in Sweden and Norway. The colonization of the Walser also is related. Some Southern-European medieval communes were influenced by the Italian precedent, but many northern ones (and even the Swiss communes north of Gotthard Pass) may well have developed concurrently and independently from the Italian ones. Only a few of these medieval rural communes ever attained imperial immediacy, where they would have been subject only to the king or emperor; most still remained subjects of some more or less distant liege. Evolution in Italy and decline in Europe During the 11th century in northern Italy a new political and social structure emerged. In most places where communes arose (e.g. France, Britain and Flanders), they were absorbed by monarchical states. But in northern and central Italy, some medieval communes developed into independent and powerful city-states. The breakaway from their feudal overlords by these communes occurred in the late 12th century and 13th century, during the Investiture Controversy between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. Milan led the Lombard cities against the Holy Roman Emperors and defeated them, gaining independence (battles of Legnano, 1176, and Parma, 1248). Meanwhile, the republics of Venice, Pisa and Genoa were able to conquer their naval empires on the Mediterranean sea (in 1204 Venice conquered three-eights of the Byzantine Empire in the Fourth Crusade). Cities such as Florence, Parma, Ferrara, Verona, Padua, Lucca, Siena, Mantua and others were able to create stable states at the expenses of their neighbors, some of which lasted until modern times. In southern Italy, which then was a kingdom, autonomous communes were rarer, Sassari in Sardinia being one example. In the Holy Roman Empire, the emperors always had to face struggles with other powerful players: the land princes on the one hand, but also the cities and communes on the other hand. The emperors thus invariably fought political (not always military) battles to strengthen their position and that of the imperial monarchy. In the Golden Bull of 1356, emperor Charles IV outlawed any , and , meaning in particular the leagues of towns