Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage: Exchange of Cultures in the 'Norman' Peripheries of Medieval Europe 140946332X, 9781409463320

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Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage

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Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage Exchange of Cultures in the ‘Norman’ Peripheries of Medieval Europe

Edited by Stefan Burkhardt Universität Heidelberg, Germany and Thomas FoersteR University of Bergen, Norway The Norwegian Institute in Rome, Italy

© Stefan Burkhardt and Thomas Foerster 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Stefan Burkhardt and Thomas Foerster have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company Wey Court East 110 Cherry Street Union Road Suite 3-1 Farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818 Surrey, GU9 7PT USA England www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage: Exchange of Cultures in the ‘Norman’ Peripheries of medieval Europe / edited by Stefan Burkhardt and Thomas Foerster. pages cm Includes index. 1. Normans – Europe – History. 2. Group identity – Europe – History. 3. Civilization, Medieval. 4. Europe – History – 476-1492. I. Burkhardt, Stefan, 1976– author, editor of compilation. II. Foerster, Thomas. D148.N66 2014 940’04395.–dc23 ISBN ISBN ISBN

2013006008

9781409463306 (hbk) 9781409463313 (ebk-PDF) 9781409463320 (ebk-ePUB)

IV

Contents Introduction: Tradition and Heritage: The Normans in the Transcultural Middle Ages   Thomas Foerster and Stefan Burkhardt 1

Between Occidental and Oriental Cultures: Norman Sicily as a ‘Third Space’?   Hubert Houben

2

Norman Traditions in Southern Italy   G. A. Loud

3

The Graeco-Byzantine Heritage in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily   Vera von Falkenhausen

4

Charters and Chancery under Roger I and Roger II   Julia Becker

5

Literary Themes and Genres in Southern Italy during the Norman Age: The Return of the Saints   Corinna Bottiglieri





The Norman Conquerors between Epos and Chanson de Geste: The Perception of Identities in Cultural Flows   Eleni Tounta

7

Sicily’s Imperial Heritage   Stefan Burkhardt

8

Imperial Tradition and Norman Heritage: Cultures of Violence and Cruelty   Thomas Foerster

6



1

19 35

57 79

97

125 149

161

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vi

9

Creators of Identities in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily   Francesco Panarelli

189

10

The Rise of the Normans as Ethnopoiesis   Sigbjørn Sønnesyn

203

11

Keeping it in the Family: Re-reading Anglo-Norman Historiography in the Face of Cultural Memory, Tradition and Heritage   Benjamin Pohl

12 13

219

Norman Topographies of Conquest: Mapping Anglo-Norman Identities onto Ireland   Amy C. Mulligan

253

Integration and Disintegration: the ‘Norse’ in Descriptions of the Early Rus   Thorir Jonsson Hraundal

279

Index  

295

Tradition and Heritage: The Normans in the Transcultural Middle Ages Thomas Foerster and Stefan Burkhardt

The ‘Norman achievement’ represents one of the most fascinating phenomena in European history. In the course of European unification the Normans are referred to as ‘a European People’.1 Originating in Scandinavian settlements in Western Francia, which were soon integrated into the structure of a ChristianEuropean order, this people expanded to various regions of medieval Europe.2 In 1066 England was conquered and, together with Normandy, formed a dominion stretching from the Scottish border almost as far as Paris and consisting of most varied territories.3 In the first half of the eleventh century, Norman pilgrims and mercenaries began to conquer and to settle in the Mezzogiorno where they subsequently seized large regions and established their own dominions which in 1130 were united to form a Norman kingdom of Sicily.4 During the First Crusade the Principality of Antioch was established as a ‘Norman’ crusader state. In England, Sicily and Antioch they formed border societies that

  See the volume I Normanni. Popolo d’Europa 1030–1200, (ed.) Mario d’Onofrio (Venice, 1994). Cf. David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement 1050–1100 (London, 1969). 1

2   François Neveux, ‘L’espansione in Europa’, in I Normanni. Popolo d’Europa 1030– 1200, (ed.) Mario d’Onofrio (Venice, 1994), pp. 98–105, here pp. 98–105. 3   Marjorie Chibnall, The Normans, The Peoples of Europe (Malden, MA, 2006); Alheydis Plassmann, Die Normannen: Erobern – Herrschen – Integrieren (Berlin, 2008). See also R. Allen Brown, The Norman Conquest of England: Sources and Documents (Woodbridge, 1995); Ann Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge, 1995). 4   Barbara M. Kreutz, Before the Normans. Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries, Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia, 1991); Matthew Bennett, ‘The Normans in the Mediterranean’, in A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, (eds) Christopher HarperBill and Elisabeth van Houts (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 87–102; Graham A. Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman conquest of southern Italy?’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 25 (1981), pp. 13–34; Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest, (Harlow, 2000); Gordon S. Brown, The Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily ( Jefferson, N.C., London, 2003).

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integrated a vast number of different cultural traditions and heritages.5 By this cultural syncretism the peripheral nature of the Norman territories gained a new quality.6 However, in all of these territories, particular Norman traditions had also been continued, and local heritage had been adopted. In political terms this mingling of different heritages and traditions bound these societies together and brought forth political units that were unlike anything medieval Europe had known before.7 In the twelfth century their political development took different paths: whereas the Kingdom of Sicily and the Principality of Antioch can be seen as classic examples of peripheral societies within the borders of a single dominion, the Duchy of Normandy and the Kingdom of England were incorporated into a wide and rather loose assemblage of different dominions of the Plantagenets which in modern scholarship was called the ‘Angevin Empire’ or ‘l’Empire Plantagenêt’. Within this ‘Empire’, the kingdom and the duchy were but two units which were influenced fundamentally by the political and cultural traditions and notions prevalent in the neighboring territories. In classical scholarship, these Norman conquests and expansions have been called the ‘Norman achievement’.8 However, this ‘Norman achievement’ seemed to be rather short-lived. In 1194 Norman Sicily was conquered by the Hohenstaufen emperor Henry VI. Normandy, having already lost much of its actual political importance in the Angevin Empire since 1154, was conquered in 5   Nikolas Jaspert, ‘Grenzen und Grenzräume im Mittelalter. Forschungen, Konzepte und Begriffe’, in Grenzräume und Grenzüberschreitungen im Vergleich. Der Osten und der Westen des mittelalterlichen Lateineuropa, (eds) Klaus Herbers and Nikolas Jaspert, Europa im Mittelalter 7, (Berlin, 2007), pp. 43–70; Furthermore see the volumes Medieval Frontier Societies, (ed.) Robert Bartlett (Oxford, 1989), and The Medieval Frontiers of Latin Christendom: Expansion, Contraction, Continuity, (ed.) James Muldoon, The Expansion of Latin Europe, 1000–1500, vol. 1, (Aldershot, 2008). 6   Joanna H. Drell, ‘Cultural Syncretism and Ethnic Identity: The Norman “Conquest” of Southern Italy and Sicily’, Journal of Medieval History 25 (1999), pp. 187–202. Cf. Annliese Nef, ‘Fortuna e sfortuna di un tema: la Sicilia multiculturale’, In Rappresentazioni e immagini della Sicilia tra storia e storiografia, (ed.) Francesco Benigno and Claudio Torrisi (Caltanissetta, 2003), pp. 149–69; Francesco Panarelli, ‘Aspekte der ethnischen Vielfalt im Mönchtum des normannischen Süditalien’, in Vita communis und ethnische Vielfalt: Multinational zusammengesetzte Klöster im Mittelalter, (ed.) Uwe Israel, Vita regularis 29 (Münster, 2006), pp. 179–204. 7   Johannes Fried, ‘Warum die Normannenherrscher für die Franken unvorstellbar waren’, in Die Macht des Königs: Herrschaft in Europa vom Frühmittelalter bis in die Neuzeit, (ed.) Bernhard Jussen (Munich, 2005), pp. 72–82; Timothy Reuter, ‘Vom Parvenu zum Bündnispartner: Das Königreich Sizilien in der abendländischen Politik des 12. Jahrhunderts’, in Die Staufer im Süden. Sizilien und das Reich, (ed.) Theo Kölzer (Sigmaringen, 1996), pp. 43–56. 8   D.C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement 1050–1100 (London 1969); Richard F. Cassady, The Norman Achievement (London, 1989).

Introduction

3

1204 by Philipp II Augustus of France. At first glance the ‘Norman achievement’ appears to have failed at the end of the twelfth century. On the other hand one could argue that the Normans in 1066 already had achieved a hegemonial position in Western Europe, that with the first crusade they had become one of the most important gentes in Europe,9 and in the person of Frederick II they even achieved the noblest title in Latin Europe.10 This achievement was not only of a political or military nature. In the last decade of this Norman rule, probably before Henry VI’s first attempted conquest in 1191, one Sicilian nobleman wrote a letter in which he expressed the gravest concerns about a conquest of Sicily. Most afraid this author was by ‘the barbarity of laws imposed by outsiders’.11 If compared to much earlier texts which have always stressed the Vikings’ and later Normans’ very own barbarity, this is quite striking. After many conquests the accusation of barbarity had been reversed. In all conquered territories a great adaptability in terms of language, culture as well as legal traditions can be detected among the Norman elites. This adaptability, the ability just to abandon one’s own traditions for the sake of integration, has been seen by many scholars as one of the most important common features of the different Norman conquests.12 What was it that qualified the Normans for such civilizing achievements (at least in their own perception)? It could be argued that it was their adaptability, the pliable character of their traditions, that caused their integrative potential. Maybe it was even the hybrid character of Norman society itself. It could furthermore be argued that the Normans were not necessarily protagonists of hybridization, but rather providing the framework for it. Perhaps the old notion of the ‘Norman   Jonathan P. Phillips, ‘The French Overseas’, in France in the Central Middle Ages, 900–1200, (ed.) Marcus Bull, The Short Oxford History of France 2 (Oxford, 2002), pp. 167–96; John France, ‘The Normans and Crusading’, in The Normans and their Adversaries at War, (ed.) Richard P. Abels and Bernard S. Bachrach, Warfare in History (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 87–101. 10   Stefan Burkhardt, ‘Anfänge der Staufer nördlich der Alpen – normannische Wurzeln im Süden’, in Die Staufer und Italien. Drei Innovationsregionen im mittelalterlichen Europa, vol. 1: Essays, (ed.) Bernd Schneidmüller, Stefan Weinfurter and Alfried Wieczorek (Stuttgart, 2010). 11   Epistola ad Petrum Panormitane ecclesie thesaurarium de calamitate Siciliae, (ed.) Gian B. Siragusa, in Fonti per la Storia d’Italia 22 (Rome, 1897), 169–86, here p. 172: omnino peregrinarum legum barbarie conturbari; transl.: The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’ 1154–69, (trans.) Graham A. Loud and Thomas Wiedemann (Manchester, 1998), pp. 252–63, here p. 254. 12   See already Charles H. Haskins, The Normans in European History (Cambridge, Mass., 1915), p. 247, and cf. R.H.C. Davis, The Normans and their Myth (London, 1976), pp. 7–17. 9

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achievement’ has to be revisited and seen more in terms of the Normans’ cultural adaptability. An extraordinary paradigm for the – not always peaceful – intermingling of distinct cultures can be seen in the ‘Norman’ Kingdom of Sicily: Greeks, Romans, Germanic peoples, Arabs, Normans, Germans, Spaniards, as well as the French alternately, and at times concurrently, ruled both island and mainland. However, recent scholarship examining these cultural processes was often restricted within the boundaries of disciplines: the adoption and adaption, the loss and the abandoning of Norman traditions and heritages were particularly examined in the history of architecture or arts,13 whereas the ‘cultural syncretism’ was at times addressed in prosopographical14 or onomastic15 studies. Classical scholarship on Norman Italy mostly focused on the transmission, continuation or modification of Arabic or Greek-Byzantine traditions.16 Particularly Italian scholars have often stressed the diversity of cultural influences and have seen the Norman rulers as ‘eclectic geniuses’ or ‘ingenious epigones’. 17 Scholars working on the Norman dominions in the West, by contrast, have been rather hesitant in examining and interpreting cultural intermingling. Whereas Anglo-Norman England has, in fact, sometimes been seen in terms of cultural syncretism, Normandy 13   See e.g. Richard Gem, ‘L’architettura religiosa’, in I Normanni. Popolo d’Europa 1030– 1200, (ed.) Mario d’Onofrio (Venice, 1994), pp. 129–135. Also cf. Lindy Grant, Architecture and Society in Normandy, 1120– 1270 (New Haven, London, 2005). 14   Cf. Panarelli, ‘Aspekte’; and Léon-Robert Ménager, ‘Additions à l’inventaire des familles normandes et franques émigrées en Italie méridionale et en Sicile’, in Ménager , Hommes et institutions de l’Italie Normande, Collected Studies 136 (London, 1981), Essay V. See also Alberto Varvaro, ‘Les Normands en Sicile aux XIe et XIIe siècles. Présence effective dans l’île des hommes d’origine normande ou gallo-romane’, Cahiers de Civilisation médiévale 23 (1980), pp. 199–213; and Drell, ‘Cultural Syncretism’. 15   Stephanie Mooers Christelow, ‘Names and Ethnicity in Anglo-Norman England’, in Studies on the Personal Name in Later Medieval England and Wales, (eds) Dave Postles and Joel T. Rosenthal, Studies in Medieval Culture 44 (Kalamazoo, 2006), pp. 341–71; Max Pfister, ‘Toponomastische Herkunftsangaben bei der Nennung von Normannen in Süditalien und England’, in Sprache, Literatur, Kultur. Studien zu ihrer Geschichte im deutschen Süden und Westen, (ed.) Albrecht Greule and Uwe Ruberg (Stuttgart, 1989), pp. 175–201. 16   Jean-Marie Martin, ‘L’attitude et le rôle des Normands dans l’Italie méridionale byzantine’, in Les Normands en Méditerranée dans le sillage des Tancrède, (ed.) Pierre Bouet and François Neveux (Caen, 1994), pp. 111–22. 17   Nef, ‘Fortuna’; Panarelli, ‘Aspekte’; Stefano Caruso, ‘Politica gregoriana, latinizzazione della religiosità bizantina in Italia meridionale, isole di resistenza greca nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia tra XI e XII secolo’, in Cristianità d’Occidente e cristianità d’Oriente (secoli VI–XI), Settimane di studio della Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo 51 (Spoleto, 2004), pp. 463–545.

Introduction

5

had rather been interpreted as hosting a hardened and stable Norman culture.18 Such essentialist readings of homogenous cultures, however, can hardly be maintained. Since Edward Said in 1978 published his influential study Orientalism19 cultural studies, particularly Anglo-American, have discussed ‘culture’ on new foundations and have proclaimed the ‘postcolonial turn’. The representatives of which (most notably Homi K. Bhabha,20 Gayatri Spivak,21 Robert J. C. Young,22 Stuart Hall23 and Iain Chambers24) in studying colonial and migration literatures abandoned essentialist interpretations of cultures and rather saw their general hybridity as the normal case. Only hesitantly has this comprehension of culture been applied to the European Middle Ages in general and to the Normans in particular. Earlier attempts to apply the postcolonial turn to medieval studies have often focused on a search for the colonial in the Middle Ages – which would enable to also find the subaltern. Such studies have been criticized for obvious anachronisms.25 However, in the Middle Ages, an era characterized by mobility and permanent transitions, homogeneity of cultures cannot be assumed. It is for that reason that the postcolonial turn had to become a challenge for medievalists. Particularly during the periods of Norman rule in different parts of medieval Europe spaces emerged in which contact and intensive interchange as well as reconfiguration of material and immaterial goods were catalyzed. These phenomena have been called ‘third spaces’ in transcultural studies.26 The Norman dominions, and the Norman Kingdom of Sicily in particular, may well be interpreted as ‘third spaces’, 18   Cassandra Potts, ‘Normandy, 911–1144’, in A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, (ed.) Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 19–42. Daniel Power, The Norman Frontier in the Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Centuries, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series, (Cambridge, 2004). 19   Edward Said, Orientalism (New York, 1979). 20   Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London, 1994); Bhabha, ‘DissemiNation: Time, Narrative and the Margins of the Modern Nation’, in Nation and Narration, (ed.) Homi K. Bhabha (London, New York, 1990), pp. 291–322. 21   Gayatri Spivak, The Post-Colonial Critic. Interviews, Strategies, Dialogues (New York, 1990). 22   Robert J. C. Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction (Oxford, 2004); Young, Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race (London, 1995). 23   Stuart Hall, ‘New Ethnicities’, in Race, Culture and Difference, (eds) James Donald and Ali Rattansi (London, 1992), pp. 252–59. 24   Iain Chambers, Migrancy, Culture, Identity (London, New York, 1994). 25   For a conspectus see Bruce Holsinger, ‘Medieval Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and the Genealogies of Critique’, Speculum (2002), pp. 1195–1227. 26   Gayatri Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, (ed.) Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (New York, 1993), pp. 66–111.

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even though such assertions have to be particularized. But still, the postulation of general cultural hybridity resulted from scholars in social sciences working on twentieth century structures and developments.27 Nevertheless, it has to be stressed that suchlike notions can claim importance not only for current situations. It has been underlined that ‘postcolonialism’ is often misunderstood as a temporal concept: “A theory of postcolonialism must, then, respond to more than the merely chronological construction of post-independence, and to more than just the discursive experience of imperialism’.28 In summary, the concepts of ‘transcultural studies’, if thought through to the end, imply a basic and rather general hybridity of cultures.29 Obviously, there are evident problems in such an assumption. An extreme position stated that it is not possible to define or draw a clear dividing line between certain cultures or between single elements at all; there only seems to be the more or less chaotic recombination of still recombined elements.30 One could ask whether or not such readings of general ‘cultural flows’31 have already been foreseen by Heraclitus with his assumption panta rhei. However, the general assumption of transculturality or cultural hybridity seems to ignore many quite important factors: firstly the one of intention and creative innovation. We can not assume that every cultural novelty was heavily based on older patterns or cultural models. Quite often such patterns were also combined, merged, or torn to pieces to form new patterns. A second, and more important, factor is the temporal one of change and stability: many institutions and traditions have been stable over long periods. It is the medievalist’s privilege to study cultural processes á la longue and to detect suchlike periods of transition and periods of stability. Whereas transcultural studies might quote Heraclitus, medievalists could find their response in Ovid: omnia mutantur, nihil interit. In this respect the two terms mentioned several times already and also in this publication’s title have proven to be very useful: tradition and heritage.   Fusion of Cultures?, (eds) Peter O. Stummer and Christopher Balme, ASNEL Papers 2; Cross/Cultures. Readings in the Post/Colonial Literatures in English 26 (Amsterdam, 1996). 28   Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins, Post-Colonial Drama: Theory, Practice, Politics (London, 1996). See also Stuart Hall, ‘When was “the post-colonial”? Thinking at the Limit’, in The Post-Colonial Question: Common Skies, Divided Horizons, (ed.) Iain Chambers and Lidia Curti (London, 1996), pp. 242–60. 29   Wolfgang Welsch, ‘Transculturality – the Puzzling Form of Cultures Today’, in Spaces of Culture. City, Nation, World, (ed.) Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash (London, 1999), pp. 194–213. 30   For a conspectus see Peter Burke, Cultural Hybridity (Cambridge, Malden, 2009). 31   For this concept see Arjun Appadurai, ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’, Theory, Culture and Society 7 (1990), pp. 295–310. 27

Introduction

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These terms need some more explicit definition. Tradition in this framework is understood as the implicit or explicit constructed memory of a social group which is activated to integrate the members and hold up a certain identity: customs, ideals, laws, language, and common experiences. It is formed and both constantly and consciously shaped and reshaped.32 Heritage on the contrary is to some extent – besides other elements – accumulated, sedimentary tradition, not explicitly constructed, but not easily changeable either, with unconscious effects.33 It is comprised of sedimentary cultural expressions with regional limits. This heritage (or memory) has also often been quite persistent. It is the mingling of traditions and local heritages that brought forth new structures in the societies of the Norman Conquest. It could be said that heritage is the sedimentary result of ‘cultural flows’, and tradition is its intentional shaping and re-shaping. Maybe these traits could be the anchors in the general flow of cultural hybridity, where everything would just flow apart. However, ‘tradition’ and ‘heritage’ as ‘anchors’ in ‘cultural flows’ may not be enough. Scholarship often speaks of Arab, Greek or African influences, but when such terms are applied, the same cultural flows and differences or processes of hybridization in these cultural areas should be expected. No one will deny that culture is constantly in a state of flux and is rediscussed permanently. Perhaps the general assumption of cultural hybridity on the other hand goes way too far, maybe definitions of cultural areas are necessary. Many years ago Arnold Esch compared periodizations to longitudes and latitudes on a map. Invisible on the earth (as were new periods to the contemporary viewer) they still help the geographer and the historian in his work.34 Since culture also dissolves in cultural flows, we could understand ‘cultural areas’ in similar terms. Maybe these cultural areas are also not visible to the contemporaries (and probably not comprehendible either), but help us 32   See Carla Meyer and Christoph Dartmann, ‘Einleitung’, in Identität und Krise? Zur Deutung vormoderner Selbst-, Welt- und Fremderfahrungen, (ed.) Carla Meyer and Christoph Dartmann, Symbolische Kommunikation und gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme 17 (Münster, 2008), pp. 9–22. See generally Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (fourth edn, Munich, 1992). 33   A clear definition of this term as well as a clear distinction between tradition and heritage is a desideratum. According to the UNESCO, cultural heritage encompasses several main categories: firstly; tangible cultural heritage (movable cultural heritage such as sculptures, coins, manuscripts and immovable cultural heritage like buildings); secondly, intangible cultural heritage, for example, performing arts and rituals; thirdly, and apart from this narrow definition of cultural heritage, there is natural heritage, for instance landscapes, physical, biological or geological formations. 34   Arnold Esch, ‘Zeitalter und Menschenalter: Die Perspektiven historischer

Periodisierung’, Historische Zeitschrift 239 (1984), pp. 309–51.

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grasp different processes of cultural flows. As for the centuries, cultural areas are rather joined together than separated by contact zones. So perhaps we need to define such cultural areas. Unlike geographical grid, however, these cultural areas were undoubtedly visible to the medieval contemporaries.35 In medieval texts they are also endowed with characteristic features and differences. Medieval historiographers certainly found and made identities for these areas. ‘Norman’ is one of these identities. These questions were asked in an international conference held in Heidelberg 2010 (organized by the NCHS at the University of Bergen), where – on the example of the ‘Norman’ peripheries in medieval Europe – readings from transcultural studies have been tested for their applicability to the Middle Ages. Scholars from England, Italy, Germany, Norway and Greece discussed various aspects of cultural hybridity in England, Normandy and Norman Italy. The latter, as mentioned before, is a pre-eminent example of cultural intermingling in the Middle Ages and is therefore at the center of most contributions to this volume. It is also at the center of the two most fundamental questions in this volume: Norman tradition and transcultural heritage was studied by two of the most renowned specialists on Norman Italy in the first two essays. Hubert Houben (Lecce) addresses the Norman kingdom between the cultures and asks the question if it could be seen as a ‘third space’. He emphasizes that an answer to this question could only be given for certain areas or groups, like the court. At court the various Mediterranean cultures met and gave rise to cultural hybridity. It was this transcultural heritage the first Norman settlers encountered in the South, and they enriched it with their own Norman traditions. How much of this ‘Norman tradition’ the conquerors and settlers brought to Sicily, and maintained, is asked by Graham A. Loud (Leeds). Many of these traditions were soon abandoned, others continued, but heavily influenced by local heritage. These approaches show the importance of studying ‘tradition’ and ‘heritage’. It was only in abandoning their Norman-ness and merging their traditions with the local heritage that the Normans – or rather the Hauteville – created one of the most important kingdoms of medieval Europe. The interplay of transcultural heritage and Norman tradition is the subject of the following case studies. The trilingual and transcultural society of Norman Sicily has been the subject of numerous studies before.36 Most recently it was   For a methodological framework developed in anthropology see Fredrik Barth, ‘Introduction’, in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of Culture Difference, (ed.) Fredrik Barth, (Bergen, Oslo, London, 1969), pp. 9–38, here p. 15–16. 36   Most recently cf. e.g. David Abulafia, ‘The Italian Other: Greeks, Muslims, and Jews’, in Italy in the Central Middle Ages, 1000–1300, (ed.) David Abulafia, The Short Oxford History of Italy (Oxford, 2004), pp. 215–36, 267–69. 35

Introduction

9

prominently the Arabic communities in Sicily that received scholarly attention.37 Greek cultures and language in Norman Italy have been less in focus during the last years. Whereas some institutions and features of political culture in the regno had been inspired by or taken over from the Fatimid Caliphate,38 the Norman-Byzantine relations and the Hauteville emulation of Byzantine court culture is still of major importance.39 For that reason the Greek communities in Southern Italy are studied by Vera von Falkenhausen (Rome). At the onset of the Norman kingdom Greek administrative experience and skills were pivotal for the Hauteville, whereas after 1204 this importance ceased. A preeminent example of this trilingual society and particularly administration is the royal chancery – with its three groups of notaries and scribes depicted in Peter of Eboli’s Liber ad honorem Augusti.40 The charters and chancery of Roger I and Roger II are studied by Julia Becker (Rome/Heidelberg). She illustrates how some Norman traditions were maintained by the Norman chancery, but that it early on included Arab and Greek expertise; even though, as both Becker and von Falkenhausen point out, the twelfth century witnessed a massive Latinization of the kingdom. The linguistic interplay of tradition and heritage, therefore, took a different path. Stefan Burkhardt (Heidelberg), on the other hand, describes the various layers of political heritage versus the imported Norman tradition and explains the imperial habits of the Norman kings from the local, sedimentary cultures of imperial memory which the Hauteville had reactivated. Therefore, Sicily had been predestined to become part of an imperial order. In politics, too, the Normans had adapted and from their Norman tradition and the local imperial heritage a new cultural form was created, which sedimented as a new layer of   Jeremy Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Dīwān (Cambridge 2002). Cf. Johns, ‘Arabic Sources for Sicily’, Proceedings of the British Academy 132 (2007), pp. 341–60. Alex Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy (Edinburgh, 2009). See also Metcalfe, ‘The Muslims of Sicily under Christian rule’, in The Society of Norman Italy, (ed.) Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe, The Medieval Mediterranean: Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400–1500, 38 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 289–317. 38   Jeremy Johns, ‘The Norman Kings of Sicily and the Fatimid Caliphate’, in AngloNorman Studies 15, (ed.) Marjorie Chibnall (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 133–59. 39   Léon-Robert Ménager, ‘L’institution monarchique dans les États normands d’Italie: Contribution à l’étude du pouvoir royal des les principautés occidentales, aux XIe–XIIe siècles’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 2 (1959), pp. 303–31, 445–68. Also cf. Helene Wieruszowski, ‘Roger II of Sicily, Rex-Tyrannus in Twelfth-Century Political Thought’, Speculum 38 (1963), pp. 46–78, here p. 50 with n. 22. 40   Peter of Eboli, Liber ad honorem Augusti sive de rebus Siculis. Codex 120 II der Burgerbibliothek Bern. Eine Bilderchronik der Stauferzeit, (ed.) Theo Kölzer and Marlis Stähli (Sigmaringen, 1994), illustrations, fol. 101r. 37

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heritage. When at the end of the twelfth century the Norman kingdom was, indeed, conquered by an empire, that of the Hohenstaufen, it was the imperial heritage from the South which the German emperor took over. This process is analyzed by Thomas Foerster (Bergen/Rome), particularly on examples of violence and cruelty in political culture. Similar processes of cultural intermingling and sedimentation of new heritages can also be observed in literary culture. Corinna Bottiglieri (Rome/Erlangen) shows how the Norman lords stepped into the local heritage of saints, both in terms of their translationes as well as in textual tradition. Eleni Tounta (Thessaloniki) analyzes Norman historiography of southern Italy according to the genre traditions of epos and chansons de geste. Both essays illustrate again the diversity found in the interplay of tradition and heritage: whereas in hagiography the local heritage became predominant, in historiography Norman traditions prevailed; in both cases, however, not in their pure forms and as the results of creative innovation. After these various case studies Francesco Panarelli (Potenza) examines the general aspects of the hybrid Norman society and critically questions the role these conquering Norman noblemen actually played in these processes of hybridization. It was not so much the Norman adaptability itself which led to these processes but rather the framework conditions they created. These studies explore various aspects of cultural intermingling in Norman Sicily as the main example of this volume. Therein, approaches from transcultural studies have proven very helpful, especially when combined with the refining concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘heritage’. However, the ‘postcolonial turn’ had major impact on the understanding of identities. Ideas like ‘nation’ are in this respect read as constructions that, since the age of enlightenment, replaced earlier metaphysical modes of self-identification, which in a teleological understanding of their history designed the idea of culturally homogenous community. In the dynastic societies of the Middle Ages self-reference was externalized in religious terms. Secularization, however, had made such models obsolete. The transcultural interpretation also resulted in identities no longer being understood in cultural terms or as an essentialist concept.41 Notions of homogenous, allochthonous national cultures were abandoned and nations

41   Elisabeth Bronfen and Benjamin Marius, ‘Hybride Kulturen. Einleitung zur anglo-amerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte’, in Hybride Kulturen. Beiträge zur angloamerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte, (ed.) Elisabeth Bronfen, Benjamin Marius and Therese Steffen, Stauffenburg Discussion 4 (Tübingen, 1997), pp. 1–29, here p. 17.

Introduction

11

turned into ‘imagined communities’42 or discursive constructions. In Homi K. Bhabha’s reading, ‘nation’ equals ‘narration’.43 This, applied to the Middle Ages, must also have massive impact on our understanding of Norman ethnicity and identity. Against this backdrop also the notion of the gens Normannica and the much-discussed ‘Norman myth’ has to be re-evaluated. In all areas of Norman rule we find, of course, constant re-definitions and re-identifications. Replacing essentialist readings of culture and therefore also applying constructivist ones is certainly a very useful and appropriate approach. However, it should be added that ethnicity and identity can be both made and found. The mere assumption of Benedict Anderson’s ‘imagined communities’ might not be enough. The terms ‘tradition’ and ‘heritage’, in this respect, can therefore also be applied to ethnicity and identity. One could identify made ethnicities as tradition, and found ethnicities as heritage. In historical research it was especially English and French scholars who have examined the notion of a common Norman identity in the distinct Norman dominions.44 Anglophone scholarship attaches continuing importance to the ‘Norman myth’.45 Hence a vast number of basic contributions addressing the high medieval Mezzogiorno are penned by Anglophone authors.46 It has been assumed that the ‘Norman myth’ had ceased to exist during the crusades47 and can no longer be traced after 1150. 48 Most scholars have focused on traces of common Norman identity in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries.49 In that time it was particularly the Anglo-Norman historian Orderic Vitalis who 42   Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the origin and Spread of Nationalism (seventh edn, London, 1996). 43   Homi K. Bhabha, ‘Introduction: Narrating the Nation’, in Nation and Narration, (ed.) Homi K. Bhabha (London, New York, 1990), pp. 1–7. 44   Cf. e.g. Pierre Aube, Les empires normands d’Orient, XIe–XIIIe siècle (Paris, 1991). 45  Davis, The Normans and their Myth; Emily Albu, The Normans in their Histories: Propaganda, Myth and Subversion (Woodbrigde, 2001); Ewan Johnson, ‘Normandy and Norman Identity in Southern Italian Chronicles’, in Anglo-Norman Studies 27, (ed.) John Gillingham (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 85–100; also cf. Nick Webber, The Evolution of Norman Identity, 911–1154 (Woodbridge 2005). 46   Donald Matthew, The Norman Kingdom of Sicily (Cambridge, 1992); Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest’; Loud, ‘Norman Sicily in the Twelfth Century’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. IV: c. 1024–c. 1198, Part II, (ed.) David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 442–74. 47   France, ‘The Normans and Crusading’. 48   See Chibnall, The Normans; and Plassmann, Die Normannen. 49   See e.g. Haskins, The Normans; Jean Revel, L’Histoire des Normands, 2 vols. (Paris, 1918–19); David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement; Douglas, The Norman Fate 1100–1154 (London, 1976); Trevor Rowley, The Normans (Stroud 1999); Albu, The Normans; cf. Webber,

12

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had written a history of all Normans. In a recent study John France argued that the First Crusade was the last impulse of Norman expansion and that in the twelfth century a common Norman identity was absorbed by major kingdoms: ‘In this sense Ordericus is not the chronicler of the Normans, but their memorialist’.50 While earlier scholars like R. H. C. Davis question the older position51 of an existent Norman people, Graham Loud stressed again that the Normans were much more than a myth, and that their myth of a gens Normannorum was not only created by Orderic: ‘There was a Norman myth. It was a myth of the Normans being a distinct people with their own character’.52 According to Loud this myth can still be found in the thirteenth century. Based on these foundations Sigbjørn Sønnesyn (Bergen/Copenhagen) revisits modern readings of ethnogenesis and argues that peoples do not simply come into existence. Peoples were made by their central actors, or their notions were found and perpetuated by the writers. Ethnopoiesis is, therefore, a much more fitting term. If identities, or more precisely: ethnicities are made in a process of ethnopoiesis, they are consciously shaped, re-shaped or perpetuated; they become part of tradition, if they are found they are heritage. Ethnopoiesis is, then, another result of merged tradition and heritage. How much such identities are conveyed almost through sexual imagery is shown by Benjamin Pohl (Bamberg). Identities and their construction, as Pohl shows on several examples of Anglo-Norman historical texts, one might also say ethnopoiesis, was a vivid process in England and Normandy. Such constructs could be based on various foundations. In Normandy itself ties with Scandinavia remained strong until the eleventh century, providing the Normans with origin myths.53 This distinct origin influenced the constructions of Norman identity, even though politically it might not have been possible to distinguish between Norman lords and those in neighboring regions, in areas with weakened The Evolution; see also: The Normans in Europe, (ed. and trans.) Elisabeth van Houts, Manchester Medieval Sources Series (Manchester, New York, 2000) and Loud, ‘Norman Sicily’. 50   France, ‘The Normans and Crusading’, p. 101. 51  Davis, The Normans; Haskins, The Normans; Evelyn Jamison, ‘The Sicilian Norman Kingdom in the Mind of Anglo-Norman Contemporaries’, Proceedings of the British Academy 24 (1939), pp. 237–85; Douglas, The Norman Achievement; Douglas, The Norman Fate. 52   Graham A. Loud, ‘The “gens normannorum” – Myth or Reality?’, in Anglo-Norman Studies 4, (ed.) R. Allen Brown (Woodbridge, 1982), pp. 104–116, 204–9, here p. 116. 53   See e.g. Lesley Abrams, ‘England, Normandy and Scandinavia’, in A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, (ed.) Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 43–62 and also Lauren Wood Breese, ‘The Persistence of Scandinavian Connections in Normandy in the Tenth and Early Eleventh Centuries’, Viator 8 (1977), pp. 47–61. Furthermore cf. the various studies by Lucien Musset, collected in: Lucien Musset, Nordica et Normannica: Recueil d’études sur la Scandinavie ancienne et médiévale, les expéditions des Vikings at la fondation de la Normandie (Paris, 1997).

Introduction

13

monarchical power. In these terms the Normans were well-integrated in the Frankish realm.54 What set them apart, however, was their expansive force, which in medieval literature and historiography was seen as inherent in their character.55 The Normans in Sicily soon abandoned their Scandinavian myths and replaced them with an origin from Normandy. But a bit later Rollo became replaced by Roger as ‘founding father’. In England the bonds to Normandy remained somewhat stronger, but the kingdom soon became a lot more important than the duchy. William of Malmesbury’s famous anecdote of the conjoined twins, one of them dead but carried around by the other, stronger one, illustrates this correlation.56 Scholars have explained this impairment and the subsequent collapse of the Anglo-Norman realm by the Normans losing their expansive and colonizing forces.57 These developments occurred at the exact same time when the Normans both in England and Sicily discarded their Norman traditions or merged them with local heritage. They also occurred at the exact same time when Orderic constructed an identity of all Normans. Even though he might write against reality, he still is not the Normans’ memorialist, but their ethnopoietes. Taking the aforementioned transcultural foundations into account, one should perhaps speak of various different Normannitates, rather that one single Normannitas. Such notions are most evident in Normandy itself. Ethnopoiesis and the construction of Normannitates occurred predominantly in the duchy; most notably in the works of Dudo of Saint-Quentin, William of Jumièges or Orderic. Obviously, also in Normandy such identities were not constructed without being influenced by cultural hybridizations. As early as 1982 David Bates has argued that the duchy’s history before 1066 and the ‘Norman achievement’ cannot be understood without placing it in the interplay of cultural and social change in Northern France and Europe as a whole.58 Since then a great number of scholars have addressed processes of cultural 54   Cf. Pierre Bauduin, ‘Chefs normands et élites franques, fin IXe – début Xe siècle’, in Les Fondations scandinaves en Occident et les débuts du duché de Normandie, (ed.) Pierre Bauduin (Caen, 2005), pp. 181–94. 55   John R.E. Bliese, ‘The Courage of the Normans: A Comparative Study of Battle Rhetoric’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 35 (1991), pp. 1–26. 56   William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, The History of the English Kings, vol. 1, (ed.) and R.A.B. Mynors, Rodney Thomson and Michael Winterbottom, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1998), pp. 384–86. On this relationship in administrative terms see: Green, The Government, here pp. 48–50; and Green, ‘Unity and Disunity in the AngloNorman State’, Historical Research 62 (1989), pp. 115–34. 57   David Bates, ‘Normandy and England after 1066’, English Historical Review 104 (1989), pp. 851–80, here p. 875. Bates argues namely against earlier dynastic explanation, namely by Le Patourel. 58   David Bates, Normandy before 1066 (London, New York, 1982), pp. 236–251. Also cf. Bates, ‘William the Conqueror and his Wider Western European World’, Haskins Society Journal 15 (2006), pp. 73–87.

Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage

14

interchange in Normandy. The duchy not only bridged England and France, it was also at the center of European intellectual networks and continued to attract scholars from Northern Europe throughout the twelfth century. This does not necessarily indicate permanent knowledge of common origins, but might more easily be explained by an increase in pilgrimages.59 Moreover, the city of Rouen was, in particular, a centre of Jewish culture in Western Europe.60 In this hybrid society, also in Normandy itself, the ‘Normans’ were an imagined community. The chroniclers attempted to construct an antiquarian ‘Norman’ culture in Normandy, a culture of bravery and conquest which later generations took to the edges of Europe where they would continue their Norman-ness. When looking at these conquerors themselves, a different image emerges. What they brought to England and Sicily were not these Normannitates, but various aspects of Norman traditions – which were Norman because they came from Normandy, not because they were particularly warlike. They brought Norman names, customs, laws and the French language. Their Normannitas was not very persistent. One early thirteenth century chronicle from Sicily reported that in 1197 Henry VI had threatened to kill Empress Constance. This chronicler notes: ‘When the Sicilians learned of this, Latins, Greeks as well as Saracens, they all revolted against the Emperor’ (Siculi, tam latini quam greci et sarracani ).61 Here it is rather the territorial unit that is used as a basis for their unity. The land (and probably also its borders) had been a very important basis for the construction of identities after those based on origin had been abandoned. Most likely the notion of conquest plays an important role here: it is the land that was gained from the people’s own strength. Similar developments can be observed in England, even though politically William the Conqueror could step into the heritage of the sophisticated AngloSaxon kingship, whereas in Sicily the kingdom was an entirely new foundation. Still, such territorial ideas of identity emerge in England even earlier than in Sicily – and had been a foundation of identities in Normandy for a long time.62 In England Henry   Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘The Anchin Manuscript of Passio Olaui (Douai 295), William of Jumièges, and Theodoricus Monachus: New Evidence for Intellectual Relations Between Norway and France in the 12th Century’, Symbolae Osloenses 75 (2000), pp. 165–89. 60   Norman Golb, The Jews in Medieval Normandy: A Social and Intellectual History (Cambridge, 1998). 61   Chronica ignoti monachi S. Mariae de Ferraria, in Ignoti monachi S. Mariae de Ferraria Chronica et Ryccardi de sancto Germano Chronica Priora, (ed.) Augusto Gaudenzi, Monumenti Storici 1/1 (Naples, 1888), 11–39, ad a. 1197: Quod audientes Siculi, tam latini quam greci et sarracani, rebellati sunt omnes contra imperatorem. 62   For such a geographical reading of memory and identity in Normandy see Pierre Bauduin, La première Normandie, Xe–XIe: sur les frontières de la Haute-Normandie, identité et construction d’une principauté (second edn, Caen, Mont-Saint-Aignan, 2004). Also cf. Power, The Norman Frontier. 59

Introduction

15

of Huntingdon structured his Historia Anglorum not according to the history of the English, but of the island of Britain. Angli was soon used to denote both Normans (who before called themselves Franci rather than Normanni) and Saxons in England. As they did in Sicily, the Normans in England soon abandoned Norman names, and stepped into the English heritage. This is not to say there were no conflicts between the different groups – or at least an ethnic discourse,63 but in the course of the twelfth century the insular Normans identified with the English heritage rather than with the ‘Norman’ tradition.64 These developments were not least based on intermarriage.65 Modern scholarship has often studied these syncretisms in Anglo-Norman England, e.g. in terms of language,66 law67 or feudal structures68 – quite often 63   Hugh M. Thomas, ‘The Gesta Herwardi, the English and their conquerors’, in AngloNorman Studies 21, (ed.) Christopher Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, 1999), pp. 212–32. 64   Ian Short, ‘Tam Angli quam Franci: Self-Definition in Anglo-Norman England’, in Anglo-Norman Studies 18, (ed.) Christopher Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, 1996), pp. 153–75, see particularly pp. 166–68. 65   Elisabeth van Houts, ‘Intermarriage in Eleventh-Century England’, in Normandy and its Neighbours, 900 – 1250: Essays for David Bates, (ed.) David Crouch and Kathleen Thompson (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 237–70. 66   The Anglo-Norman language might have influenced English, but was confined to a very small elite, cf. Ian Short, ‘On Bilingualism in Anglo-Norman England’, Romance Philology 33 (1980), pp. 467–79. On these elites see also Katharine Keats-Rohan, ‘Le rôle des élites dans la colonisation de l’Angleterre (vers 1066–1135)’, in La Normandie et l’Angleterre au Moyen Age. Colloque de Cerisy-la (4–7 octobre 2001). Actes, (eds) Pierre Bouet and Véronique Gazeau (Caen, 2003) pp. 39–60. Generally on transcultural issues in relation to language see also Elisabeth van Houts, ‘Latin and French as languages of the past in Normandy during the reign of Henry II: Robert of Torigni, Stephen of Rouen and Wace’, in Writers of the Reign of Henry II: Twelve Essays, (ed.) Ruth Kennedy and Simon Meecham-Jones, The New Middle Ages (Basingstoke, 2006), pp. 53–77; and particularly Ian Short, ‘Language and Literature’, in A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (Woodbridge, 2003), pp. 191–213; and Short, ‘Literary culture at the court of Henry II’, in Henry II: New Interpretations, (ed.) Christopher Harper-Bill and Nicholas Vincent (Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 335–61. On the literature see also the works of Elisabeth van Houts, collected in: E.M.C. van Houts, History and Family Traditions in England and the Continent, 1000–1200 (Aldershot, 1999). 67   Bruce O’Brien stresses the continued influence for Anglo-Saxon Law in Norman England (the Angevin leap forward is recently being rejected by some scholars who see continual developments across 1066 and 1154); cf. Bruce O’Brien, God’s peace and king’s peace: The laws of Edward the Confessor (Philadelphia, 1999); and (on early legal literacy) O’Brien, ‘Forgery and the Literacy of the Early Common Law’, Albion 27 (1995), pp. 1–18. On legal issues see also John Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship in Anglo-Norman England (Oxford, 1994). 68   David Bates, ‘England and the “Feudal Revolution”’, Il Feudalesimo nell’Alto

Medioevo: Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo 47 (2000),

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finding not only imposed Norman-French features, but also continuity of Anglo-Saxon heritage. The radical change in power structures69 did not extend to other areas of culture. This laid the foundations for the Normans – the Franci – becoming Angli. This self-identification was particularly directed against the Norman cousins on the continent70 and contributed to the strong centrifugal forces in the Anglo-Norman realm.71 These were not only active between England and Normandy, also the different regions in England formed strong regional cultures and identities. Northern England was ‘Normanized’ in different ways, but in administrative practice it was still subject to the same politics as was Normandy or Wales.72 Norman tradition and English heritage was soon merged into new cultural forms. As in Sicily, these forms in England were very stable. As Angli the ‘Normans’ in England developed new expansive forces, again as their distant relations in Sicily. The ‘Normans’ in the South were a driving force of the first crusade (which resulted in the Principality of Antioch) and their kings conquered strategic posts in the Mediterranean, like Malta, parts of the North pp. 611–49, here p. 625, argues for a slow evolutionary, not a revolutionay process. Most recently cf. David Crouch, The English Aristocracy, 1070–1272: A Social Transformation (Yale, 2011).

69   With regard to native English landholdings, for example, a number of scholars have shown some continuity, cf. e.g. Ann Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge, 1995); and Katherine S. B. Keats-Rohan, Domesday People: A Prosopography of Persons Occurring in English Documents, 2 vols. (Woodbridge, 1999–2002), but more recent studies indicate that William the Conqueror permanently broke the power of the native English aristocracy – Hugh M. Thomas, ‘The Significance and Fate of the Native English Landholders of 1086’, English Historical Review 118 (2003), pp. 303–33. Cf. also Keats-Rohan, ‘Le rôle des élites’. 70  Short, Tam Angli quam Franci, pp. 155–56 and 163–65. On cultural differences between England and Normandy and on some problems of research in this regard cf. David Bates, ‘Introduction: La Normandie et l’Angleterre de 900 à 1204’, in La Normandie et l’Angleterre au Moyen Age, (eds) Pierre Bouet and Véronique Gazeau (Caen, 2003), pp. 9–20. 71   Green, ‘Unity and Disunity’. 72   Judith Green, ‘King Henry I and Northern England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, ser. 6, 17 (2007), pp. 35–55. Native landholders might have been more and stronger in the North; Green (2007), p. 42. Furthermore loyalties to the king of Scotland influenced the picture cf. Green, ‘Aristocratic Loyalties on the Northern Frontier of England, c. 1100–1174’, in England in the Twelfth Century, (ed.) Daniel Williams (Woodbridge, 1990), pp. 83–100; generally cf. Green, The aristocracy of Norman England, (Cambridge, 1997), here pp. 100–125. For other areas see Green, ‘King Henry I and the Aristocracy of Normandy’, in La “France anglaise” au Moyen Age (Paris, 1988), pp. 161–73; generally see Green, The Government of England under Henry I (Cambridge, 1986); and Green, Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy (Cambridge, 2006).

Introduction

17

African coast and parts of the Byzantine Empire.73 The English shifted their attention towards Scotland, Wales and Ireland. They had formed a new cultural tradition in England which they brought to these conquered areas, where they again were merged with local heritage,74 and where, yet again, new identities were constructed.75 But whereas the Welsh could construe their identity in opposition to new Anglo-Norman identities, these could be based on the conquests themselves; and, one might add, if one fails to conquer a land, it is at least conquered in texts. Amy C. Mulligan (Bergen) illustrates this notion in two works by Gerald of Wales. He wrote a Norman Ireland into being; even for others such identities can be construed. ‘The Normans’ are an ‘imagined community’ as any other ethnic group. In the light of these results the term ‘Norman’ is problematic, at the very least. One might summarize some of the results in this volume that the less the people in question identified themselves as ‘Norman’ the more aggressive definitions or constructions of Normannitates became. This problem is not only encountered in our medieval texts, but even more so in the modern use of the term. The problem becomes particularly evident when looking at other settlements of Scandinavians who had not gone through the cultural filter of Normandy and Northern France before they conquered other areas. The Kievan Rus had for decades been the subject of what was called the ‘Normanist debate’76 – which in Russia since the eighteenth century and also in the Soviet Union had enormous political impact. In the last essay of this volume Thorir Jonsson Hraundal (Bergen/Reykjavik) applies the theoretical framework established here to funeral rites documented in Arabic sources about the Rus, here illustrating the difficulties that often occur in identifying any given tradition as belonging to a particular cultural area – in this case as Norman or Scandinavian. 73   Charles D. Stanton, Norman Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, Warfare in History (Woodbridge, 2011). 74   On these processes in Wales cf. Huw Pryce, ‘Welsh Rulers and European Change, c.1100–1282’, in Power and Identity in the Middle Ages, (ed.) Huw Pryce and John Watts (Oxford, 2007), pp. 37–51; and (on historiography) Pryce, ‘The Normans in Welsh History’, in Anglo-Norman Studies 30, (ed.) C.P. Lewis (Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 1–18. On the example of legal tradition and heritage see Pryce, Native Law and the Church in Medieval Wales (Oxford, 1993). 75   Huw Pryce, ‘British or Welsh? National Identity in Twelfth-Century Wales’, English Historical Review 116 (2001), pp. 775–801. 76   Cf. Gleb Sergeevich Lebedev, ‘A Reassessment of the Normanist Question’, Russian History / Histoire Russe 32 (2005) pp. 371–85; and I. P. Sashkolskii, ‘Recent developments in the Normanist controversy’, in Varangian Problems: Report on the First International Symposium on the Theme ‘The Eastern Connections of the Nordic Peoples in the Viking Period and Early Middle Ages’, Scando-Slavica, Supplementum, 1 (Copenhagen, 1970), pp. 21–38.

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What remains of ‘Norman’ traditions? In most cases, they were soon abandoned. In the two kingdoms the Normans conquered, when their traditions met with local heritage, they forged new traditions. Striking for both England and Sicily is the expansionist force they developed on the British Isles and in most of the Mediterranean after having merged their traditions with the local heritage to form a new and often surprisingly consistent tradition. However, in the ‘Norman’ Kingdom of Sicily it was especially in the twelfth century that a massive Latinization pushed back Greek influences and traditions. It could be argued that this also was an attempt to revert hybridizations. Interestingly, this transition occurred more or less during the same time in which the Normans in Sicily also lost Norman traditions and in particular abandoned their Norman name, their ethnic identification – their Norman ethnicity. Perhaps a certain ethnicity, like that of the Normans, was only really useful as long as the society was really hybrid. Perhaps a culturally hybrid society actually leads to a much stronger identification with ethnic terms based on origin. Perhaps both ethnicity and identity need alterity. In the aforementioned new understanding of the ‘Norman achievement’ the Normans had soon lost their Norman-ness. Norman identities and traditions were lost and abandoned. Local heritage was found and taken over. Mingling of tradition and heritage formed new societies and new identities. The Normans, Europe’s pliable invaders, soon were not Normans any more.

Chapter 1

Between Occidental and Oriental Cultures: Norman Sicily as a ‘Third Space’? Hubert Houben

The Kingdom of Sicily, founded in 1130 by Roger II, the son of a Norman immigrant, Roger I of Hauteville, included the island of Sicily as well as the entire southern portion of the Italian peninsula and was a multiethnic and multicultural state. The ruling class of ‘Norman’ origin comprised immigrants from other Latin regions who had quickly married into and culturally melded with the southern nobility of Lombard origin.1 These ‘Normans’ found themselves faced with a mixed population: in Sicily, mainly composed of Arabicspeaking Muslims, with a minority of Greek-Orthodox Christians who spoke Greek; in Calabria and the southern parts of Apulia and Basilicata, however, the Greeks were in the majority. It was only in the northern parts of the kingdom that most of the population shared a Latin culture and religious rites. Moreover, in many towns in the South sizeable Jewish communities were present.2 Roger II took this situation into account and in his legislation he respected the customs of the various ethnic groups, in consideration of the ‘variety of different people’ subject to his rule (pro varietate populorum nostro regno subiectorum).3   Cf. Joanna H. Drell, ‘Cultural syncretism and ethnic identity: The Norman “conquest” of Southern Italy and Sicily’, Journal of Medieval History, 25 (1999): pp. 187–202. 2   Cf. Hubert Houben, ‘Gli ebrei nell’Italia meridionale tra la metà dell’XI e l’inizio del XIII secolo’, in Houben, Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo. Monasteri e castelli, ebrei e musulmani, Nuovo Medioevo 52 (Naples 1996), pp. 193–211. 3   Francesco Brandileone, Il diritto romano nelle leggi normanne e sveve del regno di Sicilia (Rome/Turin/Florence, 1884, repr. Sala Bolognese 1981), pp. 95–6; Ortensio Zecchino, Le Assise di Ariano. Testo critico, traduzione e note (Cava dei Tirreni, 1984), p. 26 (Ass. Vat. 1: De legum interpretatione): Leges a nostra maiestate noviter promulgatas pietatis intuitu asperitatem nimiam mitigantes mollia quodam moderamine exacuentes, obscura dilucidantes, generaliter ab omnibus precipimus observari, moribus, consuetudinibus, legibus non cassatis pro varietate populorum nostro regno subiectorum, sicut usque nunc apud eos optinuit, nisi forte nostris his sanctionibus adversari, quid in eis manifestissime videatur. Cf. Hubert Houben, Roger II of Sicily. A Ruler between East and West, Cambridge Medieval Textbooks (Cambridge, 2002), p. 143; Kenneth Pennington, ‘The Birth of the Ius Commune: King Roger II’s Legislation’, 1

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For some time scholars have been examining the attitude of the Sicilian monarchy towards the ethnic and religious minorities,4 the relations between the various religious communities and the contacts between the different cultures within the kingdom,5 but they have rarely6 asked whether this multiethnic, multicultural kingdom can be considered a ‘third space’, in the sense of a space ‘between cultures’, where the different civilisations mixed in a process of ‘transculturation’, thus rising into a new, hybrid culture.7 Particularly significant is evidence given by some witnesses from the royal court at Palermo. The first ‘Norman’ king of Sicily, Roger II, used LatinWestern, Greek-Byzantine and Arab models in representing his royal power to his subjects.8 The royal palaces and the Palatine Chapel of Palermo contained Rivista internazionale di diritto comune, 17 (2006): pp. 23–60; Federico Martino and Adalgisa de Simone, ‘Un documento arabo e il diritto commune alla corte di Ruggero II’, Rivista internazionale di diritto comune, 19 (2008): pp. 93–136. 4   Hubert Houben, ‘Religious Toleration in the South Italian Penisula during the Norman and Staufen Periods’, in Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe (eds), The Society of Norman Italy (Leiden/Bosten/Cologne, 2002), pp. 320–39. 5   Hubert Houben, ‘Kulturkontakte und Kulturtransfer im normannisch-staufischen Königreich Sizilien (1130–1266)’, in Volker Herzner and Jürgen Krüger (eds), Transfer in der Stauferzeit. Akten der 4. Landauer Staufertagung 27.–29. Juni 2003 (Speyer, 2007), pp 93–101. 6   An exception is Karla Mallette, The Kingdom of Sicily, 1100–1250. A Literary History (Philadelphia, 2005). 7   For the concept of ‘third space’ cf. Elisabeth Bronfen and Benjamin Marius, ‘Hybride Kulturen. Einleitung zur anglo-amerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte’, in Elisabeth Bronfen, Benjamin Marius and Therese Steffen (eds), Hybride Kulturen. Beiträge zur angloamerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte, Stauffenberg Discussion, Beiträge zur Interund Multikultur 4 (Tübingen, 1997), pp. 1–29; Doris Bachmann-Medick, ‘Dritter Raum. Annäherungen an ein Medium kultureller Übersetzung und Kartierung’, in Claudia Breger and Tobias Döring (eds) Figuren der/des Dritten. Erkundungen kultureller Zwischenräume, Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 30 (Amsterdam, 1998), pp. 19–36; Doris Bachmann-Medick, Cultural Turns. Neuorientierungen in den Kulturwissenschaften (Hamburg, 2006, second edn 2007), pp. 203–7. The term hybridity was recently criticised by Gerhard Wolf, ‘Alexandria aus Athen zurückerobern? Perspektiven einer mediterranen Kunstgeschichte mit einem Seitenblick auf das mittelalterliche Sizilien’, in Margit Mersch and Ulrike Ritzerfeld (eds), Lateinisch-griechischarabische Begegnungen. Kulturelle Diversität im Mittelmeerraum des Spätmittelalters, Europa im Mittelalter 15 (Berlin, 2009), pp. 39–62, here p. 62: ‘Was man mit einem biologistischen Terminus als “hybrid” zu bezeichnen pflegt, ist in vielem der “Normalfall”, der nicht als Abweichung oder “Mischung” vermeintlich reiner Formen gesehen werden muss. […] Oft ist es gerade der Versuch einer ausgrenzenden “Reinheit” und Identitätsbildung, welcher begrifflicher Bestimmung bedarf ’. 8  Houben, Roger II of Sicily, pp. 113–35.

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a mixture of architectural and artistic elements from Latin, Greek and Arab cultures,9 and in the royal chancellery documents were drawn up in Latin, Greek and Arabic. The Greek, Arab and Latin notaries working there are shown in a miniature of the illustrated chronicle composed by Peter of Eboli between 1195 and 1197, in which Palermo is called a ‘city with a trilingual population’.10 This miniature suggests three separate sections of the royal chancellery, but in fact they were not so separate, since bilingual documents were also produced there. Moreover, at the time of Peter of Eboli, when the kingdom’s crown has passed from the Norman dynasty of the Hautevilles to the German Hohenstaufen dynasty, the royal chancellery had already stopped producing documents in Greek and Arabic, and was using only Latin. In the population of Palermo, as well, towards the end of the twelfth century, the Latin element had taken over at the expense of the Arabic and Greek components. The situation was different at the time of King Roger II (1130–54). This is shown in particular by several trilingual inscriptions11 – like those using Latin, Greek and Arabic, the three official languages of the royal administration – to record a water hourglass created for Roger II in 1142.12 Similarly, a record (probably dating back to 1142–43 or 1152–53) exists of a construction for public use, perhaps a fountain, on the orders of a high official of the court, 9   Cf. William Tronzo, ‘Regarding Norman Sicily: Art, Identity and Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages’, Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana, 35 (2003/2004): pp. 101–14. 10   Petrus de Ebulo, Liber ad honorem Augusti sive de rebus Siculis. Codex 120 II der Burgerbibliothek Bern. Eine Bilderchronik der Stauferzeit, (ed.) Theo Kölzer and Marlis Stähli, with Gereon Becht-Jördens (Sigmaringen, 1994), fol. 101r; Particula III (Lamentatio et luctus Panormi), fol. 97v, v. 56: Hactenus urbs felix, populo dotata trilingui. For the literary tradition of the designation of populus trilinguis see Mallette, The Kingdom of Sicily, p. 53. 11   Cf. Jeremy Johns, ‘Die arabischen Inschriften der Normannenkönige Siziliens: eine Neuinterpretation’, in Wilfried Seipel (ed.), Nobiles Officinae. Die königlichen Hofwerkstätten zu Palermo zur Zeit der Normannen und Staufer im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert (Ausstellungskatalog) (Vienna/Milan, 2004), pp. 37–59; Jeremy Johns, ‘Le iscrizioni e le epigrafi in arabo. Una rilettura’, in Maria Andaloro (ed.), Nobiles Officinae. Perle, filigrane e trame di seta dal Palazzo Reale di Palermo (2 vols, Palermo, 2006), pp. 47–67. 12  Johns, ‘Le iscrizioni’, pp. 512–3. Latin: ‘This clock was made by order of the lord and magnificent king Roger in the year of the incarnation of our Lord 1141, in the month of March, in the fifth indiction, happily in the thirteenth year of his reign.’ Greek: ‘Oh what a new wonder! The powerful lord, King Roger, to whom God gave the sceptre, controls the flowing of the liquid element that gives out the exact knowledge of the times of the year, in the twelfth year of his reign, in the month of March, in the fifth indiction, of the year 6650.’ Arabic: ‘The order was issued by the very royal presence, the glorious Rogerian the supreme – may God perpetuate his days and sustain his banner! – for the construction of this device for the observation of the hours in the protected city of Sicily, in the year 536.’

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the eunuch Peter (Barrūn),13 an Arab converted to Christianity who will be mentioned again later. Another person who belonged to the court of Roger II was the cleric Grisandus, whom we know about only through some inscriptions concerning the burial of his parents, for whom he had a chapel built in April 1149 inside the Church of St Michael of Palermo (today part of the Palermo public library).14 Shortly afterwards, on 20 May 1149, Grisandus ordered the transfer of the body of his mother Anne, who had died in August 1148 and was buried in Palermo Cathedral. This event is narrated on a marble slab with a trilingual inscription.15 It is a commemorative epitaph made up of four inscriptions, using four different alphabets, namely in Hebrew, Latin, Greek and Arabic characters. But only three languages are used: Arabic, Latin and Greek, because the text of the inscription done in Hebrew characters is composed in Arabic. This was due to the fact that during the Arab domination that preceded the Norman conquest of the island, the Sicilian Jews had become such a part of the surrounding culture that they spoke to each other in Arabic. In fact, when they wrote letters they used the Hebrew alphabet but the Arabic language; they therefore used Hebrew only in worship.16  Johns, ‘Le iscrizioni’, pp. 510–11. Latin: ‘To [or from] king Roger […] Peter, servant in the palace of he who reigns happily [i.e. Roger] […]’. Greek: ‘In the days of Roger […] of this […]’. Arabic: ‘The construction of this […] was ordered […], the servant of the right royal presence […] the eunuch Barrūn in the year seven […]. May God (Allah) have mercy on whoever prays [for grace and forgiveness!]’. 14   Johns, ‘Le iscrizioni’, p. 519: ‘Grisandus, cleric of Roger, king of Sicily and Italy, built this chapel in the year 1149, in the twelfth indiction, in the month of April.’ – The church of St. Michael was situated near the old ‘Casa Professa’ in the quarter ‘Albergheria’: Gaspare Palermo, Guida istruttiva per Palermo e i suoi dintorni (Palermo, 1858), pp. 452–7. It is probably identical with St Michael of the Andalucians; see Henri Bresc, ‘Arab Christians in the Western Mediterranean (XIth–XIIIth centuries)’, in Victor Mallia-Milanes (ed.), Library of Mediterranean History I (Malta, 1994), pp. 3–45, here p. 40 note 145. 15   Wolfgang Krönig, ‘Der viersprachige Grabstein von 1148 in Palermo’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 52 (1989): pp. 550–8; Houben, ‘Gli ebrei’, pp. 201–4; Barbara Zeitler, ‘“Urbs felix dotata populo trilingui”: Some Thoughts about a Twelfth-Century Funerary Memorial from Palermo’, Medieval Encounters, 2/2 (1996): pp. 114–39. See now also ClausPeter Haase, ‘Rezeption islamischer Kunst im staufischen Sizilien’, in Bernd Schneidmüller, Stefan Weinfurter and Alfried Wieczorek (eds), Verwandlungen des Stauferreichs. Drei Innovationsregionen im mittelalterlichen Europa (Darmstadt, 2010), pp. 446–61, here pp. 455–6, and Bernd Schneidmüller, Stefan Weinfurter and Alfried Wieczorek (eds), Die Staufer und Italien. Drei Innovationsregionen im mittelalterlichen Europa (Darmstadt, 2010), Bd. 2: Objekte, pp. 240–1. 16   Cf. Henri Bresc, Arabi per lingua, ebrei per religione: L’evoluzione dell’ebraismo siciliano in ambiente latino dal XII al XV secolo (Messina, 2001). 13

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The text of the four inscriptions, all of which refer to the same event, varies greatly.17 The inscription in Hebrew characters (but in the Arabic language) reads: Anne, the mother of the priest Akrīsant, priest of the sublime king, the lord of Italy, Lombardy, Calabria, Sicily and Africa, died at the time of Vespers on Friday 20 August in the year 4908 [= 1148 A.D.], and was buried in the great cathedral (jami). From there her son transferred her with prayers [?] to this church of St. Michael during the first hour of Friday 20 May of the year 4909 [= 1149 A.D.], and he built over her tomb this church and named it the church of St. Anne, after the name of the mother of our lady Maria, the mother of the Messiah. Thus God may have mercy on him who reads this and pray for her mercy. Amen. Amen.

The Latin inscription reads: On the thirteenth calends of September [= 20 August] died Anne, the mother of Grisandus, and was buried in the great church of St. Mary in the year 1148, in the eleventh indiction. On the thirteenth calends of June [= 20 May] she was transferred to this chapel which her son built for the Lord and himself in the year 1149, in the twelfth indiction.

The Greek inscription reads: Anne passed away peacefully on 20 August 6656 [= 1148 A.D.], and she was buried in the great catholic church. And on 20 May 6657 [= 1149 A.D.] her son Grizántos raised her up, he took with him Greek and Latin clerics,18 and removed her from there. He put her inside the place where […] he had build this oratory above her. Pray for her [?]. The Arabic inscription reads: Anne, the mother of the priest Akrīsant, priest of the ruling majesty, the august, the supreme, the sublime, the elevated, the most holy, the magnificent, the powerful through God, the potent through His omnipotence, the mighty through His strength, he who reigns over Italy, Lombardy, Calabria, Sicily and Africa, the defender of the pope of Rome, the protector of the Christian faith – may God 17   Jeremy Johns, ‘Die arabischen Inschriften’, pp. 294–7 (with German translation). Jeremy Johns, ‘Le iscrizioni’, pp. 520–22 (with Italian translation). 18   Here the transcription by Johns, ‘Die arabischen Inschriften’, p. 296 and Johns, ‘Le iscrizioni’, p. 521), is not correct; the correct reading is: ‘parelab(en) klerik(ous) grik(ous) k(ai) latin(ous)’. (I thank my colleague Vera von Falkenhausen for checking the Greek words.)

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prolong his reign! – died on Friday, at the time of Vespers, on 20 August 543 [= 1148 A.D.] and was buried in the great cathedral (jami). From there her son transferred her with prayers of intercession to this church of St. Michael on Friday at the first hour of the evening of 20 May of the year 544 [= 1149 A.D.], and built over her tomb this church and named it the church of St. Anne, after the name of Anne, mother of [our lady] Mary [, the mother of the Messiah. Thus God may have mercy on him who reads this] and pray for her mercy. Amen. Amen. Amen.

In the centre of the slab is a large cross, surrounded by the Greek letters: IC XC NI KA (Iesous Christos nika, i.e. Jesus Christ is victorious). This motto has a twofold meaning: a religious one referring to the resurrection (Christ defeated death), and a political one referring to the Norman Christian power that defeated the Muslims. What one immediately notices is that the two texts composed in Arabic are much longer than those in Latin and Greek. This is due to the fact that in the Latin and Greek inscriptions Grisandus’s specific role is not mentioned, to the lofty Arabic titles attributed to King Roger that are not mentioned in the Latin and Greek inscriptions, and to the explanations about St Anne. The brevity of the Latin and Greek inscriptions may be explained by the fact that such information was considered superfluous. In indicating the date, each inscription shows how to each of the various religious communities calculated the year: from the creation of the world according to the Jewish rabbinical computation; from the birth of Christ according to the Western Christian world; from the creation of the world according to the Byzantine computation; from Mahomet’s flight from Mecca (hijra) according to the Arab-Muslim computation. It was therefore a sort of ‘homage’ to the Jewish, Byzantine and Arab worlds. The content of the texts is, however, clearly Latin-Christian, as is shown by the reference to the Pope and to Mary as the Messiah’s mother. The different ways of calculating the date are also used on the epitaph that Grisandus commissioned several years later for his father, Drogo. This epitaph is, however, more simple and contains only three quite short texts, in Greek, Latin and Arabic.19 The Greek inscription reads: Drogo, the father of Grixantos [!], cleric of the great (and) illustrious King of Sicily, died on 27 November of the year 6662 [= 1153 A.D.], in the second

  Johns, ‘Le iscrizioni’, p. 522.

19

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indiction, and was buried in this chapel which his son Grizantos built over the tomb of Anne, his mother.

The Latin inscription reads: On the fifth kalends of December died Drogo, the father of Grisandus, cleric of the King of Sicily, and was buried in this chapel which his son Grisandus built over the tomb of Anne, his mother, in the year 1153, in the second indiction.

The Arabic inscription reads: Drogo, the father of Akrīzant, priest of the King of Sicily, died on 27 November of the year 548 [= 1153 A.D.], and his son Akrīzant buried him with his mother in this chapel which he built for both.

Apart from these inscriptions, there are no documents mentioning Grisandus and his parents. His name could be a Latinisation of the Greek Chrysanthos (=‘Crysanthemum’), which has prompted the belief that his mother Anne was Greek, and that the reference to ‘Greek and Latin clerics’ in the Greek text on her epitaph was not incidental.20 Anne is, however, one of the Old Testament names used by Christians that follow both Greek and Latin rites, and by Jews. Grisandus’s father’s name, Drogo, is typically Norman, but in Sicily names were often not significant of a person’s ethnic origin.21 As far as Anne’s origin is concerned, her epitaph might suggest a clue that scholars have not noticed. This slab is, among the trilingual stones of Norman Sicily, the only one to present the text in the three official languages of the royal administration and to give a fourth in Hebrew characters that is obviously addressed to those able to read Hebrew. If we assume that Anne came from a Jewish family, this might have been done on behalf of Anne’s relations coming   Johns, ‘Le iscrizioni’, p. 523   In this period Norman names were ‘fashionable’ and could also be used by other ethnic groups. Moreover, we know examples of Sicilian Muslims converted to Christianity who took Christian names at their baptism: for instance, a certain Ahmet took the name of his Norman godfather Roger. Therefore, despite his Norman name, we do not know whether Grisandus’s father, Drogo, was really of Norman origin. Cf. Alex Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily. Arabic speakers and the end of Islam (London/New York, 2003), pp. 71–98; Metcalfe, ‘The Muslims of Sicily under Christian Rule’, in Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe (eds), The Society (Leiden/Bosten/Cologne, 2002), pp. 289–317, here p. 313: ‘The possibility that one could find Christians called Muhammad living besides Muslims with Greek names only compounds our inability to distinguish Sicilian Christians from Muslims’. Cf. also the contribution of Graham A. Loud in this volume. 20 21

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to visit her tomb. (Around the mid-twelfth century, Palermo is known to have had the kingdom’s largest Jewish community, made up of 1,500 people or family heads.22) Moreover, the Church of St Michael was near the Jewish quarter of Palermo.23 Nevertheless, it cannot be ruled out that the Hebrew text was (also) addressed to Jewish converts to Christianity.24 There is also uncertainty about to whom the Arabic inscription on Anne’s epitaph was addressed: it may have been Christian Arabs (similar to the Spanish Mozarabs) of whom there is evidence in the mid-twelfth century at Palermo,25 or Muslims converted to Christianity, such as the so-called ‘palace Saracens’ who held important positions in the royal court. But before we look at the ‘palace Saracens’, who lived in a ‘third space’ between the Arab-Muslim world and the Western-Christian one, we need to examine one detail related to the burial of Grisandus’s mother. This detail, noted recently by Jeremy Johns, is the day chosen for transporting Anne’s body from the Cathedral of Palermo to the Church of St Michael, which took place in the first hour of Friday, 20 May 1149. For the Jews this day fell in the week of the Jewish Pentecost (Śevuot), which celebrates the revelation of the Torah to Moses, interpreted by the rabbis at least since the eighth century as the moment of mass conversion of the Israelites to Judaism.26 For Christians, too, Pentecost was associated with conversion, and for them the 20 May 1149 was the Friday before the Christian Pentecost. According to the biblical narration (Acts of the Apostles), on the first Pentecost the Apostles began speaking in tongues and then began converting the peoples (phylai) and their languages (glossai), including Jews and Arabs. (This theme corresponds also with a mosaic in the Palatine Chapel in Palermo that explicitly refers to the conversion of the Jews). For Muslims, the day, which began at sunset on Thursday, 19 May and ended in the first hour of Friday, 20 May, was the tenth of Muharram, the feast of Ashura, the anniversary of the death of Ḥusayn (680 A.D.), grandson of the Prophet Mahomet, one of the main festivities for the Shiites. Thus it seems that   Cf. Houben, ‘Gli ebrei’, p. 205.   See note 14 above. 24   This brings to mind the statement by Romuald of Salerno, who claimed that Roger II, towards the end of his life, worked for the conversion of Jews and Muslims (cf. Houben, Roger II of Sicily, pp. 109–10), but scholars have diverging views on the reliability of this claim. 25   Annliese Nef, ‘L’histoire des   “mozarabes” de Sicile. Bilan provisoire et nouveaux matériaux’, in Cyrille Aillet, Mayte Penelas and Philippe Roisse (eds), ¿Existe una identidad mozárabe? Historia, lengua y cultura de los cristianos de al-Andalus (siglos IX–XII), Collection de la Casa de Velázquez (Madrid, 2008) pp. 255–86. 26   Johns, ‘Die arabischen Inschriften’, p. 297 and Johns, ‘Le iscrizioni’, p. 523. 22 23

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for the transfer of his mother’s body, Grisandus chose a date that was important in the calendars of the kingdom’s three major religions, and which, in the case of two of these religions, coincided with Pentecost and referred to conversions from one religion to another. Independently of the questions that remain open, Anne’s epitaph, therefore, shows not only an extraordinary wealth of references to the three languages, cultures and religions that were present in the Norman court at Palermo, but also to Judaism. The multi- or ‘transcultural’ court of Palermo is connected to evidence that has only recently come to the attention of scholars.27 This evidence consists of a small note in Arabic concerning books (manuscripts) borrowed from the Palatine Chapel: side A line 5: karārīs Ğustīn.yān ‘ağuzat (tafsīran ‘an qawl) = Justinian’s notebooks, used (old) (commentary about the text) side A line 6: kitāb al-mūsīcā Māstīr Tumās ‘ağuza = book of music of master Thomas (Brown), used (old) side A line 7: kitāb Murāliya Ayyub ‘ağuza Māstīr Tumās = book of Moralia (in) Job, used (old), master Thomas (Brown) side B line 2: kitāb marr al-s […] ‘inda al-mustaḥlaf sir Līqā = book […] in the care of the mustaḥlaf (= vicecomes palatii ?) Sir Richard (Likkardos/Rikkardos) side B line 3: kitāb tafsīr bātir nūstir ‘inda al-ğ[…] = book of commentary of Pater noster in the care of […] side B line 4: kitāb kantikā kantīkūrum ‘ağuza Mayū = book of Cantica Canticorum, used (old), Maio (of Bari)

From a linguistic point of view, it is a mixture of Arabic words with Latin names and titles, belonging, according to the Arabic expert Adalgisa De Simone, to the same cultural world as the trilingual epitaphs commissioned by Grisandus. It seems impossible to establish with certainty the origin and the cultural background of the author of the notes: it could be a person of Greek or Latin culture, but also ‘an Arab or Arabicized person of any origin’, probably a person with a bi- or trilingual background (Arabic, Latin and Greek).28   Nef, ‘L’histoire des “mozarabes”’, pp. 273–7; Martino and De Simone, ‘Un documento in arabo’. 28   De Simone, ‘Lingua, finalità, ambiente del documento della Palatina: considerazioni di un’arabista’, in Martino and De Simone, ‘Un documento in arabo’, pp. 117–36, here pp. 129–130: ‘così avrebbe proceduto un arabo o un arabizzato di qualsiasi provenienza. Le traslitterazioni dei vocaboli appaiono meno lineari e difficilmente decifrabili, in presenza di forme provenienti dall’area gallo-romanza. Questo potrebbe fare pensare a persona di cultura 27

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Some of the figures mentioned as having borrowed books (manuscripts) from the Palatine Chapel, can be identified: the Englishman Thomas Brown, head of the Chapel under Roger II (he returned to England in 1155); Maio of Bari, deputy chancellor with a Latin education,29 and perhaps the eunuch Richard.30 So there was an Englishman, an Apulian trained in Latin, and perhaps a converted Arab, and all three of them were, like Grisandus, tied to the Palermo Court. The books mentioned were mainly in Latin, but in the Palatine Chapel there were also texts in Greek and Arabic, including perhaps the famous trilingual psalter, which is now kept in London.31 An element of great interest for our discussion of the ‘third space’ is that of the eunuchs who were officials at the royal court of Palermo. They were Arabs who bi o trilingue (araba, latina e greca) che trovava difficoltà a trascrivere con sicurezza vocaboli francesi che gli venivano forse decifrati e dettati da altri. […] Non mi sembra esistano tratti specifici attribuibili in modo esclusivo ad un cristiano arabizzato, di cultura greca o di cultura latina, piuttosto che ad un musulmano di famiglia “siciliano” convertito al cristianesimo ed inserito all’interno della Cappella o della Cancelleria.’ Cf. here De Simone, ‘Un documento in arabo’, p. 134 about traces of Roman law in Arabic terms in Sicilian documents from the 1140s: ‘In presenza di ibridi calchi, di accostamenti anomali di vocaboli appartenenti a lingue diverse, e di oscillazioni semantiche contraddittorie per vocaboli latini e greci noti, l’arabista ha la sensazione di trovarsi in presenza di termini create “a tavolino”. Forse un gruppo di lavoro, che includeva, tra gli altri, un conoscitore di lingua araba ed esperti di diritto (anche romano), aveva coniato nella Cancelleria (e almeno un quinquennio prima della redazione dell’appunto) termini arabi morfologicamente corretti e circonlocuzioni metalinguistiche, che tentavano di porgere ad un popolo (riduttivamente definibile “trilingue”) norme giuridiche che si presentavano come “generali”, in quanto riconoscibili da tutti, sia pure grazie a un ibrido amalgama linguistico’. 29   For Thomas Brown and Maio of Bari, see Houben, Roger II of Sicily, pp. 108, 153. 30   For Richard, see Jeremy Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily. The Royal Dīwān (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 228–34: from 1166 Richard appears as master chamberlain of the palace, but he ‘may first appear in the dīwān as early as January 1161 […]. Thereafter, he was one of the directors of the dīwān al-taḥqīq until at least March 1187, when he is heard of for the last time’ (p. 232). De Simone, ‘Lingua, finalità, ambiente’, pp. 125–7: ‘I titoli mustaḥlaf e sir che precedono il nome, decifrabile solo in parte nel documento, potrebbero consentire di individuare il personaggio nel gaito eunuco Riccardo […]. […] mustaḥlaf appartiene ad un ambito semantico che indica “il designare qualcuno come sostituto o luogotenente”. […] Potremmo ipotizzare che l’eunuco Riccardo, che avrebbe rivestito cariche prestigiose al tempo di Guglielmo II, fosse in quegli anni [i.e. 1153 AD] un vicecomes palatii’. De Simone, p. 127 note 195: ‘Data la discrasia rispetto alle fonti arabe e la rarità del vocabolo, si potrebbe anche ipotizzare che mustaḥlaf sia stato coniato come prestito/calco su vicecomes o simile’. In the Latin documents of the royal administration there is no evidence of a vicecomes palatii: cf. Hiroshi Takayama, The Administration of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily (Leiden/New York/Cologne, 1993). 31   London, British Library, Harley MS 5786. Cf. Houben, Roger II of Sicily, p. 109.

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had been castrated when young, trained in the royal palace and mainly used in the dīwān, the court’s financial office. Officially converted to Christianity, most of them seem to have remained Muslim, as reported by Latin and Arab chroniclers.32 A significant story is that of the eunuch Peter, who seems to have been known at court by the French diminuitive Perron (‘Little Peter’), and thus appears in Greek as Perroun and in Arabic as Barrūn, commissioner of the trilingual inscription discussed at the beginning of this paper. Since 1141, he had been a royal chamberlain and one of the directors of the royal dīwān. Like other ‘palace Saracens’ he also served as commander of the fleet (1159). After becoming master chamberlain of the palace and a member of the ‘royal inner council’,33 in 1167 Peter defected to the Almohads and, under the Muslim name of Ahmad, commanded the Almohad fleet. The eunuch Richard, who may also have been mentioned among those who had borrowed books from the Palatine Chapel, was an official of the royal dīwān between 1166 and 1187. As the master chamberlain of the palace and member of the ‘royal inner council’ he was a very influential figure. Some scholars thought that Richard may have been a genuine convert to Christianity because he maintained a good relationship with the bishop of Patti,34 but a recent deciphering of his Arabic signature-motto (‘alāma), done by Nadia Jamil, shows that he actually always remained a Muslim: in the elaborate ciphers of his signature, Richard, like Peter, ‘cast himself in the role of the Believer (al-mu’min) at the court of the Pharaoh who concealed his faith’.35

  Cf. Johns, Arabic Administration, pp. 212–56; Metcalfe, ‘The Muslims of Sicily’, pp. 303–5; Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians, pp. 106–10. 33   Hiroshi Takayama, ‘Familiares Regis and the Royal Inner Council in Twelfth Century Sicily’, English Historical Review, 104 (1989): pp. 357–72. 34   Towards the end of his career, Richard provided for his retirement by securing a lifeinterest in the priory of S. Sofia at Vicari from the bishop of Lipari-Patti and by renting a piece of land from Palermo Cathedral to plant an orchard or vineyard. Since a document issued by the bishop of Patti described him as ‘brother, patron and protector of his church’, it was thought that he may have been a genuine convert to Christianity (Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians, p. 48). But the document (1186 Jan.), (ed.) Lynn Townsend White, Jr., Latin Monasticism in Norman Sicily (Cambridge, Mass., 1938), nr. 36, pp. 278–9, here p. 278, cannot be used as proof for Richard’s religious thought: Quia igitur dominus gaytus Riccardus, domini regis camerarius et magister regie doane de secretis frater est nostre ecclesie et in omnibus necessitatibus ipius ecclesie patrocinium eius specialiter sectamur, rogatu nostro et […] sub protectione et patrocinio suo recepit. Cf. Johns, Arabic Administration, p. 234. 35   Jeremy Johns and Nadia Jamil, ‘Signs of the Times: Arabic Signatures as a Measure of Acculturation in Norman Sicily’, Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, 21 (2004): pp. 181–92. 32

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The complicated Arabic signatures must have been incomprehensible to readers with only a superficial knowledge of Arabic, but it should be noted that at a certain point in his career a Latin official of the Palermo court, Master Justiciar William Malconvenant, the descendant of a Norman family, felt the need to have such a signature in Arabic himself. The Norman sovereigns added their signature in Arabic to documents that were issued at least partly in Arabic; this was supposed to make them appear, to the eyes of their Arab subjects, similar to Muslim sovereigns; hence the erroneous rumour reported by Ibn Jubair, that the Norman kings could read and write Arabic.36 While the Norman kings in Palermo were acquiring their Arabic signatures (as well as signatures in Greek) from professional scribes, William wrote his own signature himself, although he had probably never learnt to write. He found an Arab scribe who could teach him to write his name in Arabic letters (Ghlylm Mlqmnnt, which should probably be vocalized Ghuliyam Malqumanant). As the Arabic cursive script (naskh) in which these signatures were usually written was too difficult, William chose the easier Kufic script, although he imitated it rather clumsily.37 Why in mid-life did William take the trouble to learn how to write his name in Kufic? It was certainly not for the benefit of readers of Arabic, because he worked in a predominantly Latin environment, ‘and few Arabs would have been able to decipher his outlandish foreign name written in such a bizarre script’.38 His strange Arabic signature was therefore addressed to a Latin public who did not know Arabic, and to whom he wanted to pretend to know how to write (and read) Arabic. As Master Justiciar he also dealt with matters related to the rights of Crown Lands; it might, therefore, happen that he was confronted with documents written partly in Arabic. In practice he probably instructed bi- or trilingual officials to translate these parts, but obviously at a certain point in his life he felt the need to pretend that he, too, understood Arabic, just as the Norman kings themselves did. The bi- or trilingual figures at the Palermo court seem to have been mainly native speakers of Greek, such as Roger II’s ‘prime minister’, George of Antioch, who ordered the building of the Church of St Mary of the Admiral with its famous mosaics depicting George before the mother of God and Roger before God. We do not know whether George, who was bilingual in Greek and Arabic,39   Cf. Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians, p. 97.   Johns and Jamil, ‘Arabic Signatures’, p. 185: ‘The two names were then enclosed in an open-topped frame, which gives to his signature something of the feel of the roughly rectangular ciphers used by the royal eunuchs’. 38   Johns and Jamil, ‘Arabic Signatures’, p. 186. 39   Cf. Johns, Arabic Administration, pp. 80–5. 36 37

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also knew Latin, and/or French, which seems to have been used for a time for communication in the Palermo court.40 Another native speaker of Greek, somehow connected to the court world, was certainly trilingual. This was Eugenius of Palermo, born around 1130 into a family of Greek officials in the service of the Normans. Under William II (1166–89) he was the head of the duana baronum, the financial office in charge of Crown and feudal lands in the south of Italy (except for Calabria), with its headquarters in Salerno. Emperor Henry VI, in 1194, in order to punish Eugenius for supporting Tancred of Lecce, deported him to Germany, where he was locked in Trifels Castle. He was soon released, however, because from 1196 to 1202 he was documented as having been in Apulia, again in the service of the Crown. Eugenius wrote poetry in Greek, translated Ptolemy’s Optics from Arabic into Latin, and probably also a collection of Persian fables from Arabic into Greek, as well as the so-called Vaticinium Sibyllae Erithreae from Greek into Latin.41 Eugenius was, however, an exceptional character. We do not know whether other intellectuals at the Palermitan court, like the Greek Neilos Doxapatris and the Arab al-Idrīsī,42 had a thorough knowledge of other languages apart from their mother tongue. Thus, although there were numerous bilingual officials working at the multicultural court of the Norman kings of Sicily, trilingualism was the exception, not the rule. Let us try in conclusion to answer the question posed at the beginning. Was Norman Sicily a ‘third space’ where cultures met, giving rise to hybrid cultural forms? For the royal court the answer is certainly yes, in view of the trilingual inscriptions, the Arab note with its linguistic mixture, the ambiguous existence of the eunuchs, the Arab signature of a ‘Norman’ official and the presence of bi- and trilingual figures. But the question is whether this was an out-of-theordinary situation created by the court, or whether the court was the only place where it was documented.43 I think we must distinguish between the high level

  Cf. Houben, Roger II of Sicily, p. 108.   Cf. Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Eugenio da Palermo’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 43 (Rome, 1993), pp. 502–5. 42   Cf. Houben, Roger II of Sicily, pp. 102–4, 106–7; Houben, Roger II. von Sizilien. Herrscher zwischen Orient und Okzident, second enlarged edn (Darmstadt, 2010), pp. 188– 89, 198, 200. 43  Mallette, The Kingdom of Sicily, p. 19 observes that ‘hybrid texts were not the norm. Produced generally under the direct authority of the Norman monarchs themselves, they functioned as a kind of showcase cultural production, demonstrating in cultural terms the economic and military reach of the Norman state’. 40 41

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of one cultural environment, that of the court, and a lower level regarding the ‘normal’ population. Jeremy Johns and Alex Metcalfe have observed that in the countryside and in some Sicilian towns in the period prior to the arrival of the Normans, the indigenous population, Christian and mainly Greek in culture, and the Muslim Arab and Berber population who had immigrated in the ninth and tenth centuries, lived cheek by jowl. At that time Sicily was already a kind of ‘third space’, featuring ‘a scale of acculturation ranging from Greek Christians and Arab Muslims at the two extremes, but with most of the population of the island falling somewhere in the middle’.44 Under Norman rule there continued to be ‘widespread Greek-Arabic bilingualism’45 and a ‘cultural and linguistic proximity of many native Sicilian Christians to the Muslims’.46 An important role was played by the Arabic-speaking Christian minority: ‘they acted as an important intermediary between the Muslims and Sicily’s other religious communities in the sense that they shared connections with their Muslim and Jewish neighbours through the use of the same language and many aspects of a shared cultural heritage’.47 Twelfth century Sicily with its ‘shifting identities’ and ‘the long-term erosion of boundaries between some socio-religious groups’48 can therefore be considered, like that of the two proceeding centuries, a ‘third space’.49 During the second half of the twelfth century, however, Sicily changed   Jeremy Johns, ‘The Greek Church and the Conversion of Muslims in Norman Sicily?’, Byzantinische Forschungen, 21 (1995) (= Bosphorus. Essays in Honour of Cyril Mango): pp. 133–57, here pp. 151–52. – The traveller Ibn Ḥaqal (from Baghdad), who visited Sicily in 973, described the whole island as a ‘socio-religious twilight zone’ (Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians, p. 16): ‘most people from the forts, the remoter parts and the villages are bastardised Muslims and think that marriage to Christians is [allowed] provided that their male child follows the father being a bastardised Muslim, and that a female [child] becomes a Christian with her mother. They neither pray, nor do they perform ritual ablutions (or “they are not circumcised”), nor do they pay the alms tax, nor do they perform the pilgrimage [to Mecca]. […] The disposition of [Sicily’s] country folk is like that of the non-Arabic [or “Persian”] speaking regions outside Fatimid control – incoherent deaf mutes. Its inhabitants, who are not classified in any books, are worse than a simple beast in their understanding, their indifference towards rights and duties, and the state of their commercial affairs’. 45   Metcalfe, ‘The Muslims of Sicily’, p. 311. 46   Metcalfe, ‘The Muslims of Sicily’, pp. 313–14. 47   Metcalfe, ‘The Muslims of Sicily’, p. 314. 48   Metcalfe, ‘The Muslims of Sicily’, pp. 315–16. 49   The Latin-Greek world in the area of Otranto (in Southern Apulia) can also be considered a ‘third space’ between the Greek-Byzantine and the Latin worlds: think of the figure of Nicholas-Nettarios, abbot of S. Nicola di Casole near Otranto, of whom we have not only evidence of translations from Greek to Latin and vice-versa, but also evidence written in his own hand in Greek and Latin (Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Pal. 44

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profoundly with the inexorable advance of Latin culture, which led to the decline of the Greek tradition and to the exclusion of Arab-Muslim culture,50 which was actually eliminated by Frederick II who deported the Sicilian Muslims to Lucera in northern Apulia.51

gr. 45); see Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Tra Occidente e Oriente: Otranto in epoca bizantina’, in Hubert Houben (ed.), Otranto nel Medioevo tra Bisanzio e l’Occidente, Università del Salento, Dipartimento dei Beni delle Arti e della Storia, Saggi e testi 33 (Galatina, 2007), pp. 13–60, here pp. 55–7. 50   Errico Cuozzo, ‘Palermo normande: un exemple d’acculturation’, in Mariella Coulin and Marie-Agnès Lucas-Avenel (eds), De la Normande à la Sicile: réalités, représentations, mythes. Actes du colloque tenue aux Archives dèpartementales de Saint-Lô (17–19 oct. 2002) (Saint-Lô, 2004), pp. 121–36, here p. 132 [Ital. trans.: ‘Palermo normanna. Un esempio di acculturazione’, in Errico Cuozzo (ed.), Studi in onore di Salvatore Tramontana (Pratola Serra, 2003), pp. 125–39], thinks that during the Norman period in Sicily ‘the construction’ of the ‘Sicilian personality’ and its ‘national identity’ occurred (Cuozzo, ‘Palerme normande’, p. 132: ‘La composante normande, bien qu’elle agît en position dominante, allant jusqu’à forcer à la christianisation la population arabe et à la latinisation la population grecque, ne joua pas un rôle autonome, mais participa vraiment à la construction de la personnalité sicilienne, à la construction de son identité nationale, en un mot, de la “sicilianité”’). In my opinion the epistola ad Petrum Panormitane urbis thesaurarium from the 1190s (in: La Historia o Liber de regno Sicilie […] di Ugo Falcando, (ed.) Gian Battista Siragusa (Rome, 1897), pp. 124– 26, [Engl. trans.: The History of the tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’ 1154–69, (trans.) Graham A. Loud and Thomas Wiedemann (Manchester/New York, 1998), pp. 252–63]), quoted by Cuozzo, suggests at best a regional identity of the Sicilians: Hubert Houben, ‘Politische Integration und regionale Identitäten im normannisch-staufischen Königreich Sizilien’, in Werner Maleczek (ed.), Fragen der politischen Integration im mittelalterlichen Europa, Vorträge und Forschungen 63 (Ostfildern, 2005), pp. 171–84, here p. 182. 51   See recently Alex Metcalfe, The Muslims of medieval Italy (Edinburgh, 2009), pp. 275–98.

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Chapter 2

Norman Traditions in Southern Italy G. A. Loud

According to the late twelfth century historian known to us as ‘Hugo Falcandus’, King Roger, the founder of the medieval Kingdom of Sicily, remained very conscious of his Norman ancestry. ‘Since he derived his own origin from the Normans, and knew that the French race excelled all others in the glory of war, he chose particularly to favour and honour those from north of the Alps’.1 Later in his History this same author described the involvement at the court of the half-brother of Queen Margaret, the widow of King Roger’s son William, while she was acting as regent for her son King William II. He was a Spaniard, an illegitimate son of King Garcia Ramirez of Navarre. To begin with, we are informed, the courtiers mocked his name, Rodrigo, ‘because it was unknown to them’, and his sister told him to use the name Henry instead. Subsequently some of the enemies of the queen’s chief minister, the chancellor Stephen of Perche, tried to persuade Rodrigo/Henry to help them overthrow the chancellor and take power himself. ‘He replied that he was ignorant of the French language, which was an important requirement at court’.2 Not only was French still the language of the Sicilian court in the 1160s, but connections apparently continued with the Duchy of Normandy. The chancellor Stephen was the queen’s cousin, but he was also a member of one of the leading families of Normandy. That he should be summoned to assist in the government of Sicily might appear to suggest that the link with Normandy remained significant to the Kingdom of Sicily even in the second half of the twelfth century. Furthermore, Stephen was not the only person from the Anglo-Norman kingdom to be employed by the rulers of Sicily. During the 1140s the activities of Robert of Selby as chancellor, Master Thomas Brown as a royal official and Richard of Lingèvres, a Norman from Bayeux, as Count of   La Historia o Liber de Regno Sicilie e la Epistola ad Petrum Panormitane Ecclesie Thesaurarium di Ugo Falcando, (ed.) Giovanni Battista Siragusa, Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 22 (Rome, 1897) [henceforth Falcandus], p. 6. English translation: The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’ 1154–69, (trans.) G.A. Loud and Thomas Wiedemann (Manchester, 1998), p. 58. 2   Falcandus, pp. 107, 127; Tyrants, pp. 155, 179. 1

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Andria would seem to back up what ‘Falcandus’ said about the preferences of King Roger, while thereafter two of their compatriots held high rank within the Church in the Sicilian kingdom, Richard, Bishop of Syracuse from 1157 and Archbishop of Messina from 1183, who was a long-standing royal familiaris or minister, and Herbert of Middlesex, Archbishop of Conza from 1169.3 Obviously the continuance of ‘Norman traditions’ was more than just a matter of personal connections. Nonetheless, some consciousness of Norman origins and shared identity must surely be important in assessing how significant such traditions were for the Sicilian kingdom. In addition, there is the other side of the coin. To what extent did the indigenous inhabitants of southern Italy remain conscious of their own identity separate from that of the NormanFrench conquerors? In particular, for how long did such a sense of a distinct ethnic and historical identity continue among the Lombards, the native Italians who shared a common religion and culture with the incomers, and with whom the latter were most likely to intermarry? For if Lombards remained aware that they were ‘Lombards’, then those descended from the Norman invaders would be more likely to continue to be mindful of their own separate identity and heritage. Some modern historians have certainly seemed to argue this, at least by implication. Errico Cuozzo, for example, sees the Lombard identity of many of the aristocrats of the Principality of Salerno as a significant issue during the revolts against William I in 1160–2; while Joanna Drell has argued for the importance of ‘ancestral memory’ among the Lombards of Salerno, despite the admitted intermarriage between Normans and Lombards in the region – this did not, she argues, extinguish a distinctively Lombard sense of genealogy, and hence of identity, that continued into the late twelfth century.4 Yet it is precisely here that we have a problem. While French may indeed have continued as the language of the court, how far and for how long was even the ruling class of the Sicilian regno really conscious of its Norman antecedents? This did not, after all, prevent the widespread conspiracy that overthrew the rule of Stephen of Perche at Easter 1168 and led to the death or exile of his   See now, G.A. Loud, ‘The kingdom of Sicily and the kingdom of England, 1066– 1266’, History, 88 (2003), pp. 540–67, especially 550–51. 4   Errico Cuozzo, ‘À propos de la coexistence entre Normands et Lombardes dans le royaume de Sicile. La revolte féodale de 1160–1162’, in Claude Carozzi and Huguette Taviani-Carozzi (eds), Peuples du Moyen Âge. Problèmes d’identification (Aix-en-Provence, 1996), pp. 45–56, and also in his Normanni, nobiltà e cavalleria (Salerno, 1995), pp. 144–63; Joanna Drell, ‘Cultural syncretism and ethnic identity: the Norman Conquest of southern Italy and Sicily’, Journal of Medieval History, 25 (1999): pp. 187–202, and her Kinship and Conquest. Family Strategies in the Principality of Salerno during the Norman Period 1077– 1194 (Ithaca, NY, 2002), especially pp. 131–39. 3

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followers. Furthermore the terms in which ‘Falcandus’, our principal source, describe this rebellion are notable in that they contrast the native ‘Sicilians’ with the ‘foreigners’ who accompanied Stephen – the ‘foreign-born pirates’ (predones alienigenae), allegedly seeking to exploit the kingdom and its inhabitants. ‘The Latins’, we are told, ‘had come to hate the French’.5 Yet these Latins included those of Norman descent, whom one might have expected to have some sense of kinship and identity with the Normans and northern French who accompanied Stephen of Perche. We should, of course, be careful not to draw too many conclusions from one narrative source taken in isolation; and particularly not from a source as problematic as the History of pseudo-Falcandus. We do not, after all, know very precisely when this was written, nor by whom. If, for example, we take the most recent suggestions as to the putative identity of the author, by Alexander Franke and Edoardo d’Angelo, who suggest respectively that this was either the celebrated Anglo-Norman scholar Peter of Blois or his brother William, briefly abbot of Matina, then the fact that it may (and I stress may) have been the work of a northern French author who for most of his life was a denizen of the AngloNorman world might suggest a very different viewpoint and sense of identity than if the writer was a native of the regno. (I should re-iterate that I do not necessarily accept either identification of the author, although Professor D’Angelo’s case, at least, is more detailed and convincing than earlier theories: I merely refer to it to remind us how uncertain the ground is when we place reliance on this text).6 In addition, if we compare ‘Falcandus’ with the earlier chroniclers who describe King Roger’s conquest of mainland southern Italy in the 1130s, both writing in that decade, the contrasts are instructive. Alexander of Telese does briefly refer in his prologue to the Norman conquest of southern Italy, which God permitted because of the sins of the Lombards.7 Similarly Falco of Benevento, describing the events of 1113–14, wrote of the local Norman aristocracy ‘being convulsed with envy and hatred for the Lombards’, and referred to the ‘war with the Normans’ and to the ‘reluctance of the Normans to make peace with the

  Falcandus, pp. 147–8; Tyrants, pp. 200–1.   Alexander Franke, ‘Zur Identität des “Hugo Falcandus”’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 64 (2008): pp. 1–13; and Edoardo D’Angelo, ‘Intellettuali tra Normandia e Sicilia (per un identikit letterario del cosidetto Ugo Falcando)’, in Anna Laura Trombetti Budriesi (ed.), Cultura cittadina e documentazione. Formazione e circolazione di modelli (Bologna, 2009), pp. 325–49. 7   Al. Tel. Abbatis Ystoria Rogerii Regis Sicilie Calabrie atque Apulie, (ed.) Ludovica De Nava, Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 112 (Rome, 1991) [henceforth Al. Tel.], p. 3. 5

6

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people of Benevento’.8 Yet after this Falco made almost no further mention of Normans in his chronicle – the only other times he employed the term were in connection with the renders that the Beneventans owed from their lands around the city to the neighbouring nobles.9 And despite what might seem to be his antipathy for the Normans in these early entries, the hero of the later part of the chronicle was Count Rainulf of Caiazzo, who was very definitely a Norman, being a member of the kin group of the Quarrels, the Norman princes of Capua. Similarly, apart from in the prologue, Alexander of Telese only mentioned the Normans once, and, as in the prologue, that was a purely historical reference to the founding of the town of Aversa by the Normans.10 He was thus obviously aware of the Norman conquest of Italy, but neither for Alexander, nor seemingly for Falco after c. 1114, was the distinction between Norman and Lombard relevant to their discussion of current events. And to give one final example from the contemporary historical texts from southern Italy, there is the Gesta Francorum. Whoever the author of this account of the First Crusade was, there is no doubt that he was a member of Bohemond’s army from southern Italy, but while both the modern editor of this text, Rosalind Hill, and a number of more recent scholars have identified the author as a Norman and the text as part of a general penumbra of ‘Norman’ historiography, there is one word that is almost completely and conspicuously absent from the Gesta, and that word is Normannus.11 The author of the Gesta only ever employed this adjective with regard to Duke Robert of Normandy, and never to describe members of Bohemond’s south Italian contingent.12 We might also note in this context that Orderic Vitalis, often seen as the quintessential Norman historian, described Bohemond as leading an army of ‘Lombards and Italians’ on the First Crusade.13   Falco of Benevento, Chronicon Beneventanum, (ed.) Edoardo D’Angelo (Florence, 1998) [henceforth Falco], pp. 10, 14. 9   Falco, pp. 128, 192. 10   Al. Tel., De Nava, III.4, p. 61. 11   Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, (ed.) Rosalind Hill (London, 1956). For modern views on the Gesta, see for example Emily Albu, The Normans in their Histories (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 147–64; and Albu, ‘Probing the passions of a Norman on Crusade: the Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum’, in John Gillingham (ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies 27: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2004 (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 1–15. 12  E.g. Gesta Francorum, pp. 59, 68, 85, 94. On other occasions, however, Robert was described as dux Northmanniae, Gesta Francorum, pp. 69, 81, 95. 13   The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, (ed.) Marjorie Chibnall (6 vols, Oxford, 1969–81), v. 110. Orderic derived his (third-hand) account of the Crusade from the Breton Baudri of Bourgeuil, but did not copy this usage directly from Baudri. The latter never 8

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We are not, of course, dependent on the evidence of the chroniclers alone in understanding a sense of Norman identity or Norman tradition: far from it. The abundant charter evidence from southern Italy allows us both to identify Normans and other Frenchmen, and also to have a sense of how far being ‘Norman’ mattered, and when it mattered. Given the constraints of space, one can do no more than very briefly recapitulate the conclusions reached on the former issue, above all by Léon-Robert Ménager, but also developed by a number of others including myself. There was very definitely a ‘Norman’ conquest, in that between two-thirds and three-quarters of the identifiable incomers were from the Duchy of Normandy, and that these genuine Normans included many of the families who were most important in southern Italy after c. 1070, not least the various branches of the extended kin groups of the Hauteville Dukes of Apulia and the Quarrel Princes of Capua. (We should remember that in addition to the dukes of Apulia and counts of Sicily, the progeny of Tancred de Hauteville gave rise to four other comital dynasties in southern Italy, and the junior branches of the princes of Capua to three comital families).14 Nevertheless, the newcomers also included a minority of men from other parts of France, although mostly from those provinces adjacent to Normandy, Maine, Brittany, the Île-de-France, and (to a lesser extent, and not quite so adjacent) Flanders.15 But that is hardly surprising, given the political and familial links across the Norman border with the duchy’s neighbours, and the almost equally significant involvement of such people, particularly Bretons, in the settlement of post-1066 England.16

described Bohemond’s army as Normans, but like the Gesta, which he copied, left it vague as to whom it did comprise, Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Historiens Occidentaux, iv.21. 14   The Hautevilles: the counts of Catanzaro, Conversano, Loritello and the Principato; the princes of Capua: the counts of Caiazzo, Carinola and Monte Sant’Angelo, G.A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard. Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow, 2000), pp. 246–49. 15   Léon-Robert Ménager, ‘Pesanteur et etiologie de la colonisation normande de l’Italie’, in Roberto il Guiscardo e il suo tempo (Relazioni e communicazioni nelle Prime Giornate normanno-sveve, Bari maggio 1973) (Rome, 1975), pp. 189–214. For a more general, and less strictly prosopographical perspective, see G.A. Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest of southern Italy’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 25 (1981): pp. 13–34 [reprinted in G.A. Loud, Conquerors and Churchmen in Norman Italy (Aldershot, 1999)]; and Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 81–91. 16   Katharine Keats-Rohan, ‘William I and the Breton contingent in the non-Norman Conquest 1060–1087’, in Marjorie Chibnall (ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies 13: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1990 (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 157–72; Keats-Rohan, ‘The Bretons and the Normans of England 1066–1154: the family, the fief and the feudal monarchy’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 36 (1992), pp. 42–78, where (on p. 75) the author estimates

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This raises an important issue, for new elements within southern Italy might not necessarily all be ‘Norman’. Thus, even within the quintessentially ‘Norman’ town of Aversa we have references, in a small group of charters from the 1070s, to the mos Francorum, rather than the mos Normannorum. There were, indeed, men who called themselves ‘French’ living at Aversa in the later eleventh century, as well as a number of Bretons.17 Similarly, while northern influence is clear in at least some of the surviving architectural evidence from southern Italy this was not necessarily always Norman. Indeed, while the late eleventh century cathedral at Aversa might seem to have followed contemporary Norman models with its ambulatory and radiating chapels, it also has parallels from other parts of France, notably Poitou, and perhaps from Cluny. (The sculpture within the cathedral, meanwhile, would appear to be the work of local, and probably Lombard, craftsmen).18 Yet we must be aware of how misleading such evidence may be. Just as the examination of architectural styles may seem (at least to the non-specialist) very subjective, so even seemingly clear written evidence may be ambiguous. Thus all four of the charters from Aversa that refer to the ‘custom of the French’ were written by the same notary. Are we therefore dealing with a sense that there was a law of the French as a whole, and not just the Normans, or with a non-standard usage by one particular scribe? Similar considerations may come into play with the identification of individuals. For example, in 1143 a man called Simon de Théville gave a church to the Augustinian canons of St. Leonard, Siponto. He described himself as being the son of Rodulf, de genere Francorum.19 Yet Théville, from which he derived his name, is in the Cotentin peninsula, so we are not dealing here with a generic and otherwise unidentified ‘Frenchman’, or with someone from the Île-de-France, as an incautious reading might suggest, but with someone whose paternal descent was from the Duchy that some twenty-one per cent of landholders in England after 1066 were non-Norman Frenchmen. 17   E.g. Aldoynus the Frank, who made a donation to the monastery of St Sebastian at Naples in 1087, Regii Neapolitani Archivii Monumenta (6 vols., Naples, 1854–61), v. 119–20 no. 445; Ihon of Dol, who witnessed a charter of Prince Richard II for Aversa cathedral in October 1095, Diplomi inediti di principi normani di Capua, Conti di Aversa, (ed.) Mauro Inguanez (Montecassino, 1926), pp. 14–16 no. 5; John son of Ermenioth de genere britannorum ortus in 1097, Reg. Neap. Arch. Mon., v. 228–30 no. 488. 18   Mario d’Onofrio, ‘Comparaisons entre quelques édifices de style normand de l’Italie méridionale et du royaume de France aux XI e XII siècles’, in Les Normands de Méditerranée, (ed.) Pierre Bouet and François Neveux (Caen, 1994), pp. 184–86. Dorothy F. Glass, Romanesque Sculpture in Campania. Patrons, Programs and Styles (Philadelphia, 1991), pp. 42–53. 19   Regesto di S. Leonardo di Siponto, (ed.) Fortunato Camobreco (Rome, 1913), pp. 17–18 no. 18.

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of Normandy, even if he identified his ancestry as French.20 I shall come back to a similar case in a different context later in this paper, but for the moment let us just bear in mind how careful we need to be when examining our evidence for the Norman/French impact or Norman tradition. Yet the question of ‘how Norman was Norman Italy’ may be addressed in two other senses as well. While accepting that many of those who invaded, or more properly infiltrated, southern Italy and Sicily during the eleventh century were indeed from the Duchy of Normandy, and that the word ‘Norman’ was not simply used as a portmanteau term for any newcomer from north of the Alps – literally ‘northmen’ – as it might have been, how long did any real sense of Norman identity last? If one approaches the charters rather than the chronicles, the picture is surprisingly clear, and supports what we have already noted for the chroniclers of the age of King Roger. After c. 1130 any use of the word Normannus is increasingly rare. Furthermore, a generation before that date we start to see a change in the way that the term ‘Norman’ is employed as a means of identification – and also other such French ethnic identifiers. Increasingly, instead of ‘so-and-so the Norman’, or sometimes ‘so-and-so the Breton’, we find persons identified as ‘the son of so-and-so the Norman’; for example ‘Adam son of the late Gilbert the Norman’ (found in charters from 1115 and 1118) – in other words the ethnic identification is one from the previous generation.21 Charters of this type are actually far more numerous than those where the donor himself is given an ethnic identifier. [For other examples, see the appendix]. One also finds the children of persons identified as Norman in other documents who subsequently describe neither themselves nor their father as Norman.22 These are surely signs of integration. Furthermore, this was taking place at a time when immigration from Normandy on any scale was very largely ceasing, which seems to have been by the first years of the twelfth century – those high profile recruits to the royal administration or the Church thereafter were isolated individuals rather than part of a continuing diaspora. Indeed, it is not necessarily clear that   Léon-Robert Ménager, ‘Inventaire des familles normandes et franques emigrées en Italie méridionale et en Sicile (XIe et XIIe siècles)’, in Roberto il Guiscardo e il suo tempo [note 15 above], pp. 346–47. 21   Archivio della badia di S. Trinità di Cava [henceforth Cava], Arca xx.33, 112. Adam was an inhabitant of Castel S. Giorgio, near Nocera, on the border between the principalities of Salerno and Capua. 22   Thus compare Unfredus Normannorum ortus genere with Radulphus Machabeus filius Unfredi in two Montescaglioso charters of January 1083 and September 1099. The first of these has admittedly been interpolated, but the identifier is hardly the element likely to have been added. Serafino Tansi, Historia Cronologica Monasterii S. Michaelis Archangeli Montis Caveosi (Naples, 1746), pp. 134–36 no. 5, 141–43 no. 9. 20

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later arrivals from the Anglo-Norman kingdom were always even recognised as ‘Normans’; the vestiarius of Montecassino in the 1130s was identified as ‘English’ (genere Anglus),23 and when Peter of Blois tried to persuade Bishop Richard of Syracuse to leave Sicily he extolled ‘the sweetness of your native English air’.24 (That may also reflect the strong sense of English identity developing by the later twelfth century even among descendants of the conquerors of 1066).25 The other major factor diluting a continued sense of Norman identity was intermarriage. William of Malmesbury commented on the propensity of the Normans to marry among those whom they had conquered.26 Given that the majority of the newcomers to southern Italy were almost certainly men, and that sending back to Normandy for suitable marriage partners was surely the prerogative only of the élite, the overwhelming majority of the marriages contracted by first generation incomers must have been with daughters of the indigenous inhabitants, primarily from among the Lombards who were fellow Latin Christians. Indeed, even at the topmost social level, while Roger I of Sicily married successively two women from the aristocracy of the duchy, Judith of Grandsmesnil and Eremburga of Mortain,27 others intermarried with the local élite. Robert Guiscard was one of four members of the Hauteville clan who married women from the family of the Lombard Princes of Salerno, as did other important Norman lords such as Roger of S. Severino and Simon de Théville.28 At a somewhat lower, though still significant, social level, Aymo of Arienzo, one of the ‘barons of Aversa’ in the early twelfth century, who became one of King Roger’s local justiciars in the Principality of Capua in 1135, had   Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, (ed.) Hartmut Hoffmann (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 1980), IV.108, pp. 570, 573. 24   Epistola 46, Patrologia Latina, 207, cols. 133–34. 25   David Crouch, ‘Normans and Anglo-Normans: a divided aristocracy?’, in David Bates and Anne Curry (eds), England and Normandy in the Middle Ages (London, 1994), pp. 52–67. 26   William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, (trans. and ed.) R.A.B. Mynors, R.M. Thomson and Michael Winterbottom (Oxford, 1998), i.460–61. 27   De Rebus Gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi Ducis fratris eius, auctore Gaufredo Malaterra, (ed.) Ernesto Pontieri (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, Bologna, 1927–8), II.19, IV.14, pp. 35, 93. 28   Huguette Taviani-Carozzi, La Principauté Lombarde de Salerne, IXe–Xie Siècle (Rome, 1991), ii.930–34. Roger of S. Severino was married to Sica, grand-daughter of Guaimar IV; while Simon (probably not the same man as in the 1143 Apulia charter discussed above) married Mabilia, daughter of Guaimar of Giffoni, and great-grand-daughter of Guaimar III. Her first husband, recorded in March 1115, was called Robert. Who this Robert was is unknown, but Robert, lord of Eboli, who died in 1121, is a possibility. Cava, Arm. Mag. E.43, F.18 ( June 1121), F.21 (February 1122). 23

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married a daughter of a Lombard count from Pozzuoli.29 One motive for such marriages may of course have been to justify the takeover of land and reconcile the natives to the usurpation of power by foreign conquerors. William of Apulia commented on the marriage of Robert Guiscard to Sichelgaita: A marriage of such grandeur much augmented Robert’s noble reputation, and people who previously had to be constrained to serve him now rendered to him the obedience due to his ancestors. For the Lombard people knew that Italy had been subject to his wife’s grandfathers and great-grandfathers.30

Yet in the long run the consequence of these unions was to blur any sense of distinction between natives and immigrants; hence Malaterra’s sour remark on the mixed ancestry of Duke Roger Borsa: ‘he treated Lombards equally with Normans, since he himself was from the former people on his mother’s side, and believing them faithful to him did not notice their dislike of our race’.31 Malaterra, we should remember, was a recent immigrant – but by the 1090s Normans had been in Italy for several generations, and intermarriage was hardly likely to have seemed so shocking to them – nor by the 1120s or 1130s is there much evidence of the Lombard dislike of the Normans that Malaterra alleged. While one might suggest that the remarks of Falco of Benevento to which I have already alluded were a sign of such visceral dislike, we should remember that they were probably written soon after 1114/15, and that the later parts of his chronicle (which was written in stages and not as a whole) show no further traces of anti-Norman animus.32 Most of the Normans who came to southern Italy, therefore, followed the example of William of Échauffour, whom Orderic mentioned, who ‘took to wife a nobleman of Lombard stock’, became a vassal of Count Robert of Loritello, ‘and for almost forty years lived among the Lombards, forgetting Normandy’.33 A sense of identity faded, albeit gradually. One of the S. Severino clan could still, for example, in 1113, address a charter to ‘all his men Lombards and Normans’: but note that his vassals included both – while his brother Roger of S. Severino, the head of the kin group, made a donation to the abbey of Cava in 1121 for   Reg. Neap. Arch. Mon. vi.41–42, no. 573 (1118).   Guillaume de Pouille, La Geste de Robert Guiscard, (ed.) Marguerite Mathieu (Palermo, 1961), Bk. II, lines 436–41, p. 156. 31   Malaterra, IV.24, p. 102. 32   For this, see G.A. Loud, ‘The genesis and context of the chronicle of Falco of Benevento’, in Marjorie Chibnall (ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies XV: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1992 (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 177–98. 33   Orderic, ii.126–27. 29

30

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the soul of his ‘beloved wife’, a grand-daughter of the Lombard Prince Guaimar IV.34 Similarly, Errico Cuozzo has pointed to the number of Lombards among the vassals of the counts of the Principato during the second quarter of the twelfth century – and there was at least one Greek among their number, too.35 While some of his Lombard vassals undoubtedly suffered as a consequence of the downfall of Count William III of the Principato after the rebellion of 1155–56, was this not more likely to have been a consequence of loyalty to their immediate overlord than any continuance of ethnic tensions left over from a conquest which had taken place, in this region, eighty to ninety years earlier?36 The other factor that was undoubtedly significant in this context of assimilation was that the newcomers were never particularly numerous. Hence the relatively small military forces at their leaders’ disposal, most famously the 136 knights with whom Count Roger won his celebrated victory at Cerami in Sicily in 1063;37 the slowness of the takeover of the Mezzogiorno, that the larger towns in particular were conquered late, or in some cases (Amalfi, Naples and Benevento) not at all; that even where conquered cities such as Salerno and Bari were hardly colonised by the newcomers, and remained overwhelmingly populated by, and for practical purposes under the control of, the indigenous inhabitants. Even in a town like Troia, which was a centre of ducal rule, the local urban élite continued to manage their own affairs, and as ducal power in Apulia weakened after 1085 the support of such civic dignitaries became something that required cultivation.38 There were areas where the local aristocracy remained stubbornly in place: in the Stilo region in Calabria, in parts of the Principality of Salerno, where the landowning class of the early twelfth century included a number of relatives of the former princes, in the Amalfitan peninsula, in the north of the Principality of Capua, and above all in much of the Abruzzi, where the Lombard counts of Sangro, Marsia and Valva continued to dominate the  Cava, Arm. Mag. E.26; F.18. In the former charter, October 1113, Roger’s brother Turgisius expressly notified omnibus fidelibus suis normannis atque longobardis of his donation to Cava. Among the witnesses to the latter charter, in June 1121, was Guaimarius de domina Lampadia. Some doubts as to the genuineness of this latter document have been expressed by Maria Galante, ‘Un Esempio di diplomatic signorile: i documenti dei Sanseverino’, in Filippo D’Oria (ed.), Civiltà del Mezzogiorno d’Italia. Libro, scrittura document in età normannosveva (Salerno, 1994), p. 280. Nevertheless, in the absence of a full and scientific edition of the documents of this family, I am inclined to accept it as substantially genuine. 35  Cuozzo, Normanni, nobiltà e cavalleria, pp. 97–124. 36   It is notable that Drell appears not to accept Cuozzo’s analysis on this point, in her Kinship and Conquest, pp. 120–21. 37   Malaterra, II.33, pp. 42–43. 38   Paul Oldfield, City and Community in Norman Italy (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 32–38. 34

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region.39 By contrast, in England after the Norman conquest the replacement of the upper ranks of the nobility was more or less total. In the words of William of Malmesbury, writing c. 1125: ‘England has become a dwelling place of foreigners and a playground for lords of alien blood’.40 This rhetorical statement is amply supported by the factual information derived from Domesday Book, where only four of the 180 tenants-in-chief listed were Anglo-Saxons, and three of these very minor figures. Only some four per cent of land listed in Domesday, assessed by value, remained in the hands of indigenous landholders, and if anything this proportion tended to decline in the years immediately after 1086. Thus the lands of two of the four Anglo-Saxon tenants-in-chief in Domesday ended up in Norman hands.41 Similarly, by the time of William the Conqueror’s death, only one of the fifteen bishoprics in England was still held by an Englishman. However, in regard to the Church, the situation was very different in Norman Italy. Indeed, insofar as we can identify bishops and other leading churchmen there, it would seem that only a small minority were Frenchmen – and these were not necessarily Normans. Thus only one of the bishops whom Roger I appointed to the five new sees he founded in Sicily in the early 1090s was a Norman, although three came from other parts of France.42 However, on the mainland the proportion of Frenchmen in the episcopate was much smaller, and in only a handful of bishoprics, notably Aversa, Capua, Melfi, Otranto, Troia and Venosa, was there any tradition of appointing Norman or French prelates – and this in a Church with many more bishoprics than Anglo-Norman England. (By the mid-twelfth century there were some 144 sees within the Kingdom of Sicily – not surprisingly, many of them were very small and very poor). Similarly, while one or two monasteries in centres of Norman settlement such as Aversa and Venosa had French abbots, and probably a majority of Francophone monks, most of the more important and influential monastic houses in southern Italy, notably Montecassino and Cava, recruited from and were ruled by Lombards.43

  Laurent Feller, ‘The northern frontier of Norman Italy, 1060–1140’, in G.A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe (eds), The Society of Norman Italy (Leiden, 2002), pp. 47–74, especially 55–9, 63–4; and for Amalfi, Patricia Skinner, ‘The Tyrrhenian coastal cities under the Normans’, in The Society of Norman Italy, pp. 75–96, especially 87–89. 40   Gesta Regum Anglorum [note 26 above], i.414–17. 41   Hugh M. Thomas, The English and the Normans. Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation and Identity 1066–c. 1220 (Oxford, 2003), pp. 107–8, and Thomas, ‘The significance and fate of the native English landholders of 1086’, English Historical Review , 118 (2003), pp. 303–33. 42   Malaterra, IV.7, 23, pp. 89, 101. 43   G.A. Loud, The Latin Church in Norman Italy (Cambridge, 2007), chapter II, pp. 60–134. 39

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Similarly, it is very hard to find any specifically Norman influence in the administration and government either of the various principalities that emerged in the immediate wake of the Norman conquest or in that of the unified kingdom after 1130. As Vera von Falkenhausen pointed out more than thirty years ago, the native, pre-Norman, traditions remained strong almost everywhere in the Mezzogiorno, and native officials appear to have played significant roles at the courts of the Norman princes of Capua, dukes of Apulia and counts of Sicily.44 Greeks and Arabic Christians were to be the key administrators in the central royal administration at Palermo after 1130. When that administration was reformed and developed by George of Antioch in the 1140s, the major inspiration for this was from Fatimid Egypt.45 Admittedly, we do occasionally find local officials on the mainland with the Norman title of viscount, but this usage seems to have dropped out of favour fairly rapidly.46 The emergence after 1135 of a structure of royal administration on the mainland with justiciars, chamberlains and constables has been seen as drawing on French precedents, certainly insofar as the titles of these officials were concerned. But there was nothing specifically ‘Norman’ here, and indeed while historians have, since a pioneering study by Haskins a century ago, tried to find parallels with AngloNorman administrative practice, it is very hard to find signs of direct influence. The justiciarii in the Anglo-Norman kingdom under Henry I appear to have had a different role from those in the Kingdom of Sicily, and the duties of the vicecomites in England and Normandy, who were the omnicompetent officials within their jurisdictions, were in the south after 1135 split among different officials.47 If there was any mutual influence, it may well have been from Sicily to England, given the employment of the former Sicilian official Master Thomas Brown in the Exchequer of Henry II, but again this is purely conjectural, and the functions of the Anglo-Norman exchequer were not identical with those of the   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘I Ceti dirigenti prenormanni al tempo della costituzione degli stati normanni nell’Italia meridonale e in Sicilia’, in Gabriella Rossetti (ed.), Forme di potere e struttura sociale in Italia nel medioevo (Bologna, 1977), pp. 321–77. 45   Jeremy Johns, ‘The Norman Kings of Sicily and the Fatimid Caliphate’, in Marjorie Chibnall (ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies XV: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1992 (Woodbridge, 1993), pp. 133–59. 46   E.g. Cava, Arca xxi.19 (April 1119), Roger of S. Severino’s viscount at Montoro. The title of viscount appears to have been interchangeable with that of stratigotus, and the latter term, or baiulus, became the usual ones employed for a local administrative official, JeanMarie Martin, La Pouille du VIe au XIIe siècle (Paris, 1993), pp. 764–65. 47   For these, see especially Judith A. Green, The Government of England under Henry I (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 107–10, 118–23. For the comparison, Charles H. Haskins, ‘England and Sicily in the twelfth century’, English Historical Review, 26 (1911), 433–47, 643–65. 44

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Sicilian Dīwān al-Tahqīq al-Ma’mūr, even assuming that Master Thomas had worked within that part of the royal administration.48 One might conclude from what I have been saying that Norman traditions were more or less insignificant in the Kingdom of Sicily, indeed to such an extent that the very label that we pin upon it, ‘the Norman Kingdom of Sicily’ is in reality a misnomer. Yet that would surely be going too far. One might suggest three significant areas where Norman, or perhaps more properly NormannoFrench, tradition did have a significant impact. The first of these is admittedly somewhat speculative, and that is on the status of the south Italian peasant – a subject which, as with so many other aspects of Norman Italy, cries out for further and more intensive research. However, some historians have considered that the Norman conquest of the Mezzogiorno saw a significant extension both of peasant servitude and of the fiscal burdens laid on the agricultural class. In Calabria, for example, the new Latin monasteries such as Holy Trinity, Mileto, founded by Roger I, were endowed with a large number of unfree villeins.49 Yet before the Normans this was a region that, in common with the rest of the Byzantine Empire, had an agrarian society composed primarily of free peasants rather than paroikoi, or so at least André Guillou would suggest.50 In other regions the development of seigneurial demesnes saw the imposition of corvées on at least some of the rural population, and the development of new lordships led to increasing burdens and restrictions being laid upon the local peasants.51 But while one might consider that this reflected the social and economic situation with which the Normanno-French upper-class were familiar in their homeland, certain qualifications, or notes of caution, need to be made. There were, for example, significant regional differences. While demesne agriculture and forced labour may have been significant in the Capitanata, 48   Dialogus de Scaccario, (ed. and trans.) Charles Johnson, revised F. E. L. Carter and Diana. E. Greenway (Oxford, 1983), pp. 35–36. Thomas does seem to have had a role in the resolution of boundary disputes, which fell within the purview of the Dīwān al-Tahqīq al-Ma’mūr, though neither of the relevant documents mention that body, Rogerii II. Regis Diplomata Latina, (ed.) Carlrichard Brühl (Codex Diplomaticus regni Siciliae, Ser. I.ii (1), Cologne, 1987), pp. 267–68 appendix II no. 4 ( June 1143); 156–62 no. 57 ( July 1143). But the other Sicilian evidence, such as it is, suggests that he worked primarily within the king’s writing office (several of the other documents mentioning Thomas are, however, forgeries). 49   von Falkenhausen, ‘Ceti dirigenti’, pp. 329–30; G.A. Loud, ‘Byzantine Italy and the Normans’, in J.D. Howard-Johnston (ed.), Byzantium and the West c.850–c.1200: Proceedings of the XVIII Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Oxford 1984 (Amsterdam, 1988), pp. 226–27 [reprinted in Loud, Conquerors and Churchmen]. 50   A. Guillou, ‘Inchiesta sulla populazione greca della Sicilia e della calabria nel Medio Evo’, Rivista storica italiana, 75 (1964), pp. 53–68, especially p. 64. 51   Jean-Marie Martin, Italies Normandes. XIe–XII Siècles (Paris, 1994), pp. 181–88.

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an under-exploited and thinly-populated region that was only beginning to be developed when the Normans arrived there, it was much less so in the Campania, heavily-settled and with well-established agricultural structures and practices. There were demesne lands (startia) and labour services there, but they were rare, and this latter region remained overwhelmingly one of a rentier, leasehold, economy. We do find unfree peasants here, but it is by no means clear that they were simply a product of the Norman conquest or of ‘Norman’ traditions. Lombard aristocrats donated serfs to churches, and the development of seigneurial lordship, as revealed for example in the charters of Cava, was a slow process that continued through much of the twelfth century.52 We must also be wary in assuming cause and effect. There is much we do not know, for example what role wage labour may have played in the agrarian economy. Other factors may have been just as important as the conquest in driving these changes onwards, especially a rising population and increasing shortage of land. Furthermore, the development of bannal lordship and the imposition of new exactions upon the peasantry was a general phenomenon over much of France, and indeed Western Europe, during the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, not just in Normandy, and it occurred at a time when the Norman conquest of southern Italy was well under way. While common factors may have been responsible, this was hardly a matter of Norman ‘tradition’.53 Similarly the extension of serfdom to a hitherto largely free peasantry was a general phenomenon in the Byzantine Empire in the later tenth and eleventh centuries, not just in Calabria, the driving forces of which were taxation by the state, as well as the political and social ambitions of Greek aristocrats.54 Two further aspects of Norman tradition, or perhaps we should say ‘the Norman impact’ are somewhat less murky. These are law, and especially the law relating to inheritance, and secondly military obligation. Norman, or French, law was, of course, only one among several legal systems to be found in southern Italy during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. At the beginning of the law code contained within the so-called Vatican Assizes of Cod. Vat. Lat.   G.A. Loud, ‘The monastic economy in the Principality of Salerno during the eleventh and twelfth centuries’, Papers of the British School of Rome, 71 (2003), pp. 141–79, especially pp. 147–51. For the Capitanata, Martin, La Pouille du VIe au XIIe siècle, pp. 319–22. 53   See now especially Thomas N. Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century. Power, Lordship and the Origins of European Government (Princeton, 2009), particularly pp. 118– 19, 163–67, 358–60. However, one should note that there was also a significant increase in the burdens imposed on the peasantry after the Norman conquest of England: Rosamond Faith, The English Peasantry and the Growth of Lordship (London, 1997), pp. 201–33. 54   Rosemary Morris, ‘The powerful and the poor in tenth-century Byzantium’, Past and Present, 73 (1976), pp. 3–27, is particularly helpful on this issue. 52

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8782 – if law code this is – King Roger specifically confirmed that, ‘because of the variety of different people subject to our rule, the usages, customs and laws which have existed among them up to now are not abrogated unless what is observed in them is clearly in contradiction to our edicts here’.55 While for the great majority of the population this meant the continuance of Lombard, Roman, or on Sicily Islamic, law, for the landowning class, or for those members of it who were of Normanno-French descent, this meant the legal traditions they had brought from home. Now the continuance of different law codes might be seen as one way in which consciousness of separate ethnic identity was maintained, and to a surprisingly late date. For example, a marriage contract of 1248 could refer to the grant of the morgengab (morning gift) secundum ritus gentis nostre Longobardorum.56 But in practice legal boundaries might often be blurred. Territorial lords might be eclectic in what law they exploited in their administration – thus in 1089 Count Geoffrey of Conversano cited the law of King Liutprand to justify the confiscation of property which he then gave to a local monastery.57 Some newcomers might even formally adopt indigenous law, as for example the Hugh, son of Gerbert, de genere Francorum vivens secundum legem langobardorum, who made a donation to the bishopric of Valva, in the Abruzzi in April 1092. Indeed, this particular person is especially noteworthy, since he is undoubtedly to be identified with the ‘Norman’ Hugh Mamouzet who was so disliked by the monks of Casauria and their chronicler John Berard; so here we also have another example of the sometimes loose distinction between Frenchman and Norman, which has been discussed above.58 Nor did the presence of different legal systems prevent intermarriage. So, in 1122 the great-granddaughter of Prince Guaimar III of Salerno (d. 1027) could make a   Gennaro Maria Monti, Lo Stato Normanno Svevo. Lineamenti e ricerche (Trani, 1945), p. 116. For the significance of the Vatican Assizes the best introduction is Hubert Houben, Roger II of Sicily. A Ruler between East and West, (trans.) G.A. Loud and Diane Milburn (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 137–47. 56   Le Pergamene dell’archivio vescovile di Caiazzo (1007–1265), (ed.) Catello Salvati et alii (Caserta, 1983), pp. 280–81 no. 127. 57   Le Pergamene di Conversano (901–1265), (ed.) Giuseppe Coniglio (Codice diplomatico pugliese 20, Bari, 1975), pp. 113–15 no. 49. 58   Codice diplomatic sulmonese, (ed.) Nunzio Federigo Faraglia (Lanciano, 1888), pp. 23–5 no. 16 (April 1092); cf. another charter (c. 1091), in Alexandri Monachi Chronicorum Liber Monasterii Sancti Bartholomei de Carpineto, (ed.) Berardo Pio, Fonti per la storia d’Italia Medievale (Rome, 2001), pp. 253–6, issued by Ugo Malmozetta ex natione francorum. For Mamouzet and Casauria, Chronicon Casauriense, in Lodovico Antonio Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ii (2) (Milan, 1726), cols. 866–70; discussed by Laurent Feller, Les Abruzzes Médiévales. Territoire, Économie et Société en Italie Centrale du IXe au XIIe Siècle (Rome 1998), pp. 733–39. 55

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donation of her mother’s morgengab portion to the abbey of Cava in accordance with Lombard law, acting as that law specified by permission of her husband and mundoald (legal guardian), even though that husband was a Norman.59 For the most part, however, the newcomers observed French customs when it came to their own inheritance and marriage. There were some significant differences between these two traditions. Hence the dower of women under French law was one third of the estate of their husbands rather than the morgengab of one quarter under Lombard law, although this was a life tenure rather than an absolute endowment as the morgengab was. Above all, whereas Lombard law practised a system of joint inheritance, that of the newcomers enshrined a system of primogeniture, and lineal rather than joint or partible inheritance.60 What is, however, particularly interesting is the impact that these French legal customs had upon the indigenous upper-class, to illustrate which two examples will be cited. The first comes from a charter of November 1137, in which Sika, the widow of a certain Daddeus of Montefusco, made a donation to the monastery of Montevergine. Now Daddeus was the son of Landulf de Greca, who in 1113 was appointed as constable of Benevento and led the defence of Benevento against the city’s Norman neighbours, whom (as we have seen earlier) the chronicler Falco denounced. There can be no doubt therefore that Landulf was a Lombard. Yet his daughter-in-law proclaimed that when she married her husband, he gave her a dot according to Norman custom (moribus Normannorum).61 This was most probably because she was herself of Norman descent, but it reminds us that intermarriage could work both ways, spreading the customs of the newcomers to the natives as well as submerging the identity of the former. The second example of such acculturation is even more striking. This relates to a man called William de Mannia who is attested in 1103/4 as the lord of Novi Velia in the extreme south of the Principality of Salerno. William was a Norman, something that we can ascertain not just because of his Christian name, or because his father was also called William, but because of his surname – which almost certainly derives from Magny (Calvados) or Magny-le-Désert (Orne). He was married to a Lombard woman, the daughter of a former Lombard count from Teano in the Principality of Capua, whose family had been expropriated by the Norman  Cava, Arm. Mag. F.21. For a similar, but later example of a husband of French descent acting as the mundoald of his Lombard wife, see Codice diplomatic verginiano, (ed.) P.M. Tropeano (13 vols., Montevergine, 1977–2001), viii.91–94 no. 726 (December 1183). 60   Claude Cahen, Le Régime Féodale de l’Italie Normande (Paris, 1940), pp. 86–88; Antonio Marongiu, La Famiglia nell’Italia Meridionale (sec. VIII–XIII) (Milan, 1944), pp. 184–85. 61   Cod. Dipl. Verginiano, iii.183–86 no. 244. For Landulf de Graeca, Falco, pp. 6–20, 24, and 72 (his death in November 1123). 59

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princes.62 The lordship of Novi Velia continued to be held through the twelfth century and beyond by a family who called themselves de Mannia. However, despite the name, these were not the direct descendants of the William de Mannia of 1103. They were, in fact, the descendants of his brother-in-law Pandulf, who was a great-grandson of the Lombard Prince Guaimar III. Pandulf had married William’s sister; his eldest son, William, took both the lordship and the family name of his Norman uncle, and passed these down to his son, grandson, and great-grandson. The family seems to have remained conscious of their mixed ancestry in that their sons in successive generations alternated the lead names William and Gisulf. But they followed the French practice of primogeniture, and while younger brothers are attested in their charters it is clear that these had no direct share in the lordship.63 Thus a family of illustrious Lombard descent had adopted Normanno-French inheritance custom. Should we therefore think of this family, who can be traced in the direct line at least as far as the 1240s, as ‘Lombard’ or ‘Norman’? The answer is probably neither the one nor the other, but is instead an example of south Italian / ‘Sicilian’ assimilation. Finally, and all too briefly, there is the question of military obligation – another issue on which more research is urgently needed. Nonetheless, the picture here is somewhat clearer than with regard to the obligations of the peasantry. Military service in Lombard Italy was a matter of personal status, and not dependent on the tenure of property. The Normans introduced the hitherto-unknown concept of the fief, for which military service to the lord was required. Thus Rainulf, Bishop of Chieti 1086–1101 (from his name clearly a Frenchman), bought a castellum near the Pescara River from a certain Godfrey of Vulturara, in return for the military service of one knight for forty days.64 What we do not know is how widespread such a practice was at the end of the eleventh century. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that churches may largely have been exempt from military burdens, and thus that the private agreement between Bishop Rainulf and Godfrey was an exception rather than the norm.65 Furthermore, the spread of bonds of lordship, military obligation and dependent tenure (what historians of an older generation once, misleadingly, referred to as ‘feudalism’) was slow and piecemeal. Thus the word feudum only began to be  Cava, Arm. Mag. D.41, 47.   As, for example, in Cava, Arca xliii.17 (March 1192), witnessed first by the son of the holder, then by a royal justiciar, and only then by his brother. The descent of the lordship is made clear especially in Cava, Arm. Mag. G.12 (May 1134), in which William de Mannia confirmed a gift of his father Pandulf of Capaccio. 64   Ferdinando Ughelli, Italia Sacra, second edn Nicolò Colletti (10 vols, Venice, 1717– 21), vi.700–1. 65  Loud, Latin Church, pp. 344–45. 62

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employed in central Apulia from the 1120s onwards, and appears not to have been used in the Capitanata until c. 1140.66 But by the time the kingdom was founded there does seem to have been a more general equation of concession of a fief and service. In 1129 Robert de Grandmesnil pleaded to his cousin Roger II to be allowed to return home from a campaign because his fief was too small to sustain the burden of military service laid upon it. Two years later Richard of Rupecanina alleged that he held Avellino and Mercogliano as an allod, without any lord, because he owed no service from this lordship.67 And once Roger II as king had firmly established his rule over the mainland, a consolidated system of military obligation was developed, whereby the military contingents of all those holding fiefs from the king were clearly delineated; the system which is recorded in the Catalogus Baronum, drawn up c. 1150. However, the military structure revealed in the mid-twelfth century by the Catalogue was essentially one imposed from above. It would seem unlikely that, as has sometimes been supposed, it was simply a record of existing obligations that were now incorporated within the framework of service to the Crown.68 Indeed, the very language of the Catalogus suggests that new obligations were evolving, especially with regard to the augmentum, the full-scale levy in case of invasion, where we are told that a fief holder ‘proffered’ or ‘offered’ (obtulit) so many knights and sergeants. Furthermore, the takeover of the mainland, and the proscription of the king’s principal opponents, had led to a significant reorganisation of the counties both in Apulia and in Capua, and not just the substitution of new and more reliable holders for those who had proved untrustworthy. In particular, the very large counties held by Rainulf of Caiazzo and Jordan of Ariano were broken up, while the counties of Andria and Loritello were retained in the hands of the king and only re-granted to new holders some years later. Some new, and generally smaller, counties were created, such as that of Marsico in the south of the Principality of Salerno.69 At a much lower social level, the king for example established new knightly fiefs at Naples in 1140, endowing, as we are told by Falco, each knight with five moggia of land and five villeins.70 So while the fief  Martin, La Pouille du VIe au XIIe siècle, pp. 754–62, especially 758.   Al. Tel., De Nava, I.17, II.15, pp. 16, 30. 68   For example, as claimed by Donald Matthew, The Norman Kingdom of Sicily (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 145–46. See rather Evelyn M. Jamison, ‘Additional work on the Catalogus Baronum’, Bullettino dell’istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, 83 (1971), pp. 1–63 [reprinted in Evelyn M. Jamison, Studies on the Medieval History of Sicily and Southern Italy, (ed.) Dione Clementi and Theo Kölzer (Aalen, 1992)]. 69   Errico Cuozzo, «Quei Maladetti Normanni». Cavalieri e organnizazione militare nel Mezzogiorno normanno (Naples, 1989), pp. 105–25. 70   Falco, p. 236. 66 67

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and the concept of military service in return for a fief may have been imported from Normandy, the full implementation of a system of military obligation based upon them only occurred in the mid-twelfth century, and was a product less of Norman ‘tradition’ than of the practical needs of the new Kingdom of Sicily, faced as it was with a very real threat of external invasion. Even then, as the late twelfth century lists of the knights of Arce, Sora and Aquino appended to the Catalogus Baronum appear to show us, the old Lombard concept of personal obligation survived alongside Norman traditions.71 And at the same time, by no means all the feuda found in southern Italy were held in return for military service, but sometimes for rents in money or kind, or for agricultural or other services.72 Thus, to take a particularly striking example, in March 1170 a man was granted land to be held as feudum from the archbishop of Salerno in return for repairing the barrels in the archbishop’s wine cellar at Nocera.73 In addition, we should remember that at a time when many of the Normans came to Italy, the institutions of government in the Duchy of Normandy were still in their infancy. Before 1066 the dukes did not, for example, possess their own chancery – their diplomas were usually written by scribes provided by the recipients.74 One should hardly be surprised therefore that the governmental structures developed in southern Italy were largely adaptations of those already there, and were often staffed by indigenous officials. Nor was there any organised system of military obligation in Normandy at this period – there are only a handful of references to feoda in pre-1066 Norman charters, almost all after 1050, and a system of military obligation in the duchy only evolved under Henry I, at a time when the links between Normandy and southern Italy were fast diminishing.75 Indeed, the impetus for an organised nexus of military obligation in Normandy itself may have come from Anglo-Saxon England rather than viceversa as was once thought. In addition, it is by no means clear that the relatively   Catalogus Baronum, (ed.) Evelyn M. Jamison (Fonti per la storia d’Italia, Rome, 1972), pp. 264–76, arts. 1263–1372. 72   Among many other examples, see Cod. Dipl. Verginiano, v. 19–21 no. 406 ( June 1161); Cod. Dipl. Sulmonese, pp. 51–52 no. 40 (February 1178), pp. 60–61 no. 45 (1201); Codice diplomatico normanno di Aversa, (ed.) A. Gallo (Naples 1927), pp. 210–11 no. 113 (March 1181), 233–34 no. 125 ( January 1184), in both of these examples note the characteristic phrase feudum ad laborandum, also Codice diplomatico normanno di Aversa, pp. 270–72 no. 143 (November 1191). 73   Salerno, Archivio diocesano, Mensa archiepiscopalis, Arca II no. 78. 74   Recueil des Actes des Ducs de Normandie (911–1066), (ed.) Marie Fauroux (Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, 36, Caen 1961), pp. 41–44. 75   Marjorie Chibnall, ‘Military service in Normandy before 1066’, in R. Allen Brown (ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies V: Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1982 (Woodbridge, 1983), pp. 65–77, especially 66. 71

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late arrival of the concept of homage, as opposed to fealty, to southern Italy was a specifically Norman import. Almost the first instance of this came with the homage given by Duke William of Apulia and others to Pope Calixtus II in 1120, and here the demand for such a ceremony may well have come from the pope, who was a native of Burgundy.76 Thus, even where Norman tradition might seem to be significant, there remain major problems. This reminds us that good historians should not make assumptions – we need to investigate precisely when, where and how such traditions might establish themselves on alien territory. For while there has been more than a century of research on ‘Norman’ Italy and Sicily since the heroic pioneering days of Garufi, Caspar and Chalandon, there still remain some extremely important aspects of the region’s historical evolution that have been inadequately investigated, and require much closer attention than they have hitherto received. Appendix: Some Examples of Ethnic Identification in South Italian Charters, 1050–1160. Identification of Self (1054, March) Robertus comes qui sum ex genere normannorum [Codice diplomatico del monastero benedettino di S. Maria di Tremiti (1005– 1237), ed. A. Petrucci (Fonti per la storia d’Italia, Rome 1960), ii.159–63 no. 51] (1070, April) Gilibertus filius quondam eriberti ex genere normannorum [E. Gattula, Historia Abbatiae Casinensis (Venice 1733), p. 42] (1076, February) Ieffridus Ridellus normannus et dux Gaiete comesque pontiscurvi [Codex diplomaticus caietanus (2 vols, Montecassino 1888–92), ii.116–17 no. 249] (1083, January) Unfredus normannorum ortus genere [Tansi, Historia […] Montis Caveosi, pp. 134–6 no. 5]   Josef Deér, Papsttum und Normannen. Untersuchungen zu ihren lehnsrechtlichen und kirchenpolitischen Beziehungen (Cologne, 1972), pp. 154–58; G.A. Loud, Church and Society in the Norman Principality of Capua 1058–1197 (Oxford, 1985), p. 107. For the origins and family background of Calixtus, see now Beate Schilling, Guido von Vienne – Papst Calixt II., MGH Schriften, 45 (Hanover, 1998), pp. 15–41. 76

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(1092, March) Nos Ranulphus Brito celeste opitulante gratia ducalis comestabulus [Cod. Dipl. Aversa, pp. 10–11 no. 6] Identification of the Father (1101, December) Ego iohelis filius rainonis brittonis 77 [Cava, Arm Mag. D.39; ed. M. Martini, Feudalità e monachesimo cavense in Puglia i Terra di Capitanata (Sant’ Agata di Puglia) (Martina Franca 1915), pp. 45–6 no. 6] (1102, September) Riccardus qui sum dominus de castello qui dicitur Monteforte, ac filius Raoni qui fuit ortus ex genere Lortmannorum [Cod. Dipl. Verginiano, ii.18–20 no. 105] (1104, November) Nos Robertus et Guilielmus germani ac filii quondam Angerii, qui fuit ortus ex provincia Brictania. [Cava, Arca xvii.114] (1115, June) Riccardus dei gratia comes filius quondam domini Riccardi qui fuit comes, ortus ex genere hortmannorum [Cava, Arca xx.27; the count in question was Count Richard of Sarno.] (1115, September; and 1118 June) Adammus filius quondam Gilberti normanni de castello sancto georgii [Cava, Arca xx.33; 112] (1118, October) Ego Guilielmus filius quondam Umfreda normanni qui se dicebat Bodecta de castro sancto georgio [Cava, Arca xx.118] (1118, October) Erbertus filius quondam Erberti nortmanni qui dictus est Caputasini [Cava, Arca xxi.1] (1120, March) Castellana fila quondam guilielmi normanni de castello sancto georgii [Cava, Arca xxi.28]   The son of the man referred to in the March 1092 charter above.

77

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(1121, June) Nos Roggerius de sancto severino filius quondam turgisii normanni [Cava, Arm. Mag. F.18] (1122, March) Ego Girardus de marcia vocor filius quondam raonis normanni qui pinella fuit vocatus [Pergamene Aldobrandini, Cartolario I, no. 51]78 (1128, December) Ugo scilicet ipsius domini nycolay comitis senescalcus ac filius quondam giliberti normanni [Cava, Arm. Mag. F.44] (1129, June) Ego domino Osberno fili Ardoyni qui fuit ex genere Francorum [Cod. Dipl. Verginiano, ii.321–4 no. 175] (1130, October) Ego Roggerius dominus de castello Lapio et filius domni Oldoyni qui fuit ortus ex genere Lortmannorum [Cod. Dipl. Verginiano, ii.378–81 no. 190] (1143, January) Robbertus qui dicitur Mustazza filius quondam Guilielmi normanni [Cava, Arca xxv.38] (1143, March) Symon de Tivelle filius rodulfi de genere Francorum [Regesto di S. Leonardo di Siponto, pp. 17–18 no. 18] (1145, May) Dum Robbertus qui dicitur Mustazza filius quondam Guilielmi normanni ut habet casus humane egrotaret [Cava, Arca xxvi.9] (1159, March) Ego Rainaldus filius quondam Roberto Normanni, qui sum unus ex militibus civitatis Averse [Cod. Dipl. Aversa, pp. 129–30 no. 74]

78   I examined this collection of charters in 1990 while the Pergamene Aldobrandini were still on deposit at the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana. Soon afterwards they were returned to the Aldobrandini family at Frascati.

Chapter 3

The Graeco-Byzantine Heritage in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily Vera von Falkenhausen

To begin with, it may be useful to give a brief chronological overview of the history of the Normans in southern Italy. The first knights arrived in the South around the year 1000.1 During the following decades they served as mercenaries in the armies of the local princes (of Salerno and Naples) and of the Byzantine governors.2 By the early forties of the eleventh century, having observed the endemic instability and political weakness of the various local states, they decided to conquer those territories for themselves. In contrast to the contemporary Norman conquest of England, the Norman adventure in southern Italy was not a dynastic but a private affair. Only in 1059, after their first stunning military successes, did Pope Nicholas II assign the conquered territories as a fief to the Norman leader, Duke Robert Guiscard.3 Shortly afterwards Robert invested his younger brother Roger with the county of Calabria and Sicily, the latter still to be conquered.4 In the early 1090s the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily, except for Naples, was concluded. In 1130 the son of the first Count Roger, Roger II, was crowned king of Sicily. The death of King Tancred in 1194 marks the end of the Norman adventure in Italy. All this is well known. For the theme of my article, the Graeco-Byzantine heritage in the Norman kingdom, four elements are particularly relevant. First, the conquest was a private military affair. The Norman knights were not accompanied by educated   Hartmut Hoffmann, ‘Die Anfänge der Normannen in Süditalien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 49 (1969), pp. 95–144. 2   Graham A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard. Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow, 2000), pp. 69–78; Julia Becker, Graf Roger I. von Sizilien. Wegbereiter des normannischen Königreiches, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 117 (Tübingen, 2008), pp. 32–35. 3   Josef Deer, Das Papsttum und die süditalienischen Normannenstaaten, Historische Texte. Mittelalter 12 (Göttingen, 1969), p. 17; Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 188– 193. 4  Becker, Graf Roger I. von Sizilien, pp. 42–48. 1

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compatriots, clerics and officials with administrative experience, and thus had to use local experts to govern the conquered territories. Second, although several areas of southern Italy were inhabited by a substantial Greek population during the eleventh century – Cilento and southern Basilicata, and particularly Salento (Terra d’Otranto) – in the demographic context of the Norman duchy they constituted a minority. However, the county of Calabria and Sicily, that had been created by dividing the duchy between Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger I, was inhabited by an overwhelming majority of Greeks and Arabs. The Greeks, and some Arabs, were Orthodox Christians, as the local dioceses had belonged to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the patriarch of Constantinople since the eighth century, but the majority of Arabs were Muslims. Thus most local administrative experts were Greek, for in the first decades during and after their conquest the Normans did not really trust their Arab subjects and were somewhat reluctant to employ them. To some degree the Norman conquest of Sicily can be considered as a crusade ante litteram.5 The conquerors thus encouraged many Calabrian Greeks, especially educated laymen and clerics, notaries, calligraphers and grammatikoi, to settle in Sicily and to work for them there. In this way the Greek population of the Island increased, especially in the major cities, such as Palermo and Messina, where citizens with epithets like kalabros, rheginos (from Reggio) or similar can frequently be found.6 Third, that the Norman rulers were vassals to the pope implied that they were obliged to return the Greek bishoprics of Calabria, Sicily and the Salento, to the

  De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi Ducis fratris eius auctore Gaufredo Malaterra, (ed.) Ernesto Pontieri, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, V, 1 (Bologna, 1928), II, 1, pp. 29, 43–45. Moreover the proemia of many charters of the Norman rulers for recipients in Sicily highlight the Christian conquest of the island from the ‘infidel Saracens’: Rocco Pirri, Sicilia sacra, II (Venice, 1733), pp. 974, 1008, 1016, 1025, 1039; Julia Becker, ‘Die griechischen und lateinischen Urkunden Graf Rogers I. von Sizilien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 84 (2004), p. 22; Rogerii II. regis diplomata latina, (ed.) Carlrichard Brühl, Codex diplomaticus regni Siciliae, ser. I, tom. II, 1 (Köln, Wien, 1987), no. 48, p. 136. 6   Santo Lucà, ‘I Normanni e la “Rinascita” del sec. XII’, Archivio storico per la Calabria e la Lucania 60 (1993), pp. 45–46., 53–56; Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘La presenza dei Greci nella Sicilia normanna. L’apporto della documentazione archivistica in lingua greca’, in Byzantino-Sicula, IV: Atti del I Congresso internazionale di archeologia della Sicilia bizantina, (ed.) Rosa Maria Carra Bonacasa, Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici. Quaderni, 15, (Palermo, 2002), pp. 40–41, in English translation: von Falkenhausen, ‘The Greek Presence in Norman Sicily: the Contribution of Archival Material in Greek’, in The Society of Norman Sicily, (ed.) Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe (Leiden-Boston-Köln, 2002), pp. 260–261. 5

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ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome.7 Fourth, the Norman Kingdom of Sicily was created by Roger II, the heir of the first count of Calabria and Sicily, who had grown up in a court largely dominated by Greek administrators, and whose chief advisors were apparently Greek. The names of Christodoulos8 and later George of Antioch9 spring to mind. So much for the political background. But how did Greek and Norman interaction function in the county of Calabria and Sicily? Let us start with the family: the Normans introduced a feudal system into southern Italy which was unknown in the former Byzantine and Arabic provinces of southern Italy. In contrast to what happened to the local elites in the former Lombard principalities, Greeks and Arabs remained outside feudal society. I know only one possible exception: according to a diploma dated 1144 Roger II gave land and villeins to his fidelis and familiaris Deutesalve (Theophylaktos) of Simeri in Calabria, adding: Et de predicta donacione et concessione nostra servire tenearis nobis in capite in partibus Calabrie per unum mensem tantum cum tuis expensis, et ex tunc inantea, si fuerit necessarium, debes nobis servire cum stipendiis curie, et si alibi quam in Calabria fuerit curie necessarium, tuum servicium debes semper a nobis accipere et habere stipendia, sicut moris est dari militibus.

But the form of Roger’s lost Greek charter, transmitted only in Latin translation,10 and the highly technical feudal language of the text do not correspond to the style of royal charters of that period.11 Therefore, in my view, the authenticity of the document is most uncertain. Nor do we know much about intermarriages between the families of Norman knights and Greeks. This might appear strange, for very often the conquerors chose wives from amongst the conquered – think only of Alexander the Great. In the former Lombard   Peter Herde, ‘The Papacy and the Greek Church in Southern Italy between the Eleventh and the Thirteenth Century’, in The Society of Norman Italy, pp. 220–224. 8   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci nel regno normanno’, in Byzantino-Sicula V. Giorgio di Antiochia. L’arte della politica in Sicilia nel XII secolo tra Bisanzio e l’Islam. Atti del Convegno Internazionale (Palermo, 19–20 aprile 2007), (ed.) Mario Re and Cristina Rognoni (Palermo, 2009), pp. 180–183. 9   Jeremy Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily. The Royal Dīwān (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 80–90, et passim. 10   Karl Andreas Kehr, Die Urkunden der normannisch-sicilischen Könige. Eine diplomatische Untersuchung (Innsbruck, 1902), pp. 498–500. 11   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘I diplomi dei re normanni in lingua greca’, in Documenti medievali greci e latini. Studi comparativi. Atti del seminario di Erice (23–29 ottobre 1995), (ed.) Giuseppe De Gregorio and Otto Kresten, Incontri di studio, 1 (Spoleto, 1998), pp. 290–91. 7

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principalities many Norman knights chose local wives, a phenomenon well documented in Campania.12 In Calabria and Sicily, however, the wives of Norman milites or barons who are mentioned in our documents normally have Germanic names. I know few exceptions: for instance Basileia, the second wife of William Culchebret, mentioned in a document of 1096/1097,13 Dionisia, the wife of William Karbouneres, lord of Tarsia (1112),14 and Zoe, wife of the miles Roger Scannacavallus who held fiefs in Sicily in the Milazzo area (1118).15 Religious reasons might explain for the lack of intermarriage and, anyway, few names of the wives of Norman knights are recorded in our sources. There was however spiritual kinship (syntekneia): Roger I was the godfather of Roger, the son of the notary Bonos, one of his senior Greek officials. This Roger had a distinguished career in the legal administration of Roger II. His brother Raul most probably had a Norman godfather as well, for during the first decades after the Norman conquest, Greek officials rarely adopted Germanic names.16 Roger I was also the godfather of an homonymous Arab landowner from southern Sicily, Roger Ahmed;17 and Roger II`s sister Maximilla was the godmother of   Graham A. Loud, ‘Continuity and Change in Norman Italy: The Campania during the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, Journal of Medieval Studies 22 (1996), pp. 325–333; reprint in: Loud, Conquerors and Churchmen in Norman Italy (Aldershot, 1999); Joanna H. Drell, Kinship and Conquest. Family Strategies in the Principality of Salerno during the Norman Period, 1077–1194 (Ithaca, London, 2002), pp. 33–34, 177–195, 211–213, 216– 221. 13   Léon-Robert Ménager, ‘Notes et documents sur quelques monastères de Calabre à l’époque normande’, Byzantinische Zeitschrift 50 (1957), pp. 324–326. Her husband was very close to Roger I and held fiefs in the area of Mileto. 14   André Guillou, Les actes grecs des fonds Aldobrandini et Miraglia (Xe–XIIIe s.), Corpus des actes grecs d’Italie di sud et de Sicile. Recherches d’histoire et de géographie 6 (Città del Vaticano, 2009), no. 32, pp. 145–148. 15   Roger was however a descendent of the Lombard counts of Calvi: Erasmo Gattola, Ad historiam abbatiae Cassinensis accessiones, I (Venice, 1734), p. 237; V. von Falkenhausen, ‘I ceti dirigenti prenormanni al tempo della costituzione degli stati normanni nell’Italia meridionale e in Sicilia’, in Forme di potere e struttura sociale in Italia nel Medioevo, (ed.) Gabriella Rossetti (Bologna, 1977), p. 335. 16   von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci’, pp. 178–179; von Falkenhausen, ‘I mulini della discordia sul Fiumefreddo’, in Puer Apuliae. Mélanges offerts à Jean-Marie Martin, (ed.) Errico Cuozzo, Vincent Déroche, Annick Peters-Custot and Vivien Prigent, Centre de recherche d’histoire et de civilisation de Byzance, Monographies (Paris, 2008), pp. 228–236. 17   Salvatore Cusa, I diplomi greci ed arabi di Sicilia, I, 1 (Palermo, 1868), pp. 16, 24– 26; Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Documenti greci nell’Archivio Storico Diocesano di Palermo’, in Storia & arte nella scrittura. L’Archivio Storico Diocesano di Palermo a dieci anni dalla riapertura al pubblico (1997–2007). Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi. Palermo, Palazzo Arcivescovile – Palazzo Alliata di Villafranca, 9–10 novembre 2007 (Santa Flavia [Pa], 12

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Flandina, the daughter of Nicholas of Reggio, a Greek judge active in Palermo. The name Flandina ran in the Hauteville family.18 Although excluded from knighthood, Greeks were not barred from military commissions. The admirals Christodoulos and George of Antioch led compaigns against North Africa19 and the latter also against Amalfi, and perhaps in 1147 and 1149 against the Byzantine empire;20 the admiral John, a member of a well known family of Greek civil servants, with the title megas hetaireiarches (captain of the guards), was commander in chief during the war against Naples.21 In Byzantium the hetaireiarches was the commander of the foreign troops in the imperial service.22 However, not belonging to feudal society left one without any determined social status. Greeks and Arabs could rise to the highest positions, but when they fell into disgrace there was no social network to protect them. Take the cases of Christodoulos and Philip of Mahdīya who were cruelly punished and put to death by Roger II.23 Another, less spectacular case, was that of an anonymous Greek, a member of George of Antioch’s staff, who had been for many years imprisoned in Malta, together with some other members of his family, and who lamented his fate in a long Greek poem addressed to his former commander.24 2008), pp. 434–436; Horst Enzensberger, ‘Techniche di governo in un paese multietnico’, in Byzantino-Sicula V, p. 7; Annliese Nef, Conquérir et gouverner. La Sicile islamique aux XIe et XIIe siècles, Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athène et de Rome, 346 (Rome 2011), pp. 326–327. 18   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Maximilla regina, soror Rogerius rex’, in Italia et Germania. Liber Amicorum Arnold Esch, (ed.) Hagen Keller, Werner Paravicini and Wolfgang Schieder (Tübingen, 2001), pp. 371, 375–376 19  Johns, Arab Administration, pp. 85–87; Ewald Kislinger, ‘Giorgio di Antiochia e la politica marittima tra Normanni e Bisanzio’, in Byzantino-Sicula V, pp. 52–53. 20   Paul Magdalino, The empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143–1180 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 56–57; Kislinger, ‘Giorgio di Antiochia’, pp. 58–62. 21   Alexandri Telesini abbatis Ystoria Rogerii Regis Siciliae, Calabriae atque Apuliae, (ed.) Ludovica De Nava, commentary by Dione Clementi, Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 112 (Rome, 1991), pp. 27, 60–63; von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci’, p. 176. 22   Patricia Karlin-Hayter, ‘L’hétériarque. L’évolution de son rôle du De Cerimoniis au Traité des Offices’, Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 23 (1974), pp. 101–143. 23  Johns, Arab Administration, pp. 70–83, 215–218; Hubert Houben, Roger II. von Sizilien. Herrscher zwischen Orient und Okzident (Darmstadt, 2010), pp. 116–118, 195– 197 ; Nef, Conquérir et gouverner, pp. 586–590. 24   Eudoxos Th. Tsolakes, ‘Agnosta erga italo-byzantinou poiete tou 12ou aiona’, Hellenika 26 (1973), pp. 46–66; Marcello Puccia, ‘L’anonimo carme di supplica a Giorgio di Antiochia e l’elaborazione dell’idea imperiale alla corte di Ruggero’, in Byzantino-Sicula V, pp. 231–262; Tristia ex Melitogaudo. Lament in Greek Verse of a XIIth-century Exile on Gozo, (ed.) Joseph Busuttil, Stanley Fiorini, Horatio C.R. Vella (Malta 2010).

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Most of the Greeks we know of were, however, active in the bureaucracy. Some, like the protonotarios John,25 the admiral Eugenios and his descendants,26 and the admiral Christodoulos,27 were native Sicilians, where their families had lived under Arab rule, while others were Calabrian immigrants like Scholarios,28 Nicholas camerarius,29 the notary Bonos,30 and the Palermitan judges Nicholas,31 Peter Kalomenos,32 and Leo.33 The Normans did not continue or imitate the Byzantine administration. The titles of their administrative officers are a strange mixture and belong to Byzantine provincial administration (strategos and katepano),34 to the central Byzantine administration (protonotarios,35 logothetes36 and later epi tou sekretou37), to the Arabic tradition (ammiras),38 and even to the Norman-Frankish heritage (vicecomes, bajulus and camerarius).39 We do not really know the exact meaning of the various titles and the precise role of each functionary, but until the mid-twelfth century in Calabria and Sicily most of the holders of these offices were Greek.   von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci’, pp. 174–175.   von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci’, pp. 175–177. 27   von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci’, pp. 180–183. 28   von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci’, pp. 185–186. 29   von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci’, pp. 169–172. 30   von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci’, pp. 178–180. 31  Cusa, I diplomi greci, p. 472. 32  Cusa, I diplomi greci, p. 33; Carlo Alberto Garufi, I documenti inediti dell’epoca normanna in Sicilia, I, Documenti per servire alla storia di Sicilia, I, 18 (Palermo, 1899), p. 75. 33  Cusa, I diplomi greci, pp. 107, 666; Garufi, I documenti inediti, p. 87. 34   Vera von Falkenhausen, La dominazione bizantina nell’Italia meridionale dal IX all’XI secolo (Bari, 1978), pp. 111–113. 35   von Falkenhausen, La dominazione bizantina nell’Italia meridionale dal IX all’XI secolo, pp. 123–124. 36   von Falkenhausen ‘I logoteti greci nel regno normanno. Uno studio prosopografico’, in Dentro e fuori la Sicilia. Studi di storia per Vincenzo D’Alessandro, (ed.) Pietro Corrao and E. Igor Mineo (Roma, 2009), pp. 104–123. 37   This expression is coined by analogy with Byzantine charges such as epi tôn deeseôn, epi tou kanikleiou, epi tôn axiomatôn and many others. 38   Hiroshi Takayama, ‘Amiratus in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily – A Leading Office of Arabic Origin in the Royal Administration’, in Forschungen zur Reichs-, Papst- und Landesgeschichte. Peter Herde zum 65. Geburtstag dargebracht, (ed.) Karl Borchardt and Enno Bünz, I (Stuttgart, 1998), pp. 133–144; Johns, Arabic Administration, pp. 68–71. 39   Hubert Houben, ‘Vicecomes’, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol 8 (München, 1997), col. 1618–1622; Mario Caravale, ‘Baiulus’, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol. 1 (München, Zürich, 1980), col. 1358–1359; Thomas Frenz, ‘Kammer, Kämmerer. Königreich Sizilien’, in Lexikon des Mittelalters, vol. 5 (München, Zürich, 1991), col. 887–888. 25 26

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For several generations the prevailing written language of private and administrative documents in the Norman county of Calabria and Sicily was Greek.40 Greek notaries from Calabria were active in Agrigento41 and Palermo42 writing private documents which continue the style and the form of Byzantine documents known from Calabria.43 Most of the charters issued by Roger I, Adelasia and Roger II for recipients in Calabria and Sicily were in Greek.44 Likewise, the form adopted in the Greek charters of the Norman dukes and counts imitate that of Byzantine provincial officials45 including lead seals,46

40   A survey of the Greek documentation in southern Italy is given in: Vera von Falkenhausen and Mario Amelotti, ‘Notariato e documento nell’Italia meridionale greca (X–XV secolo)’, in Per una storia del notariato meridionale, (ed.) Mario Amelotti, Studi storici sul notriato italiano, 6 (Roma, 1982), pp. 10–12. The figures given are somewhat out of date, since in 1982, the Archivo Ducal Medinaceli with 213 Greek documents from Calabria and Sicily, was not yet accessible; Cristina Rognoni, ‘Le fonds d’archives “Messine” de l’Archivio de Medinaceli (Toledo). Regestes des actes privés grecs’, Byzantion 72 (2002), pp. 497–554. A more recent geographical survey of the Greek documentation in Sicily can be found in: von Falkenhausen, La presenza dei Greci, pp. 46–72, in English translation: von Falkenhausen, The Greek Presence, pp. 262–287, maps IV–VI. 41  Cusa, I diplomi greci, p. 600; Paolo Collura, Le più antiche carte dell’Archivio Capitolare di Agrigento (1092–1282), Società siciliana di Storia Patria. Docc. per servire alla storia della Sicilia, I, 25 (Palermo, 1960), n. 10, pp. 31–33. Collura considers this document to be a fake, but his arguments are not convincing. 42  Cusa, I diplomi greci, p. 33. 43   Giannino Ferrari, I documenti greci medioevali di diritto privato dell’Italia meridionale e loro attinenze con quelli bizantini d’Orientee coi papiri greco-egizii, Byzantinisches Archiv 4 (Leipzig, 1910); Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘La tecnica dei notai italo-greci’, in La cultura scientifica e tecnica nell’Italia meridionale bizantina. Atti della sesta Giornata di studi bizantini. Arcavacata di Rende, 8–9 febbraio 2000, (ed.) Filippo Burgarella and Anna Maria Ieraci Bio (Soveria Mannelli, 2006), pp. 30–47. 44   Becker, ‘Die griechischen und lateinischen Urkunden’, pp. 9–12; Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Zur Regentschaft der Gräfin Adelasia del Vasto in Kalabrien und Sizilien (1101–1112)’, in ΑΕΤΟΣ. Studies in honour of Cyril Mango presented to him on April 14, 1998, (ed.) Ihor Ševčenko and Irmgard Hutter (Stuttgart, Leipzig, 1998), pp. 98–99, 105– 115; von Falkenhausen, ‘I diplomi dei re normanni’, pp. 255–262. The number of ‘sixteen genuine (surviving) Greek documents’ of Roger II, established by Graham A. Loud, ‘The Chancery and Charters of the Kings of Sicily (1130–1212)’, The English Historical Review 124 (2009), pp. 781–782, is an underestimate. I know of at least twenty-two. 45   Arthur Engel, Recherches sur la numismatique et la sigillographie des Normands de Sicile et d’Italie (Paris, 1882), pp. 82–86, plate I–III; von Falkenhausen, ‘I diplomi dei re normanni’, pp. 270–275. 46   von Falkenhausen, ‘I diplomi dei re normanni’, pp. 286–289.

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whereas in medieval western Europe wax seals were used more frequently.47 Also in circulation were collections and compilations of Byzantine legal texts, such as the so-called Prochiron legum,48 or the famous codex Marcianus graecus 179, which contains novellae of the emperors Zeno, Justinian and Leo VI and the Meditatio de nudis pactis. The manuscript was commissioned and owned by the judge (megas krites) Synator Maleinos of Rossano Calabro, who gave it to the monastery of S. Maria del Patir during the last decades of the twelfth century.49 The anonymous Greek poet, exile on Gozo or Malta and former civil servant in the Kingdom of Sicily, whom the recent editors want to identify with the admiral Eugenius of Palermo, mentions all the legal publications of Justinian: Codex, Digesta, Instituiones (mallon Eisagôgimôn) and Novelle (Neara).50 Other manuscripts (Marc. gr. 172 and Vat. gr. 845) contain constitutions issued in Greek by Roger II himself on matters such as inheritance and dowries which were of particular concern to his Greek subjects,51 and some of his so-called Assizes of Ariano had also been translated into Greek.52 There is no evidence however that the king himself actually knew the language. 47   Michel Pastoureau, Les sceaux, Typologie des sources du Moyen Age occidental (Turnhout, 1981), pp. 34–38. 48   Prochiron legum pubblicato secondo il Vaticano greco 845, (ed.) Francesco Brandileone – Vittorio Puntoni (Roma, 1895); Guglielmo Cavallo, ‘La circolazione di testi giuridici in lingua greca nel Mezzogiorno medievale’, in Scuole, diritto e società nel Mezzogiorno medievale dell’Italia, (ed.) Manlio Bellomo, II (Catania, 1987), pp. 102–103. 49   Henry Monnier-Gérard Platon, ‘La Meditatio de nudis pactis’, Nouvelle Revue historique de Droit français et étranger 38 (1913/1914), pp. 5–236, reprint in: Henry Monnier, Études de droit byzantin, London 1974, III; Cavallo, ‘La circolazione di testi giuridici’, pp. 115–116. 50   Tristia ex Melitogaudo, p. 66, vv. 5–13. The identification of the anonymous author with the admiral Eugenius, proposed by the editors of the poem, is not at all convincing, especially for chronological reasons: the poet, then a mature man, who had served the Norman king in Sicily and foreign countries, adressed his Lament to George of Antioch, who died in 1151, whereas Eugenius of Palermo was still active in the kingdom’s administration until 1202. 51   Francesco Brandileone, ‘Frammenti di legislazione normanna e di giurisprudenza bizantina’, Atti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, anno CCLXXXIII. 1885–86, serie IV. Rendiconti, 2 (1886), pp. 260–272, 277–284, reprint in: Scritti di storia del diritto privato italiano editi dai discepoli, (ed.) Giuseppe Ermini, I (Bologna, 1931); Cavallo, ‘La circolazione di testi giuridici’, pp. 102–103, 113–114. The constitution on inheritance was issued at Bisignano in June 1150. 52   Only a few paragraphs of the Greek translation have been preserved: Ludwig Burgmann, ‘Eine griechische Fassung der “Assisen von Ariano”’, Fontes Minores 5 (1982), pp. 179–192.

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Even the official title which the Norman dukes used in their Greek charters and on their lead seals, doux Italias, Kalabrias kai Sikelias, reproduces that of one of the last Byzantine governors, Argyros, son of Meles (1051–1058).53 The Greek vocabulary of the diplomas is however enriched with new French and Latin terms often belonging to feudal terminology: phion, sergentes, koultoura, kaprilingas etc.54 As in Byzantium, most local notaries or taboularioi were clergy.55 Since the lower Orthodox clergy were generally married, these families formed a sort of educated, or at least literate, middle class, which until the mid-twelfth century had no consistent local Latin equivalent. In fact, most manuscripts copied in late eleventh and twelfth century Calabria and Sicily were in Greek. One may compare these educated families of clerics and notaries to those of the northern European Protestant clergy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These families continued to identify themselves with Greek Orthodoxy. As for the Church, in Calabria to some extent the Normans kept the local Greek bishops provided that they accepted Roman jurisdiction. Otherwise they were removed. At the death of the Greek bishop Latin successors were introduced in some dioceses,56 in others, as for instance Rossano, Crotone, Santa Severina, Gerace, Oppido and Bova, the Greek hierachy continued until the thirteenth, and even the fourteenth centuries.57 In Sicily, however, where under Muslim rule Greek ecclesiastical organization had been rather fragile, the Normans installed a new, entirely Latin hierarchy where most bishops were of French origin.58 But throughout Calabria and in Sicily, at least in the north-east of the island, the Greek rite survived and the lower clergy remained largely Greek. In Sicily

53   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Κόμης, δούξ, πρίγκιψ, ῥήξ, βασιλεύς. Zu den griechischen Titeln der normannischen Herrschaft in Süditalien und Sizilien’, Palaeoslavica 10/1 (2002) [= Χρύσεια πύλη – Zlataia Brata. Essays Presented to Ihor Ševčenko on his Eightieth Birthday by his Colleagues and Students, (ed.) Peter Schreiner and Olga Strakhov, I], pp. 80–82. 54   von Falkenhausen, ‘L’incidenza della conquista normanna sulla terminologia giuridica e agraria nell’Italia meridionale e in Sicilia’, in Medioevo rurale. Sulle tracce della civiltà contadina, (ed.) Vito Fumagalli and Gabriella Rossetti (Bologna, 1980), pp. 224–239. 55   For Byzantium: Hélène Saradi, Le notariat byzantin du IXe au XVe siècle, Université nationale d’Athènes. Faculté des Lettres. Bbibliothèque «Sophie N. Saripolou» (Athens, 1991), pp. 105–118; for southern Italy: von Falkenhausen, ‘La tecnica dei notai’, pp. 14–27. 56   Herde, ‘The Papacy’, pp. 220–223. 57  Thomas Hofmann, Papsttum und griechische Kirche in Süditalien in nachnormannischer Zeit (13.–15. Jahrhundert) (Diss.-Würzburg, 1994), pp. 28–30. 58   Norbert Kamp, ‘I vescovi siciliani nel periodo normanno: origine sociale e formazione spirituale’, in Chiesa e società in Sicilia. L’età normanna. Atti del I Convegno internazionale organizzata dall’arcidiocesi di Catania, 25–27 novembre 1992, (ed.) Gaetano Zito (Torino, 1995), pp. 64–67.

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under Muslim rule there had existed Arabic-speaking Christian communities,59 thus, understandably, most Sicilian Muslims who converted chose the Greek rite, which they had known for centuries, in preference to the Latin.60 A Greek monk from Calabria, Luke of Isola Capo Rizzuto, lived for years in Sicily as a missionary.61 The documents from the archive of the Greek monastery of S. Maria della Grotta in Palermo – including some unpublished new ones recently discovered in Termini Imerese – confirm that the monastery was sponsored by Christians with Greek and Arab names, often from interrelated families.62 Monasticism was a great issue in Italy in the second half of the eleventh century. This is evident also in the South, since Norman dukes were enfeoffed by Nicholas II and subsequent popes of the reform movement. In Campania the Norman princes and barons richly endowed the old and well-established Benedictine monasteries such as Montecassino63 and SS. Trinità di Cava64 and new foundations such as San Lorenzo at Aversa.65 In the Basilicata, in Calabria and Sicily, they founded several new Benedictine abbeys: SS. Trinità di Venosa

  Henri Bresc and Annelise Nef, ‘Les Mozarabes de Sicile (1100–1300)’, in Cavalieri alla conquista del Sud: Studi sull’Italia normanna in memoria di Léon-Robert Ménager, (ed.) Errico Cuozzo and Jean-Marie Martin (Roma, Bari, 1998), pp. 134–156; reprint in: Henri Bresc, Una stagione in Sicilia, (ed.) Marcello Pacifico (Palermo, 2010), pp. 5–27. 60   Jeremy Johns, ‘The Greek Church and the Conversion of Muslims in Norman Sicily’, Byzantinische Forschungen 21 (1995), pp. 133–157; Alex Metcalfe, ‘The Muslims of Sicily under Christian Rule’, in The Society of Norman Italy, pp. 312–316. 61   Giuseppe Schirò, Vita di s. Luca, vescovo di Isola Capo Rizzuto, Istituto siciliano di studi bizantini e neoellenici. Testi, 2 (Palermo, 1954), p. 90; Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Die Testamente des Abtes Gregor von San Filippo di Fragalà’, in Harvard Ukrainian Studies 7 (1983) [= Okeanos. Essays Presented to Ihor Ševčenko on his Sixtieth Birthday by his Colleagues and Students], pp. 179–181. 62  Cusa, I diplomi greci, pp. 674–678; Garufi, I documenti inediti, pp. 195–196. 63   Heinrich Dormeier, Montecassino und die Laien im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert, Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 27 (Stuttgart, 1979). 64   Graham A. Loud, ‘The Abbey of Cava, its Property and Benefactors in the Norman Era’, in Anglo-Norman Studies, 9. Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 1986, (ed.) R. Allen Brown (Woodbridge, Towota, 1987), pp. 143–177; reprint in: Loud, Conquerors and Churchmen; Vito Loré, Monasteri, principi, aristocrazie. La Trinità di Cava nei secoli XI e XII (Spoleto, 2008), pp. 50–56, 63–86. 65   Alfonso Gallo, Aversa normanna (Napoli, 1938), pp. 177–200; Luciano Orabona, I Normanni. La chiesa e la protocontea di Aversa (Napoli, 1994), pp. 66–97. 59

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(Basilicata),66 S. Maria di Matina,67 S. Trinità e S. Angelo di Mileto,68 S. Maria di S. Eufemia,69 S. Maria di Bagnara70 and S. Maria di Turri71 in Calabria; and S. Agata di Catania72 and S. Bartolomeo di Lipari in Sicily.73 Sometimes smaller or abandoned Greek monasteries were given to both old and new Benedictine abbeys.74 But in those areas, where the majority of the population, and therefore most of the monastic vocations, were Greek, the Norman princes, barons and knights founded, refounded and endowed many Greek monasteries: for example S. Nicola di Casole in the Salento,75 S. Elia di Carbone in Basilicata,76 S.   Hubert Houben, Die Abtei Venosa und das Mönchtum im normannisch-staufischen Süditalien, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 80 (Tübingen, 1995), pp. 111–443. 67   Alessandro Pratesi, Carte latine di abbazie calabresi provenienti dall’Archivio Aldobrandini, Studi e testi, 197 (Città del Vaticano, 1958), pp. 3–51 et passim. 68   Léon-Robert Ménager, ‘L’abbaye bénédictine de la Trinité de Mileto, en Calabre, à l’époque normande’, Bullettino dell’Archivio paleografico italiano, n. s. 4–5 (1958–1959), pp. 9–94; Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Mileto tra Greci e Normanni’, in Chiesa e Società nel Mezzogiorno. Studi in onore di Maria Mariotti, I, (ed.) Pietro Borzomati (Soveria Mannelli, 1998), I, pp. 109–133; Becker, Graf Roger I., pp. 190–191. 69  Houben, Die Abtei Venosa, pp. 39–41; Filippo Burgarella, ‘A proposito del diploma di Roberto il Guiscardo per l’abbazia di Santa Maria di Sant’Eufemia (1062)’, in Tra l’Amato e il Savuto, II. Studi sul Lametino antico e tardo-antico, (ed.) Giovanna De Sensi Sestito, Soveria Mannelli 2001, pp. 381–406. 70  Becker, Graf Roger I., pp. 192–194 71  Becker, Graf Roger I., pp. 202–206. 72  Becker, Graf Roger I., pp. 176–179. 73  Becker, Graf Roger I., pp. 195–199. 74   Leone Mattei-Cerasoli, ‘La badia di Cava e i monasteri greci della Campania superiore’, Archivio storico per la Calabria e la Lucania 8 (1938), pp. 166–182, 265–285; 9 (1939), pp. 279–318; Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘I monasteri greci dell’Italia meridionale e della Sicilia dopo l’avvento dei Normanni: continuità e mutamenti’, in Il passaggio dal dominio bizantino allo Stato normanno nell’Italia meridionale. Atti del II Convegno internazionale di studio sulla civiltà rupestre medioevale nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia. Taranto-Mottola, 31 ott.–4 nov. 1973, (ed.) Cosimo Damiano Fonseca (Taranto, 1977), pp. 207–211; Hofmann, Papsttum und griechische Kirche, pp. 31–33. 75   Theo Kölzer, ‘Zur Geschichte des Klosters S. Nicola di Casole’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 65 (1985), pp. 418–426. 76   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Il monastero dei SS. Anastasio ed Elia di Carbone in epoca bizantina e normanna’, in Il monastero di S. Elia di Carbone e il suo territorio dal Medioevo all’Età Moderna. Nel millenario della morte di S. Luca Abate. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studio, Potenza-Carbone, 26–27 giugno 1992, (ed.) Cosimo Damiano Fonseca and Antonio Lerra, Università degli Studi della Basilicata-Potenza. Atti e memorie, 16 (Galatina, 1996), pp. 68–87. 66

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Pancrazio di Briatico and S. Nicola di Drosi,77 S. Maria del Patir,78 S. Bartolomeo di Trigona,79 S. Filippo di Gerace,80 S. Giovanni Teriste at Stilo81 and many others. Throughout Sicily, especially in the northeast, new Greek monasteries were established by private individuals, monks or laymen (often civil servants), whose foundations were confirmed and sometimes richly endowed by the Norman rulers and their barons.82 In Byzantium it was customary for highranking officials to found private monasteries either in their home towns or in Constantinople, where they had made their careers; Greek civil servants in Norman Sicily behaved in a similar manner. The admiral George of Antioch, who had first founded a women’s convent in Mazzara,83 and then the famous and splendid S. Maria dell’Ammiraglio (Martorana).84 But there were others: Georges’s predecessor, the admiral Christodoulos, founded S. Maria di Marsala and was the chief sponsor of S. Maria del Patir in Calabria, whilst the family of the admiral Eugenios, a native of Troina, founded one monastery in their native town and another in Palermo, where they had a residence for professional reasons.85 In 1131 Roger II founded the Greek archimandriate of the Saviour de lingua phari in Messina as a superior authority for many smaller Greek monasteries in eastern Sicily and southern Calabria. Following Byzantine

  Cristina Rognoni, Les actes privés grecs de l’Archivo Ducal de Medinaceli (Tolède), I. Les monastères de Saint-Pancrace de Briatico, de Saint-Philippe-de-Bojôannès et de SaintNicolas-des-Drosi (Calabre, XIe – XIIe siècles), (Paris 2004), nos. 11, 28, I–II, IV–V, pp. 115– 118, 208–216, 234–239, 243–246. 78   Gastone Breccia, Nuovi contributi alla storia del Patir. Documenti del Vat. gr. 2605, Comitato Nazionale per le Celebrazioni del Millenario della Fondazione dell’Abbazia di S. Nilo a Grottaferrata (Roma, 2005), pp. 141–159, 240–243. 79   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘S. Bartolomeo di Trigona: storia di un monastero greco nella Calabria normanno-sveva’, Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici, n.s. 36 (1999) [2000], pp. 93–116. 80   Ménager, ‘Notes et documents’, pp. 9–30. 81   Silvio Giuseppe Mercati (†), Ciro Giannelli (†), André Guillou, Saint-Jean-Théristès (1054–1264), Corpus des actes grecs d’Italie du Sud et de Sicile. Recherches d’histoire et de géographie, 5 (Città del Vaticano, 1980, nr. 4, pp. 59–61, nrr. 6–7, pp. 69–73, nr. 16, pp. 108–110. 82   Mario Scaduto, Il monachesimo basiliano nella Sicilia medievale. Rinascita e decadenza, sec. XI–XIV, Storia e letteratura, 18 (Roma, 1982), pp. 69–164. 83   Henri Grégoire, ‘Diplômes de Mazzara’, Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire orientales 1 (1932), pp. 79–107. 84   Augusta Acconcia Longo, ‘Considerazioni sulla chiesa di S. Maria dell’Ammiraglio e sulla Cappella Palatina di Palermo’, Nea Rhome 4 (2007) pp. 267–293. 85   von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci’, pp. 171–188, 191–194, 199. 77

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tradition, he called it basilikon monasterion, the imperial (or royal) monastery.86 In my view it is significant that Luke the first archimandrite was a monk from Calabria. Apparently the native Greek monks from Sicily were not yet ready to run an important monastic institution.87 In the fifteenth century Saint Saviour of Messina remained one of the richest monasteries of the Island.88 Even before his coronation Roger II, perhaps on the advice of his Greek collaborators, imitated some aspects of Byzantine imperial display. On some of his coins, follari and ducales, the Pantokrator appears, with Roger on the obverse in the robes of the Byzantine emperor,89 as in the famous mosaic in S. Maria dell’Ammiraglio; a similar iconography can be found on his golden and lead seals which had captions in Greek and Latin.90 On some of his seals the Virgin Hodegetria,91 the most popular cult figure in Comnenian Constantinople, is represented.92 Roger invited Greek mosaicists to adorn his capital, Palermo, and the cathedral of Cefalù, which was originally chosen to house his tomb. Their work is still visible in Sicilian churches. It may be no coincidence that Roger’s major ecclesiastical foundations, the archimandrate of Messina and the cathedral of Cefalù, were dedicated to the Saviour, as were the principal Comnenian imperial churches built in and around Constantinople.93 It is instructive  Scaduto, Il monachesimo, pp. 165–243; Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘L’Archimandritato del S. Salvatore in lingua phari di Messina e il monachesimo italo-greco nel regno normannosvevo (secoli XI–XIII)’, in Messina. Il ritorno della memoria (Palermo, 1994), pp. 41–52. 87   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Il monachesimo greco in Sicilia’, in La Sicilia rupestre nel contesto delle civiltà mediterranee. Atti del Sesto Convegno internazionale di studio sulla civiltà rupestre medioevale nel Mezzogiorno d’Italia (Catania-Pantalica-Ispica, 7–12 settembre 1981), (ed.) C.D. Fonseca (Galatina, 1986), pp. 171–174; Lucà, ‘I Normanni’, pp. 45–46. 88   Hermann Hoberg, Taxae pro communibus servitiis ex libris obligationum ab anno 1295 usque ad annum 1455 confectis, Studi e testi, 144 (Città del Vaticano, 1949), p. 314. 89   Lucia Travaini, La monetazione nell’Italia normanna, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo. Nuovi Studi Storici, 28 (Roma, 1995), pp. 211–222, 280–282. 90  Engel, Recherches, plate I, 12, 13; Enrica Follieri, ‘Il crisobollo di Ruggero II re di Sicilia per la badia di Grottaferrata’, Bollettino della Badia greca di Grottaferrata, n. s. 42 (1988) pp. 53–54; reprint in: Follieri, Byzantina e Italogreca. Studi di filologia e di paleografia, (ed.) Augusta Acconcia Longo, Lidia Perria, Andrea Luzzi, Storia e Letteratura. Raccolta di Studi e testi, 195 (Roma, 1997), pp. 437–438. 91  Engel, Recherches, plate I, 9–10; Gattola, Ad historiam abbatiae Cassinensis accessiones, I, plate VII; Mauro Inguanez, Diplomi cassinesi con sigillo d’oro, Miscellanea Cassinese, 7 (Montecassino, 1930), plate II, 1. 92   Christina Angelidi and T. Papamastarakis, ‘The Veneration of the Virgin and the Hodegon Monastery’, in Mother of God. Representation of the Virgin in Byzantine Art, (ed.) Maria Vassilaki (Athens-Milan, 2000) pp. 379–380. 93   Raymond Janin, La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin, I. Le siège de Constantinople et le patriarcat œcuménique, III. Les églises et les monastères (Paris, 1962), pp. 504–529. 86

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to observe that the display of Byzantine-style royal glory was particularly concentrated in Palermo, the king’s main residence, although the majority of the city’s inhabitants were Arab. It was the royal court which attracted and patronized gifted artists, poets and even prominent Orthodox preachers and theologians such as Philagathos Kerameus94 and Neilos Doxapatres,95 as was also the case in contemporary Constantinople. Two literary genres, however, which were flourishing in Comnenian Byzantium, seem not to have been practized by the Greek intellectuals at the court of Palermo – historiography and royal panegyric. It appears that no basilikos logos was addressed to Roger II and no history of the Norman achievement in southern Italy composed in Greek. At least nothing of that kind has survived,96 although an analogous literature may have been produced by Arabic poets and writers at his court.97 There are, however, encomiastic poems in Greek and Arabic dedicated to William II.98   Lucà, ‘I Normanni’, pp. 76–79; Augusta Acconcia Longo, ‘La Questione Filippo il Filosogo’, Νέα Ῥώμη 7 (2010, but 2011), pp. 11–39. I am however not convinced by the general opinion that Philagathos originated from the Sicilian town of Cerami. Since he had been a monk in the monastery of S. Maria del Patir, close to Rossano, I presume that he was born in Calabria where he had obtained his education, and that Kerameus or Keramites was a surname, derived from a profession or a toponym. (von Falkenhausen, ‘Il monachesimo greco in Sicilia’, pp. 172–173). Perhaps we should identify him with the Rossanese abbot of the monastery of the Holy Angels (hegoumenen tôn Asômatôn ton Rousaneten), who is mentioned among the gerontes of Cerami in a document of 1142, which however is not authentic: Cusa, I diplomi greci, p. 307. 95   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Doxapatres, Nilo’, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 41 (Roma, 1992), pp. 610–613; Stefaan Neirynck, ‘Nilus Doxapatres “De oeconomia Dei”. In search of the author behind the compilation’, in Byzantine Theologians. The Systematization of their Doctrine and their Perception of Foreign Doctrines, (ed.) Antonio Rigo and P. Ermilov, Roma 2009 (Quaderni di Νέα Ῥώμη III), pp. 51–69; Neirynck, ‘The De Oeconomia Dei by Nilus Doxapatres: Some Introductory Remarks to the Work and its Edition & Chapter I, 40: Edition, Translation and Commentary’, Byzantion 80 (2010) pp. 265–307. 96   The celebrated Skylitzes Matritensis was written and illustrated in the Norman kingdom, but the contence is wholly Byzantine. According to Santo Lucà, ‘Dalle collezioni manoscritte di Spagna: libri originari o provenienti dall’Italia greca medievale’, Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici, n. s. 44 (2007/ 2008), pp. 79–81, the manuscript might have been commissioned by George of Antioch, possibly to serve as a model for a comparably illustrated royal biography. 97  Johns, Arabic Administration, cit., pp. 82, 282–283. 98   Eugenii Panormitani versus iambici, (ed.) Marcello Gigante, Istituto siciliano di 94

studi bizantini e neoellenici. Testi 10 (Palermo, 1964), XXIV, 95, p. 131; Annliese Nef, ‘Un poème d’Ibn Qala¯qis à la gloire de Guillaume II’, in Chrétiens, Juifs et Musulmans dans la Méditerranée médiévale. Études en hommage à Henri Bresc, réunies par Benoît Grévin, Annliese Nef et Emanuelle Tixier, (Paris 2008), pp. 33–43; Nef, Conquérir et gouverner, pp. 652–654.

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After his coronation Roger II always called himself, and was addressed by others as rex, never basileus. His signature at the bottom of his Greek – and even some Latin – charters for Sicilian and Calabrian recipients, though not an autograph, is always in Greek: Rogerios en Christo to theo eusebes krataios rhex kai ton Christianon boethos.99 The adjective basilikos, however, and the verb basileuein were abundantly used in private documents. In their Greek diplomas Roger II and his successors referred to themseles as to kratos hemon, and never as he basileia hemon. Again, in Greek private documents the expression ‘during the basileia of our saintly (hagios) lord Roger or William’ is frequent.100 The word hagios basileus is normally used for the Byzantine emperor,101 but one never finds the expression sanctus rex in Latin charters of the Norman kings. In poetry, however, Roger II and his successors are somtimes called basileus.102 In these texts most of the encomiastic epithets, used by Theodore Prodromos and other Comnenian poets to praise the Byzantine emperor, are applied to the Norman king.103 In the metric inscription underneath the dome of the Cappella Palatina Roger II is called skeptrokratôr.104 Particularly revealing is the subtle usage of royal terminology in some homilies of Philagathos Kerameus, where the words basileus or even autokrator are employed.105 His second homily on Palm Sunday ends with a prayer for the king: hypereuchometha hyper tou eusebous hemon basileos, tou krataiotatou rhegos Goulielmou, tou phylattesthai to kratos autou   von Falkenhausen, ‘I diplomi dei re normanni’, pp. 296–297.   von Falkenhausen, ‘Κόμης, δούξ, πρίγκιψ, ῥήξ, βασιλεύς’, pp. 88–90; Gaia Zaccagni, ‘Il ‘Bios’ di san Bartolomeo da Simeri (BHG 235)’, Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici, n. s. 33 (1996, but 1997), pp. 225–226. 101   Otto Treitinger, Die oströmische Kaiser- und Reichsidee in ihrer Gestaltung im höfischen Zeremoniell ( Jena, 1938), pp. 40–43. 102   Augusta Acconcia Longo, ‘Gli epitaffi giambici per Giorgio di Antiochia, per la madre e per la moglie’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 61 (1981), pp. 45–46, 57; Eugenii Panormitani versus iambici, XXIV, 95, p. 131; Puccia, ‘L’anonimo carme’, p. 248; Tristia ex Melitogaudo, p. 74, vers 10, p. 98, vers 1, p. 156, vers 15, p. 192, vers 15. 103   Acconcia Longo, ‘Gli epitaffi giambici’, pp. 45–46; Puccia, ‘L’anonimo carme’, pp. 247–253. 104   Barbara Crostini, ‘L’iscrizione greca nella cupola della Cappella Palatina’, in La Cappella Palatina a Palermo – The Cappella Palatina in Palermo, Mirabilia Italiae, 17 (Modena, 2010), Saggi, pp. 187–202. 105   Filagato da Cerami, Omelie per i vangeli domenicali e le feste di tutto l’anno. I. Omelie per le feste fisse, (ed.) Giuseppe Rossi Taibbi, Istituto siciliano di studi bizantini e neoellenici. Testi 11 (Palermo, 1969), pp. 175, 182; Stefano Caruso, ‘Le tre omilie inedite “Per la Domenica delle Palme” di Filagato da Cerami (LI, LII, LIII Rossi-Taibbi)’, Epeteris hetaireias Byzantinon spoudon 41 (1974), pp. 123, 126; P. G. 132, c. 541 B. 99

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[...].106 For his Greek subjects, the Norman king had the function of a basileus, even though his official title, in both Latin and in Greek, was rex (rhex). In spite of this impressive demonstration of regal power and authority more Byzantino, the foundation of the Norman kingdom marks the beginning of the decline of the Graeco-Byzantine influence on the Norman county of Calabria and Sicily. In fact the unification of the Norman possessions in the South upset the demographic equilibrium, because the great majority of the population of the new kingdom was Latin. The change is most notable in Palermo and in the central administration of the kingdom: after the deaths of George of Antioch, amiras ton amiraton kai archon ton archonton, in 1151, and Roger II in 1154, the ‘palace Saracens’107 and experienced administrators from Apulia and Campania, such as the magnus ammiratus ammiratorum Maio of Bari108 and the notary Matthew of Salerno,109 took over. William I, who had been appointed Prince of Capua and Naples in 1144 and Duke of Apulia in 1149, was more familiar with the Latin mainland of the kingdom, and according to Hugo Falcandus eliminated his father’s familiares through exile or imprisonment.110 By the end of Roger II’s reign fewer Greek diplomas were issued from the royal chancery, and their number diminished drastically under his successors, even when the recipients were Greek.111 Greek officials became virtually redundant unless they were bi- or trilingual, like the so-called Iudex Tarentinus,112 Eugenios tou   Caruso, ‘Le tre omilie’, p. 123.  Johns, Arabic administration, pp. 212–256. 108   Berardo Pio, ‘Maione da Bari’, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, vol. 67 (Roma, 2006), pp. 632–635. 109   Francesco Panarelli, ‘Matteo d’Aiello (D’Aiello; Matteo da Salerno, Matteo notatio)’, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, vol. 72 (Roma, 2009), pp. 212–216. 110   Ugo Falcando, La Historia o Liber de Regno Siciliae e la epistola ad Petrum Panormitanae Ecclesiae thesaurarium, (ed.) Giovanni Battista Siragusa, Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 22 (Roma, 1897), p. 7; Berardo Pio, Guglielmo I d’Altavilla. Gestione del potere e lotta politica nell’Italia normanna (1154–1169), Il mondo medievale. Sezione di storia delle istituzioni della spiritualità e delle idee, 24 (Bologna, 1996), pp. 29, 32. 111   Horst Enzensberger, ‘Utilitas regia. Note di storia amministrativa e giuridica e di 106 107

propaganda politica dell’età dei due Guglielmi’, Atti della Accademia di Scienze, Lettere e Arti di Palermo, ser. 5a, I (1981/1982), parte II (Lettere), pp. 48–54; von Falkenhausen, ‘I diplomi dei re normanni’, pp. 265–267; Loud, ‘The Chancery’, pp. 781–783.

  Evelyn Jamison, ‘The Career of Judex Tarentinus magne curie magister justiciarius and the emergence of the Sicilian regalis magna curia under William I and the regency of Margaret of Navarra, 1156–1172’, Proceedings of the British Academy 53 (1967), pp. 289– 344; reprint in Jamison, Studies on the History of medieval Sicily and South Italy, ed. Dione Clementi and Theo Kölzer (Aalen, 1992), pp. 467–522; von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci’, pp. 188–190. 112

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Kalou113 or Eugenius of Palermo;114 intermarriage with the families of their Latin colleagues, members of the lower Norman nobility, became more frequent.115 None of the familiares regis of William I, William II or Tancred was Greek: they were Norman counts, Sicilian bishops, Arabic administrators, and the notary Matthew.116 The so-called Hugo Falcandus, who vividly describes politics and events in the Kingdom of Sicily during the years 1154–1169, mentions Greeks only in connection with Messina and its hinterland and southern Calabria,117 and never in the context of the royal court of Palermo. In the same period newcomers from France, Normandy and England arrived in the kingdom. Some of them ut eorum mos est, in contumeliosa verba precipites et curie patrocinio licentius abutentes, Grecos et Longobardos proditores appellabant, multis eos iniuriis lacessentes.118 Other, more intellectual visitors, like the brothers William and Peter of Blois – in two recent studies both have been identified with the socalled Hugo Falcandus119 – or John of Salisbury, were interested in ancient Greek culture, and read classical Greek texts in Latin translation,120 but apparently much less in their Greek contemporaries, unless they were translators.121 On the other hand it appears that few Sicilians of Norman or Latin origin actually knew

  von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci’, pp. 193–194.   Evelyn Jamison, Admiral Eugenius. His Life and his Work (London, 1957); Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Eugenio da Palermo’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 43 (Rome, 1993), pp. 502–505. 115   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Griechische Beamte in der duana de secretis von Palermo. Eine prosopographische Untersuchung’, in Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Peripherie. Beiträge zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur, (ed.) Lars M. Hoffmann and Anuscha Monchizadeh (Wiesbaden, 2005), pp. 387–388, 400, 410. 116   Hiroshi Takayama, ‘Familiares Regis and the Royal Inner Council in TwelfthCentury Sicily’, The English Historical Review 104 (1989), pp. 357–372. 117   Ugo Falcando, La Historia, pp. 133, 138, 147–148, 153. 118   Ugo Falcando, La Historia, p. 133. 119   Alexander Funke, ‘Zur Identität des “Hugo Falcandus”’, Deutsches Archiv 113 114

64 (2008), pp. 1–13, points to Peter, whereas Edoardo D’Angelo, ‘Intellettuali tra Normandia e Sicilia (per un identikit letterario del cosiddetto Ugo Falcando)’, in Cultura cittadina e documentazione. Formazione e circolazione di modelli, (Bologna, 12–13 ottobre 2006), a cura di Anna Laura Trombetti Budriesi, (Bologna, 2009), pp. 325–349, presents valuable arguments in favour of William.

 Houben, Roger II., pp. 104–106.   In John of Salesbury’s Metalogicon (III, 5) there is mention of a ‘grecus interpres natione Severitanus’ (Santa Severina?), whom the author had met during a trip to southern Italy. 120

121

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Greek. The archdeacon of Catania, Henry Aristippus, translator of Plato, seems to have been an exception.122 The production of private documents in Greek, however, continued both in Calabria and Sicily – even in Palermo – and began to decrease only in the thirteenth century.123 In Messina, where very few private documents in Latin were issued before the end of the twelfth century,124 the first Latin strategos, Richard of Aversa, was appointed in 1154 or 1155.125 He is last mentioned in September 1164.126 According to Hugo Falcandus he was a bad choice, who after having thoroughly abused his power, was finally tried and condemned,127 but his successors, Andrew of Limoges and the notary Stephen, were also Latin speakers.128 During the thirteenth century the ‘de-hellenization’ of Calabria and Sicily accelerated, and was almost complete by the end of the century, whilst in the Salento Greek language and culture survived somewhat longer.129 Several factors explain this development. Firstly, after 1204, the Byzantine emperor was no longer a model worthy of admiration and imitation. No Byzantine influence is to be seen on the coins and seals of Frederic II. Secondly, after the forcible creation of the Latin patriarchate of Constantinople, the Roman 122   The origins of Henry Aristippus are unknown, but it has been established that Greek was not his mother tongue. Moreover, as archdeacon of the Church of Catania, he could not possibly have been Greek: Ezio Franceschini, ‘Aristippo, Enrico’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 4 (Roma 1962), pp. 201–206; Antonio Carlini, ‘Vigilia greca normanna: il Platone di Enrico Aristippo’, Quaderni Petrarcheschi 12–13 (2002–2003, but 2007), pp. 51–73. 123   For Sicily: von Falkenhausen, ‘La presenza dei greci’, pp. 65–72; von Falkenhausen, ‘The Greek Presence’, pp. 282–284, map VI; for Calabria: von Falkenhausen, ‘I Greci in Calabria fra XIII e XIV secolo’, Quaderni Petrarcheschi 12–13 (2002–2003, but 2007), pp. 22–26, 47–48. 124   Léon-Robert Ménager, Les actes latins de S. Maria di Messina (1103–1250), Istituto siciliano di studi bizantini e neoellenici. Testi 9 (Palermo, 1963), nos. 8–9, pp. 94–106. 125   Rognoni, ‘Le fonds d’archives “Messine”’, no. 47, p. 512. 126   Rognoni, ‘Le fonds d’archives “Messine”’, no. 65, p. 516. 127   Ugo Falcando, La Historia, pp. 131–132. 128  Cusa, I diplomi greci ed arabi, pp. 323–325, 369–371; Rognoni, ‘Le fonds d’archives “Messine” ’, pp. 517–521. 129   André Jacob, ‘Culture grecque et manuscrits en Terre d’Otrante’ in Atti del III° Congresso Internazionale di Studi Salentini e del I° Congresso Storico di Terra d’Otranto. Lecce 22–25 ottobre 1976 (Lecce, 1980), pp. 53–77; Jacob, ‘Testimonianze bizantine nel Basso Salento’, in Il Basso Salento. Ricerche di storia sociale e religiosa (Galatina, 1982), pp. 49– 69; Jacob, ‘Une bibliothèque mediévale de Terre d’Otrante (Parisinus Gr. 549)’, Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici, n. s., 22–23 (1985–1986), pp. 285–315; Jacob, ‘De Messine à Rossano. Les déplacements du copiste salentin Nicolas d’Oria en Italie méridionale à la fin du XIIIe siècle’, Bollettino della Badia greca di Grottaferrata, n. s. 44 (1990) pp. 25–31.

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Church’s attitude toward Greek Orthodoxy became increasingly intolerant, if not aggressive, even in southern Italy and Sicily.130 Thus it became less pleasant socially to be a Greek in southern Italian society. Moreover, culturally the Greek elite was increasingly diaspora culture, remote and cut off from the living centre of Byzantium, whilst Latin culture of the period became more and more stimulating: one thinks of the beginning of the universities and the foundation of the mendicant orders. Only in the Salento did many Greeks remain in contact with their Byzantine neighbours and maintain an interest in ancient Greek learning and even in contemporary Byzantine literature. In fact, most of the Greek intellectuals at the court of Frederick II, who himself seems to have been far more interested in Arabic science and philosophy than Hellenic culture,131 were of Salentine origin.132 At the same time it became increasingly common for civil servants to acquire academic degrees, and the institutions that awarded them taught in Latin. Thus ultimately, Latinization was the easier option for the educated middle class, while Greek increasingly became a private language, used for signatures133 or to make notes on local, monastic or family affairs in the margins of some manuscripts.134 Sometimes only the characters are Greek, whilst   Johannes M. Hoeck – Raimund J. Loenertz, Nikolaos-Nektarios von Otranto, Abt von Casole. Beiträge zur Geschichte der ost-westlichen Beziehungen unter Innozenz III. und Friedrich II, Studia patristica et byzantina, 11 (Ettal, 1964), pp. 63–67; Hofmann, Papsttum und griechische Kirche, pp. 73–84; Francesco Quaranta, ‘Un profugo a Bisanzio prima di Barlaam. L’anonimo calabrese del Vat. gr. 316’, in Barlaam Calabro, l’uomo, l’opera, il pensiero. Atti del convegno internazionale, Reggio Calabria – Seminara – Gerace, 10–12 dicembre 1999, a cura di Antonis Fyrigos (Roma, 2001), pp. 79–90. 131   Giuseppe Mandalà, ‘Il Prologo delle Risposte alle questioni siciliane di Ibn Sab’īn come fonte storica. Politica mediterranea e cultura arabo.islamica nell’età di Federico II’, Schede medievali 45 (2007), pp. 25–94; Wolfgang Stürner, Friedrich II., Teil 2. Der Kaiser, 1220–1250 (Darmstadt, 2009), pp. 385–429. 132   Michael B. Wellas, Griechisches aus dem Umkreis Kaiser Friedrichs II. Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung, 33 (München, 1983), pp. 37–56; Hofmann, Papsttum und griechische Kirche, pp. 94–101; Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Friedrich II. und die Griechen im Königreich Sizilien’, in Friedrich II. Tagung des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom im Gedenkjahr 1994, (ed.) Arnold Esch und Norbert Kamp, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 85 (Tübingen, 1996), pp. 248–249; Carlo Maria Mazzucchi, ‘Diodoro Siculo fra Bisanzio e Otranto (cod. Par. Gr. 1665)’, Aevum 73 (1999) pp. 289–344. 133   von Falkenhausen, ‘I Greci in Calabria’, pp. 25–26. 134   Lucà, ‘I Normanni’, p. 41–44; Lucà, ‘Il libro greco nella Calabria del sec. XV’, in I luoghi della scrivere da Francesco Petrarca agli albori dell’età moderna. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studio dell’associazione italiana dei paleografi e Diplomatisti. Arezzo (8– 11 ottobre 2003), (ed.) Caterina Tristano, Marta Calleri, Leonardo Magionami (Spoleto, 2006), pp. 352–362; André Jacob, ‘Les annales du monastère S. Vito del Pizzo près de 130

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the language is the local vernacular.135 The latest Greek documents from Calabria and Sicily of which I am aware largely concern the internal administration and accounting of Greek monasteries and bishoprics.136 In Calabria, the descendants of Greek notaries first became bilingual, and then Latin notaries;137 some began new careers as translators of Greek documents and classical and scientific texts.138 Members of the old upper class Greek families entered the mendicant orders and became Latin bishops. Richard de Logotheta, from an old Greek Calabrian family, and probably a Dominican, became bishop of Cefalù (1249–1254), whilst in 1324 Bartholomew and Peter de Logotheta were canons of Reggio cathedral.139 The Sicilian John Grapheus, a Franciscan friar and another descendant of the Greek noblesse de robe, was bishop-elect of Patti in the years 1359–1360.140 Tarente, d’après les notes marginales du Paris. gr. 1624’, Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici 30 (1993), pp. 125–153, and many others. 135   Anna Maria Perrone Capano Compagna and Alberto Varvaro, ‘Capitoli per la storia linguistica dell’Italia meridionale e della Sicilia. II. Annotazioni volgari di S. Elia di Carbone (secoli XV–XVI)’, Medioevo romanzo 8 (1981–1983), pp. 91–132; Rocco Distilo, Κάτα Λατίνον. Prove di filologia greco-romanza (Roma, 1990); Anna Maria Perrone Capano Compagna, ‘Frammenti romanzi da codici greci di provenenza calabro-lucana’, in Il monastero di S. Elia di Carbone e il suo territorio dal Medioevo all’Età Moderna nel millenario della morte di S. Luca Abate. Atti del convegno internazionale di studio promosso dall’Università degli Studi della Basilicata in occasione del Decennale della sua istituzione (Potenza-Carbone, 26–27 giugno 1992), (ed.) Cosimo Damiano Fonseca e Antonio Lerra (Galatina, 1996), pp. 149–165. 136   Raffaele Cantarella, Codex Messanensis Graecus 105. Testo inedito con introduzione, indici e glossario, R. Deputazione di storia patria della Sicilia. Memorie e documenti di storia siciliana, II. Documenti, II (Palermo 1937); von Falkenhausen and Amelotti, ‘Notariato e documento’, pp. 21–22; Breccia, Nuovi contributi, nos. 14–15, pp. 209–221; Giuseppe Russo, ‘Un’inedita pergamena greco-latina di Rossano del XIV secolo’, Archivio storico per la Calabria e la Lucania 67 (2010), pp. 55–85. 137   von Falkenhausen, ‘Friedrich II. und die Griechen’, pp. 256–258; von Falkenhausen, ‘I Greci in Calabria’, pp. 30–38. 138   Roberto Weiss, ‘The translators from the Greek at the Angevin court of Naples’, Rinascimento 1 (1950) pp. 218–226, reprint in: Weiss, Medieval and Humanist Greek Collected Essays, Medioevo e Umanesimo, 8 (Padova 1977), pp. 125–132; 34–41. 139   Norbert Kamp, Kirche und Monarchie im staufischen Königreich Sizilien. I.: Prosopographische Grundlegung: Bistümer und Bischöfe des Königreichs, 3. Sizilien, Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften, 10 (München, 1975), p. 1063–1066; von Falkenhausen, ‘I logoteti greci’, pp. 116–123. 140  Pirri, Sicilia sacra, II, p. 781; Raffaele Starrabba, I diplomi della cattedrale di Messina raccolti da Antonino Amico, Documenti per servire alla storia di Sicilia pubblicati a cura di della Società sicilianan di storia patria, s. I, 19 (Palermo, 1888), no. 178, pp. 179–180; von Falkenhausen, ‘Griechische Beamte’, pp. 387–388, 400, 410.

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The peasantry, however, remained Greek in both language and religion, just as they had been before the Norman conquest. A marginal note in the old French prose version of the Roman de Troie states that Calabrian peasants speak only Greek: et que ce soit voirs, par toute Sezille parolle on encore en plusours leus grizois, par toute Calabre li païsant ne parlent se grizois non.141 When in 1334 the archbishop of Reggio tried to prohibit the celebration of the Greek Eucharist in the dioceses of Gerace, Oppido and Bova, unless the priest used the host, the local population successfully opposed the abolition of the Greek rite.142 Until the early decades of the twentieth century a Greek dialect continued to be spoken in some villages of the Aspromonte. In conclusion: at the outset of the Norman conquest Greeks and Greek knowhow were instrumental for the creation of the Norman state and Greek imagery was essential to the display of royal authority. After three or four generations however, and especially after 1204, the Greek heritage became redundant. In the villages of the Aspromonte the language survived the Norman Kingdom for many centuries, but any connection with Greek or Byzantine culture and thought had long been severed.

  Le Roman de Troie en prose, (ed.) Léopold Costans and Edmond Faral, I (Paris, 1922), p. 4; Gerhard Rohlfs, ‘L’antico ellenismo nell’Italia di oggi (sostrati e riflessi)’, in Le iscrizioni pre-latine in Italia. Colloquio, Roma, 14–15 marzo 1977, Atti dei Convegni Lincei, 39 (Roma, 1979), p. 8; Gianfranco Fiaccadori, ‘Umanesimo e grecità d’Occidente’, in I Greci in Occidente. La tradizione filosofica, scientifica e letteraria della collezione della Biblioteca Marciana. Catalogo della mostra, (ed.) by Gianfranco Fiaccadori and Paolo Eleuteri (Venezia, 1996), pp. XXIII–XXIV. 142   Gerard Garitte, ‘Deux manuscrits italo-grecs (Vat. gr. 1238 et Barber. gr. 475)’, in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, III, Studi e testi 123 (Città del Vaticano, 1946), pp. 31–40. 141

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Chapter 4

Charters and Chancery under Roger I and Roger II Julia Becker

Introduction Est quippe gens astutissima, injuriarum ultrix, spe alias plus lucrandi patrios agros vilipendens, quaestus et dominationis avida, cuiuslibet rei simulatrix ac dissimulatrix, inter largitatem et avaritiam quoddam medium habens. Principes vero delectatione bonae famae largissimi sunt. Gens adulari sciens, eloquentiae studiis inserviens in tantum, ut etiam et ipsos pueros quasi rhetores attendas: quae quidem, nisi jugo justitiae prematur, effrenatissima est. Laboris, inediae et algoris, ubi fortuna expetit, patiens; venationi et accipitrum exercitio inserviens; equorum caeterorumque militiae instrumentorum et vestium luxuria delectatur. Ex nomine itaque suo terrae nomen tradiderunt: north quippe anglica lingua aquilonaris plaga dicitur. Et quia ipsi ab aquilone venerant, Normanni dicti, terram etiam Normanniam appellaverunt.1

In this passage Geoffrey Malaterra describes the principal characteristics and habits of the gens Normannorum. Based on main narrative sources such as Malaterra, Amatus of Montecassino and William of Apulia, numerous studies on Norman culture and identity (Normannitas) have been published in recent years. Especially noteworthy are those by Ovidio Capitani,2 Nick Webber3 and, more recently, Rosa Canosa.4 While Capitani tried to define the ‘original

  Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi Ducis fratris eius, (ed.) Ernesto Pontieri, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 5,1 (Bologna, 1925-28), 1, 3, p. 8. 2   Ovidio Capitani, ‘Specific Motivations and Continuing Themes in the Norman Chronicles of Southern Italy: Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, in The Normans in Sicily and Southern Italy (Oxford, 1977), pp. 1–46. 3   Nick Webber, The Evolution of Norman Identity 911–1154 (Woodbridge, 2005). 4   Rosa Canosa, Etnogenesi normanne e identità variabilii. Il retroterra culturale dei Normanni d’Italia fra Scandinavia e Normandia (Turin, 2009). 1

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characteristics of the Norman culture in southern Italy,’5 Webber compared the Norman identity with the ‘French model of Normandy’, using it as the parameter for the degree of assimilation with Norman tradition.6 Canosa has correctly emphasized that this restricted point of view neglects the political dimension and the dependence on local conditions.7 Recent studies, however, have questioned the concept of homogeneous and strictly separated cultural groups such as ‘Normans’, ‘Greeks’ or ‘Arabs’. Especially regarding research on cultural interchange, it rather seems suitable to define groups merely by clustering attributes of identity.8 In addition, Borgolte pleads for an awareness of the structures of transculturality that every culture involves.9 The concept of a ‘third space’ may be an alternative to the concept of homogenous ethnic identities.10 Instead of emphasizing the contrast of traditional and foreign culture it focuses on its changes and provides new opportunities for current and future studies. This concept contains aspects that we can also observe in the forms and terminology of the documents of Roger I and Roger II. The examination of the charters and chancery offers a new way in which to explore Norman identity, ‘third spaces’ and transcultural heritage in southern Italy and Sicily. Furthermore, it provides information about the interrelation of heritage and political necessity, or about examples of the creative transformation of local traditions.

  Capitani, ‘Specific motivations’, p. 5.  Webber, Evolution, p. 63: ‘Those early arrivals in Italy brought with them from their homes in the duchy a set of ideas and ideals, a myth/symbol complex encapsulated by the name Norman. Though this ethnonym and its associations may have meant rather less to the people of southern Italy and Sicily than they did to the people of Francia, their meaning to the Normans themselves was consistent, and so this cultural baggage was retained’. 7   She does not interpret the sources as ‘una sorta di specchi che si limitano a riflettere una realtà data, bensì come espressione di strategie culturali di costruzione di un’origine legittimante ogni volta potenzialmente diversa’. Canosa, Etnogenesi normanne, p. 21. 8  Ulrich Gotter, ‘“Akkulturation” als Methodenproblem der historischen Wissenschaften’, in Wolfgang Eßbach (ed.), wir/ihr/sie. Identität und Alterität in Theorie und Methode (Würzburg, 2000), pp. 373–406, here 395. 9   See Michael Borgolte, ‘Migrationen als transkulturelle Verflechtungen im mittelalterlichen Europa. Ein neuer Pflug für alte Forschungsfelder’, Historische Zeitschrift, 2 (2009): pp. 261–85, here 267. 10   Doris Bachmann-Medick, ‘Dritter Raum. Annäherungen an ein Medium kultureller Übersetzung und Kartierung’, in Claudia Breger and Tobias Döring (eds), Figuren der/des Dritten. Erkundungen kultureller Zwischenräume (Amsterdam, 1998), pp. 19–36, here 23. 5 6

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The Chancery In the period of the Norman conquest, southern Italy, which from a political point of view belonged to the Byzantine Catepanate of Italy, was administered by Byzantine Catepans and dominated by a Greek-speaking population and the Greek Christian faith of the Church of Constantinople. Sicily, however, was controlled by individual Arab emirs and had an Arabic-speaking majority which belonged to the Islamic faith. Furthermore minority groups were also present in the above mentioned areas: Greek and Arab Christians (Mozarabs) were living in Sicily, Arabs in Calabria, and Jewish communities existed on both the island as well as the mainland.11 As they were far away from being a cohesive unit with wide political and administrative experience, and a minority group, Norman conquerors had to adapt to the local conditions and traditions, especially with respect to the languages spoken. The documents of Roger I and Roger II were initially written in the Greek and Arabic languages and only after time Latin became more important.12 The fact that the Normans had not established a functioning chancery facilitated the reception of formulas and documents of the Muslim and Byzantine administration.13 Similar to the Anglo-Norman kings who continued to use the English-Latin ‘writs’, Roger I and Roger II adopted the Byzantine sigillion, the Arab lists of taxpayers and descriptions of estate boundaries.14 For the period of Roger I it can be assumed that it was not only the documents for Greek recipients in Calabria and Sicily that were issued in Greek, but also the documents for Latin recipients, like the bishops of Mileto in 1086 and 1091, and the charterhouse Bruno’s of Cologne 1094 and 1097 were written in Greek

11   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Il popolamento: etnìe, fedi, insediamenti’, in Giosuè Musca (ed.), Terra e uomini nel Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo, Atti delle settime giornate normannosveve, Bari, 15–17 ottobre 1985, Centro di studi normanno-svevi, Università degli Studi di Bari, Atti, 7 (Bari, 1987), pp. 39–73, here 39–40. 12   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘I diplomi dei re normanni in lingua greca’, in Giuseppe de Gregorio and Otto Kresten (eds), Documenti medievali greci e latini: studi comparativi (Spoleto, 1998), pp. 253–308, here 256; Graham A. Loud, ‘The Chancery and the Charters of the Kings of Sicily (1130–1212)’, English Historical Review, 124 (2009): pp. 779–810, here 780–81. 13   ‘Le ducs de Normandie ne semblent pas avoir disposé d’une chancellerie, sous la forme d’un service permanent et organisé’, Marie Fauroux, Recueil des actes des ducs de Normandie de 911 à 1066, Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, 36 (Caen, 1961), p. 41. 14   Borgolte, ‘Migrationen’, p. 280; von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 255–56.

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language.15 We have access to both Greek-Arabic as well as Greek-Latin plateiai (lists of taxpayers) in which the status and duties of the subject population, which is generally referred to as ‘villeins’ (villani or servi), are recorded. Documents written exclusively in Arabic have not been found from the period of Roger I.16 According to my current research, 65 of 99 documents (among them 22 deperdita) by Roger I were written in Greek (or Greek-Latin, Greek-Arabic). However, as 91 per cent of the deperdita were originally documents in Greek, it can be assumed that the loss rate of the Greek privileges is essentially higher than it was for documents in Latin. Among them we find eight bilingual, five GreekArabic and three Greek-Latin ğarīda/plateiai.17 The tradition of the charters of Roger I is poor, not only due to the fact that many early documents were written on paper and not on parchment, which is considered more durable.18 Many documents survive only as copies on parchment from the twelfth to thirteenth centuries or as later Latin translations of Greek originals. Only five genuine Greek charters, another five Latin charters and three bilingual (Greek-Arabic and Greek-Latin) privileges survive in the original. The period of Roger II shows a quite similar picture. At least half of more than two hundred documents of Roger II were issued in Greek, although quite a few of the latter survive only in later Latin translations.19 In addition, there are twelve bilingual charters (eleven Greek-Arabic and one Greek-Latin). One should note that the rate of loss among the Greek documents is proportionally higher than it is for Latin documents, as we can see from the number of genuine Latin and Greek charters that survive in the original.20 Only for recipients in Calabria and Sicily did Roger II issue privileges in Greek.21 In the early years of his dominion until the coronation of 1130, Roger II almost exclusively issued Greek documents. In this period Latin documents are considered as ‘Zufallsprodukte, indem sich Roger II. bei Bedarf eines Kapellans bediente

  Francesco Trinchera, Syllabus graecarum membranarum (Naples, 1865), pp. 76–78, no. 59–60. 16   See Julia Becker, ‘Die griechischen und lateinischen Urkunden Graf Rogers I. von Sizilien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 84 (2004): pp. 1–37, here 7. 17   I am currently in charge of preparing a critical edition of the Greek as well as the Latin documents of Roger I and my hope is that it will be available in the spring 2012. 18   Becker, ‘Urkunden’, pp. 2–3. 19   See Loud, ‘Chancery’, p. 781. 20   See Loud, ‚Chancery’, p. 781. 21   von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 255–56. 15

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oder sich gar mit der Beglaubigung einer Empfängerausfertigung begnügte’.22 The number of Latin documents for Apulian recipients increased significantly with the takeover of the Duchy of Apulia and the Principality of Capua in 1127 by Roger II, whereas privileges for recipients in Calabria and Sicily were still issued in Greek.23 Beginning in the middle of the twelfth century, documents for Calabrian and Sicilian recipients were also written more and more frequently in Latin. The revocation of privileges by Roger II around 1144, during which the King renewed and reconfirmed his charters for recipients in Calabria and Sicily, was one reason for the last drastic increase of Greek documents. From 1145 onwards more and more Latin privileges were issued,24 a development that continued under his successors William I and William II.25 While the Latin documents of Roger II have been published by Brühl in the Codex diplomaticus Regni Siciliae,26 his Greek charters have yet to be critically edited.27 The deciding factor regarding which language was to be used was the issuing authority rather than the cultural background of the recipient (like the royal dīwān, for example).28 Since the decree for the diocese of Cefalù from 1132, as well as the decree for the bishop of Lipari-Patti from 1134 were issued in GreekArabic, and both were addressed to the officers of royal customs, it appears that customs in the period of Roger II were mostly conducted in Arabic.29 A similar situation can be considered with regard to the lists of taxpayers (plateiai) and the descriptions of estate boundaries. Depending on whether the subject population (villani) was Arab or Greek, or whether the majority of the place names were situated in an Arabic- or Greek-speaking area, the documents were composed in 22   Theo Kölzer, ‘Kanzlei und Kultur im Königreich Sizilien 1130–1198’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 66 (1986): pp. 20–39, here 23–24. See also Carlrichard Brühl, Urkunden und Kanzlei König Rogers II. von Sizilien, Studien zu den normannisch-staufischen Herrscherurkunden Siziliens. Beihefte zum ‘Codex diplomaticus regni Siciliae’, 1 (Cologne 1978), pp. 37–38. 23   See von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 261–62. 24   See von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, p. 264. 25   Only five Greek charters by William I for Calabrian and Sicilian recipients survive (among them one bilingual Greek-Arabic); twelve documents were issued in Latin. From the reign of William II 42 Latin documents are known for recipients of Calabria and Sicily, but only three in Greek, all of which are in the favour of Greek monasteries. See von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 265–66; Loud, ‘Chancery’, pp. 781–82. 26   Rogerii II regis Diplomata latina, (ed.) Carlrichard Brühl, Codex diplomaticus regni Siciliae, ser. 1, vol. 2, 1 (Cologne, 1987). 27   I have to express my gratitude to Vera von Falkenhausen, who has furnished me with all her material on the Greek documents of Roger II. 28   See von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 258–59. 29   See von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 258–59.

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either Arabic or Greek.30 As an example, we can refer to Roger I’s plateia for S. Maria di Palermo of 109531 or 1141 for the archimandrite Lucas of San Salvatore di Messina, to whom Roger II confirmed a sigillion issued by Roger I in 6606 (1097/1098) in favour of San Giorgio di Triocala near Caltabellotta.32 Noth’s thesis, that Norman rulers used the Arabic language to increase the value of their documents to Arabs appears to be not comprehensible.33 The existence of a chancery in the period of Roger I and Roger II, in the sense of an organised writing office for the issuing of Latin documents, is doubtful. Rather, the provisional production of Latin documents only took place in a structured organization after some time.34 In most cases, Roger I and Roger II either made use of non-professional scribes that were recruited locally or confirmed a document that was issued by a recipient.35 In his Greek, as well as in his Latin documents, the scribes of Roger I often were not identified. While, starting with Roger II, we can always find the name of the issuing notary in the Latin section of the chancery in the eschatocol of the concerned document, the notary of the Greek privileges usually remains anonymous following the Byzantine example.36 For Roger I we are able to identify at least two of them: Nicholas of Mesa,37 a Calabrian of Greek origin and comital camerarius, and the

  Becker, ‘Urkunden’, pp. 9–10; von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 258–59.   I diplomi greci ed arabi di Sicilia. Pubblicati nel testo originale, tradotti ed illustrati, (ed.) Salvatore Cusa, 2 vols. (Palermo, 1868 and 1882), vol. 1, pp. 1–3. 32   This bilingual document, found in the Archivo Ducal Medinaceli in Toledo (ADM), perg. no. 1120, has not yet been edited. For a description and a picture of the document, see: Messina. Il ritorno della memoria, Messina, Palazzo Zanca (dal 1 marzo al 28 aprile 1994) (Palermo, 1994), no. 31, pp. 160–61. 33   Albrecht Noth, ‘Die arabischen Dokumente König Rogers II. von Sizilien’, in Carlrichard Brühl (ed.), Urkunden und Kanzlei König Rogers II. von Sizilien, pp. 217–61, here 234. 34   Horst Enzensberger, ‘Le cancellerie normanne: materiali per la storia della Sicilia musulmana’, in Giornata di Studio. Del nuovo sulla Sicilia musulmana (Roma, 3 maggio 1993), Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Fondazione Leone Caetani, 26 (Rome, 1995), pp. 51–67, here 58. 35   Loud, ‘Chancery’, p. 792. 36   von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 267–68; Brühl, Urkunden, p. 36. 37   Nicholas of Mesa is attested in the documents for the bishop of Mileto from 1086 (Capialbi, Memorie, pp. 116–34), and for the Greek monasteries S. Filippo di Fragalà from 1090 (Cusa, Diplomi, vol. 1, pp. 383–85) and S. Salvatore di Placa, from 1092 (I documenti inediti dell’epoca normanna in Sicilia, (ed.) Carlo Alberto Garufi, Parte Prima, Documenti per servire alla storia di Sicilia pubblicati a cura della Società Siciliana per la Storia Patria ser. 1, 18 [Palermo, 1899], pp. 7–9). 30 31

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protonotarius John of Troina,38 also a Greek of Sicilian origin. Both are attested for years in the comital entourage.39 They probably first contributed to the issuing of the documents of Roger I and finally made careers as experts in the fiscal and feudal administration. Both the capellanus Fulco as well as the comital chaplain Rainaldus can be identified as Latin notaries of Roger I. Fulco is attested from 1094 to 1101 at the comital court and it was in the year 1094 that he wrote no less than three documents by Roger I for Sicilian and Calabrian recipients.40 Rainaldus is attested as a scribe both in Roger I’s privilege of 1098 for Bruno of Cologne41 and in the note of confirmation by Roger I on the document of the duke Roger Borsa for S. Maria di Palermo of 1086.42 For the period of Roger II we are unfortunately not able to identify any notary or scribe who was responsible for Greek documents.43 For the Latin section of the chancery after the creation of the new Kingdom of Sicily we are informed in a much better manner. In addition to Guarnerius, who is attested as a scribe for Roger II’s documents from 1126 to 1129, Wido must also be mentioned as one of the most important Latin notaries of the chancery, noted from 1132 to 1136 in twelve originals and also in nine forgeries.44 Extraordinary importance needs to be assigned to Gisolf, who was the last Latin notary of Roger II’s reign and attested as a scribe from 1147 to 1148, having also copied two documents by   John of Troina is a notary in the plateia from 1095 in favour of the diocese of Catania (Cusa, Diplomi, vol. 2, pp. 541–49) and in the document for the diocese of Messina from 1096 (Cusa, Diplomi, vol. 1, pp. 289–91). 39   For Nicholas of Mesa and John of Troina, see Julia Becker, Graf Roger I. von Sizilien. Wegbereiter des normannischen Königreichs, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 117 (Tübingen, 2008), pp. 112–16; Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘I funzionari greci nel regno normanno’, in Mario Re and Cristina Rognoni (eds), Byzantino-Sicula V. Giorgio di Antiochia. L’arte della politica in Sicilia nel XII secolo tra Bisanzio e l’Islam, Atti del Convegno internazionale, Palermo, 19–20 aprile 2007 (Palermo, 2009), pp. 165–202, here 169–72 and 174–75. 40   The hand of Fulco can be identified in the documents of Roger I in favour of S. Salvatore di Patti (Rocco Pirri, Sicilia sacra disquisitionibus et notitiis illustrata, (ed.) Antonino Mongitore and Vito Maria Amico, 2 vol. [Palermo, 1733], vol. 2, p. 770), S. Bartolomeo di Lipari (ibid., pp. 771–72) and the charterhouse Bruno’s of Cologne (Regii Neapolitani Archivi Monumenta, vols. 5 and 6 [Naples 1857 and 1861], vol. 5, pp. 204–5 no. 478). 41   Regii Neapolitani Archivi Monumenta, vol. 5, pp. 245–46 no. 494, pp. 245–46 no. 494. 42   Recueil des actes ducs normands d’Italie (1046–1127), (ed.) Léon-Robert Ménager, vol. 1, Les premiers ducs (1046–1087), Società di Storia Patria per la Puglia, Documenti e Monografie, 45 (Bari, 1980), p. 186 no. 54. 43   von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 267–68. 44   See Brühl, Urkunden, p. 39; Loud, ‘Chancery’, pp. 793–94. 38

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Roger I, namely the privilege for the diocese of Agrigento from 109345 and the charter for S. Maria di Palermo from 1095.46 The Greek Charters of Roger I and Roger II – Sigillia The adoption of the Byzantine sigillion may serve as a good example for a process of cultural intermingling in the documentary production of the Norman rulers. Originally, a sigillion is defined as a legal act that has been affirmed in public with a seal made of lead.47 The office-holders of the Byzantine administration in the theme of Calabria made use of this type of document for their decrees, for which Dölger has introduced the term ‘Beamtenurkunden’.48 In this process, Greek notaries or scribes acted as cultural intermediaries. They possessed the necessary skills and were recruited locally by Roger I and Roger II in order to issue documents in Greek language. Instead of referring to the formulas of the sigillia of the Byzantine emperors, these notaries made use of documents of the Byzantine ‘Beamtenurkunden’ as templates.49 The Greek documents of the Norman rulers were based on the existing Byzantine sigillion, not only with regard to form but also to terminology. Even the term sigillum has been added to the Latin vocabulary of the Norman charters.50 Under Roger I no transformation of formulas of the Byzantine sigillion occurred. His Greek privileges, issued for Greek and also for Latin recipients in Calabria and Sicily, strictly followed the model of the Byzantine

45   Le più antiche carte dell’archivio capitolare di Agrigento (1092–1282), (ed.) Paolo Collura, Documenti per servire alla storia della Sicilia ser. 1, 25 (Palermo, 1961), pp. 7–18 no. 2. 46  Pirri, Sicilia sacra, vol. 1, p. 76. See also Becker, ‘Urkunden’, p. 35. 47   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Il documento greco in area longobarda (secoli IX–XII)’, in Giovanni Vitolo and Francesco Mottola (eds), Scrittura e produzione documentaria nel Mezzogiorno longobardo, Atti del convegno internazionale di studio, Badia di Cava, 3–5 ottobre 1990 (Badia di Cava, 1991), pp. 169–90, here p. 171. 48   See Franz Dölger, Aus den Schatzkammern des heiligen Berges (Munich, 1948), pp. 150–51. 49   von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 271–75; von Falkenhausen, ‘Documento’, pp. 171–72. 50   Charter of the catepan William of Bari from 1094: Insuper et per suum (of Boemond) honorabile sigillum scriptum per manum Nicifori sue barine curie protonotarii et vullatum cum suo proprio tipario. Codice diplomatico barese, vol. 5: Le pergamene di S. Nicola di Bari, periodo normanno (1075–1194), (ed.) Francesco Nitti (Bari, 1902), no. 19, pp. 37–39; see also Brühl, Rogerii II. regis diplomata, no. 67, pp. 193–96.

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‘Beamtenurkunden’ to which only new content was assigned. After his coronation, Roger II introduced only some minor variations.51 In the same way as the Byzantine model, the sigillia of Roger I and Roger II begin with a symbolic invocatio (Chrismon); there is, however, no verbal invocatio as in the Latin documents. This is followed by the name of the issuer with the intitulatio: ┼ Σιγίλλιον γενάμενον παρ’ ἐμοῦ Ῥωκερίου κόμητος Καλαβρίας καὶ Σικελίας, then the recipient’s name and after that the first part of the datatio containing the declaration of month and indiction: καὶ ἐπιδοθὲν σὺ τῶ μοναχῶ Βλάσιω μηνὶ νοεμβρίω τῆς β’ ἰνδικτιῶνος.52 After Roger II’s coronation, this protocol based on the Byzantine tradition was replaced by the intitulatio of the king in the nominative case: Ῥογέριος ἐν Χριστῶ τῶ θεῶ εὐσεβὴς κραταιὸς ῥὴξ καὶ τῶν Χριστιανῶν βοηθός, written usually in the style of monocondylia and separated from the rest of the text.53 The term monocondylia derives from the Greek word for brush, kondulion, and this style was used by the Byzantine scribes from the tenth to the thireenth century. This style of writing aims to write a word without lifting the pen in order to create elaborately intertwined words.54 It belongs to the tradition of the Komnenoi and can be identified not only with Roger I, but also with Adelasia and Roger II. The intitulatio was commonly written from another hand than the rest of the document.55 The protocol is followed by a short arenga, which refers to the responsibility of the ruler in respect to his subjects or as safeguard of the Christian faith, depending on whether the recipient is a laical or ecclesiastical person. For example, Roger I’s charter in favour of the Greek monastery of S. Nicandro di S. Nicone from 1093: Ἐπιδὴ τοὺς τῷ θεῷ ἐξ ὅλης τῆς καρδίας δουλεύοντας δίκαιον ἄρα καὶ θεῷ εὐαπόδεκτον εὐεργεσίαις κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν ἀμήβεσθε τούτους […].56 The narratio follows, which briefly describes the circumstances of the present legal act. In some cases, either the arenga or the narratio are missing so that the protocol is directly followed by the dispositio, which usually begins with the verbs

  See von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, p. 275.   See, for example, the document of Roger I in favour of Blasios the monk from the Greek monastery of S. Nicandro di S. Nicone from 1093: ADM, perg. no. 1410 (this document is not yet edited). 53   See von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, p. 290. 54   Viktor Gardthausen, Griechische Paläographie (Leipzig, 1879), pp. 72–73 and 113; Becker, ‘Urkunden’, p. 29–30. 55   See von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, p. 290. 56   ‘Because it is suitable and godly to make every endeavor to support with good deeds those, who serve God from the bottom of their heart.’ ADM, perg. no. 1410. 51 52

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κελεύει, διαγορεύει, δέδωκα or κελεύομεν, δωρούμεθα, ἐπικυροῦμεν.57 The dispositio always occurs in the third person singular or plural, and never in the first person as in the documents that were in Latin. If a donation of land is the purpose of the document, a boundary description is provided followed by the sanctio, but this could also be absent. In case of any violation of the document, the ruler and his heirs threaten the violator with their ἀγανάκτησις (anger).58 The corroboratio follows in the eschatocol in which the seal, the repetitive reference to the recipient and the second part of the datatio are announced. The datatio makes reference to the month and indiction previously mentioned in the protocol: πρὸς γὰρ περισσωτεράν πίστοσιν καὶ ἀσφάλειαν βεβαίωσιν τῶν ἐντυγχανόντων τὸ παρὸν ἔγγραφον σιγίλλιον βουλλοθὲν καὶ σφραγισθὲν τῇ ἐμῇ συνήθῃ βούλλῃ τῆ διὰ μολίβδω. ἐπεδώθη τῶ ἠρημένω εὐλαβεστατῷ μοναχῷ Βλασίω, μηνὶ καὶ ἰνδικτιῶνι τῆς ἄνω προγραμμένοις ἐν τὸ ςχβ’ ἔτει.59 Usually, Roger I and Roger II used metal seals (bulla), which typically were made of lead, but in rare cases wax was also used.60 Documents either of particular importance or for special recipients were equipped with gold seals, as under Roger I for S. Filippo di Fragalà from 109061 or under Roger II for the archimandritate S. Salvatore di Messina issued in the year 1133.62 The Greek documents were dated following the Byzantine tradition in accordance with the Byzantine ‘Weltjahr’ in which the new year began on the first of September.63 The datatio is followed by the signature of the ruler (for Roger I this was usually Ῥωκέριος κόμης or Ῥωκέριος κόμης Καλαβρίας καὶ Σικελίας, and in some it cases was written in monocondylia). Title additions like μέγας κόμης or τῶν Χριστιανῶν βοηθός are only found in documents from Roger I that survive in later copies and not in the original.64 From his coronation on Christmas Day 1130 until his death in 1154, Roger II used the unchanged intitulatio Ῥωγέριος ἐν Χριστῷ τῷ Θεῷ εὐσεβὴς κραταιὸς ῥὴξ καὶ τῶν Χριστιανῶν βοηθός, which is also found in many Latin documents. Expressions like ἐν Χριστῷ τῷ Θεῷ or κραταιὸς   Becker, ‘Urkunden’, p. 23.   See von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 301–2. 59   ‘For more security and credibility of the donation I have sealed the present privilege with my usual seal of lead and transferred to the pious monk Blasios, in the above-mentioned month and indiction, in the year 6602.’ Document of Roger I for S. Nicandro di S. Nicone from 1093, ADM, perg. no. 1410. 60   See Becker, ‘Urkunden’, pp. 26–27; von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 286–87; Loud, ‘Chancery’, p. 797. 61   […] τῆ ἐμῆ χρυσῶ συνήθη βούλλη ἐσφράγησα […], Cusa, Diplomi, vol. 1, p. 384. 62   ADM, perg. no. 529. 63   von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 289 and 304; Becker, ‘Urkunden’, pp. 28–29. 64   See Becker, ‘Urkunden’, pp. 29–30; von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 293–94. 57 58

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were borrowed from the titles given to Byzantine emperors. The successors of Roger II, William I and William II continued to use this Greek intitulatio, whereby the formula καὶ τῶν Χριστιανῶν βοηθός could be omitted.65 Based on the model of the Byzantine sigillion, the witnesses and the name of the issuing notary were not mentioned in the Greek charters of Roger I and Roger II.66 By adopting the form and layout of the sigillion the Norman rulers were able to facilitate the administration of the formerly Byzantine territories, in which the majority of the population was still Greek. As a result of this cultural interchange it can be stated that the Greek documents of Roger I and Roger II are fundamentally different from those documents produced in Latin. Later Translations of the Greek Documents The Greek charters of the Norman rulers, however, were involved in another process of cultural intermingling, which only took place some centuries later. A large number of them were translated from Greek into Latin, mainly in the fifteenth century, and they may serve as good examples of the creativity involved in transforming the two documents into a ‘third’ one. In most cases, abbots of Greek monasteries in Calabria acted as translators, who ‘were able to read and to interpret both languages, the Greek and the Latin one’: greco sciente legere et interpretari utramque literam et linguam, grecam scilicet et latinam, words that usually act as the introduction for the translation.67 Hence they can be regarded as kind of cultural intermediaries. As an example, we can refer to the case of Roger I’s document for S. Maria di Palermo of 1092, which was translated by Romanus, the abbot of the Greek monastery of S. Bartolomeo di Trigona in the southern part of Calabria.68 In the second half of the fifteenth century a large number of the Greek privileges of Roger I and Roger II were translated into Latin by Constantine Lascaris, a Greek scholar and humanist from Constantinople.69 Constantine Lascaris can be characterized as a prototypical   von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 281 and 296–97.   Becker, ‘Urkunden’, p. 31; von Falkenhausen, ‘Documento’, p. 175. 67   Antonino Mongitore, Bullae, privilegia et instrumenta Panormitanae metropolitane ecclesiae regni Siciliae primariae collecta notisque illustrata (Palermo, 1734), p. 9. 68   This document survives as a Latin transsumpt issued in May 1309 (Archivio Storico Diocesano of Palermo, Tabulario I.76). 69   Document of Roger I for the Greek monastery S. Maria di Mili from 1091 (Pirri, Sicilia sacra II, p. 1025): olim translatum per virum eximium Constantinum Lascarem grecis latinisque literis eruditissimum ex litteratura greca in latinum reddatum. For Constantine Lascaris, see Antonino de Rosalia, ‘La vita di Constantino Lascaris’, Archivio Storico Siciliano 65 66

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cultural intermediary between Greek and Latin culture. He advocated the survival of the Greek language and taught Greek at the universities of Rome, Naples and Messina.70 The surviving translations of privileges that were originally in Greek reveal that the skills of monks and abbots in Greek at the end of the fifteenth century were insufficient – a point also made by Constantine Lascaris.71 One reason for this may be that the monks and abbots had adapted to the Latin ambience. We can also see from the texts of the documents, that the translators used Latin documents as a model, and as a result the two cultural traditions commingled. As the Latin translations show very different content from the Greek originals, and show many interpolations (as may be seen from the reference to Pope Urban II, the jurisdiction about the villani, and so forth), this is thus, in principle, a problematic example of cultural interchange.72 Hence, the later translators contributed their creativity in transmitting the documents and transformed the original text into a ‘cultural third one’. The Reception of Arabic Traditions The Norman rulers adapted their charters to local traditions not only in regard to formulas and language, but also in regard to writing materials. We know that some early documents to Calabrian and Sicilian recipients from Roger I and Countess Adelasia were written on paper, which is more fragile than parchment. This seems to be a legacy from the pre-conquest Arab administration of Sicily.73 None of the documents written on paper from Roger I survived in the original. 9 (1957/58): pp. 21–70; Massimo Ceresa, ‘Lascaris, Constantino’, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani vol. 63 (Rome, 2004), col. 781–85; Teresa Martínez Manzano, Konstantinos Laskaris: Humanist, Philologe, Lehrer, Kopist (Hamburg, 1994). 70   See Ceresa, Lascaris, col. 782. 71   Even if the later translators often note that they have translated the original text ‘word for word from Greek into Latin’: de greco in latinum et de verbo ad verbum exemplari et transcribi in presenti pagina. For example, see the privilege of Roger I in favour of S. Nicodemo de Grutaria from 1092 (Léon-Robert Ménager, ‘L’abbaye bénédictine de la Trinité de Mileto en Calabre, à l’epoque normande’, Bullettino dell’Archivio paleografico italiano, n. s. 4–5 (1958–59): pp. 9–94, here 25 no. 6). 72   See also Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘La fondazione del monastero dei SS. Pietro e Paolo d’Agrò nel contesto della politica monastica dei Normanni in Sicilia’, in Clara Biondi (ed.), La valle d’Agrò: un territorio, una storia, un destino, Convegno internazionle di studi, Hotel Baia Taormina – Marina d’Agrò (Messina), 20–22 febbraio 2004, vol. 1, L’età antica e medievale (Palermo, 2005), pp. 171–79, here 174. 73   von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 275–76; Loud, ‘Chancery’, p. 799; Becker, ‘Urkunden’, pp. 2–3.

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Only one Greek-Arabic decree (entalma) of 1109 has survived; in it Countess Adelasia and a young Roger II give orders to the officials of the district of Castrogiovanni to protect the Greek abbey of San Filippo di Fragalà.74 Due to their disintegration, the content of Roger I’s paper-written documents had to be transferred a few years later from carta cuttunea/χάρτης βαμβάκινον to parchment, especially in the period of Adelasia or Roger II.75 This, for example, occurred with the donation of Roger I for S. Filippo di Fragalà of 1099, which also renewed Adelasia with the young Roger II and was copied on parchment ‘because it was originally on paper’: καὶ διὰ τὸ εἶναι τὸ πρῶτον βαμβάκινον.76 The adoption of paper as a writing material may be seen as one of the reasons that explains the limited number of original documents for the period of Roger I. Due to its disadvantages in comparison to parchment, paper was only used as a writing material in the Sicilian chancery for a short period of time, and by that time Roger II was already issuing all of his documents exclusively on parchment.77 Roger I and his successors also adapted two types of documents from the pre-conquest Muslim administration of Sicily. First, descriptions of estate boundaries, known in Greek as periorismos and in Latin as divisa, were issued to feudal landholders in Sicily; in western Sicily, where the vast majority of the population continued to be Arab throughout the twelfth century, these were composed in Arabic or bilingually in Arabic-Greek.78 Second, lists of taxpayers, known in Arabic as jarīda and in Greek as plateia, were issued. These were important instruments for the fiscal administration during the Arab period.79 In these lists, the Norman rulers recorded the status of the subject population, in Calabria and Sicily mainly Arab and Greek ‘villeins’ (villani or servi). In some cases we can also find a detailed list of the duties and services they had to render.80 According to current studies by Sandro Carocci, Giuseppe Petralia   See Giuseppe La Mantia, Il primo documento in carta (contessa Adelaide, 1109) esistente in Sicilia e rimasto sinora sconosciuto (Palermo, 1908). Here we find the text by Cusa (Cusa, Diplomi, vol. 1, p. 402), La Mantia, Il primo documento, pp. 31–32 and a picture of the document, p. 35. 75   Becker, ‘Urkunden’, pp. 2–3. 76  Cusa, Diplomi, vol. 1, pp. 393–94. 77   See von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, p. 276. 78   Jeremy Johns and Alex Metcalfe, ‘The Mystery at Chùrchuro: Conspiracy or Incompetence in Twelfth-century Sicily?’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol. 62, no. 2 (1999): pp. 226–59, here 226. 79   See von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 254–55; Johns and Metcalfe, ‘Mystery’, pp. 226–27. 80   For example, see the plateia of Roger I in favour of S. Maria di Palermo from 1095 (Cusa, Diplomi, vol. 1, pp. 1–3), which states that the 75 villeins had to render 750 tari and 74

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and Vito Loré, these ‘villeins’ were directly subject to the Norman count or king and could be transferred with their goods, families and heirs to churches or monasteries.81 The villani, included with the plateiai, also known as οἵ ἄνθρωποι τῶν πλατεῖων, were bound to a residence obligation and had to render duties and services that were based on Late Antique and Byzantine traditions.82 Points of contact with these lists of taxpayers surely came from the ArabSicilian administrative documents that were salvaged and adapted to postconquest circumstances. Officials (such as Arab kaїtes) and notaries acted as cultural intermediaries who possessed the necessary skills and who were still responsible for the tax and land registers.83 Roger I issued bilingual Greek-Arabic plateiai for Latin recipients in areas with a predominantly Greek- or Arabicspeaking population and entirely Greek or bilingual Greek-Latin plateiai/ κατόνομα for Latin recipients in the southern part of Calabria.84 The structure of these Greek-Arabic plateiai (lists of taxpayers) was usually divided into three parts. Typically the first part, the preamble, was issued in Greek. Subsequent to the symbolic invocatio, the month and day, and the name of the issuing person, the recipient and the content of the donation were mentioned. Thereafter the names of the villeins in Arabic were listed, usually written in several columns side by side.85 The conclusion containing the second 150 bushels of wheat and barley biannually: καὶ ἵνα παρέχουν τῆ ἁγία θεοτόκω λόγου δόματος τὸν χειμόνα ταρήα ψν’, καὶ ἄλλο τοσοῦτον τὸν αὔγουστον καὶ βιταλλίνου σίτου μόδια ρν’ καὶ ἄλλο τοσοῦτον κριθαρίου. 81   Vito Loré, ‘Signorie locali e mondo rurale’, in Raffaele Licinio and Francesco Violante (eds), Nascita di un regno: Poteri signorili, istituzioni feudali e strutture sociali nel Mezzogiorno normanno (1130–1194), Atti delle diciassettesime giornate normanno-sveve, Bari, 10–13 ottobre 2006, Centro di studi normanno-svevi, Università degli studi di Bari, Atti, 17 (Bari, 2008), pp. 207–37, here 212–13. Also Giuseppe Petralia, ‘La ‘signoria’ nella Sicilia normanna e sveva: verso nuovi scenari?’, in La signoria rurale in Italia nel medioevo, Atti del secondo convegno di studi, Pisa, 6–7 novembre 1998 (Pisa, 2006), pp. 233–70; Sandro Carocci, ‘Le libertà dei servi: Reinterpretare il villanaggio meridionale’, Storica 37 (2007): pp. 51–94. 82   ‘La limitazione imposta dai nuovi dominatori alla libertà di movimento va dunque letta nel nuovo contesto determinatosi con la conquista: l’obbligo di residenza mirava all’obiettivo di mantenere costanti le fonti di reddito dei membri dell’aristocrazia e delle chiese, cui il conte concedeva gli uomini registrati nelle platee, vietando cambi di residenza in realtà inevitabili.’ Petralia, ‘Signoria’, p. 213. See also Loré, ‘Signorie’, p. 242. 83   Johns and Metcalfe, ‘Mystery’, p. 227; von Falkenhausen, ‘Diplomi’, pp. 254–55; Becker, Graf Roger I., p. 127. 84   For example, for the charterhouse Bruno’s of Cologne 1094 and 1097 (Trinchera, Syllabus, pp. 76–78, no. 59–60). 85   See Johns and Metcalfe, ‘Mystery’, p. 226.

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part of the datatio and the signature of Roger I was then again composed in Greek language.86 In recent years, the Norman administration in England and Sicily has been re-evaluated. Earlier historians like Charles H. Haskins or David C. Douglas have been content to claim that there was ‘no interruption in the administrative practice which the Normans found in the conquered lands’ and that the Norman rulers chose the best institutions from the pre-conquest administration, incorporating them into the Norman system, which their ‘genius for adaptation’ then developed into something more efficient and more successful.87 Recent studies by Wilfred Warren and Jeremy Johns, however, attacked ‘the myth of Norman administrative efficiency’ in England and Sicily.88 And indeed, after the Greek-Arabic plateia of Adelasia from 111189 and the Greek-Arabic decree issued by Roger II in favour of the diocese of Cefalù from 1132,90 for a long period of twenty years no Arabic or bilingual Greek-Arabic plateiai have survived. This fact confirms the thesis of Jeremy Johns that, in contrast to the opinion of Douglas, a break in continuity in the Muslim bureaucratic practice and structure can be observed a generation after the conquest. Supporting this idea is the fact that the Norman rulers were not able to find qualified Arab personnel for the complicated fiscal system which, however, led to other innovations.91   For example, see the plateiai of Roger I, both issued in the year 1095, in favour of S. Maria di Palermo (Cusa, Diplomi, vol. 1, pp. 1–3) and the bishop of Catania (Cusa, Diplomi, vol. 2, pp. 541–48). 87   Charles H. Haskins, ‘England and Sicily in the Twelfth Century’, English Historical Review, 26 (1911): pp. 433–447 and 641–665, here 433–35; David C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement (1050–1100) (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969), pp. 185–86, 189–91. 88   See Wilfred Lewis Warren, ‘The Myth of Norman Administrative Efficiency’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, ser. 5, 34 (1984): pp. 113–132, here 131–32; Jeremy Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Dīwān (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 1–3. 89   André Guillou, Les actes grecs de S. Maria di Messina: enquête sur les populations grecques d’Italie du Sud et de Sicile (XIe–XIVe s.), Istituto siciliano di studi bizantine e neoellenici, Testi e monumenti, 8 (Palermo, 1963), pp. 51–55 no. 3; Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Zur Regentschaft der Gräfin Adelasia del Vasto in Kalabrien und Sizilien (1101–1112)’, in Ihor Ševčenko and Irmgard Hutter (eds), ΑΕΤΟΣ: Studies in honour of Cyril Mango presented to him on April 14, 1998, (Stuttgart, 1998), pp. 87–115, here 111, reg. 21. 90   Giuseppe Spata, Le pergamene greche esistenti nel Grande Archivio di Palermo (Palermo, 1862), pp. 429–30 no. 4. 91   ‘In Sicily, as in England, a generation after the conquest, there was a break in continuity caused by the failure of the conquerors to preserve the administrative system inherited from the previous rulers of the island. And in Sicily, as in England, Norman rulers subsequently introduced administrative innovations to repair the damage done to the pre86

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Current studies by Adelgisa De Simone, Annliese Nef and Jeremy Johns have shown that the Arab elements in the administration of Roger II are not directly connected with the pre-conquest Muslim administration of Sicily, but date back to the twelfth century and incorporate many elements from Fatimid Egypt.92 The amiratus and chief minister of King Roger II, George of Antioch, seems to have been responsible for the close contacts with Fatimid Egypt after the creation of the new kingdom.93 This seems to be the only way to explain why the royal dīwān began once again to issue documents entirely in Arabic and bilingually in GreekArabic and constituted the most important branch of the fiscal administration of the island from 1130 until the fall of the dynasty in 1194. Furthermore, it is important to note that Roger II’s Greek-Arabic sigillion of 1141 in favour of Luke, the archimandrite of S. Salvatore di Messina, even survived in triplicate (all three privileges are today in the Archivo Ducal Medinaceli in Toledo).94 This may serve as an indication of the functional capacity of the dīwān around 1140, which was responsible for the issuing of the land and tax registers. Nevertheless, we need to also consider the requests of the recipient, in this case a large abbey like the archimandritate of S. Salvatore di Messina.95 In addition to the three Greek-Arabic privileges, even an Arabic jarīda of villeins exists.96 In this jarīda, which is written entirely in Arabic with the exception of Roger’s Greek chancery signature, the king confirmed to the archimandritate 115 villani.97 conquest system; innovations which underwent rigorous selection through a process of trial and error, and rapidly developed in new directions.’ Johns, Administration, p. 3. 92   Adelgisa De Simone, ‘Il Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo visto dall’Islam africano’, in Giosuè Musca (ed.), Il Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo visto dall’Europa e dal mondo mediterraneo, Atti delle tredicesime giornate normanno-sveve, Bari, 21–24 ottobre 1997, Centro di studi normanno-svevi, Università degli studi di Bari, Atti 13 (Bari, 1999), pp. 261–94, here 281; Annliese Nef, ‘L’histoire des “mozarabes” de Sicile: Bilan provisoire et nouveaux matériaux’, in Cyrille Aillet, Mayte Penelas and Philippe Roisse (eds), ¿Existe una identidad mozárabe? Historia, lengua y cultura de los cristianos de al-Andalus (siglos IX–XII), (Madrid, 2008), pp. 255–86; Johns, Administration, pp. 280–83. 93   Johns and Metcalfe, ‘Mystery’, p. 227; Johns, Administration, p. 282. 94   ADM, perg. no. 1104, 1117 and 1120. None of the three documents has yet been edited. For a description and a picture see Messina. Il ritorno della memoria, pp. 160–62 no. 30–32. A regest by Johns, Administration, App. 1, pp. 304–5 no. 15–17. 95   For the archimandritate of S. Salvatore di Messina see Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘L’Archimandritato del S. Salvatore in lingua phari di Messina e il monachesimo italo-greco nel regno normanno-svevo (secoli XI–XIII)’, in Messina. Il ritorno della memoria, pp. 41–52. 96   ADM, perg. no. 1119. Messina. Il ritorno della memoria, pp. 162–63 no. 33; Johns, Administration, App. 1, p. 305 no. 18. 97   This is the earliest of the surviving documents issued by the royal dīwān to be written solely in Arabic.

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Conclusion We can conclude that Roger I and Roger II, did not entirely abandon their own Norman diplomatic traditions. Many features of form and terminology in their Latin documents originate from the diplomatic tradition of the Duchy of Normandy (like the verbal invocatio) or from the papal chancery (for example in the arenga, dispositio or the introduction of the rota).98 In addition, the Norman rulers adapted the Greek-Byzantine and Arab documentary and administrative traditions due to the local circumstances and the cultural composition of the population in southern Italy. Under Roger I this adoption surely took place for reasons of political necessity and pragmatic considerations. The revival of Arab bureaucratic practices and structures after the creation of the kingdom in 1130, at a time when the Latinization of Sicily had already advanced, was then due to other reasons, especially concerning the representation of the monarchy. Various cultural elements from southern Italy became part of the monarchical identity in the middle of the twelfth century, so that when issuing Greek-Arabic documents, Roger II consciously tried to reach all the subjects of his ‘multicultural’ kingdom. This seems to be the only explanation for why he furnished the Greek-Arabic charter issued by George of Antioch to Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio from 114399 with his calāma, or the above-mentioned Arabic jarīda from 1141 for San Giorgio di Triocala with his Greek signature.100 These products of the Norman chancery must be interpreted as the expression of a cross-cultural interaction.

  See Kölzer, ‘Kanzlei’, pp. 28–30; Brühl, Urkunden, pp. 74–77.  Cusa, Diplomi, vol. 1, pp. 68–70; Johns, Administration, App. 1, p. 306 no. 20. 100   Ῥογέριος ἐν Χριστῷ τῷ Θεῷ εὐσεβὴς κραταιὸς ῥὴξ καὶ τῶν Χριστιανῶν βοηθός. ADM, perg. no. 1119. 98 99

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Chapter 5

Literary Themes and Genres in Southern Italy during the Norman Age: The Return of the Saints Corinna Bottiglieri

Certain literary genres are commonly seen as being particularly representative of a specific historic and cultural period, although this widespread usage often proves rather more problematic than helpful. We may speak of Merovingian hagiography or Carolingian poetry, for instance, in order to quickly evoke the essence of a literary or cultural phenomenon, using more detailed distinctions when we have to concentrate on its single aspects, geographic areas or milieus. ‘Literaturlandschaft’ is how Walter Berschin effectively describes the written literary production of certain regions of Europe during the Carolingian period (e.g. St Gallen and Reichenau).1 He uses the term to sum up the main characteristics of, and the circumstances surrounding the production of the texts written in particular cultural centres in those regions and to refer to various homogeneous features, such as authors coming from similar milieus, well identifiable places of production (monastic scriptoria or episcopal centres), the specific literary genres and themes employed, as well as the entire idea of a regional literary history. In a similar way, I intend to consider the possibility of characterizing literary genres and themes in the Latin writings of southern Italy that are associated with the Normans, using ‘Norman’ not as a simple periodization, but referring to a close relationship with the Norman institutions. These were of course profoundly different from those of the Carolingians, primarily with regard to their political organization and social configuration. The Carolingians were not only the promoters, but also the planners, creators and masters of a cultural project with a basic unity and internal coherence. The Normans did not have an Alcuin to help them in such a task. Their strategies have to be seen in the   Walter Berschin, Eremus und Insula. St. Gallen und die Reichenau im Mittelalter. Modell einer lateinischen Literaturlandschaft (Wiesbaden, second edn, 2005). 1

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context of dynamic interactions with the pre-existing cultures they encountered in southern Italy, and thus, in accordance with the general theme of this volume, in the way they approached the concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘heritage’.2 Norman culture – particularly during the first period of their expansion (eleventh to twelfth centuries) – did not dominate the literary production3 of southern Italy at that time. For example, the pharmaceutical and medical tradition of the Salerno School, and the writings connected with it, are independent from the cultural matrices of the contemporary Lombard rulers and their Norman successors, since their origins are far more complex. Latin writing in southern Italy during the age of the Normans was by no means entirely ‘Norman’. In the regions of Campania, Apulia, Calabria, Basilicata and Sicily it appears as a heterogeneous conglomerate of texts and cultural traditions, and it is impossible to envisage southern Italy as a single unity, due to the coexistence and interaction of so many different elements and influences, which had effects and consequences in a great many areas, including social structure, religious practice and cultural orientations.4 These influences came from Montecassino, from the Papacy, from the Byzantine Empire and Greek traditions, from maritime towns like Naples or Amalfi, from Lombard centres like Salerno, Benevento and Capua, from Muslim Sicily, etc. What, then, are the cultural patterns throughout the Mezzogiorno that can be related to the Normans and identified as a result of their unifying features? From the reign of Robert Guiscard to that of Roger II of Sicily, historiography and hagiography were the most commonly practiced genres. I shall not dwell upon the historiography of southern Italy under the Normans, since its features have been thoroughly researched by historians such as D’Alessandro, Tramontana, Oldoni, Loud, Wolf, and D’Angelo.5 Their studies have examined   See Thomas Foerster and Stefan Burkhardt, this volume, pp. 1–18.   In a more general sense, the ‘literacy’ as well; see the definition given by Rosamond McKitterick, The Carolingians and the Written Word (Cambridge, 1989), especially pp. 1–6 and McKitterick, ‘Introduction’, in Rosamond McKitterick (ed.), The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 1–10. 4   See, for instance, the remarks made by Edoardo D’Angelo: ‘Agiografia latina del Mezzogiorno continentale d’Italia (750–1000)’, in Guy Philippart (ed.), Hagiographies, vol. IV (Turnhout, 2006) pp. 41–134, here p. 45: ‘È in questa complessità ed instabilità che consiste la specificità del “Meridione prenormanno”: in esse si realizza [...] il suo essere luogo di realizzazione di una lenta e complessa osmosi, tra culture e civiltà diverse’. 5   Vincenzo D’Alessandro, Storiografia e politica nell’Italia normanna, Nuovo 2 3

Medioevo, 3 (Naples, 1978); Salvatore Tramontana, I Normanni in Italia. Linee di ricerca sui primi insediamenti, vol. 1 (Messina, 1970) and Tramontana, La monarchia normanna e sveva (Turin, 1986); Massimo Oldoni, ‘Mentalità ed evoluzione della storiografia normanna fra XI e XII secolo in Italia’, in Ruggero il Gran Conte e l’inizio

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not only historical aspects, but also aspects related to intertextuality, to the transmission and the readership of such works, and their relationship to preexisting historical traditions and the identity of the conquerors. In this field the Normans were often the promoters, the addressees and the very subject matter of the writings, although in the subgenres of chronicles and annals they perpetuated long established traditions. For example, the genre of ethnical historiography, whose last glorious product was Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards,6 was resumed in the Historiae Normannorum and in the Gesta of the first Norman rulers both of northern France (Dudo of Saint-Quentin, William of Jumièges) and of southern Italy (Amatus of Montecassino, William of Apulia, Geoffrey Malaterra). The literary genre of hagiography also enjoyed uninterrupted continuity into the Norman period. But there were some important changes in this genre and its aims under the Normans. I will not deal with the hagiographical school of Naples, which seems to have had its own independent tradition and which has been amply explored by Edoardo D’Angelo and Thomas Granier (among others).7 Instead I intend to follow the footsteps of Amalia Galdi, whose survey of hagiography in Campania in the eleventh and twelfth centuries aimed mainly dello Stato normanno. Relazioni e comunicazioni nelle Seconde Giornate normanno-sveve, Bari, maggio 1975, Pubblicazioni del Centro di Studi normanno-svevi / Università degli studi di Bari, 2 (Rome, 1977): pp. 139–174, and Oldoni, ‘Intellettuali cassinesi di fronte ai Normanni (secoli XI–XIII)’, in Miscellanea di storia italiana e mediterranea Nino Lamboglia (Genova, 1978): pp. 95–173; Graham A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard. Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Essex, 2000); Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Making History: The Normans and Their Historians in Eleventh-Century Italy (Philadelphia, 1995); Edoardo D’Angelo, Storiografi e cronologi latini del Mezzogiorno normannosvevo, Nuovo Medioevo, 69 (Naples, 2003).   See Walter Pohl, ‘Paolo Diacono e la costruzione dell’identità longobarda’, in Paolo Chiesa (ed.), Paolo Diacono – uno scrittore fra tradizione longobarda e rinnovamento carolingio (Udine, 2000), pp. 413–26 and Pohl, Werkstätte der Erinnerung. Montecassino und die Gestaltung der langobardischen Vergangenheit, Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Ergänzungsband 39 (Vienna, 2001). 7   Edoardo D’Angelo, Pietro Suddiacono. L’opera agiografica, Edizione Nazionale dei Testi Mediolatini, 7 (Florence, 2002); Thomas Granier, ‘Napolitains et Lombards aux IXe– Xe siècles. De la guerre des peuples à la “guerre des saints” en Italie du Sud’, in Mélanges de l’École française de Rome – Moyen Âge, CVIII/2 (1996): pp. 403–450 and Granier, ‘Les échanges culturels dans l’Italie méridionale du haut Moyen Âge: Naples, Bénévent et le Mont-Cassin aux VIIIe–XIIe siècles’, in Les échanges culturels au Moyen Âge. XXXIIe Congrès de la Société des Historiens Médiévistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur Public, Université du Littoral-Côte d’Opale, 17–19 mai 2001, Série Histoire Ancienne et Médiévale, 70 (Paris, 2002): pp. 89–105. 6

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to answer the question of what (if any) was the influence of the new Norman rulers on local cults and hagiographical literary production.8 My approach consists of looking for common themes and homogeneous features within the Latin hagiographical production of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Oronzo Limone’s survey of the field provides an excellent starting point, and it shows us that in this period hagiographical production as a whole exhibits more differences than similarities.9 The surviving texts were written in very different places, cultural centres and milieu – from Montecassino to Sicily – and their authors, mainly clerical, were of very different origins and cultural backgrounds and they used diverse literary models.10 The vitae describe very disparate models of holiness, which partly reflect the lives of contemporary figures like that of William of Vercelli [d. 1142], a hermit and the founder of the order of Montevergine, or Nicholas of Trani [d. 1094].11 A number of specific surveys of the material have suggested that the Norman presence was not a decisive element,12 neither in the lives of saints   Amalia Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini nella Campania medievale (secc. XI– XII), Schola Salernitana. Studi e testi, 9 (Salerno, 2004). The problem is particularly serious in the vitae of contemporary saints; see Galdi, Santi, p. 60: ‘I santi pur con modalità diverse, entrarono in contatto con il mondo politico ed ecclesiastico contemporaneo e tutti gli agiografi si trovarono di fronte al problema di interpretare e rendere tale rapporto; per cui, tra cautele, prese di posizione più o meno nette e comunque esigenze di mostrare oggettività di giudizio, talvolta è possibile distinguere nei testi il piano dei reali contatti da quello, non privo di ideologia, della loro interpretazione’. 9   Oronzo Limone, ‘Italia meridionale (950–1220)’, in Guy Philippart (ed.), Hagiographies, vol. 2 (Turnhout, 1996), pp. 11–60; see also his former survey Santi monaci e santi eremiti. Alla ricerca di un modello di perfezione nella letteratura agiografica della Sicilia normanna (Lecce, 1988). 10   For hagiography as ‘unica occasione letteraria di una vasta regione’, see Limone, Santi monaci, p. 15: ‘è naturale come il merito principale di alcuni testi agiografici, ripetitivi nella struttura e nei temi, spesso anche nel linguaggio, sia quel continuo tentativo di uscire da un provincialismo culturale che opprime e limita le possibilità letterarie e poetiche dei monaci benedettino-cassinesi’. 11   For William see Francesco Panarelli, Scrittura agiografica nel Mezzogiorno 8

Normanno. La vita di san Guglielmo da Vercelli (Galatina, 2004); for Nicholas of Trani see Barbara Stüssi–Lauterburg, ‘Nikolaus Peregrinus von Trani. Aspekte einer Heiligsprechung’, Quaderni Catanesi 5 (1983): pp. 399–422; Limone, Santi monaci, pp. 91–105 and pp. 131–68 (edition of the vitae); Paul Oldfield, ‘St Nicholas the Pilgrim and the City of Trani between Greeks and Normans, c. 1090 – c. 1140’, Anglo-Norman Studies 30; Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2007 (Woodbridge, 2008): pp. 168–81.

12   Galdi (Santi, p. 182) points out the predominant role of the local bishops in the context of production of the vitae: ‘con un apporto minimo dei poteri laici che gli agiografi raramente e indirettamente introducono nella narrazione, un elemento costante nelle aree

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(not even when they are described as meeting their Norman rulers)13 nor in the motivations of the hagiographers describing their models of holiness (hermits, founders of coenobia). Nevertheless, in a particular typology of hagiographical writings – a ‘subgenre’ of hagiography – the recurrence of patterns14 is striking: these are the accounts of the translationes and inventiones of saints’ relics that took place in the Norman age and were recorded by contemporary authors when both the discoveries (inventiones) and the transfers (translationes) of relics experienced a great revival. The translationes were well known in the Carolingian world, as the necessity to acquire relics in order to promote recently founded churches or monasteries in regions of new Christianization and transform them into destinations of cult and pilgrimage drove personalities of both ecclesiastical and political hierarchies (e.g. Hilduin of Saint-Denis, Einhard, Hrabanus Maurus)15 to commission pious thefts, preferably plundering the catacombs of the early Christian martyrs in Rome.16 Whereas in many cases there was a degree of acceptance among political

beneventana e salernitana […]. I testi sono affidati a modeste competenze letterarie, prive di quelle caratteristiche che altrove segnavano più dotte elaborazioni, ma che sono all’oscuro di contenuti utili a delineare figure coerenti con il quadro episcopale coevo ed in cui si potessero cogliere segni peculiari della spiritualità dell’epoca’. 13   See, for example, the relationship between William of Vercelli and Roger II in the Legenda de vita et obitu sancti Guilielmi confessoris et heremite: the role of the Norman king is stressed in the second and third version of the vita (Galdi, Santi p. 62). 14   For this subgenre, see generally Martin Heinzelmann, Translationsberichte und andere Quellen des Reliquienkultes, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental 33 (Turnhout, 1979); Patrick Geary, Furta Sacra. Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, 1978; second edn, 1990); Martin Heinzelmann, Klaus Herbers and Dieter R. Bauer (eds), Mirakel im Mittelalter. Konzeptionen, Erscheinungsformen, Deutungen (Stuttgart, 2002), especially the essay of Hedwig Röckelein, ‘Über Hagio-Geo-Graphien. Mirakel in Translationsberichten des 8. und 9. Jahrhunderts’, pp. 166–79. 15   The accounts of these transfers were written by Odilo of Soissons (Translatio sancti Sebastiani, written a century after the transfer from 826), Einhard (Translatio sanctorum Petri et Marcellini, written three or four years after the transfer from 827), Rudolf of Fulda (Miracula sanctorum in ecclesias Fuldenses translatorum, written 842–847), but only Einhard was simultaneously the commissioner and author of the account. 16   ‘Tale sviluppo della translatio come considerevole sottogenere agiografico fu il risultato della maggiore circolazione di resti di santi, dell’incremento di traslazioni da Roma e da altri luoghi durante questo periodo e della crescente importanza delle celebrazioni di anniversari delle traslazioni che richiedevano nuove letture per la liturgia. Qualunque fosse la loro forma, le translationes erano più intimamente legate ai resti fisici dei santi che alle loro vite e virtù’, Geary, Furta Sacra, p. 15 (quoted from the Italian edition: Milan, 2000).

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and ecclesiastical authorities (the Pope seemed to tolerate such plundering)17, in later times the transfers were not without conflicts, for example, the famous translation of Saint Nicholas from Myra to Bari (1087) in which the bishop defended his ‘anti-Norman’ position.18 Later, the relic trade was strictly forbidden and punished by Norman law: We permit no one to sell or barter relics of martyrs or of any other saint. If anyone shall presume to do this, and the price has not yet been fixed, then nothing shall follow, if the vendor wishes to agree with the purchaser; if however money has been paid restitution shall not be made to the purchaser, who is to hand [them] over to the fisc. It shall be the concern of our providence to punish anyone daring to infringe this, and, with the advice of the bishops, to place the relics where it shall be most suitable.19

The accounts of discoveries and rediscoveries of relics often relate unexpected findings: sometimes they occur with the help of supernatural signs, the saint himself or the angels provide hints to enable someone to find the place where the holy body rests, as in the famous case of St James the Apostle in Compostela.20 At other times the relic is discovered during the construction or reconstruction of churches: the saint gives a sign of approval and his relics reappear, so that the fideles can enhance their church with the most precious treasure. This was the case with St Matthew the Apostle in Salerno: he had been transferred there in the tenth century and his bones emerged during the reconstruction of the cathedral, which was undertaken with the financial support of Robert Guiscard as a result of his reconciliation with the Salernitans and their Archbishop Alfanus I, who celebrated this event in his verses.21 17   For the toleration of the thefts, see Patrick Geary, ‘The Ninth-Century Relic Trade – A Response to Popular Piety’, in Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, 1994), pp. 177–93, here p. 190. 18   On the translatio of Nicholas of Myra, see Limone, Santi monaci, pp. 67–87. 19   Assizes of Roger II (1140), chap. 5 De sanctarum reliquiarum venditione, in Ortensio Zecchino (ed.), Le Assise di Ariano (Cava dei Tirreni, 1984), pp. 28–29. The English translation comes from the website of Leeds University; see http://www.leeds.ac.uk/ history/weblearning/MedievalHistoryTextCentre/medievalTexts.htm. See also Salvatore Tramontana, Il Regno di Sicilia. Uomo e natura dall’XI al XIII secolo (Turin 1999), pp. 8–11. 20   See Denise Pèricard-Mèa, Compostelle et cultes de saint Jacques au Moyen Age (Paris, 2000). 21   On the cult of St Matthew, see Amalia Galdi, ‘Il santo e la città: il culto di s.

Matteo a Salerno tra X e XVI secolo’, in Rassegna storica salernitana XIII, 1 ( June 1996): pp. 21–92. Alfanus’ carmina are edited in I carmi di Alfano I arcivescovo di Salerno, (ed.) Anselmo Lentini and Faustino Avagliano, Miscellanea cassinese 38 (Montecassino,

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The administration of the relics of (sometimes supposed) saints was often complementary to the strategy of constructing and reconstructing churches and monasteries which the Normans carried out. The new rulers ‘sembrano percepire profondamente il significato del possesso di un corpo santo che nobiliti nuove fondazioni religiose e insieme favorisca il rapporto e l’integrazione con le popolazioni locali’,22 as pointed out by Amalia Galdi about Campania. ‘Medieval communities sought to clothe forgotten objects from the past with new meaning, in the process creating from them a new saintly patronage relevant to present needs’.23 Thomas Head focuses on the renewal of the memory and cult of rediscovered saints during the tenth and eleventh centuries in Apulia, where many findings and transfers of relics – accompanied by hagiographical accounts – took place. Apart from the famous transfer of St Nicholas to Bari, this phenomenon concerned both recent and older centres: for instance Troia, founded in 1019, where the tomb of Secundinus was discovered during the excavations in the ruins of the ancient Aecae between 1022 and 1034; Bari (Sabinus of Canosa, 1091)24; Taranto (Cataldus, after 1060)25. In addition, specific surveys are dedicated to single cases, like that of St Agatha in Catania.26 To summarize with a rough simplification, in considering the continuity of literary genres, whilst historiography is what the Normans needed to obtain legitimization in the face of the other institutions, ‘verso l’alto’, as the main characters of the history that was to be written, hagiography – and especially the subgenre of translationes and inventions – on account of the intermediation of the 1974); about his poems for Saint Matthew see Benedetto Vetere, Salerno ‘cattedrale’. Aversa e Troia città nuove?, Università degli Studi di Lecce, Dipartimento di Studi Storici dal Medioevo all’Età Contemporanea, Itinerari di Ricerca Storica, Supplementi 18 (Lecce, 1997), here pp. 17–67.

 Galdi, Santi, p. 18.   Thomas Head, ‘Discontinuity and Discovery in the Cult of Saints: Apulia from Late Antiquity to the High Middle Ages’, Hagiographica, 6 (1999): pp. 171–211, here p. 186, see also pp. 209–10: ‘The medieval authors of inventiones were all painfully aware of the discontinuities which separated them from a Roman past. The accounts of inventiones from Troia, Taranto, Quintodecimo and Bisceglie all show newly created episcopal sees groping for some form both of communal identity and of saintly patronage […]. Those accounts of inventiones also demonstrate how the clerics of Apulia searched for a usable past in the architectural detritus of Roman empire which surrounded them’. 24   Salvatore Palese, La tradizione barese di S. Sabino di Canosa, Studi e materiali per 22 23

la storia della chiesa di Bari, 19 (2001): p. 44.

  Head, ‘Discontinuity’, pp. 193–97.   See Salvatore Tramontana, ‘Sant’Agata e la religiosità della Catania normanna’,

25 26

in Chiesa e società in Sicilia, (Turin, 1996) pp. 189–202, now in Tramontana, Le parole, le immagini, la storia. Studi e ricerche sul Medioevo (Messina, 2009).

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ecclesiastical hierarchies, was the way through which they looked for consensus in the popular classes, ‘verso il basso’. Here they were not main characters, but patrons and protectors in the background of the scene, in the single towns and villages, where the churches (new or reconstructed) and the shrines of the saints (of which the translationes and inventiones were the immaterial complement) testified to their action. Accounts of inventiones and translationes come from regions which are predominantly Latin or Greek or Saracen. The cases I would like to focus on date back to various different stages of Norman domination, but their aims seem to be mostly similar: the reinforcement or extension of the new or pre-existent Latin monastic or episcopal foundations.27 It could be interesting to extend such short observations to the whole production of translationes and inventiones in southern Italy during the Norman age. Here I would like to present some remarks about a small and clearly arbitrary selection of cases. St Secundinus in Troia Troia was established by the Byzantine catepan Basil Boioannès in 1019, after the defeat of Melo, as a fortified town near the ruins of the ancient Aecae – a Greek colony known by Polybius, which was destroyed in 662 by Emperor Constans II.28 Like the nearby fortress of Capitanata, Troia lay on ‘un confine politico effettivo, oltre che un preciso limite geografico, tra il principato beneventano e il Gargano bizantino’,29 with the aim of protecting the Byzantine dominions of Apulia. The new episcopal see of Troia joined the Latin Church shortly after the unsuccessful siege of the German Emperor Henry II (1022), who was forced to   See the studies of Hubert Houben about southern Italy’s monasticism (some of them are collected in Medioevo monastico meridionale, Nuovo Medioevo, 32 [Naples, 1987] and Houben, Mezzogiorno Normanno-Svevo. Monasteri e castelli, ebrei e musulmani, Nuovo Medioevo, 52 [Naples, 1996]); and of Graham A. Loud about the relations between ecclesiastical and political power (The Latin Church in Norman Italy [Cambridge, 2007]); of Vera von Falkenhausen about the relations between the Greek and Latin churches in southern Italy (La dominazione bizantina nell’Italia meridionale dal IX all’XI secolo [Bari, 1978]). 28   About the continuity of the new town with the ancient Aecae, see Vetere, Salerno ‘cattedrale’. Aversa e Troia, pp. 69–124, here pp. 89–91; Mario De Santis, La civitas troiana e la sua cattedrale (Foggia, 1967), pp. 181–85. See also Jean-Marie Martin, ‘Troia et son territoire au XI e siècle’, Vetera Christianorum, 27 (1990), pp. 175–201. 29   Armando Petrucci, ‘Scrittura e cultura nella Puglia altomedievale’, La Capitanata. Bollettino d’informazione della Biblioteca Provinciale di Foggia 5 (1967), pp. 1–20, here p. 10. Troia had the aspect of a ‘città-strada’ (Vetere, Salerno ‘cattedrale’. Aversa e Troia, p. 75). 27

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leave the town that had tenaciously endured the siege for three months.30 The first Troian bishop was Orianus (1022–1028), followed by Angelus, who fell in the battle against the Normans by the Ofanto in 1041.31 After the turning point of 1059, as Robert Guiscard received the papal investiture, Troia was reconciled with the Normans and in 1066 Robert was recognized by the town as sanctissimus comes. The Normans instated their countryman Stephen as the new, and fourth bishop. Stephen was first mentioned in 1059 and was probably appointed immediately after Robert’s takeover of the town. He was confirmed by Pope Alexander II in 106732 and died in 1080: ‘Nella sua personalità il conflitto tra Troia e i Normanni trovava la sua soluzione’.33 At the same time, relations between Troia and Montecassino seem to have intensified: the connection between Robert Guiscard and the pro-Norman abbot Desiderius of Montecassino granted the monastery with many territorial donations in the Troia region.34 Bishop Stephen of Troia was listed by Leo of Ostia (Chronica Casinensis) among the bishops participating in the consecration of the new basilica in Montecassino on 1 October 1071.35 Within this context we have to place the commission for the réécriture of the Inventio Secundini from Stephen of Troia to Desiderius. I consciously use this terminus technicus for the second version of an hagiographic writing – I borrow the acception used by Monique Goullet.36 Desiderius appointed one of   De Santis, La civitas troiana, pp. 18–19.   Angelus is recorded in a charter of 1030: in the same year the bishopric of Troia became independent from the archdioceses of Benevento and owed obedience directly to the pope; see De Santis, La civitas troiana, pp. 21–24. 32   De Santis, La civitas troiana, p. 31. 33   De Santis, La civitas troiana, p. 30. 34   Tommaso Leccisotti, Le colonie cassinesi in Capitanata. IV Troia, Miscellanea Cassinese 29 (Montecassino, 1957), p. 16: ‘È in questo affermarsi della denominazione normanna che i Cassinesi compaiono a Troia’, see also Leccisotti (1957), pp. 9–10 and docc. XII–XIII, XV–XVII. 35   Leo Ostiensis, Chronica Casinensis, (ed.) Hartmut Hoffmann, MGH SS 34 (Hanover, 1980), III 29, pp. 398–99; see also Herbert Bloch, Montecassino in the Middle Ages (Rome, 1986), I, Appendix II, Leo of Ostia’s List of the Guests at the Dedication of Desiderius’ Basilica on October 1, 1071, pp. 118–21, here p. 120. About the relations between Stephen and Robert Guiscard, see Bloch (1986), p. 554: ‘In 1073 Stephen was the recipient of an unusual gift of Robert Guiscard: columns taken at the recent conquest of Palermo’. 36   Monique Goullet, Écriture et réécriture hagiographiques: essai sur les réécritures 30 31

de Vies des saints dans l’Occident latin medieval (8.–13. s.) (Turnhout, 2005) and La réécriture hagiographique dans l’Occident médiéval. Transformations formelles et idéologiques, (ed.) Monique Goullet and Martin Heinzelmann, Beihefte der Francia 58 (Ostfildern, 2003).

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his monks, Guaiferius from Salerno,37 to re-write the inventio of Secundinus, a supposed late antique bishop of Aecae:38 as the workmen building a church dedicated to the Holy Cross39 in the new town of Troia were looking for pieces of marble in the ruins of the ancient Aecae, in St Mark’s church,40 they discovered a sarcophagus containing the relics of Secundinus, complete with an inscription: HIC REQUIESCIT SANCTUS AC VENERABILIS SECUNDINUS EPISCOPUS QUI SANCTORUM FABRICAS RENOVAVIT RAPTUS IN REQUIEM TERTIO IDUS FEBRUARII41

This event has been also related by an unknown author in a meagre account, the Historia inventionis corporis s. Secundini, which is considered to date back to the same time of the discovery, between 1022 and 1034,42 and could be the source   About Guaiferius, see Max Manitius, Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, II (Munich, 1923), pp. 484–490 and Antonio Mirra, ‘I versi di Guaiferio monaco di Montecassino nel secolo XI’, Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano e Archivio muratoriano, 46 (1931): pp. 93–105; Mirra, ‘Guaiferio monaco poeta a Montecassino nel secolo XI’, Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano e Archivio muratoriano, 47 (1932): pp. 199–208; Mirra, ‘Guaiferio di Montecassino’, Archivio storico per le province napoletane, 21 (1935): pp. 1–45; Mariano Dell’Omo, ‘Guaiferio’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 60 (2003): pp. 95–99; see also Dell’Omo, ‘Letteratura a Montecassino in età normanna’, in Dell’Omo, Montecassino medievale. Genesi di un simbolo, storia di una realtà, Montecassino 2008, pp. 195–215. 37

  For the historicity of this bishop, who lived between the fifth and sixth centuries, see Ada Campione, ‘Note per la ricostruzione del dossier agiografico di Secondino vescovo di Aecae’, Vetera Christianorum, 40 (2003): pp. 271–92. 39   De Santis, La civitas troiana, p. 32. 40  The ecclesia sancti Marci of the anonymous inventio is erroneously interpreted by Guaiferius as the Church of St Mark the Evangelist: Mark was in fact a bishop of the ancient Aecae in the third century; see Mina De Santis, ‘Marco vescovo di Aeca tra III e IV secolo’, Vetera Christianorum, 23 (1986): pp. 155–70, here p. 163: ‘Venerato già in vita come santo dai suoi concittadini, alla sua morte fu sepolto ad Aeca. Col passare del tempo, man mano che il culto e la venerazione per lui crescevano, gli Ecani dovettero costruire e intitolargli una chiesa, nella quale è probabile che abbiano trasferito le sue reliquie e di cui nell’XI secolo erano ancora ben visibili i resti’. 41   This inscription is quoted both by the anonymous inventio and by Guaiferius, whose text (BHL 7556) is edited by Oronzo Limone, ‘L’opera agiografica di Guaiferio di Montecassino’, in Monastica. scritti raccolti in memoria del XV centenario della nascita di s. Benedetto (480–1980), III, Miscellanea Cassinese 47 (Montecassino, 1983), pp. 77–130, here p. 97. The title of Guaiferius’ text is: Domini Guaiferii monachi Casinensis historia s. Secundini episcopi et confessoris. 42   Head, ‘Discontinuity’, p. 188: ‘The terminus post quem is provided by the siege. The terminus ante quem is provided by the first mention of a church dedicated to Secundinus in 1034’. 38

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for Guaiferius’ réécriture.43 Recently, Edoardo D’Angelo recognized more clearly the different versions of this account:44 a short version, recorded as BHL 7554,45 a longer account (BHL 7555a), transmitted in the manuscript Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, VI. AA. 4 (twelfth century) and the complete version (BHL 7557b), contained in the manuscript Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, VIII. B. 5 (twelfth and thirteenth centuries). If this reconstruction is correct, Guaiferius’ réécriture can no longer be considered as an amplificatio of the inventio BHL 7557b (i.e. the complete version according to D’Angelo) based on the length, since they are almost equally long.46 For the same reason, many arguments pro or contra Guaiferius’ dependence on the anonymous account prove to be meaningless.47 The time span within which Guaiferius wrote his new account extends from 1058 (the election of Desiderius as abbot of Montecassino) to 1080 (the death of Bishop Stephen), but other elements help us to date it more precisely: in 1058 Guaiferius was still in Salerno, where he was the abbot of the church of San Massimo,48 whereas he should have been in Montecassino from 1064–1067.49 There he could have met Stephen of Troia in 1071, since this bishop attended 43   In Guaiferius’ text there are many allusions to a written source, it is problematic to affirm which one. The dating of the anonymous account is controversial. Mirra tends to consider it as the hypotext of Guaiferius’ account (Guaiferio, p. 16), the same is affirmed by De Santis, La civitas troiana, p. 208, n. 35: ‘Dell’invenzione di S. Secondino esistono due relazioni, una forse coeva all’avvenimento e certamente anteriore all’altra, che è di Guaiferio di Montecassino’. De Santis supposes it dates back to the years immediately after the siege of Henry II, but surely not under the bishopric of Stephen. Head agrees with this reconstruction: ‘Discontinuity’, pp. 186–92. 44   Edoardo D’Angelo, ‘Inventio corporis et miracula sancti Secundini Troiani episcopi’, in Dorothea Walz (ed.) Scripturus vitam. Lateinische Biographie von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart. Festgabe für Walter Berschin zum 65. Geburtstag (Heidelberg, 2002), pp. 841–54. 45   Edited by the Bollandists in AASS Febr. II, pp. 530–31. 46   This problem can be cleared only by more accurately analysing the anonymous

Inventio, or better, the different versions, and comparing them with Guaiferius’ text. I will discuss the details of the different versions in a separate study. D’Angelo considers the longer version (BHL 7557b) to be the original one and draws his critical edition of the anonymous Inventio from the comparison between BHL 7554 (AASS), BHL 7555a (Naples, BN VI. AA. 4) and BHL 7557b (Naples, BN VIII. B. 5).

  Ada Campione refuses the dependence of Guaiferius on the anonymous Inventio (Campione, Note per la ricostruzione, pp. 274–92), but she refers to the text edited in AASS, as she does not know the longer version edited by D’Angelo. 48   Document of 1058, from Codex Diplomaticus Cavensis, quoted by Mirra, Guaiferio di Montecassino, p. 13 and by Dell’Omo, ‘Guaiferio’, p. 95: Guaiferius is said to be abbas ecclesie sancti Maximi. 49   Reconstruction according to Mirra, Guaiferio di Montecassino, p. 13. 47

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the consecration of the Desiderian basilica.50 The same content of the inventio was also transformed by him in elegic distichs (Carmen de Sancto Secundino, BHL 7557), forming a kind of opus geminum, a hagiographic account both in prose and verse versions. The enriched hagiographic dossier of Secundinus was completed with a hymn in pseudo-sapphic verses, which was intended to be performed in a liturgical ceremony. Despite the negative criticism of Herbert Bloch51 or of Thomas Head (‘much literary ornamentation borrowed in large part from Cicero and Vergil, but nothing of factual substance’52), the text of Guaiferius is more than a simple amplificatio, as there are several interesting differences when compared to the other account. The preface contains the traditional patterns of the dedicationletters topoi, here with the triangulation Stephen-Desiderius-Guaiferius: Quaesisti a me per Casinensem abbatem, quem ego causa honoris Desiderium nomino, virum inter bonorum antistites operum et religione laudatum et moribus comprobatum, ut si quid mihi otii tua posset amicitia suadere ad scribendum potissimum historiam confessoris Secundini conferrem.53

Guaiferius evokes the antique auctores, which were well represented in the rich Montecassino library. According to the anonymous text the inventio occurred during the works ad utilitatem fabricae novarum ecclesiarum;54 more precisely, Guaiferius writes: pro diligentia principum in fabricandis ecclesiis, in menibus constituendis, quibus salvis ipsis salvis esse liceret, magna popularibus cura insisteret.55 Moreover, he omits a detail: the Anonymous relates that the skull of Secundinus was missing.56 The sceptical reluctance of the bishop, who did not   Reconstruction according to Mirra, Guaiferio di Montecassino, p. 13.  Bloch, Montecassino, vol. 1, p. 554: ‘Guaiferius’ work was but an elegant revision and elaboration of an earlier anonymous report, contemporary with the “inventio”’. 52   Head, ‘Discontinuity’, p. 188. 53   Limone, ‘Guaiferio’, p. 93. 54   D’Angelo, ‘Inventio sancti Secundini’, II 4: Cum sollicite nam scrutari huc cepissent atque illuc, ut cementa petrasque congruas repperire potuissent ad utilitatem fabricae novarum ecclesiarum. 55   Limone, ‘Guaiferio’, p. 96: (III) Cum igitur pro diligentia principum in fabricandis 50

51

ecclesiis, in menibus constituendis, quibus salvis ipsis salvis esse liceret, magna popularibus cura insisteret. 56   D’Angelo, ‘Inventio sancti Secundini’, II 11: Certe ita integrum totum erat corpus, ut saltem nec unum os minus fuisset, preter caput, quod cur deerat, apud nos incognitum usque hodie manet, licet occulta cognoscenti sint manifesta; see Head, ‘Discontinuity’, p. 190: ‘The absence of the skull may well indicate that Secundinus had been the object of a cult in late antiquity and that the skull had been removed to provide relics for a distant

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believe the authenticity of the relics, whilst briefly explained in the other inventio, is expanded by Guaiferius, who imagines the dreadful consequences this unbelief could have provoked for the community if the bishop had not repented! Degenerare quippe ab optimis institutis multiformi malo civitas poterat, ni felix hanc Secundinus, quantum valeret, manu misericordiae tenuisset pene iam cadentem, iam pessumeuntem. 57

The bishop’s misbelief was punished with an illness and only his repentance and pleas to Secundinus led him to recovery and reconciliation with the saint. The final, triumphal proof of the relics’ authenticity was committed to an ordeal by fire, as both the Anonymous and Guaiferius relate. Here the version BHL 7554, edited in AASS, finishes.58 The last episode, both in the version BHL 7557b and in Guaiferius’ text, is a miracle that transfers the local event into a broader context: Teuzo,59 a French pilgrim (he is said to be Aquitanus in Guaiferius’ prose, Gallus in his poetic version60) on his way to Rome, was struck with paralysis on the road to San Michele al Gargano. He was advised by the passers-by to go to Troia, in order to beg St Secundinus to heal him. The aim of the account is to add Troia to the well known itinerary of pilgrimage: from this point on Secundinus was ‘a patron saint for the fledgling diocese’.61 The creation of the entire dossier, completed with a poetic version and hymn for the liturgy,

shrine, as had happened in the cases of known episcopal cults in Apulia’. According to Campione, Note per la ricostruzione, p. 285, this omission should demonstrate that Guaiferius did not use the anonymous Inventio as his source. I would rather think that he omits this detail voluntarily. 57   Limone, ‘Guaiferio’, p. 98. Neither the anonymous nor Guaiferius mention the name of the bishop: he could be the first bishop of Troia, Orianus, or his successor, Angelus. 58   One of the two manuscripts used in AASS differs in the conclusion and ends with the transfer of the relics in the cathedral: Sacrae autem Reliquiae translatae sunt cum magna pompa in ecclesiam Cathedralem, vbi vsque nunc asseruantur (AASS Febr. II, p. 531). Guaiferius, who could not have seen the Troian cathedral, follows the other versions. 59   Teutius in BHL 7557b, see D’Angelo, ‘Inventio sancti Secundini’, II 38: Quidam vir Equitanicus, nomine Teutius. 60   XII: Vir quidam, Teuzo nomine, genere Aquitanus, orationis studio, quod praecipue

gentis illius moris est, ad apostolorum principem Romam venit (Limone, ‘Guaiferio’ p. 101); Gallia tantorum spectatrix ipsa bonorum,/ Ipsaque materies, testis et ipsa venit./ Gallorum celebrem Sancti Michahelis ad ędem/ Venerat oratum more suo populus (Carmen s. Secundini, vv. 43–46; here and in the following passages, I quote Guaiferius’ verses from my forthcoming edition).   Head, ‘Discontinuity’, p. 191.

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is wholly suitable for this aim. The carmen de sancto Secundino associates the discovery of the relics with the reconstruction of the town: Ignotus jacuit, cum tu destructa jaceres; Moenibus ut surgis, surgit et ipse tibi.

The hymn makes a joke with the meanings of secundus: Christe, Rex regum, pretium piorum, Nostra, qui digne tibi militantis Res Secundini canimus secundas, Vota secunda.62

Thomas Head, interpreting more generally the phenomenon of inventiones and translationes in the Apulia of the high Middle Ages, emphasizes the sense of recovery of the Late Antique past, the memory of which was long lost. What are the specific meaning and value of Guaiferius’ account in relation to the anonymous text?63 Is there any allusion to a continuity or discontinuity with the moment of the discovery? The réécriture of Guaiferius, together with the verse compositions, clearly connotes a more solemn celebration of the ‘new’ saint, aiming to expand the cult and the veneration even outside his local community; but many other implications should also be considered: the reconciliation with the Normans after 1059, the reinforcement of the relationships between the Normans and the town, the community and its Norman bishop, the gradual passage from Greek to Latin rite. In addition it is important that by 1060 Troia was no longer dependent on the archdiocese of Benevento, but directly subordinated to the Pope.64 This occasion unified the interests of many people and institutions: the Bishop and his community, Desiderius and his abbey, Robert Guiscard and his newly established dominion, which was now recognized by the pope.

  Carmen s. Secundi, vv. 16–17; Hymnus s. Secundi vv. 1–4.   Head, ‘Discontinuity’, pp. 209–10. The longer version of the invention s. Secundi, the original one according to D’Angelo’s reconstruction, gives rise to the need for a detailed comparison between the long version BHL 7557b and Guaiferius’ réécriture, in order to determine the different audiences and aims of both texts. 64   The privilege to elect the bishop of Troia probably dated from after 1058/1060, but ‘the earliest unequivocal evidence of the right of the Bishop of Troia to receive consecration directly from the pope comes in a bull of Paschal II in November 1100’ (Loud, Latin Church, p. 209). 62 63

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St Mennas in Caiazzo From the same milieu of Montecassino, some decades later, appears another hagiographical work: the vita (BHL 5926),65 the first and second translationes (BHL 5927 and BHL 5928) of the hermit St Mennas, written by Leo of Ostia [d. 1115], the famous author of the Chronica Casinensis. The vita is the réécriture of the short biography of the saint written by Gregory the Great (BHL 5925).66 Mennas lived as a hermit in the sixth century on Monte Taburno, at the time quo sevissima gens Langobardorum, fines Pannoniarum egressa, cum rege suo Alboin pervasit Italiam;67 the first translatio refers to the transfer of Mennas’ relics from Mount Taburno to Caiazzo, which occurred in 1094, and was the occasion for the work to be commissioned.68 Unlike Troia, this hagiography testifies to the direct participation of the political authorities: the commissioner of these hagiographic writings is the Norman count Robert of Caiazzo, son of a younger brother of Richard of Capua, Rainulf.69 In the territory where Mennas spent his life, which was dominated by the Norman counts of Caiazzo, ran the boundary between the archdioceses of Capua and Benevento: Taburno belonged to Benevento, the bishopric of Caiazzo belonged to Capua. The claims made by the Archbishop Roffred of Benevento to possess the relics some years later urged the count to allow the second transfer of the relics, which is also related by Leo: it was possibly around 4 September 1110 when Pope Paschal II consecrated the new church of S. Menna in S. Agata dei Goti, constructed by Count Robert between 1102 and 1107.70 There the holy relics found their final resting place and worked many miracles. At the present time, it appears to have been ascertained that Leo is the author of the whole hagiographic dossier, which includes the vita, the first and the second translationes and the miracula, transmitted in ms. 413 of Montecassino  The vita is edited by Giovanni Orlandi, ‘Vita sancti Mennatis. Opera inedita di Leone Marsicano’, in Istituto Lombardo, Accademia di scienze e lettere, Rendiconti, Classe di Lettere, 97 (1963): pp. 467–90. Leo’s text is quoted from this edition. 66   Gregorius Magnus, Dialogi, III, 26, pp. 1–6. 67   Vita sancti Mennatis, chap. I, p. 482. 68   The first and the second translationes are edited by Hartmut Hoffmann, ‘Die Translationes et Miracula sancti Mennatis des Leo Marsicanus’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 60 (2004): pp. 441–81. 69   Graham A. Loud, ‘The Norman Counts of Caiazzo and the Abbey of Montecassino’, in Monastica, I. Scritti raccolti in memoria del XV centenario della nascita di S. Benedetto (480–1980), Miscellanea Cassinese, 44 (Montecassino, 1981): pp. 199–217, republished in Loud, Montecassino and Benevento in the Middle Ages: Essays in South Italian Church History (Aldershot, 2000). 70   Hoffmann, ‘Translationes’, p. 449. 65

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Library and containing many corrections.71 According to the reconstruction of Hartmut Hoffmann, Leo wrote the second translatio between 1102 and 1115, and on that occasion he changed some passages of the account of the first transfer, written between 1094 and 1105.72 Any interventions of Peter the Deacon – suggested by De Gaiffier in his older edition of the translationes73 – have been rejected by Hoffmann.74 The historical circumstances have been thoroughly examined;75 here I shall confine myself to few remarks. In the prefatory epistle, the author addresses his abbot Oderisius (1087– 1105), who received the request from Count Robert of Caiazzo. The reasons for this request to Montecassino are illuminating: Robert could surely have entrusted somebody at his court with the work, in curia sua, but he preferred the famous monastery, since he was a pious man and had faith in the glorious name of Montecassino, believing that ecclesiastical facts were better described with humble and edifying words, rather than magnificent, well-considered words, smelling of worldly erudition: Vitam et conversationem egregii confessoris Christi Mennatis, necnon et translationem sanctarum reliquiarum ipsius in Caiatiam de loco illo, in quo vitam solitariam egerat, divina dispositione nuper effectam, imperio tuo, reverentissime pater Oderisi, scribendam suscepi. Siquidem et ipse a glorioso comite Rothberto magnis fueras precaminibus exoratus, ut huiusce rei negotium alicui ex Casinensis monasterii fratribus dignareris iniungere: non quod alibi locorum et in ipsa quoque curia sua nequiret scriptores quamplurimos et scientia claros et facundos eloquentia reperire, sed utpote vir Deo devotus et auctoritate nominis loci nostri plurimum fidens, simplicibus magis et proximorum edificationi profuturis, quam grandiloquis et trutinatis et secularem potius philosophiam redolentibus verbis, ecclesiastica dignius iudicaret gesta conscribi.76

The above mentioned count himself earned – with God’s concession, not long before – the right to discover and transfer the body of this holy confessor: predictus comes […] et corpus eiusdem sanctissimi confessoris ipsemet, Deo concedente, nuper promeruerat invenire atque transferre.77   Hoffmann, ‘Translationes’, pp. 450–69.   Hoffmann, ‘Translationes’, pp. 452–53. 73   Baudouin de Gaiffier, ‘Translations et miracles de S. Mennas par Léon d’Ostie et Pierre du Mont Cassin’, Analecta Bollandiana, 62 (1944): pp. 5–32. 74   Hoffmann, ‘Translationes’, pp. 458–59. 75   See n. 69 above. 76   Vita sancti Mennatis, Praefatio, pp. 478–79. 77   Vita sancti Mennatis, Praefatio, pp. 479–80. 71 72

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But the pre-existing biography of the saint, written by Gregory the Great, was judged by Robert to be too concise (nimis compendiosa et quasi transcursim viderentur esse commemorata); he required not only a longer account, but also hymns and chants, ut fideles populi haberent unde se eadem die in eius laudibus festivius exercerent.78 Leo obeyed the order of the abbot Oderisius and fulfilled the will of the count: satagentes et vestrum imperium […] implere et voluntati ac devotioni predicti magnifici comitis satisfacere.79 He expanded Gregory’s account, but he confessed that he did not want to give false information: Ortum sane ipsius et obitum, iuxta morem qui in plerisque sanctorum gestis invenitur, iccirco presentibus litteris non inserimus, quia quis vel qualis quove tempore extiterit nusquam reperientes, et mendacium, quod et Deus odit et occidit animam, omnimodis precaventes, incerta pro certis astruere nolumus.80

The beginning of the first translatio (BHL 5927) connects to the religious ceremony, ad fidelium populorum notitiam,81 and introduces the occasion. The context is quite similar to a famous, older transfer of relics, the Translatio sanctorum Marcellini et Petri written by Einhard.82 While Robert was thinking about obtaining relics for his new church in Caiazzo, the visit of Madelmus, the abbot of Sancta Sophia of Benevento, and Guiso, the abbot of Saint Lupus, occurred: contigit ordinatione divina […] pro quibusdam monasterii sui utilitatibus advenisset.83 The same happened to Einhard: contigit ut quidam diaconus Romanae ecclesiae, nomine Deusdona, pro suis necessitatibus regis opem   Vita sancti Mennatis, Praefatio, p. 480.   Vita sancti Mennatis, Praefatio, chap. 6, p. 488. 80   Vita sancti Mennatis, Praefatio, chap. 6, p. 488. 81  Leo, Translatio, chap. 2, p. 461: Sed libet iam translationis eius hystoriam secundum certissimam fidem gestorum ad fidelium populorum notitiam litteris tradere, ut nulli deinceps de tantę huius sollemnitatis origine prorsus expediat dubitare. 82   See Martin Heinzelmann, ‘Einhards “Translatio Marcellini et Petri”: Eine hagiographische Reformschrift von 830’, in Hermann Schefers (ed.), Einhard. Studien zu Leben und Werk. Dem Gedenken an Helmut Beumann gewidmet (Darmstadt, 1997), pp. 269–98. 83  Leo, Translatio, I, chap. 3, p. 462: Quadam denique die cum Robbertus egregius comes Rainulfi scilicet comitis filius, vir plane et in secularibus strenuus et in divinis devotus admodum, prout fas suppetit, ac studiosus cum latomis ac cementariis, qui aulam sanctę dei genitricis apud Caiatiam eius imperio studiosissime construebant, sederet et satis anxie cogitaret, unde vel qualiter sanctorum reliquias posset adquirere, quibus iuxta devotionem suam eandem genitricis dei basilicam honoraret, contigit ordinatione divina, ut hora eadem domnus Madelmus venerabilis abbas monasterii Sanctę Sophię de Benevento una cum domno Guiso 78

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inploraturus ad palatium ueniret.84 During the conversation, the abbot Madelmus announced that he would find integrum sancti cuiusdam corpus intra comitatus tui dicionem.85 Einhard did the same with Deusdona: Ibique inter prandendum plura locuti, eo usque sermocinando,86 they talked about the transfers of relics. In

abbate monasterii sancti Lupi ad eum pro quibusdam monasterii sui utilitatibus advenisset. Einhard says: ‘I wondered to which saint I had to dedicate my church’ (see above). 84   Eginardo, Traslazione e miracoli dei santi Marcellino e Pietro, (ed.) Francesco

Stella, Latin text by Carlos Pérez González, Scrittori latini dell’Europa medievale 3 (Pisa, 2009), Book I, p. 32: Cum adhuc in palatio positus ac negotiis saecularibus occupatus otium quo aliquando perfrui cupiebam multimoda cogitatione meditarer, quendam locum secretum atque a populari frequentia ualde remotum nactus atque illius cui tunc militaueram principis Hludouuici liberalitate consecutus sum. Is locus est in saltu Germaniae qui inter Neccrum et Moinum fluuios medius interiacet ac moderno tempore ab incolis et circummanentibus Odanuuald appellatur. In quo cum pro modo facultatum ac sumptuum non solum domos et habitacula ad manendum uerum etiam basilicam diuinis officiis faciendis congruentem non indecori operis aedificassem, dubitare coepi in cuius potissimum sancti uel martyris nomine atque honore dedicari deberet. Cumque in hac animi fluctuatione plurimum temporis esset euolutum, contigit ut quidam diaconus Romanae ecclesiae, nomine Deusdona, pro suis necessitatibus regis opem inploraturus ad palatium ueniret. Ibique aliquandiu moratus, cum, peracto propter quod uenerat negotio, Romam redire pararet, quadam die humanitatis causa uelut peregrinus ad prandium nostrae paruitatis a nobis est inuitatus. Ibique inter prandendum plura locuti, eo usque sermocinando, peruenimus ut de translatione corporis beati Sebastiani ac neglectis martyrum sepulchris quorum Romae ingens copia est mentio fieret. Inde ad dedicationem nouae basilicae nostrae sermone conuerso, percontari coepi quonam modo ad id peruenire possem, ut aliquid de ueris sanctorum reliquiis qui Romae requiescunt mihi adipisci contingeret. Hic ille primo quidem haesitauit et qualiter id fieri posset se nescire respondit. Deinde cum me de hac re sollicitum simul et curiosum esse animaduerteret, altera die se percontationi meae responsurum esse promisit.

 Leo, Translatio, I, chap. 3, pp. 462–63: Cumque pariter considerent et de quibusdam inter se negotiis aliquantisper tractarent, tandem inter loquendum percontatur comitem abbas, unde tandem sanctorum reliquias ad ipsius ecclesię consecrationem speraret. Animadvertens itaque vir prudens non sine dei nutu id se abbatem interrogasse, quod ipse paulo ante versabat in corde, ‘Deus’ respondit ‘et sancta eius genitrix providebuns hęc ad gloriam nominis sui, qualiter illis placuerit’. Ad hęc abbas gratulabundus ‘Quod mihi’ inquit ‘repensurus es beneficium, si non modo parvas aut forte ignotas vel dubias corporum sanctorum particulas dedero, sed integrum prorsus tibi sancti cuiusdam corpus intra comitatus tui dicionem ostendero, quod possis promereri continuo?’ 86   See n. 84. 85

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Leo’s account, Robert promised to fulfil all the requests of the abbot87 and then personally participated in the excavations.88 Robert could be compared to Einhard, but he also assumed the role (albeit indirectly) played in that translatio by Louis the Pious. The similarities with Einhard’s account, although bizarre, appear in the mechanism of the narration, rather than in the verbal borrowings. I wonder how aware the hagiographer, who followed the authoritative model of Pope Gregory in the vita, was of that similarity. To the Normans, who at the time of their second ‘generation’ were still parvenus, entrusting the Montecassino hagiographic atelier meant a guarantee of high literary quality, which was undoubtedly higher than average (as is connoted in the preface); even so, a greater objective was the possibility for associating their single stories, in their recently established communities, with a solid, authoritative tradition through the confirmation of a recognizable and recognized art of writing and through the legitimization of the high ecclesiastical spheres. In this respect, we possess a good deal of information about the specifically political, ecclesiastical and territorial implications, in this case the restitutions and donations of Count Robert to Montecassino, like S. Maria de Cingla, in 1094 and the town of Pontecorvo in 1105.89 In last of the miracula the main character was Count Robert himself, who fell ill with a strong fever and, because of his devotion to St Mennas, was healed90 and was able to attend the ceremony in honour of the saint.

 Leo, Translatio, I, chap. 4, p. 464: Promptissime comes universis mox eius petitionibus annuit. 88  Leo, Translatio, I, chap. 7, p. 469: Primus itaque idem comes Christum invocans terrę fossor accedit, sequuntur et ceteri. 89   Loud, ‘Counts of Caiazzo’, pp. 207–8: ‘Count Robert’s interests in that area had not conflicted with his generous patronage of the abbey of Montecassino […]. When Robert had wanted a record of his translation of the relics of S. Mennas he had looked to Cassino to provide an author, in the shape of the monastery librarian Leo Marsicanus. Not surprisingly the monastery repaid his generosity with fulsome praise’; Galdi, Santi, pp. 229– 47; Hoffmann, ‘Translationes’, pp. 441–50. 90   Leo, Miracula, chap. 9, p. 480: pedictus comes Rothbertus, cuius ope et studio 87

corpus sancti viri translatum est ... e valida correptus languere cępit […] mox ut sancti viri sancta limina tetigit, febrem evasit, ita ut ab eadem a nil prorsus eiusdem incommoditatis pertulerit. Leo aims to testify the thaumaturgical power of S. Mennas’ relics even outside the local devotion ‘coinvolgendo, per dimostrare ciò, uno dei santuari più famosi dell’Italia meridionale, S. Nicola, dove una misteriosa visione spinge la donna longobarda a recarsi sul Taburno’ (Galdi, Santi, p. 237). In that passage, he insists on the presence of the relics in S. Agata dei Goti out of the necessity to notify everyone of the second translatio (Galdi, Santi, p. 239).

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The Translatio of St Eleutherius to Troia Another account of the transfer of relics is that of the Translatio sanctorum martirum Eleutherii, Pontiani et confessoris Anastasii (BHL 2451). Eleutherius is, like Secundinus, a former bishop of Late Antique Aecae; the author is the Troian praecentor Roffred, who dedicated the work to Bishop William of Troia: Domino ac venerabili Guillelmo, Troianae sedes antistiti, Roffredus eiusdem dictus indignus precentor.91 Mario De Santis identifies the addressee with William II (1106–1141), who played an important role in the construction of the cathedral.92 After the prefatory epistle to the bishop, Roffredus begins his account: Igitur omnibus in Christo credentibus qualiter corpora sanctorum martirum Eleutherii Ecane urbis episcopi, que nunc Troia dicitur, et Pontiani pape atque Anastasii confessoris de ecclesia eiusdem Sancti Eleutherii, a civitate Tibera miliario uno distante, in eandem Troianam urbem, divina Dei gubernante providentia, transvecta sint, stilo veritatem exarante, ordine patefacio.93

The transfer took place during the reign of Duke Roger Borsa, son of Robert Guiscard, in 1104 or 1105: imperante etiam gloriosissimo ac sanctarum pre ceteris ecclesiarum cultore Rogerio duce nobilissimo, sub cuius vicesimo primo regni sui anno et in sancte Dei genitricis basilica devotissima celebratur subsceptio.94   Albert Poncelet, ‘La translation des SS. Eleuthère, Pontien et Anastase’, Analecta Bollandiana, 29 (1910): pp. 409–426, here p. 416 (henceforth I quote this edition as Translatio Eleutherii). 92   De Santis, La civitas troiana, p. 196: ‘Questo Guglielmo certamente non è il I, perché di costui nel testo si parla come di persona distinta dal vescovo cui lo scritto è dedicato […]. C’è infine il fatto che il Codice che contiene il testo più antico della narrazione fa parte di una collezione che risale a Guglielmo II’. See also Bloch, Montecassino, p. 556. On the list of the manuscripts of William II, see the essay of the untimely deceased Gabriella Braga, ‘I codici donati dal vescovo Guglielmo II alla cattedrale di Troia. L’elenco del ms. VI. B. 12 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli’, in Frank T. Coulson and Anna A. Grotans (eds), Classica et Beneventana. Essays Presented to Virginia Brown on the Occasion of her 65th Birthday, Textes et Etudes du Moyen Age 36 (Turnhout, 2008), pp. 213–33. 93   Translatio Eleutherii, Pontiani et Anastasii, chap. 1, p. 417. 94   Translatio Eleutherii, Pontiani et Anastasii, chap. 14, p. 424. De Santis favours 91

the year 1105 (De Santis, La civitas troiana, p. 197: ‘Roberto il Guiscardo morì il 17 luglio 1085: la successione di Ruggero ha inizio da quel giorno. Dunque il 19 luglio 1105 era nel 21° anno del suo ducato, e non già il 19 luglio 1104’).

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According to the account of Roffredus, the clandestine translatio happened in a daring and amazing way, which the editor Poncelet regards with suspicion:95 the relics were stolen from Tivera, a village near Velletri, with the help of a monk from Montecassino and a clerk of the monastery of St  Eleutherius of Tivera, who promised this gift to the Troian bishop William I (1102–1106). They were in agreement with the abbot of Tivera. Immediately after the theft, the church was destroyed by a fire: the abbot had to face the protest of the inhabitants, who did not want to be deprived of the holy bones of their patron, but he deceived them under the pretext of raising funds for reconstructing the church. In this account the role played by Montecassino is fundamental and, in addition, the places that the clerics passed through on their way back to Troia are clearly linked with this abbey: È un monaco cassinese, insieme a un chierico di S. Eleuterio, a prendere un’iniziativa che si configura come un “furto sacro” (probabilmente non del tutto gratuita …), solo mitigata dal fatto di essersi recato dal presule Spiritu sancto movente e di aver poi coinvolto anche l’abate del monastero tiberano, virum sanctum et religiosum, che, topicamente, giustifica il suo assenso con la motivazione che i corpi non erano venerati come si doveva e dunque continuamente esposti alle mire dei violatori di chiese.96

After some adventurous vicissitudes, Abbot Oderisius of Montecassino, initially reluctant, assented to the theft of the relics, which had to be moved from the Terra Sancti Benedicti to Troia. ‘The cleric reminds him of the many possessions which Montecassino had in the realm of Duke Roger. Their mission had been

  Poncelet, ‘La translation’, p. 414: ‘ce que nous en avons dit suffit, croyons-nous, pour faire voir combien tout le récit est suspect. Il n’y a pas lieu, semble-t-il, de mettre en doute la simplicité et la bonne foi de Roffredus. Mais ces gens de Saint-Eleuthère, ou du moins qui se donnaient pour tels, ne nous inspirent aucune confiance’. This scepticism is strongly condemned by De Santis, La civitas troiana, p. 195, who insists on the truthfulness of the account: ‘L’itinerario, le tappe, i riposi, le fughe, i sentimenti, gli accorgimenti, le trepidazioni, gli entusiasmi dei rapitori, tutto è perfettamente aderente alla realtà. Il cammino della carovana si può ancor oggi tracciare sulla carta topografica chilometro per chilometro. La motivazione stessa del consenso dato dall’abate Benedetto a quel trafugamento è così convincente che nulla più. Questo esclude il sospetto temerario affacciato dal Poncelet che i monaci che proposero al Vescovo Guglielmo l’impresa non erano che dei furbi trafficanti di reliquie’. I would like to thank Amalia Galdi, for allowing me to read the draft of her article, ‘Troia, Montecassino e i Normanni: la traslazione di s. Eleuterio tra identità cittadina e dinamiche di potere’ (now in Vetera Christianorum 47, 1 (2010): pp. 63–83). 95

  Galdi, ‘Traslazione di s. Eleuterio’, p. 76.

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carried out at the duke’s and at the bishop of Troia’s behest. Montecassino might lose everything in partibus illis if the abbot continued his resistance’.97 More than twenty years after the rebellion of Troia against the Normans (1082),98 Roger Borsa appeared in this account as nobilissimus ecclesiarum cultor and promotor of the translatio. Mario De Santis and other historians connect this fact with the resumption of the construction of the cathedral, which had begun in 1093 under the episcopate of Gerardus (1088/1090–1097) but which had been interrupted for many years:99 Chi pensava più ormai in Troia al concilio del 93 e alla vagheggiata novella Cattedrale? Ci voleva un colpo d’ala per risospingere in alto l’animo della Città […] quando due monaci si presentarono a Guglielmo I e gli fecero balenar l’idea di una santa gesta che avrebbe fatto risuonare il nome di Troia dentro e fuori del Ducato.100

As the monks with the relics arrived in Troia, l’austera penombra della vecchia chiesa di Santa Maria accolse il sacro deposito e fu incapace di contenere la fiumana di pellegrini che per settimane e mesi accorsero   Bloch, Montecassino, vol. I, p. 556. About the ambiguous role played by Oderisius, see Galdi, ‘Traslazione di S. Eleuterio’, p. 77: ‘Non si comprende il suo ruolo, forse solo di tacito secondatore, nella prigionia dell’abate, prima, e nella sottrazione delle reliquie, poi, ma nel secondo incontro con il chierico troiano ne viene rimarcata la mancanza della parola data, il venir meno all’impegno di protezione promesso. Le parole rivolte a Oderisio […] ne sanzionano duramente il comportamento, a partire dall’utilizzo, ripetuto, del verbo decipere, e il miserere usato subito dopo ne mitiga appena la veemenza, mentre l’accusa all’abate, che può, se vuole, intimare ai responsabili di liberare i prigionieri e restituire il maltolto, è un’indiretta testimonianza delle sue responsabilità’. Galdi, ‘Traslazione di S. Eleuterio’, p. 78, points out the different circumstances compared to the age of bishop Stephen, thus the role of Montecassino cannot be so predominant as it once was: ‘La presenza dei Cassinesi a Troia, a differenza del periodo in cui Stefano commissionava a Guaiferio la Historia s. Secundini, con il tempo poteva essere divenuta ingombrante per l’episcopato locale, che condivideva con essi il controllo di buona parte del territorio attraverso dipendenze e proprietà, tanto da rendere plausibile una puntualizzazione delle reciproche istanze.’ 97

 Bloch, Montecassino, vol. 1, p. 554.   Pina Belli D’Elia, ‘Per la storia di Troia: dalla chiesa di S. Maria alla Cattedrale’, in Giuliano Volpe (ed.), Puglia paleocristiana e altomedievale, vol. I (Bari, 1991), pp. 227– 242. See also Bloch, Montecassino, I, p. 555: ‘How far Girard was able to proceed in his plan to enlarge the pre-existing church remains uncertain. No doubt exists about the long interruption which the project suffered when Girard went to Sicily in 1095’. 100   De Santis, La civitas troiana, p. 53. See also Bloch, Montecassino, vol. 1, pp. 555– 557. 98 99

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da ogni parte. Fu allora che il proposito di ampliare la piccola chiesa, concepito da Girardo, dodici anni innanzi, in un altro momento di euforia, dovette rinascere più fervido nel cuore del vescovo Guglielmo.101

Shortly after the translatio of Eleutherius, in 1107–1108, the work began again under the episcopate of William II, and was completed in 1120. Bishop Eleutherius, together with Pontianus and Anastasius, are portrayed on the main bronze doors of the cathedral, the work of Oderisius, near Secundinus.102 The new translatio, together with the construction of the new cathedral, testify ‘il ruolo politico ed ecclesiastico raggiunto dalla comunità troiana agli albori del XII secolo’.103 The Translatio of St Agatha to Catania The last example comes from a completely different context. The cult of St Agatha of Catania is well known and still very popular in our time:104 the relics of the Roman virgin and martyr had been removed from Catania (possibly from the church of Sant’Agata la vetere) by George Maniace in 1040 and brought to Constantinople, in order to preserve them from the Muslims. The translatio from Constantinople to Catania was described by the Norman bishop Maurice (1124–44), the second bishop-abbot of Catania105 after the

  De Santis, La civitas troiana, p. 60.   These panels belong to the restoration of 1573, but there is every reason to believe that the restorer ‘replaced the figures which he found, changing only the style’ (Bloch, Montecassino, vol. 1, p. 560). 103   Galdi, ‘Traslazione di s. Eleuterio’, p. 82. Paul Oldfield underlines the increasing power of the bishops, through which Duke Roger tried to retain some influence: ‘Troia was developing into an ostensibly self-governing city under the guidance of an increasingly wealthy and influential bishop’: see his ‘Urban government in Southern Italy, c. 1085 – c. 1127’, English Historical Review, 122 ( June 2007): pp. 579–608, here p. 589. 104   See Tramontana, Sant’Agata and Idem, Regno di Sicilia. Uomo e natura, pp. 9–11; Maria Stelladoro, Agata. La Martire, Donne d’Oriente e d’Occidente (Milano, 2005). About the legendary veil (velum flammeum) of the virgin martyr, which had the power to stop the lava flows from Etna, see Lucia Sinisi, ‘The Wandering Wimple’, Medieval Clothing and Textiles, 4 (2008): pp. 39–54. A partial edition of the translatio was published by Giuseppe Scalia, ‘La traslazione del corpo di s. Agata e il suo valore storico’, Archivio storico per la Sicilia orientale, 23–24 (1927–1928): pp. 38–157. This interesting text deserves a better edition. 105   ‘The see of Catania was based upon the Benedictine monastery that Roger had already founded in that city in 1091, and to which the count had granted the lordship over 101

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Breton Ansgerius, who was the addressee of Geoffrey Malaterra’s De rebus gestis Rogerii, Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis, fratris eius. Maurice presents the Christian inhabitants of Sicily as peccatores: they were punished with the Arab dominion and deserved to lose the miraculous relics of their patron: Sicut in antiquorum libris autenticis invenitur decio persecutionem Christicolis ingerente: beatissima virgo et martir Agata: martirio coronata est in provincia Siciliae apud urbem Cataneam sub Quintiano proconsule: ibique sepulta longo quievit tempore: domino per eam multa miraculorum insignia faciente. Verum post multa annorum curricula populus christianus suis peccatis promerentibus iustitia divina castigante in vindicta traditus est manibus barbarorum qui diruentes ecclesias et civitates cum abitatoribus destruentes totam circumquamque provinciam suo dominio serviliter subdiderunt. Quam stragem fidelium Constantinopolitanus audiens imperator exarchum quem in bellicis rebus habebat experientissimum vocabulo Maniacum cum armata manu in Sicilia destinavit […] Qui Maniacus corpus Deo dilectae virginis Agatae cum multorum aliorum sanctorum corporibus Constantinopolim quae prius fuerat vocata Buzantium delegavit […] Sic igitur translatum est corpus beatissime virginis et martiris Agatae de Cathaniensi civitate Buzantium ibique decenter a quibusdam loci incolis est conditum et devotissime veneratum.106

Eighty-six years after the theft of Maniace, two soldiers of the imperial army in Constantinople, the French Gislebertus and the Calabrese Goselinus had a vision: the virgin Agatha appeared to them asking to be brought back to her native country.107 Bishop Maurice insists on the truthfulness of the vision, which is the expression of the divine will: Hoc tamen veraciter affirmare possumus quia nisi deus voluisset: ad nos virgo beatissima non redisset.108 The soldiers stole the relics from the grave furto laudabili, then they put the head in two bowls and the city’ (Loud, Latin Church, p. 192). About the leading role of the church of Catania, see Tramontana, ‘Sant’Agata’, pp. 189–193. 106   Translatio Sante Agate Virginis et martiris, in: Scalia, ‘La traslazione’, pp. 149–

150.

  Scalia, ‘La traslazione’, p. 150: Cui videlicet Gislberto qui in aula regis militari fungebat officio: sicut ipse praesentibus nobis asseruit per nocturnam visionem se beatissima virgo et martir Agata semel et iterum atque tertio repraesentans praecipit ut se ab ecclesia in qua iacebat latenter ablata: Cathaneam ubi ora et passa fuit et pro Christo fuerat coronata martirio reportaretur. 108   Scalia, ‘La traslazione’, p. 150. 107

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hid the limbs of the saint in their turcassi (quivers). In vain the imperial soldiers in Constantinople looked for the lost treasure, sed quid valet humana custodia contra divinae dispositionis industriam […]. Nam praedicti viri nullo se molestante vel istius facti ab eis sciscitante negotium ab urbe regia domino protegente progressi: portum maris adeunt ibique conscensa navi vento prosequente secundo veloci remigio armirnam [scil. Smirnam] usque perveniunt.109

After an adventurous voyage by boat, with many vicissitudes and also miracles, they reached Catania on 17 August 1126: there the bishop welcomed them with a great ceremony for the return of the venerated patron. The new church, constructed between 1086 and 1090, was ready to give proper hospitality to the virgin martyr. Since the foundation the church of Catania, as Tramontana points out, ‘si caratterizzava per il nesso strettissimo col potere politico del granconte prima, del monarca in seguito’.110 The renewal of the cult, as a powerful instrumentum regni, was intended to encourage cohesion in the community. The epistle, with which Bishop Maurice prefaces his account, invites his people to honour the holy virgin, whose celebrity has spread throughout Christendom because of the miraculous power worked by the relics: Igitur et nos pro inaestimabili beneficio nuper nobis, non nostris meritis, sed sua bonitate, collato, illi deuotas gratiarum rependimus actiones, et vt vos congaudendo nobiscum eadem faciatis, vestras præsentibus nostrae pusillitatis apicibus pulsamus aures. Reddidit enim nobis Agathae beatissimae Virginis et Martyris corpus sanctissimum, totius Siciliae pignus et amabile patrocinium.111

What follow are a hymn for the office of the translatio112 and the account of the transfer. The journey of the two pious thieves was guided by the saint herself, who appeared on more than one occasion, and it is accompanied by miracles in   Scalia, ‘La traslazione’, p. 150.   Tramontana, ‘Sant’Agata’, p. 190 and p. 191: ‘Nessun’altra struttura edilizia è

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stata collegata in modo più stretto con una concezione politica e con la sua attenzione pratica che in Sicilia, in quegli anni, era espressione della società feudale controllata dai cavalieri normanni. E nella quale lo stesso vescovo, signore circondato da vassalli, era impegnato nel consolidamento della conquista e nella gestione del territorio strappato con la violenza ai saraceni che le proprie case e la religione difendevano. […] Costruita nel cuore della città, la cattedrale di Catania, consacrata a Cristo, alla Madonna, a Sant’Agata, si andava affermando parallelamente al progressivo consolidarsi del potere normanno e di quello del vescovo e del clero latino’.   Maurice’s epistle is edited by Scalia, ‘La traslazione’, pp. 153–54.   Scalia, ‘La traslazione’, p. 155.

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itinere.113 The bishop ran towards them, together with his community, barefoot and in white clothes (nudis pedibus et in albis vestibus procedentes). During the triumphal ceremony many miracles occurred, confirming reconciliation and renewal: the patron had come back to her people, the unity of political and ecclesiastical institutions guaranteed the peace and salvation of the people, in both a spiritual and a material way (through healings).114 No holy relics can be discovered or moved without divine concession. This certainty is indubitable for the hagiographers, cemented in the cult for the community. In the past, Rome witnessed some sensational thefts of relics without anyone protesting. The saint supported his discoverers and transporters, who were moved only by the desire to pay tribute to them with greater honours. The churches, the communities and the men who governed them had to be morally worthy to deserve to possess the relics, which granted protection and prodigies: if the relics reached them, they had already been considered as worthy of receiving them. Sometimes a country, which had long been neglected in oblivion and squalor, or oppressed by (possibly pagan) invaders, would become ready and suitable again for welcoming the saint: the pious community would have been eagerly awaiting to worship him, the powerful would have proved themselves able to offer him adequate accommodation! The hagiographic writings – especially translationes and miracula – are addressed to a larger public, in the churches, in the ceremonies attended by believers waiting for miracles, to whom they transmit the image of   See, e.g., the episode of the little girl in Taranto (Scalia, ‘La traslazione’, p. 152).   Towards the end of the same century (1191), the Chronica of Roger of Hoveden (d. 1201/2) testifies the great influence of the cult of St Agatha in Catania: ‘On the first day of the month of March, Richard, king of England, left Messina, and proceeded thence to the city of Catania (where rests the most holy body of Saint Agatha Virgin and Martyr), for the purpose of holding a conference with Tancred, king of Sicily, who had come thither to meet him. Accordingly, king Tancred, on hearing of the approach of the king of England, went forth to meet him, and with the greatest reverence and the honor due to his royal excellency received and introduced him into the city. As they were going together towards the tomb of Saint Agatha the Martyr, at the entrance of the church, they were met by the clergy and people, praising and blessing the Lord who had united them in the bonds of such brotherly love. After having offered up his prayers at the tomb of Saint Agatha, the king of England entered the palace of king Tancred, together with him, and stayed there three days and nights.’ (Roger de Hoveden, The Annals, vol. 2., From A.D. 1180 To A.D. 1201, translated from Latin by Henry T. Riley [London, 1853], p. 193). For the development of the cult of St Agatha in the time after the translation see also Paul Oldfield, ‘The Medieval Cult of St Agatha of Catania and the Consolidation of Christian Sicily’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 62 (2011): pp. 439–456; I would like to thank the author of this article for allowing me to read his draft. 113 114

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the Normans, champions of the faith. Rediscovered or transferred, the saints came back home: the place of their first burial or of their martyrdom, or the new churches which have been consecrated to them, under the protection of the Norman rulers. Whereas in Apulia as far back as the ninth century Lombard princes were already ransacking relics,115 the difference later was in the way the Normans used the relics. Both for pre-existing discoveries and for new events, they used – much more than the Lombards – the written memories, the account of the hagiographers, in order to confirm their role and power, both political and ecclesiastical. In the first period of their dominion they entrusted the most famous and prestigious authors, those of Montecassino; by using their relations with the abbey they were later able to employ their own attachés to commit the writings they needed. They were mostly linked to a new start (Troia, Catania) or to a reinforcement of the institutions (the Counts of Caiazzo). Despite all the differences and distances, in most cases associated with accounts of miracles, the inventiones and translationes – as the written counterpart of the material aspects of religion (churches and relics) – represent a very strong point of interest in the Latin literary production of southern Italy during the Norman age.

  Head, ‘Discontinuity’, pp. 182–83.

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Chapter 6

The Norman Conquerors between Epos and Chanson de Geste: The Perception of Identities in Cultural Flows Eleni Tounta

Aliorum quoque regum ac gentium consuetudines diligentissime fecit inquiri, ut quod in eis pulcherrimum aut utile videbatur sibi transumeret.1 This statement refers to the deeds of Roger II and reflects the legendary image modern scholarship has created about the Norman conquests. The ‘Norman achievement’, a term which is almost a terminus technicus for Norman studies, denotes not only the Normans’ adaptability to other cultures, but their eagerness to abandon their own tradition for the sake of integration as well, and it has been seen as one of the most important features of the different Norman conquests.2 As far as the Norman Kingdom of Sicily is concerned, which sets the geographical research limits for this paper, various studies deal with the social status of the conquered peoples3 and the intermingling of Latin, Byzantine and

  Hugo Falcandus, La Historia o Liber de Regno Sicilie e La Epistola ad Petrum Panormitane Ecclesie Thesaurarium, (ed.) Giovanni B. Siragusa, in Fonti per la Storia d’Italia, 22 (Rome, 1897), p. 6: ‘He also made every effort to find out about the customs of other kings and peoples, in order to adopt any of them that seemed particularly admired or useful’. (Trans.) Graham A. Loud and Thomas Wiedemann, The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’1154–1169 (Manchester, New York, 1998). 2   Charles H. Haskins, The Normans in European History (Cambridge, 1915), p. 247. Ralf Henry Carless Davis, The Normans and their Myth (London, 1976), pp. 7–17. Cassandra Potts Hannahs, ‘Atque unum ex diversis gentibus populum effecit: Historical Tradition and the Norman Identity’, in Christopher Harper-Bill (ed.), Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, 18 (Woodbridge, 1995): pp. 139–152. Ewan Johnson, ‘Normandy and Norman Identity in southern Italian chronicles’, in John Gillingham (ed.), Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, 27 (Woodbridge, 2004): pp. 85–100, here p. 88. 3   See among others, Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe (eds), The society of Norman Italy (Leiden/Boston/Cologne, 2002). Alex Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily. Arabic speakers and the end of Islam (London, New York, 2003). 1

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Arabic cultures, especially concerning administrative and financial institutions,4 artistic5 and linguistic6 elements. Thus, a multi-cultural society emerged that constituted a sui generis political body in comparison with the standards of the majority of medieval Europe. However, topics about cultural hybridization and transcultural community in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily can not be studied without a previous understanding of the identity the Norman conquerors strove to construct and to establish in their newly conquered territories.7 This question, which is the main focus of this paper, is of paramount importance, as it can reveal the Normans’ attitude towards the conquered peoples, interpret the cultural structures of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and finally contribute to a (re-)evaluation of the ‘Norman achievement’. In this paper (ethnic) identity is conceived as a cultural product, subject to historicisation. It is a social construction, an imaginary entity that creates a sense of community for the members of a group; this sense is based mainly upon a common myth of descent, shared history and a shared code of values.8 The identity always results from the conflict of the Self with the Other. It is only then that the members of a group form themselves into a community by defining themselves with common features which differentiate them from the Other.9 4   See among others, Hiroschi Takayama, The administration of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily (Leiden/ New York/Cologne, 1993). Jeremy Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily (Cambridge, 2002). 5   See among others, Eve Borsook, Messages in Mosaic. The royal programmes of Norman Sicily (1130–1187) (Oxford, 1990). William Tronzo, The Cultures of his Kingdom, Roger II and the Capella Palatina in Palermo (Princeton, 1997). 6   See among others, Metcalfe, Muslims. Alberto Várvaro, Lingua e storia in Sicilia I: dale guerre puniche alla conquista normanna (Palermo, 1981). 7   Among the relevant studies see, Nick Weber, The Evolution of Norman Identity 911–1154 (Woodbridge, 2005). Johnson, ‘Normandy’. Graham A. Loud, ‘The “Gens Normannorum” – Myth or Reality?’, in R. Allen Brown (ed.), Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, 4 (Ipswich, 1982): pp. 104–116. Questions about ethnicity are to be found in studies concerning the Norman historiography, see among others. Emily Albu, The Normans and their Histories: Propaganda, Myth and Subversion (Woodbridge, 2001). Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Making History: The Normans and their Historians in Eleventh-Century Italy (Philadelphia, 1995). 8   Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politischen Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (Munich, 1992), pp. 132–133. Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford, 1986), pp. 22–30. For the imaginary aspect of identity, cf. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (second edn, London/New York 1991). 9  Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, pp. 134–136. Stuart Hall, ‘Introduction: Who needs “Identity”?’, in Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay (eds), Questions of Cultural identity (London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi, 1996), pp. 1–17, here pp. 4–5. Robert Bartlett,

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Identities are constructed within discourse; they need a narrative. Specific narrative strategies, and choices regarding style and vocabulary narrativise the history of the community in such a way that the present emerges as the stage of a continuous and undifferentiated historical process which also marks the future of the community.10 Medievalists, who study the ethnopoiesis11 of the German peoples invading the Roman Empire and, therefore, the construction of their ethnic identities, have highlighted the significance of the political factor in this process. The political leadership, kingship, or a comparable political institution, seems to have been the decisive element of ethnicity. Ethnic identity, a situational construct which occurs mostly in conflict situations, is shaped by the ruling elite and creates a sense of allegiance to it.12 The study of the Norman conquerors’ identity in southern Italy and Sicily must take into consideration two important historical facts that more or less determine the methodological approach. First, the conquest was not a military enterprise directed by the Duke of Normandy; it began on the initiative of a group of mercenary knights. Second, we must constantly bear in mind that the Norman conquerors of southern Italy and Sicily were not all of Norman descent. As scholars have clearly shown, a third of them belonged to other gentes of the French kingdom.13 Nevertheless, they are presented in written sources under a single name; in other words, a collective term was used for a multiethnic group. The assimilation of Normans and non-Normans under a common nameindicator of ethnic identity, which is most often taken for granted, is to be equally explored and understood. Therefore, it must be investigated according to the strategies by which a cohesive identity for this group of mercenaries was constructed, which permitted them to be assimilated under a common ‘Medieval and Modern Concepts of Race and Ethnicity’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 31.1. (2001): pp. 39–56, here p. 40. 10   Hall, ‘Introduction: Who needs “Identity”?’, p. 4. 11   For this term cf. the article by Sigbjørn Sønnesyn in the present volume. 12   Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Introduction’, in Hans-Werner Goetz, Jörg Jarnut and Walter Pohl (eds), Regna and Gentes. The Relationship between Late Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World (Leiden, Boston, 2003): pp. 1–11, here pp. 3–4, with reference to the main literature. Walter Pohl and Max Diesenberger (eds), Integration und Herrschaft. Ethnische Identitäten und soziale Organisation im Frühmittelalter (Vienna, 2002). Patrick J. Geary, ‘Ethnic Identity as a situational construct in the Early Middle Ages’, Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 113 (1983): pp. 15–26. Bartlett, ‘Medieval and Modern Concepts’. 13   Leon-Robert Ménager, ‘Pesanteur et étiologie de la conquête normande de l’Italie’, in Roberto il Guiscardo e il suo tempo, Atti delle prime giornate normanno-sveve, Bari 28–29 maggio 1973 (second edn, Bari, 1991), pp. 203–229.

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name-indicator of ethnic identity, to conquer the southern Italian and Sicilian territories and finally to create new political entities.14 Because identity has a situational and strategic character and is constructed in terms of conflict, this investigation must equally focus on the interaction between conquerors and conquered peoples, Byzantines, Muslims, and Lombards. How and through which Weltanschauung the conquerors perceived the other cultural groups at the exact time of the conquest will thus be illuminated. The conquerors’ identity in southern Italy and Sicily was shaped based on this perception, and therefore the cultural basis for the formation of the future kingdom was set. The main sources are almost contemporary with the conquest – the historiographical works of William of Apulia and Geoffrey Malaterra.15 Medieval historiography is mainly institutional history, in that it relates not to individuals but to the institutions they represent with the purpose of stressing their pre-eminence and legitimise their claims.16 In this regard the chronicles of William of Apulia and Geoffrey Malaterra become fruitful research ‘material’, as they were written at the behest of the Norman rulers.17 The establishment   Different in this respect is the process of Weber, The Evolution. After determining the identity of the Normans settled in Normandy through the works of Dudo of St Quentin and William of Jumièges (pp. 18–39), he then tries to detect it in the Italian sources (pp. 55–84). If the sources correspond to his conclusions, he establishes the continuity of the identity. If not it is, according to his method, evidence of alteration, loss or oblivion of the Normannitas. 15   William of Apulia, La geste de Robert Guiscard, (trans. and ed.) Marguerite Mathieu, Istituto Siciliano di Studi bizantini e neoellenici, Testi 4, (Palermo, 1961). Goeffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius, (ed.) Ernesto Pontieri, in Rerum Italicorum Scriptorum V/1 (second edn, Bologna, 1925–1928). I do not focus on the third historiographical work concerning the same subject, i.e. the history of Amatus of Montecassino, because, unlike those of William of Apulia and Malaterra, it was not commissioned by the Norman rulers. For the text of Amatus of Montecassino, see Amato di Montecassino, Storia de’ Normanni volgarizzata in antico francese, (ed.) Vincenzo De Bartholomaeis, in Fonti per la Storia d’Italia, 76 (Roma, 1935). 16  Hans-Werner Goetz, Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsbewusstsein im hohen Mittelalter (second edn, Berlin, 2008), pp. 337–345. Bernard Guenée, Histoire et Culture historique dans l’Occident médiéval (Paris, 1980), pp. 33–35, 93–94, 333–335. Gabrielle M. Spiegel, The Past as Text. The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore and London, 1997), pp. 83–98. 17   I do not agree with the view that these works had no intention of giving history, a development of an ethnic identity or a ‘Staatsanschauung’. See Pierre Toubert, ‘La première historiographie de la conquête normande de l’Italie méridionale (XIe siècle)’, in I caratteri originari della conquista normanna. Diversità e identità nel Mezzogiorno (1030–1130), Atti delle sedicesime giornate normanno-sveve, Bari, 5–8 ottobre 2004, (ed.) Rafaele Licinio (Bari, 2006): pp. 15–49, here pp. 27–29. 14

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of the new political entities in Mezzogiorno depended on the construction of a past which would meet the necessities of the present and orientate the future of the ruling elite’s community. These chronicles, therefore, must be perceived not only as products of a specific cultural environment, but as agents in it as well. The texts organised and constructed the collective memory of the past in such a way that this memory met the expectations of the new rulers. Through this function the chronicles articulated discourses of power and they tried to shape social realities.18 It is for that reason that I assume that the perception of the Self and the Other, and consequently the construction of identities revealed in these historiographical works, could highlight the conquerors’ view on the cultural structures of the realm they wanted to establish. Consequently, my analysis of these texts focuses not only on their content, but on their form as well. My aim is to highlight both their causa scribendi and social function, that it to say their performative role in the community – the ruling elite – for which they were intended. William of Apulia, a native of or an immigrant to southern Italy, wrote an epic poem in dactylic Latin hexameters, divided into five books, to relate the Norman conquests in southern Italy and Sicily and Robert Guiscard’s expedition in the Byzantine Empire. Roger Borsa, duke of Apulia (1085–1111) and Guiscard’s son, was acknowledged by the author as the patron of his work.19 The events William relates cover the period between the arrival of the first Normans in southern Italy (c. 1017) until Guiscard’s death (1085). Robert Guiscard appears in the second book and his death and burial in 1185 is the last episode narrated by the author. The epic style of the work has been connected with the defeats of the Greek people of the area; that is to say the Normans not only deprived the Greeks of their territories but also of their traditional bravery praised by the Muses.20 In my opinion the inner structure of the work does not justify such a statement. The focus is not only on the defeats of the Greek people, but also on those of the Saracens and the Lombards as well. As far as the narration of Guiscard’s expedition against the Byzantine Empire (through the fourth and the fifth book of the work) is concerned, it must be stressed that the Greeks living there are not perceived by the author as having   For the performative function of the historical texts within the community, see among others Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, pp. 31–42, 48. Goetz, Geschichtsschreibung, pp. 15–26. Cf. Dominick LaCapra, ‘Tropisms of Intellectual History’, Rethinking History, 8.4. (2004): 499–529, here pp. 510–12. Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Wahrnehmungs- und Deutungsmuster als methodisches Problem der Geschichtswissenschaft’, in Wahrnehmungsund Deutungsmuster im europäischen Mittelalter, (ed.) Hartmut Bleumer and Steffen Patzold, Das Mittelalter. Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung, 8.2 (Berlin, 2003): pp. 23–33. 19   William of Apulia, La geste, Prologus, vi–ix. 20  Wolf, Making History, p. 129. Johnson, ‘Normandy’, pp. 87–88. 18

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faced the same humiliation that the Greeks in southern Italy faced. Moreover, a great part of the work, almost the majority of the third book and a portion of the fourth, deals with Guiscard’s conflicts with other Norman leaders, stressing their defeats and their oath to obey their duke from that time onwards.21 In order to understand and evaluate the epic style of the work we must take into account the causa scribendi. The work was commissioned by Duke Roger Borsa, whose office was challenged by other Norman leaders and especially by his half-brother Bohemond. Bearing in mind the institutional character of medieval historiography, I will conclude that William of Apulia’s ultimate goal was to legitimize Roger Borsa’s rule against the other pretenders to power.22 His elevation to the office of duke, which was the deliberate decision of his father, is placed, therefore, in the series of his father’s epic deeds. Since Robert Guiscard was dead, his deeds became fact and were inscribed in a heroic past exactly like that of the world of epic: it is a world of ‘beginnings’ and ‘peak times’, a ‘world of fathers and founders of families’.23 Not only is the epic past the single source and beginning of everything good for all later times, but it is absolute and complete as well. It is presented solely as a sacred tradition and is evaluated in the same way by all, demanding a pious attitude toward itself. Thus, the world of epic is isolated from personal experience, ‘from any personal initiative in understanding and interpreting, from new points of view and evaluations’.24 Therefore, Guiscard’s achievements and moreover, his decision to appoint Roger Borsa as his successor were presented as concrete facts that could not be challenged by anyone. Moreover, through the narrative the collective memory of the historical past is constructed that endows the new ruling elite with a sense of common history, which is one of the most important elements in shaping identities. Robert Guiscard stands on a time-and-value plane that is inaccessible to the listeners/ readers of William’s work, and the space between them is filled with historical tradition.25 Robert Guiscard becomes the ‘ancestor’ of the ruling elite in southern Italy, thus providing the conquerors with a myth of common ‘origins’. The

  William of Apulia, La geste, III, 348–411; III, 509–687; IV, 524–36.   See among others, Michele Fuiano, Storiografia medioevale (Naples, 1960), p. 92. Johnson, ‘Normandy’, p. 87. 23   Because of the conscious effort of the chronicler to give an epic form to his text using both epic motifs and a strong archaic style, I attempted to construe both the content and the form of the work with the help of M. Bakhtin’s epos theory. See Mikhail Bakhtin, ‘Epic and Novel’, in Michael Holquist (ed.), The Dialogic Imagination. Four essays by M.M. Bakhtin, (Austin, 1981), p. 13. 24   Bakhtin, ‘Epic’, pp. 15–17. 25   Bahktin, ‘Epic’, p. 14, 19. 21

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description of the battles against other peoples26 constructs a common history and stressing values like bravery, cunning, strength etc. shape the community’s code of value. In this way a sense of solidarity was created among the Norman rulers that was transmitted and diffused by them to their subjects. With Geoffrey Malaterra’s work we find ourselves in a different world concerning not the past, not even the present, but mainly the future. Contrary to the view that Malaterra’s work wanted to legitimize the political status of Roger I, the first count of Sicily, in order to facilitate his succession,27 I firmly believe that Malaterra sought to construct a strong and cohesive dynastic memory that would guide the political activities of Roger I’s successors, and, consequently, shape an identity for the new ruling elite. Malaterra’s narration of the events, divided into four books, from c. 1017 up to 1098, pays particular attention to the conquest of Sicily by Roger I, who, moreover, was the patron of the work.28 The author was a first generation immigrant from across the Alps, and a monk, and he was most likely a Norman himself. If we look carefully at the inner structure of the text, we realize that it is defined by Roger’s transformation from a poor mercenary ravaging the southern Italian territories to a count who happens to have all the qualities of a medieval rex.29 Furthermore, in my opinion the work   The Norman battles against their enemies reinforced a sense of community among the Norman mercenaries. Nevertheless, according to my method I cannot accept the argument of Weber, The Evolution, p. 65, that in the battle of Civitate (1053) in which the Normans of Melfi and those of Aversa fought united against the army led by Pope Leo III, ‘the conflict was instigated on an ethnic level; it was as a gens that the Normans were threatened, and as a gens that they responded’. Given the ethnic diversity of the ‘Norman’ camp (Normans, people from other areas of the French kingdom, Lombards, indigenes of southern Italy) it would be more proper to argue that under Norman leadership the ‘Normans’ responded as a unified conquerors’ community whose common interests in the area were threatened. This fact reinforces my argument that the Norman and the non-Norman mercenaries had formed themselves into a community. The sense of solidarity, at least among the leaders, which in times of danger can set aside divisions of various natures within a group, is an important element in shaping identity. See Smith, The Ethnic Origins, pp. 29–30. 26

 Wolf, Making History, p. 147. Johnson, ‘Normandy’, pp. 95–96.  Malaterra, Epistola Gaufredi monachi ad venerabilem patrem Cathanenesm episcopum, p. 4. 29   In the first book Roger arrives in southern Italy and begins to ravage territories under the command of his brother, Robert Guiscard. In the second book he has conquered a part of Calabria, his possessions are recognized by Guiscard and he begins the conquest of Sicily. In the third book he is count of Sicily and in the fourth he is presented as protector and arbiter of the Normans in southern Italy and Sicily. Moreover, he is pronounced an apostolic delegate by the pope who asks for his advices on important ecclesiastical matters. Toubert, ‘La première historiographie’, pp. 41–43. 27

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reflects the collective code of values of the new social stratum, the milites, which had already begun to take shape in French society in the late tenth century. This code of values was defined by the importance of bravery, loyalty to the lord and the active pursuit of adventure and material gain.30 Under this perspective it should also be stressed that narrative motifs are present within the work that characterize the newly born literary genre of the chanson de gestes:31 a narration of the legendary military achievements of the knight in order that they be remembered, a respect for a brave enemy,32 a commitment to the Church and even to love and to female beauty.33 In addition, within the prose account we find many parts written in verse, which would also have made memorization easier. I am thus persuaded that the work had a double aim: on the one hand to construct the conquerors’ identity; on the other hand, to preserve the social values and cultural traits of this identity in the newly established Sicilian court through its didactic scope. The children were educated in the royal court with stories concerning the deeds of their ancestors. It is significant that Geoffrey Malaterra underlines that Roger I himself had read many stories of ancient people.34 August Nitschke has highlighted that these narrations referred to adventures in which someone went to a foreign land in order to gain respect and honour and then ravaged, killed and ‘rebuilt’, thus creating a new socio-political status for himself and the land.35 That is exactly the subject of Malaterra’s narration.   Georges Duby, Les trois ordres ou l’imaginaire du féodalisme (Paris, 1996), pp. 609– 19. Jean Flori, L’essor de la chevalerie, XIe–XIIe siècles (Genève, 1986), pp. 119–30. It is not irrelevant that in the eleventh century, when this body of professional warriors had established itself, the French society experienced a significant movement for expansion. As it has been rightly noted, it is in the context of this movement – which, in any case, characterised the society of Christian Spain, as well as those of the German kingdom and the Italian maritime cities – that we should interpret the arrival of the Normans in southern Italy. See Graham A. Loud, ‘Betrachtungen über die normannische Eroberung Süditaliens’, in Karl Borchardt and Enno Bünz (eds), Forschungen zur Reichs-, Papst- und Landesgeschichte: Peter Herde zum 65. Geburtstag (Stuttgart, 1998): pp. 115–31, here pp. 116–18. 31   For this literary genre see Typologie des sources du  Moyen Âge occidental, fasc. 49: L’épopée (Turnhout, 1988). 32   This respect is shown in particular to the Muslims. Toubert, ‘La première historiographie’, pp. 37–38 argues that Muslims are presented as the anti-model of Normans. In this way the conquest of Sicily is described as a fight between two equally brave opponents. 33   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, III, 23, p. 70. 34   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, Epistola ad venerabilem patrem Cathanensem episcopum, p. 4. 35   August Nitschke, ‘Beobachtungen zur normannischen Erziehung im 11. Jahrhundert’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 43 (1961): pp. 265–98, here, pp. 284–91. Cf. 30

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In this regard, it is not irrelevant that the chanson de geste, that is to say the French épopée, was developed in the Duchy of Normandy, as favorable historical conditions were present in that region, namely memories of conquests, foundation and the political organisation of a new community. The composition of chanson de gestes is the final stage of the community’s foundation process and from that time onward it determines its evolution. It conveys the beliefs, social values and cultural traits of the past and transmits them to later generations, consequently conditioning their orientations.36 Neither of the authors, especially William of Apulia, seems to have been preoccupied with the effort to construct a collective memory based upon the Norman origins of the new rulers. William of Apulia in the prologue verses to his work states that he is going to narrate how the Norman people arrived in Italy, under which circumstances they settled there and under whose leadership they triumphed.37 The Norman past in Normandy is confined to a few verses that only mention the arrival of the Norman people from the north on the northern coasts of an area that they abandoned in order to come to Italy. They are thus called ‘Normans’, which in their language means the ‘northern people’.38 After this the author does not deal with the past of the Normans who conquered southern Italy and Sicily again. Consistent with his pronouncements he develops the plot of his work on the deeds of Robert Guiscard. Apart from the territorial descent and the linguistic element39 no specific Normannitas is to be found within the text. Ovidio Capitano, ‘Specific motivations and continuing themes in the Norman chronicles of Southern Italy: eleventh and twelfth centuries’, in The Normans in Sicily and Southern Italy, Lincei Lectures (Oxford, 1977), pp. 1–46, here pp. 18–21. 36   Jean-Marcel Paquette, ‘Définition du genre’, in Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, fasc. 49: L’épopée (Turnhout, 1988), pp. 13–35. François Suard and Jean Flori, ‘La chanson de gestes en France’, in Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, fasc. 49: L’épopée (Turnhout, 1988), pp. 53–119, here pp. 57–59. 37   William of Apulia, La geste, I, iii–v: Dicere fert animus, quo gens normannica ductu / venerit Italiam, fuerit causa morandi, / quosque secuta duces Latii sit adepta triumphum. 38   William of Apulia, La geste, I, 6–10: Hos quando, quem lingua soli genialis / Nort vocat, advexit boreas regionis ad oras / a qua digressi fines petiere latinos, / et man est apud hos, homo quod perhibetur apud nos, / Normanni dicuntur, id est homines boreales. 39   The linguistic element appears elsewhere in the work. William of Apulia narrates that the Norman mercenaries taught both their language and their customs to indigenes who participated deliberately in their camp in order to create a unified gens. William of Apulia, La geste, I, 165–168: Si vicinorum quis perniciosus ad ipsos / confugiebat, eum gratanter suscipiebant. / Moribus et lingua, quoscumque venire videbant, / informant propria, gens efficiatur ut una. In my opinion, in this instance the term ‘gens’ refers to the group of warriors and not the ‘people’ as an ethnic connotation. For gens in the sense of exercitus, see

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On the contrary, at the beginning of his work Geoffrey Malaterra transfers us to a Norman environment. After having narrated the settlement of Rollo and his people in Normandy, he offers a panorama of the Norman character: They are a most astute people, eager to avenge injuries, looking rather to enrich themselves from others than from their native fields. They are eager and [indeed] greedy for profit and power, hypocritical and deceitful about almost everything, but between generosity and avarice they take a middle course. Their leaders are however very generous since they wish to achieve a great reputation. They know how to flatter, and are much addicted to the cultivation of eloquence, to such an extent that one listens even to their young boys as though they were trained speakers. And unless they are held in thrall by the yoke of justice, they are a most unbridled people. When circumstances require they are prepared to put up with hard work, hunger and cold; they are much addicted to hunting and hawking, and they delight in fancy clothes and elaborate trappings for their horses and decorations on their other weapons. They derive the name of their land from their own name: north in the English language means “the northern wind” [aquilonis plaga], and since they come from the north they are called Normans and their land Normandy.40

In the following Malaterra turns his attention to the past of the main heroes of his work, namely Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger, and narrates the glory of the Hauteville family: In this province there is a city called Coutances, and in its territory there is a village named Hauteville; called thus not so much because of the height of any hill upon which it is situated, but rather, so we believe, as a an omen predicting the extraordinary fortune and great success of the future heirs of the this village Geary, ‘Ethnic Identity’, p. 22. Nevertheless, it must be stressed that from that time onward these indigenes were also assimilated under the common name-indicator of ethnic identity: ‘Normanni’. 40   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, I, 3, p. 8: Est quippe gens astutissima, injuriarum ultrix, spe alias plus lucrandi patrios agros vilipendens, quaestus et dominationis avida, cuiuslibet rei simulatrix ac dissimulatrix, inter largitatem et avaritiam quoddam medium habens. Principes vero delectatione bonae famae largissimi [sunt]. Gens adularia sciens, eloquentiae studiis inserviens in tantum, ut etiam et ipsos pueros quasi rhetores attendas: quae quidem, nisi jugo justitiae premature, effrenatissima est. Laboris, inediae et algoris, ubi fortuna expetit, patiens; venationi et accipitrum exercitio inserviens; equorum caeterorumque militiae instrumentorum et vestium luxuria delectatur. Ex nominee itaque suo terrae nomen tradiderunt: north quippe anglica lingua aquilonaris plaga dicitur. (Trans.) Graham A. Loud, in www.leeds.ac.uk/history/weblearning/MedievalHistoryTextCentre/medievalTexts.htm.

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who with the help of God and their own dynamism [strenuitas] raised themselves step by step to the highest of ranks. We do not know whether divine providence saw what was pleasing to it in the preceding generations, or foresaw it in their heirs who came after, or even both, but it raised these heirs to great estate so that, as was promised to Abraham, they grew into a great people and spread their rule by force of arms, making the necks of many peoples subject to themselves, as we shall explain little by little in what follows.41

Except for Malaterra’s narration of Rollo’s deeds and the innate characteristics of the Normans, no specific Norman identity is to be determined in these works. It is an undeniable fact that both authors focus on the ruling family of Hauteville, namely the deeds of Robert Guiscard and Roger I in southern Italy and Sicily. Within Malaterra’s work it is obvious that the Hauteville family, predestined to subjugate various peoples to its rule, becomes the mythomoteur – the constitutive myth42 – of the conquerors’ identity in Mezzogiorno.43 It would not be bold to argue that the constructed ‘Hauteville myth’ has the same political and identity-shaping function as the Trojan origins of various medieval rulers. The conquest, the settlement and the establishment of a new political body are set in the framework of divina providentia, that is, within God’s plan for the salvation of the world. Thus, the Hauteville brothers, who lead their mercenaries to victorious military enterprises distributing fiefs and booty to them, that is to say endowing them with a socio-political status in a new land, become the central focus of reference and the main assimilation factor for the peoples who act under their command, the non-Normans acquiring their identity through their adherence to them, alongside whom they fought.44 Therefore, a myth 41   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, I, 3, p. 9: Altavilla […] non quidem tantum pro excellentia alicuius montis, in quo sita sit, quantum, ut credimus, aliquo auspicio ad considerationem praenotantis eventus et prosperos successus eiusdem villae futurorum haeredem, Dei adjutorio et sua strenuitate, gradatim altioris honoris culmen scadentium. Nam nescimus utrum in praecedentibus partibus vel certe in postea futuris haeredibus aut etiam in utrisque divina providentia, quod sibi placeret, inspiciens haeredes ipsos in tantum provexit, ut, sicut Abrahae repromissum est, in gentem magnam crescentes et suum imperium armis dilatantes, multarumque gentium sibi collata subdiderint, quod paulatim perstringendo stilo prosequemur. (Trans.) Graham A. Loud, in www.leeds.ac.uk/history/weblearning/ MedievalHistoryTextCentre/medievalText.htm. Malaterra also relates some episodes of the other members of the Hauteville family who remained in Normandy, see Goeffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, I, 38–40. 42   Smith, The Ethnic Origins, pp. 15, 58–60. 43   Cf. Johnson, ‘Normandy’, p. 95. 44   Cf. Geary, ‘Ethnic identity’, pp. 21–22.

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of ‘origins’ is constructed, with the members of the Hauteville family as the ‘ancestors’ of the new political community. The mores that Geoffrey Malaterra presents as innate characteristics of the Norman people are not absent from William of Apulia’s work, but they are not labeled as such. Bravery, active pursuit of gain, eloquence, cunning and strength stamp the personality and the deeds of Robert Guiscard and penetrate the plot of the work shaping a code of value for the future generations. What matters is that in both chronicles the Hauteville brothers, the mythomoteur of the new identity, are presented as incarnating these mores. In this way this code of values is adopted by anyone acting under the Hauteville family’s command, even by Normans and non-Normans, and therefore becomes part of the shared culture of the conquerors’ community. In order to find an explanation for why William of Apulia, unlike Malaterra, does not insist on the Norman past and the ‘innate’ characteristics of the Norman people, we must turn our attention to the historical consciousness of the two authors and the historical images with which they structure their narrations. As this topic is the subject of a special monograph,45 I will confine myself here to only a few important remarks. Geoffrey Malaterra probably followed the historiographical tradition of Normandy with which he was well acquainted, having read the work of Dudo of St Quentin.46 On the other hand, William of Apulia demonstrated a more Mediterranean perspective. In this regard it is significant that he had such remarkable knowledge on the contemporary political reality of the Byzantine Empire,47 not to mention the fact that he recognised the Roman ‘descent’ to the Byzantine Emperor.48 The argument that William of Apulia was not interested in the Norman past, because Roger Borsa was born in southern Italy and also had Lombard origins, and thus Norman descent played no role for him,49 does not, in my opinion, sufficiently explain William   This topic, as well as questions about identity and dynastic memory in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily through the historiography of the conquest and the works of Alexander of Telese and ‘Hugo Falcandus’, is the current research project of the author. 46   See among others Ewan Johnson, ‘Origin myths and the construction of medieval identities: Norman chronicles 1000–1100’, in Richard Corradini, Rob Meens, Christine Pössel and Philip Shaw (eds), Texts and Identities in the Early Middle Ages, Forschung zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, 12 (Vienna, 2006), pp. 153–164, here p. 162. 47   Michael Angold, ‘Knowledge of Byzantine History in the West: The Norman Historians (eleventh and twelfth centuries’, in John Gillingham (ed.), Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, 25 (2002): pp. 19–33, here pp. 25–27. Paul Brown, ‘The Gesta Roberti Wiscardi: A “Byzantine” history?’, Journal of Medieval History, 37 (2011): pp. 162–179. 48   See for instance William of Apulia, La geste, I, 241–244; IV, 566–570. 49  Weber, The Evolution, pp. 76–78. 45

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of Apulia’s attitude. The ultimate aim of the work dictates its form and content: Roger Borsa had to persuade his vassals, even Normans and non-Normans, that he was Robert’s Guiscard legitimate successor. In order to succeed he did not have to stress his origins, but his relation with the common ‘epic ancestor’ who ordered the appointment of Roger Borsa to the office of duke. Neither do I agree with the argument that Malaterra underlines the Norman past, because the Norman identity in Sicily was in danger of alienation due to its continual interaction with the Muslim identity, or because the conquest had reached its end.50 No ‘danger’ to the Norman identity can be established within the work. If such a danger existed, we would have to assume that it also existed for the Normans in southern Italy for the same reasons, namely the relations with the Greeks and the Lombards. The conquerors’ identity was not alienated by their interaction with the conquered peoples, as it resulted from the conflict with them. Only through this perspective can we understand the strategies by which the conquerors’ identity in Mezzogiorno was constructed. The perception of difference is the first step in shaping identities. Difference in itself is of no consequence. Otherness only matters when it affects power relations, challenging the status quo of the Self. It is only then that the Self defines itself against the Other attributing to it a set of features that are the exact negative aspect of what the Self considers as its own characteristics. The resulting Otherness is, therefore, always inferior. It is for that reason that the narrative representations of the conquered peoples in the works of William of Apulia and Geoffrey Malaterra must be regarded as strategies of distinction seeking to give shape to the conquerors’ identity.51 Consequently, our primary concern would not be to find the elements that distinguish one cultural group from the other, that is to say the contents of the description and the various ways in which membership of a people is defined, but the context, the specific instances, in which these differentiating elements are perceived and accentuated.52  Weber, The Evolution, pp. 81–82. Cf. Johnson, ‘Normandy’, p. 96.   Walter Pohl, ‘Telling the difference: Signs of Ethnic identity’, in Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (eds), Strategies of distinction. The construction of ethnic communities, 300– 800 (Leiden/ Boston/Cologne, 1998): pp. 17–69, here pp. 21–22. 52   Ian Wood, ‘Conclusion: Strategies of distinction’, in Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (eds), Strategies of distinction. The construction of ethnic communities, 300–800 (Leiden/ Boston/Cologne, 1998), pp. 297–303. Geary, ‘Ethnic Identity’, p. 18. I am aware of the fact that the study of the stereotypical images appearing within the works needs, according to the proposed method, a thorough examination, but this is not possible in the limited framework of this article. For that reason they are presented here as stereotypical traits that clearly set boundaries between the people and thus lead to the construction of identities. 50

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The first ethnic communities that will be looked at in terms of their interaction with the Normans are the Byzantines and the Muslims on the basis that both were regarded as alien to Western Latin Christian culture. Three important similarities result from a comparison of the narrations concerning the Normans’ conflicts against the Byzantines and Muslims. First, both people are described with stereotypical traits, that is the distinctive features that set boundaries between the conquered peoples on the one hand and the conquerors on the other. Second, these stereotypes emerge only in the description of battles and not in the surrender or the usurpation of power by the conquerors. The third resemblance concerns God’s presence, which is stressed in the conquest of both Muslims and Byzantines. Although within the works the Sicilian Muslims are called mostly Siculi and the conquerors Normanni, during the narration of the battles the former are referred to as ‘pagans’ or ‘infidels’ and the later as ‘Christians’. According to William of Apulia, Roger I devoted his life to the struggle against the Saracens, the enemies of God’s name; he wanted to praise the sacred faith and only the surrender of the sicula gens (the Sicilian people) offered him a worthy repose.53 Before the final attack on Palermo (1071) Robert Guiscard underlined to his soldiers that this city, which was God’s enemy, could not resist any longer; its walls would be opened with God’s help, who makes easy whatever seems difficult.54 Before the battle against the Muslims the Norman army attended mass and received communion.55 In the description of the battles the distinction between ‘Christian’ and ‘infidel’ is always stressed and the victory is presented as God’s will. Muslims are the perfida gens,56 the infidel people, whom christicolae,57 Christians, seek to subjugate. The Agarenes could not resist cultores Christi.58 Geoffrey Malaterra offers a similar image highlighting the infidelity of Muslims. As far as Roger’s motives to conquer Sicily are concerned, the author provides an explanation that combines both the religious factor and the financial one. When   William of Apulia, La geste, ΙΙΙ, 199–203: Nam contra Siculos divini nominis hostes / semper pugnavit, sanctam qua vivimus omnes / exaltare fidem cupiens, operamque iuventus / hanc sua praecipue coluit, dum digna quietis / causa suae fieret Siculae subiectio gentis. 54   William of Apulia, La geste, ΙΙΙ, 286–88: Urbs inimica Deo, divini nescia cultus, / subdita daemonibus, veteri spoliata vigore, / iam quasi fracta tremit. ΙΙΙ, 292–95: Currite! Dura capi, Christo miserante, patebit. / Difficilem quemvis facilem facit ipse laborem. / Hoc duce confisi, bellis imponite finem, / atque invadendam cuncti properemus ad urbem. 55   William of Apulia, La geste, III, 235–39. 56   William of Apulia, La geste, III, 240. 57   William of Apulia, La geste, III, 242; III, 254. 58   William of Apulia, La geste, ΙΙΙ, 217–19: Cultores Christi, dum gens Agarena resistit, / non perferre valet. 53

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Roger was informed that the Sicilian people were infidels and that Sicily was strictly closed to southern Italy, and because he was avid for possessions, he thought that it would be of benefit both to his body and soul if he brought the land that it had surrendered to the idols, back to the divine cult, and if he could offer the riches that this people had usurped to God’s service.59 In the description of the battles the divine presence is stressed. Before the conquest of Messina (1061) the Normans fasted, and after having confessed to the priests they received communion.60 The same happened before the battle at Cerami (1063)61 and before the final attack on Syracuse (1085).62 During the battle at Castrogiovanni (1062/63) Malaterra brings attention to the fact that Roger I won the pagans with God’s help.63 At Cerami (1063) Roger I, trying to breathe courage into his soldiers, emphasized that they had nothing to fear, since they were Christi insigniti who would assist them in the battle against the gens Deo rebellis.64 In the description of the surrender the discourse of the historians is totally different, as the religious portrayal of the Muslims is almost absent. Such a labelling is to be found only in William of Apulia’s narration of Palermo’s surrender (10 January 1072). Robert Guiscard destroyed the mosque and he 59   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙ, 1, 29: Siciliam incredulam audiens, et brevissimo mari interposito ex proximo intuens, ut semper dominationis avidus erat, ambitione adipiscendi eam captus est, duo sibi proficua reputans, animae scilicet et corporis, si terram, idolis deditam, ad cultum divinum revocaret, et fructus vel redditus terrae, quos gens Deo ingrata sibi usurpaverat, ipse, in Dei servitio dispensaturus, temporaliter possideret. 60   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙ, 9, 32: divinum invocat auxilium. Exercitui, ut sacerdotibus confiteantur et, poenitentia suscepta, omnes communicent, indicit; ipse cum fratre, si terra divino auxilio illis tribuatur, sese deinceps Deo devotiores futuros voto promittunt, certa fide in mente retinentes quod scriptum est : In omnibus negotiis tuis Deus adjutorem tibi assume, et habebis prosperos effectus. Et quia non est consilium contra Dominum, et quod nulla proficiendi difficultas est, ubi Spiritus Sanctus cooperator adest, in omnibus, quae facere disponebant, Deum ordinatorem et fortiorem gubernatorem lacrimabili compunctione cordis implorant. 61   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙ, 33, 42. 62   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, IV, 2, 85–86. 63   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙ, 32, 42: Deo sibi propitio, paganis fugientibus, victor efficitur. 64   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙ, 33, 43–44: Arrigite animos vestros, o fortissimo christianae milites tyrones. Omnes Christi titulo insigniti sumus: qui non deseret signaculum suum, nisi offensus? Deus noster, Deus deorum, omnipotens est: et ab ipso omnis quidem, de Deo diffidens, confidit in homine, et ponit carnem brachium suum. Omnia regna mundi Dei nostri sunt, et, quibus volet, ipse impartietur. Gens ista Deo rebellis est, et vires, quae a Deo non reguntur, citius exhauriuntur. Ipsi in virtute sua gloriantur; nos autem de Dei praesidio securi sumus. Nam neque honestum est dubitari, quod certum est, Deo nos praecedente, ante faciem nostram non posse subsistere: Gedeon, quia de Dei auxilio non dubitavit, in paucis multa millia hostium stravit.

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built a church dedicated to the Virgin. Thus, William of Apulia says that the temple of Muhammad and the devil became God’s temple and a way to Heaven for the just people.65 Nevertheless, Robert Guisard respected the conquered people, albeit gentiles and he did not expropriate their goods.66 Moreover, he accepted their administrative system, since he left as governor in Palermo a knight who received the emir title.67 For the same episode of the conquest of Palermo, Geoffrey Malaterra, though a monk, relates that the Muslims surrendered on condition that they would not be deprived of their law. Moreover, they wanted to be given the assurance that Normans would not impose upon them new and unjust laws. After these conditions were accepted by the Normans, the Muslims swore to be loyal to the new sovereigns and to pay a tax.68 Their oath was probably given on the Quran like the oath of Muslims at the city of Messina.69 The same happened in the expedition against the Muslims on the island of Malta (1091). When they saw Roger’s army, they were frightened and surrendered themselves. They set Christian prisoners free and gave them to the count; they settled the annual tax they were to pay and accepted Norman sovereignty. And after having taken an oath according to their law, that is to say probably on the Quran, they became allies of the Normans.70 After the conquest of Sicily, Roger I chose Muslims to exercise the administration of different regions in his name.71 Moreover,   William of Apulia, La geste, ΙΙΙ, 332–36: Glorificansque Deum templi destruxit iniqui / omnes structuras, et qua muscheta solebat / esse prius, matris fabricavit Virginis aulam; / Et quae Machamati fuerat cum daemone sedes, / sedes facta Dei, fit dignis ianua coeli. Actually Robert Guiscard rebuilt the already existing Basilica dedicated to Virgin which had been converted to a mosque in 831 by the Muslims. 66   William of Apulia, La geste, ΙΙΙ, 328–31: Nullum proscribere curat, / observansque fidem promissi, laedere nullum, / quamvis gentiles essent, molitur eorum. / Omnes subiectos sibi lance examinat aequa. 67   William of Apulia, La geste, ΙΙΙ, 341–42: Nominis eiusdem quodam remanente Panormi / milite, qui Siculis datur amiratus haberi. 68  Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙ, 45, 53: Proximo mane primores, foedere interposito, utrisque fratribus locutum accedunt, legem suam nullatenus se violari vel relinquere velle dicentes, scilicet, si certi sint, quod non cogantur, vel injustis et novis legibus non atterantur. Quandoquidem fortuna praesenti sic hortabantur, urbis deditionem dacere, se in famulando fideles persistere, tributa solvere: et hoc juramento legis suae firmare spopondunt. 69  Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙ, 13, 33: advenientibus hostibus obviam territi, legatos, qui pacem postulant, mittunt, urbemque et seipsos ditioni dedentes, libris superstitionis legis suae coram positis, juramento fidelitatem firmant. 70  Malaterra, De rebus gestis, IV, 16, 95: Datam unoquoque anno persolvendo determinantes, urbem comiti se serviendam promittunt: sicque more legis suae, sacramentis datis, comiti confoederati sunt. 71  Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙΙ, 30, 75. 65

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Malaterra mentions the Norman Serlo, who had made a bond of bloodbrotherhood with a Muslim.72 The image of the Muslims offered by the two medieval writers does not differ from that constructed from the ninth century onwards in medieval Europe:73 Muslims of Sicily were called Saracens and they were perceived as pagan idolaters or heretics. Yet, it must be taken into consideration that this image emerges only during the description of the battles. In the description of the surrender and the usurpation of power by the Normans this labelling is almost absent. In my view, the differentiation in the discourse signifies the differentiation of the perception of the Other. In the first case Muslims were perceived with religious criteria, while in the second case these criteria do not seem to form the framework for the perception. It thus raises the question of whether this differentiation in discourse ensued from a conscious or haphazard choice. To answer this question it is sufficient to compare Norman-Muslim relations with those of Normans and Byzantines. Byzantines equally constituted an otherness for Western medieval culture and their image was also defined by a series of stereotypical traits that set boundaries between the Byzantine and the conquerors’ identity. During the description of the battles Byzantines were portrayed as cowards who preferred the rout over the battle.74 They are effeminate, a coward gens who were crushed by drunkenness and retreated in front of few enemies, and whose clothing did not allow them to fight.75 Although Byzantines were of the same religion, their conquest was presented as God’s will. William of Apulia stresses that when God mutare potens tempora cum regnis decided that the Greeks who hold Apulia, should not further dominate it, the gens Normannorum, famous for its wild knights, invaded Italy and, warding off the Byzantines, set it under its dominion.76 In his campaign against the Byzantine Empire (1081) Robert Guiscard fought with the flag the  Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙ, 46, 54: Saracenus autem quidam, de potentioribus CastriJohannis, nomine Brachiem, cum Serlone, ut eum facilius deciperet, foedus inierat, eorumque more per aurem adoptivum fratrem, alter alterum factum vicissim susceperat. 73   See among others, John Tolan, Les Sarrasins. L’Islam dans l’ imagination européenne au Moyen Âge (Paris, 2003). Michael Frassetto and David R. Blanks (eds), Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Perception of Other (New York, 1999). 74   William of Apulia, La geste, Ι, 77–79: Normannis auget validas victoria vires, / expertis Graecos nullius roboris esse, / quos non audaces sed cognovere fugaces. 75   William of Apulia, La geste, Ι, 225–28: Femineis Graecis cur permittatur haberi, / cum genus ignavum sit, quod comes ebrietatis / crapula dissolvat, minimo saepe hoste fugatos / vestituque graves, non armis asserit aptos. Cf. Ι, 210–212. 76   William of Apulia, La geste, Ι, 1–5: Postquam complacuit regi mutare potenti / tempora cum regnis, ut Graecis Apula tellus / iam possessa diu non amplius incoleretur, / gens Normannorum feritate insignis equestri / intrat, et expulsis Latio dominator Achivis. 72

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Pope had given to him by his investiture and with the blessing of St Matthew.77 Geoffrey Malaterra portrays Greek people as the genus semper perfidissimum, the always most unfaithful people,78 meaning the politically unfaithful, the betrayers. They are nerveless, inclined to voluptuousness79 and arrogance, as it is clear from the description of the siege of Bari (1068).80 Although the above characteristics are absent in the description of the expedition against the Byzantine Empire,81 the divine element is equally stressed by the fact that the Normans attended mass and received communion before the battle.82 In the description of the surrender the discourse of the writers differs greatly once again, as the above mentioned stereotypes are absent. After the surrender of Bari, for example, Robert Guiscard respected the people and returned to them all of the properties the Norman had taken from them by violence or deceit.83 The Byzantines also took an oath of fidelity and were obliged to pay a tax,84 not to mention the fact that after their surrender the ‘coward’ Byzantines participated in the Norman army.85 Facing the Byzantines’ Otherness did not activate a strong religious response from the conquerors, since both cultures shared the same religion. On the contrary, they filtered Byzantines through their socio-political culture. More precisely, the image of the Byzantines is the anti-image of the medieval feudal   William of Apulia, La geste, IV, 407–12: Et licet innumeras videat properare catervas / parties Alexinae, vexillo, quod sibi papa / ad Petri dederat summi pastoris honorem, / et meritis sancti, cuius fabricaverat aedes, / Mathaei fidens, non diffidenter in hostem / irruit. 78   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, II, 29, 40. 79   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙΙ, 13, 64: Et gens, deliciis at voluptatibus. 80   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙ, 40, 49: Barenses autem demostrare volentes id, pro quo dux hoc agebat, habere despectui, omnia vilipendere ornamenta sua, thesaurorumque speciosa dependentia ostentare, Guiscardo plurima convitia inferentes, turribus suis fidentes, rerum exitus minus metiri coeperunt. 81   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙΙ, 24, 71–75. 82   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ΙΙΙ, 27, 73: Mane autem facto, dux ipse, lucis crepusculo, omnesque nostri surgentes, cum summa devotione hymnos Dei cum missarum celebratione audiunt: presbyteris compunctive confitentes peccata, muniunt sacri Viatici misteriis. Sicque, ordinatis aciebus, ad certamen gradatim et conjunctissime progrediuntur. 83   William of Apulia, La geste, ΙΙΙ, 149–57: Civibus exhibuit placidum Robertus amorem, / et quia dilectos, sibi quos allexerat, omnes / semper habebat, erat dilectus ab omnibus ipse. / Plurima, quae fuerant vel vi subtracta vel astu, / reddidit urbanis dux, agros, praedia, fundos; / perdita restituit; nil civibus intulit ipse, / nil alios permisit eis inferred molestum, / et circumpositis solitos deferre tributum / Normannis donat iam libertate quieta. 84   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, Ι, 17, 18: Calabrensesque infestiores reddit, cotidiano impetu lacessens Bisinianenses et Cusentinos et Marturanenses et his adjacentem provinciam secum foedus inire coegit, tali videlicet pacto, ut, sacra sua retinentes, servitium tantummodo et tributa persolverent: et hoc sacramentis et obsidibus spoponderunt. 85   William of Apulia, La geste, III, 163–166. 77

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society and its code of values. The Weltanschauung was about the values of faith to the lord and that of bravery, which characterized the conquerors’ community and medieval societies in general. Therefore, the Byzantines were portrayed as cowards, effeminate and unfaithful. Since medieval society was organized around sovereigns who governed with God’s will, its mentality balanced between a faith to God and loyalty to the lord.86 That is precisely why Muslims were considered infidels – the religious unfaithful – and Byzantines as the political unfaithful and as effeminate.87 The narrative representations of the conquered peoples reveal strategies of power against the different cultural groups. The stereotypes are accentuated at the moment of the conflict and set up impenetrable boundaries between the Self and the Other. It is in this way that the conquerors’ identity is shaped in order to provide cohesion to their community and meaning to their enterprises. What William of Apulia and Geoffrey Malaterra stressed was not the infidelity or unfaithfulness and effeminacy of the Muslim/Byzantine Other, but the bravery and the loyalty/fidelity of the Norman Self. Therefore, the conquerors’ identity, for which the central point of reference was the Hauteville family, was constructed according to the dominant Western medieval social values. Since – after the battles – the conquerors’ identity had been confirmed, the existence of boundaries, set up by the stereotypical traits, was no longer necessary. Both Byzantines and Muslims were regarded with political criteria, meaning under the perspective of their adherence to the new political order.88 It is in this framework that the new rulers’ political view in southern Italy and Sicily must be interpreted. What the Hauteville rulers sought to do was to shape a political identity for all people of their realm, meaning a political unity based  Anderson, Imagined Communities, pp. 19–20.   This comparison could equally lead to a fruitful conclusion about the perception

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of religious identity and the notion of tolerance in Medieval Ages. Moreover, it could re-evaluate the argument that Geoffrey Malaterra and William of Apulia dealt with the conquest of Sicily under a crusade pespective. See Eleni Tounta, ‘Muslims in Medieval Europe: Tolerance and Violence between Collective Imagination and Socio-political Reality’, in Erik Eynikel and Angeliki Ziaka (eds), Constructing religion and conflict studies in Europe (London, 2011), pp. 63–91, mainly pp. 82–87. 88   This is exactly the socio-political significance of a ‘frontier society’, i.e. the dialectic between the old and the new. Frontiers divide the Self and the Other, thus having an identity constructing function. After the identities are shaped, the frontier becomes a point of contact between them. See, Nikolas Jaspert, ‘Grenzen und Grenzräume im Mittelalter: Forschungen, Konzepte und Begriffe’, in Klaus Herbers and Nikolas Jaspert (eds), Grenzräume und Grenzüberschreitungen im Vergleich. Der Osten und der Westen des mittelalterlichen Lateineuropa, Europa im Mittelalter, 7 (Berlin, 2007), pp. 43–70, here p. 52–53.

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on adherence to the sovereigns. Nevertheless, that exactly was the meaning of ethnic identity in the Middle Ages. The interaction between the conquerors and the Lombards took a different form and had a different outcome, as Lombards were acknowledged as members of a broader Latin Christian culture. The distinctive features that should separate the two ethnic communities are inscribed mainly in the moral and the pure political sphere. In relation to William of Apulia’s work it has been argued that one immediate effect of the focus on conflicts between the Normans and Byzantine Empire – a point of view that I do not share – was to downplay the conflicts between the incoming Normans and the Lombard princes indigenous to the peninsula. This focus is supported in the descriptions of the Lombards, as William of Apulia, unlike Geoffrey Malaterra, rarely describes the Lombards in negative terms.89 It is true that stereotypical traits concerning Lombards are absent from William of Apulia’s narrative, and this can be explained by the fact that both Normans and Lombards shared a common culture. Nevertheless, not only did the author not downplay the Norman-Lombard conflicts, but, on the contrary, he made conscious efforts to legitimize the Norman conquests. It is within his work that we can discern how Normans regarded Lombards and how they tried to integrate them into a common political identity. In the beginning of his work William insists on the conflicts among the Lombards that sow murder and proliferate all kind of disasters for the people. This is why the prudentia Gallica, the wise/prudent Normans, who at that time were Lombard’s mercenaries, do not concede the final victory to any of them.90 It is according to this indirect comparison between the wise Normans and the foolish Lombards who destroy everything that the future Norman conquests are legitimized: Normans would establish the peace and the safety in the region. On the other part, the common culture facilitated the use of political/ diplomatic weapons for the acceptance of the Hauteville family’s domination. This was the motive of Robert Guiscard’s marriage with Sikelgaita, the sister of the prince of Salerno. As William of Apulia himself argues, from this time

  Johnson, ‘Normandy’, p. 88.   William of Apulia, La geste, I, 148–160: Illis principibus dominandi magna libido / bella ministrabat. Vult quisque potentior esse, / alter et alterius molitur iura subire. / Procedunt lites hoc fomite, proelia, mortes; / inter mortales ideo mala plurima crescunt. / Heu miseri, mundo quicquid conantur inane est: / innumeros vana passi pro laude labores, / plus cruciabuntur postquam mundana relinquent. / Numquam Normannis, ne poena rediret in ipsos, / Longobardorum placuit victoria prorsus. / Funditus everti discordem quemque vetabat / nunc favor additus his, et nunc favor additus illis. / Decipit Ausonios prudentia Gallica. 89 90

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onward the Lombards owed him allegiance because of the ancestral law.91 In no way could this marriage bond have led to a certain blurring of the ethnic distinction between Normans and Lombards, as it has been argued.92 It is not to be forgotten that the prince of Salerno, even after this marriage, rebelled against Guiscard, which ended in the abolition of the Lombard rule in the area.93 After the conquest of Salerno (1076) Guiscard, as William informs, fortified the defense of the city with loyal guarders, as he was afraid of future rebellions by this gens infida.94 Even so, Lombard nobles insisted on their descent even into the next century.95 This marriage had an integrative function, namely to prompt Lombards to adhere to the new political order.96 Moreover, it should also be taken into account that William of Apulia stresses the importance of Salerno as the place of residence for Robert Guiscard and St Mathew, since Guiscard presented himself as the establisher of St Mathew’s cult in this area.97 This accentuation of Salerno’s importance was aimed both at propagating the Norman sovereignty and at creating a dynastic memory, with the help of religious motifs, capable of keeping Lombards under the Norman rule. Geoffrey Malaterra equally focuses on the political attitudes of the Lombards towards the Norman conquerors. They are the genus invidissimum, since they try to sow discord between the Normans and their lord, the prince of Salerno.98 This attitude, in the words of Malaterra, prompted the Normans to subjugate the region. Lombards are the gens perfidissimum, since they participated in the murder of Drogo, Guiscard’s brother and first leader of the Norman mercenaries’

  William of Apulia, La geste, II, 438–41: Et gens, quae quondam servire coacta solebat, / obsequio solvit iam debita iuris aviti. / Nam proavis et avis subiectam coniugis huius / noverat Italiam gens Longobarda fuisse. 92   Johnson, ‘Normandy’, p. 88. 93   William of Apulia, La geste, III, 412–64. 94   William of Apulia, La geste, III, 465–467: Urbe triumphata gaudet Robertus et arce, / et ne posterius sibi gens infida repugnet, / munivit summam fidis custodibus arcem. 95   Joanna H. Drell, ‘Cultural syncretism and ethnic identity: The Norman “conquest” of southern Italy and Sicily’, Journal of Medieval History, 25 (1999): pp. 187–202. 96   Johnson, ‘Normandy’, p. 89. Although he assumes a blurring of ethnic distinction, he concludes that ‘a political identity limited geographically to those in southern Italy is developed alongside other, more culturally based, definitions of an ethnic group’. 97   William of Apulia, La geste, V, 278–281: Hanc, quia translatus Mathaeus apostolus alti / nominis esse facit, meritumque vicarius iste / auget ibi positus, prae cunctis urbibus unam / dux elegisset, sibi vivere si licuisset. 98   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, I, 6, p. 10. 91

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community.99 The animosity against the Normans pushed the prince of Salerno to rebel against Guiscard.100 The historical texts of William of Apulia and Geoffrey Malaterra articulate the dominant discourse about the conquerors’ identity. In addition, they reveal the strategies by which this identity was shaped. The authors named a population and granted it with shared ‘ancestral’ myths, namely the deeds of the Hauteville family, historical memories of migration and subsequent battles, and common cultural traits, meaning the ethos of a Christian knight who, brave, strong, astute, eloquent and in active pursuit of material gain tries to create a new social and political status in his conquered territories. Moreover, the two historians associated this population with a homeland, southern Italy and Sicily, and, through this complex of myths and common cultural traits, created a sense of solidarity, at least among the ruling elite.101 Concerning customs, they depicted a code of value accepted at that time by various medieval societies and this fact facilitated the assimilation of Norman and non-Norman mercenaries to a common community. Even if Geoffrey Malaterra presents this ethos as a distinct character of the Norman gens – since in the eleventh century the individuality of each gens was already a topos of medieval thought –102 the emphasis of both historiographical works lies on the ruling family, as the personification of this ethos and thus the mythomoteur of the conquerors’ identity in southern Italy and Sicily.103 It is only with these terms, and by taking into account the Norman roots of this family that we can refer to a Normannitas in Mezzogiorno. In regard to the other gentes of the region, the Hauteville family tried to shape a political identity defined by adherence to the new political rule. The identification of the different cultural groups with the new sovereigns, namely the acceptance of their dominion, was facilitated through administrative techniques and external visible cultural traits.104 Scholars have already shown the integrative function of the central administration – which combined Latin, Greek and Muslim institutions – in its issuing of trilingual charters, its monetary

  Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, I, 13, pp. 13–14.   Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, III, 2, pp. 58–59. 101   Cf. the theoretical schema of Smith, The Ethnic Origins, pp. 22–30. For the mythsymbol complex, Smith, The Ethnic Origins, p. 15. 102   Loud, ‘Myth or reality’, pp. 115–116. 103   Cf. Johnson, ‘Normandy’, p. 100 who argues that ‘the duchy of Normandy was becoming less central to the identity of Italian Normans, and was coming to serve only as a point of origin remembered, not as a potent force for political identification’. Johnson, ‘Origin myths’, p. 163. 104   Cf. Weber, The Evolution, p. 81. 99

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reform and its codification of the laws.105 This integration, for which the central point of reference was the new ruling family, was made easier by the fact that this political identity was primarily linked to a territorial element and not to matters of ethnicity/culture: the official titles of the new political body (dux Apuliae, comes Siciliae etc.) were territorially and not ethnically structured.106 These external cultural traits reinforced a sense of belonging to the community of the realm or at least ensured a more or less peaceful interaction between the different cultural groups and consequently to an acceptance of the Norman dominion. According to the dominant discourse articulated by William of Apulia and Geoffrey Malaterra, the conquerors’ identity in Mezzogiorno was shaped around the Hauteville family and against the other cultural groups of the region. Arguments about abandonment or the oblivion of the Norman origin assign an essentialist character to the concept of ‘identity’. By no means do identities have such a dimension. They are cultural products that are subjected to historicisation and, therefore, to continuous transformations. Moreover, they must be conceived as fields of negotiation on which dominant discourses interact with the views, the expectations and the personal strategies of the subjects.107 It is under this perspective that we should re-evaluate the ‘Norman achievement’ and study the socio-political systems and the cultures of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily.108

105   Hubert Houben, ‘Politische Integration und regionale Identitäten im normannischstaufischen Königreich Sizilien’, in Werner Maleczek (ed.), Fragen der politischen Integration im mittelalterlichen Europa, Vorträge und Forschungen, 63 (Ostfildern, 2005): pp. 171–84, here pp. 175–79. Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians, pp. 36–52. Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘I gruppi etnici nel regno di Ruggero II e la loro partecipazione al potere’, in Società, potere e popolo nell’età di Ruggero II , Atti delle terze giornate normanno-sveve, Bari 23–25 maggio 1977 (Bari, 1979): pp. 133–56. Cf. Walter Koller, ‘Toleranz im Königreich Sizilien zur Zeit der Normannen’, in Alexander Patschwosky and Harald Zimmermann (eds), Toleranz im Mittelalter, Vorträge und Forschungen, 45 (Ostfildern, 1998), pp. 159–85, here pp. 164– 173. 106   Houben, ‘Politische Integration’, p. 180. 107   Hall, ‘Introduction: Who needs “Identity”?’, p. 5–16. 108   Cf. Loud, ‘Myth or reality’, who was the first to draw attention to the myth that presented Normans as a distinct gens with its own features.

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Chapter 7

Sicily’s Imperial Heritage Stefan Burkhardt

Sicily and southern Italy were predestined to be part of an empire for geographic and topographic reasons.1 The wars between the Greek and the Phoenician communities could, at that time, already be regarded as contentions between imperial complexes. But these complexes bore a very fragmented character and could not be regarded as empires in the strict sense.2 Nevertheless, the tyranny of Syracuse in particular developed impressive concepts of authority that would – as we will see – be influential for the imperial heritage of the island.3 But it was not until Roman times that Sicily actually became part of an empire. On the one hand, Sicily was the first Roman colony, in the words of Cicero, to give the Romans an impression of how wonderful it is to rule other people thus boosting Roman imperialism.4 On the other hand, an entire network of imperial institutions and traditions lay over the isle that changed

  Hubert Houben, Roger II. von Sizilien. Herrscher zwischen Orient und Okzident (Darmstadt, 2010; second edn), p. 81. 2   See for these wars Michael Kleu, ‘Von der Intervention zur Herrschaft. Zur Intention karthagischer Eingriffe auf Sizilien bis zum Frieden von 405’, in David Engels, Lioba Geis and Michael Kleu (eds), Zwischen Ideal und Wirklichkeit. Herrschaft auf Sizilien von der Antike bis zum Spätmittelalter (Stuttgart, 2010), pp. 13–36. 3   Stefan Schorn, ‘Politische Theorie, “Fürstenspiegel” und Propaganda. Philistos von Syrakus, Xenophons Hieron und Dionysios I. von Syrakus’, in David Engels, Lioba Geis and Michael Kleu (eds), Zwischen Ideal und Wirklichkeit. Herrschaft auf Sizilien von der Antike bis zum Spätmittelalter (Stuttgart, 2010), pp. 37–62; and in the same volume Efrem Zambon, ‘Authenticity and idealism in Sicilian politics from Timoleon to Pyrrhus’, pp. 91–120. 4   Marcus Tullius Cicero, Die Reden gegen Verres, (ed.) Manfred Fuhrmann (München, 1995), lib. II, c. 2, 2, p. 264: Prima omnium, id quod ornamentum imperi est, provincia est appellata; prima docuit maiores nostros quam praeclarum esset exteris gentibus imperare. Luca Guido, ‘Encore à propos des débuts de l‘administration romaine en Sicile. À mi-chemin entre idéalité et réalité’, in David Engels, Lioba Geis and Michael Kleu (eds), Zwischen Ideal und Wirklichkeit. Herrschaft auf Sizilien von der Antike bis zum Spätmittelalter (Stuttgart, 2010), pp. 121–136; and in the same volume Thomas Bounas, ‘Cicero und Verres. Die römische Provinzialverwaltung zwischen Fürsorge und Ausbeutung’, pp. 137–158. 1

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and mingled the layers of traditions beneath.5 In addition, two other powers – the Byzantine Empire6 and the Arab lordships7 – had an important influence on Sicily. However, Sicily and southern Italy were never the centres of an empire (apart from the short reign of Basileus Constans II); rather, they provided resources to the imperial policy of a third party. Nevertheless, it was the imperial heritage that determined the perception of the ‘central periphery’ – geographically central, politically peripheral. But what are the distinct features of an empire? There are many possible definitions and indicators, many theories on empires and even more on imperial studies.8 For the present study I want to focus on the approach of Hans-Heinrich Nolte. Nolte enumerates seven attributes that define an ideal empire: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

in general, a hierarchical system governed by a monarchic apex; a close cooperation between church and crown; a comprehensive bureaucracy; an administration increasingly based on written records; centrally raised taxes; a diversity of provinces; and marginal participation of the subjects.9

In addition to these features, two supplementary characteristics must be considered: 1. Extension in quantity: an empire must cover a vast area incorporating many

nations. The imperial idea is often connected with the notion of proclaiming dominance over the world or, more precisely, of representing a world on its own.

5   Julia Hoffmann-Salz, ‘Augustus und die Städte Siziliens. Ideal und Wirklichkeit der Herrschaftsübernahme auf Sizilien’, in David Engels, Lioba Geis and Michael Kleu (eds), Zwischen Ideal und Wirklichkeit. Herrschaft auf Sizilien von der Antike bis zum Spätmittelalter (Stuttgart, 2010), pp. 159–174. 6   Vera von Falkenhausen, Untersuchungen über die byzantinische Herrschaft in Süditalien vom 9. bis ins 11. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1967); Barbara M. Kreutz, Before the Normans. Southern Italy in the ninth and tenth centuries (Philadelphia, 1991); Graham A. Loud, ‘Southern Italy in the tenth century’, in Timothy Reuter (ed.), The New Cambridge Medieval History (7 vols, Cambridge, 1999), vol. 3, pp. 624–45. 7   Jeremy Johns, Arabic administration in Norman Sicily. The royal diwan (Cambridge, 2002); David Engels, ‘L’insurrection d’ibn Qurhub. La Sicile entre Fatimides et Abbasides‘, in David Engels, Lioba Geis and Michael Kleu (eds), Zwischen Ideal und Wirklichkeit. Herrschaft auf Sizilien von der Antike bis zum Spätmittelalter (Stuttgart, 2010), pp. 247–264. 8   See for example the volume Empires. Susan E. Alcock et. al. (eds), Perspectives from Archaeology and History (Cambridge, 2001). 9   Hans-Heinrich Nolte, Imperien. Eine vergleichende Studie (Schwalbach, 2008), p. 14.

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2. However, the quality of imperial rule may differ: from direct administration

by magistrates to the indirect rule of vassals or more or less symbolic tributes. Hence, imperial reign, in some cases, may be restricted to a virtual sphere.

Even so, an empire always claims to pursue an imperial task and it imposes the idea of a hierarchically organised imperial structure. What are the elements necessary to maintain an empire? Some ‘active factors’ that play a crucial role are strong military forces, a fleet in the Mediterranean, some type of shared legal system, administrators or magistrates and taxes or tributes to refinance the public organisation.10 However, ‘passive factors’ are of great importance too. The elite group of the periphery follows the paradigm represented by an apparently mighty centre that is spread through coins, charters, law books and splendidly dressed office holders. The ceremonial aspect seems to be one of the most important features of imperial rule.11 Nevertheless, political and diplomatic methods are not the only ways to stabilise the empire; economic and religious structures probably provide the most consistent elements of an empire. The network of trade routes link the different regions, and the various clerical institutions such as dioceses and monasteries hold these regions together. This approach seems to offer a promising point of departure for the second part of my essay. Even after the overarching structure of the empire has broken apart, the imperial heritage continues to influence the way power is performed in the periphery; the peripheral zone echoes the guiding principles of the centre. This heritage consists of magistrates, institutions, laws and privileges, ceremonies, insignia, and buildings. In addition, as mentioned before, economic and religious structures also offer a constant base for the connection of the periphery with the centre. However, this connection was due to change: some elements were to be recontextualised, recombined or merged with elements from different cultural areas to create something new.12 This cauldron of elements builds one layer of Sicilian cultural heritage. From a diachronic point of view, the different overlapping layers evoke the impression of geological sedimentation, each layer beneath still visible and therefore still influential. Regarding these developments, the emergence of imperial heritage is always transcultural.13 In Sicily, the Normans absorbed the imperial heritage in a manifold and longterm process. But how did this happen? Two ways can be observed: through direct  Nolte, Imperien, p. 10.   See the articles in the volume Henry Maguire (ed.), Byzantine court culture from 829 to 1204 (Washington DC, 1997). 12   Joanna Drell, ‘Cultural syncretism and ethnic identity. The Norman “conquest” of Southern Italy and Sicily’, Journal of medieval history 25 (1999), pp. 187–202. 13  See the article of Thomas Foerster and Stefan Burkhardt in this volume. 10 11

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personal connections14 and through the effect of the impersonal transmission of media such as charters, chronicles, buildings or insignia.15 Influential persons and objects were localised in Calabria rather than in Sicily: in southern Italy a reservoir of inherited elements was kept, but it was in Sicily that imperial tendencies had an important impact. This should be understood in close connection to Roger II. His Greek educators and advisers – members of the peripheral culture – acquainted him with the imperial heritage and, therefore, introduced it to the Norman reign.16 What effect did the imperial heritage actually have? In regards to the rank of the ruler, some potentates have ruled over a huge realm and used imperial insignia for a long time, even though they did not claim a royal or imperial rank – such as the doge of Venice did. Generally speaking, former parts of an empire tend to raise the rank of their ruler to an emperor-like position because they were not only attached to some sort of imperial nostalgia, but to the dominant influence of the imperial heritage. In medieval thinking about kingship, nomen needed to correspond to potestas: king-like power was to result in a royal position and a united southern Italy provided a source of enormous power that signified potestas. According to Alexander of Telese, Henry del Vasto, dwelling on this concept, demanded Roger to be king because he ruled throughout southern Italy.17 In one charter Roger II is called ‘king of Sicily, Italy and the whole of Africa’.18 14   Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘The Greek presence in Norman Sicily. The contribution of archival material in Greek’ in Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe, The Society of Norman Italy (Leiden/Boston/Cologne, 2002), pp. 253–287. 15   Horst Enzensberger, ‘Chanceries, charters and administration in Norman Italy’, in Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe, The Society of Norman Italy (Leiden/Boston/Cologne, 2002), pp. 51–67. 16  Houben, Roger II., p. 23; Salvatore Tramontana, ‘Popolazione, distribuzione della terra e classe sociali nella Sicilia di Ruggero il Gran Conte’, in: Ruggero il Gran Conte e I’inizio dello Stato normanno (Rome, 1977), pp. 213–270, here pp. 216–239. 17   Alexandri Telesini Abbatis Ystoria Rogerii Regis Sicilie Calabrie atque Apulie, (ed.) Ludovica DeNava (Rome, 1991), lib. II, c. 1, p. 23. Translation: ‘With so many successes achieved, all the lands of Bohemond and the whole duchy seemingly in his power, the Prince of the Capuans, the Magister Militum of Naples and all the land up to the borders of the city of Ancona subject to him, and his opponents in war subdued, those close to Duke Roger, and particularly his uncle Count Henry by whom he was loved more than anyone, began very frequently to suggest to him the plan that he, who with the help of God ruled so many provinces, Sicily, Calabria, Apulia and other regions stretching almost to Rome, ought not to have just the ducal title but ought to be distinguished by the honour of kingship. They added that the centre and capital of this kingdom ought to be Palermo, the chief city of Sicily, which once, in ancient times, was believed to have had kings [who ruled] over this province; but now, many years later, was by God’s secret judgement without them’. 18   Karl Andreas Kehr, Die Urkunden der normannisch-sicilischen Könige (Innsbruck, 1902), p. 246, note 3. This formula is also an example for the imitation of the intitulatio of the

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Power, however, is not everything; some type of legitimacy is also required.19 Southern Italy was a fief granted by the pope, however Roger aimed for an independent, emperor-like kingship, as these observations may prove: the coronation ordo of the Sicilian kings reflects upon the coronation ordo of the Roman kings.20 In addition, Roger could strengthen his claim by alluding to the belief that Sicily had once been a kingdom.21 This pretension may perhaps refer Roman king: Dominus noster Sycilie et Ytalie nec non tocius Africe serenissimus et invictissimus rex a Deo coronatus, pius, felix, triumphator, semper augustus. For further examples see Houben, Roger II., p. 89, note 52. 19   Hartmut Hoffmann, ‘Langobarden, Normannen, Päpste. Zum Legitimationsproblem in Unteritalien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 58 (1978), pp. 137–180. 20   Reinhard Elze, ‘Tre ordines per l’incoronazione di un re e di una regina del regno normanno di Sicilia’, in Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Studi sulla Sicilia Normanna (Palermo, 1973), pp. 438–459, here pp. 445–452; Reinhard Elze, ‘The Ordo for the Coronation of King Roger II of Sicily. An Example of Dating from Internal Evidence’ in János M. Bak (ed.), Coronations. Medieval and early modern monarchic ritual (Berkeley, Calif. 1990), pp. 165–178. See for the description of the coronation of Roger II Alexandri Telesini Abbatis Ystoria lib. II, c. 4–6, pp. 25–26. Translation: ‘When therefore the Duke had been led to the archiepiscopal church in royal manner and had there through unction with the Holy Oil assumed the royal dignity, one cannot write down nor indeed even imagine quite how glorious he was, how regal in his dignity, how splendid in his richly-adorned apparel. For it seemed to the onlookers that all the riches and honours of this world were present. The whole city was decorated in a stupendous manner, and nowhere was there anything but rejoicing and light. The royal palace was on its interior walls gloriously draped throughout. The pavement was bestrewed with multi-coloured carpets and showed a flowing softness to the feet of those who trod there. When the King went to the church for the ceremony he was surrounded by dignitaries, and the huge number of horses which accompanied them had saddles and bridles decorated with gold and silver. Large amounts of the choicest food and drink were served to the diners at the royal table, and nothing was served except in dishes or cups of gold or silver. There was no servant there who did not wear a silk tunic – the very waiters were clad in silk clothes! What more is there to say? The glory and wealth of the royal abode was so spectacular that it caused great wonder and deep stupefaction – so great indeed that it instilled not a little fear in all those who had come from so far away. For many saw there more things even than they had heard rumoured of previously’. 21   Alexandri Telesini Abbatis Ystoria, lib. II, c. 2, pp. 23–25: After turning over in his own mind their well-intentioned and praiseworthy suggestion, he wanted to have sure and certain counsel. He journeyed back to Salerno, and just outside it he convoked some learned Churchmen and most competent persons, as well as certain princes, counts, barons and others whom he thought trustworthy to examine this secret and unlooked for matter. Examining the issue carefully they unanimously, as if with one voice, praised [this proposal] and conceded, decided and insisted with mighty prayers that Duke Roger ought to be promoted at Palermo, the chief city of Sicily, to the royal dignity since he held not only Sicily, his hereditary patrimony, but also Calabria, Apulia and other lands – not just obtained by military prowess, but which had devolved to him by right of his close relationship to the preceding dukes. For it was certain

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to the days of Dionysios or one of the Arab Emirs. Each of them had king-like dignity and power, each formed the imperial heritage of southern Italy. In addition, dynastic elements were of great importance – kinship played an essential part in establishing the Norman realm.22 At first they helped to connect the Norman invaders to the local elite and to activate the heritage of southern Italy.23 In a short time, however, the Normans developed from barbarians to quasi Lombards, as one can observe in the images of the seals. After the foundation of the Kingdom of Sicily marriages provided the wider integration of the Normans into the European high nobility and the connection of the Sicilian realm to Europe. Furthermore, the connubia helped to strengthen the foundations of the Norman monarchy. They were also the means of supporting the pseudo imperial status: the wife of Roger II, Elvira, was the daughter of Alfonso VI of León and Castile, the imperator totius hispaniae.24 In addition, Kinnamos reports that Roger demanded from the Basileus a princess for one of his sons, and to be of equal rank as the Basileus.25 However, one should probably take into consideration the impact of the imperial heritage: did the position of Roger impose throughout Sicily the image of an emperor-like monarch? Two restraints prevented Roger from becoming a real emperor: in the West, imperial rank was linked to the election of a candidate by the Roman king and to coronation by the pope. In the East, one had to control the city of Constantinople to become a real Basileus. However, in Byzantium, usurpations in the provinces provided a third way of achieving emperor-like status. Small and minimal ‘emperors’ appeared, and, even though they were not serious rivals to the true emperor in Constantinople, these little emperors seemed to have played a large role in reducing the exclusivity of the Byzantine emperor compared to that of his Western colleague. In the following the connection to the Norman rulers is given.

that kingship had once existed in that city, governing all Sicily; it seemed to have been in abeyance for a long time, but now it was right and proper that the crown should be placed on Roger’s head and that this kingdom should not only be restored but should be spread wide to include those other regions where he was now recognised as ruler’. 22   Joanna H. Drell, Kinship and conquest. Family strategies in the principality of Salerno during the Norman period. 1077–1194, (Ithaca, 2002). 23   Graham A. Loud, The age of Robert Guiscard. Southern Italy and the Norman conquest (Harlow/Munich, 2000), pp. 70–71 for the marriage of Robert Guiscard and Sichelgaita. 24   Bernard F. Reilly, The kingdom of León-Castilla under King Alfonso VI. 1065 – 1109 (Princeton, N.J., 1988), pp. 103–104. 25   John Kinnamos, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, (trans.) Charles M. Brandt (New York, 1976), lib. 3, c. 2, pp. 75–76.

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In Sicily, for instance, the last Byzantine governor Euphemios considered himself an ‘emperor’ under Arabian supremacy.26 In the Greek charters of Roger II, he applied the term “imperial” or the expression ‘my empire’ to his reign; in a preach Philatahos of Cerami named Roger II ‘Basileus’.27 Roger himself benefited from the entire inventory of imperial insignia such as mosaics, porphyry, the imperial costume with the loros, golden bulls, but also elements of the imperial ceremonies such as prostration, Greek laudes regiae and eunuchs.28 Many of the Normans’ campaigns strove for the heart of the Byzantine Empire; perhaps plundering was not the only and most important objective. Moreover, according to Anna Komnena, with regard to Robert Guiscard, this Norman duke intended to conquer Constantinople and become emperor. In addition to the fact that this story might be fictitious, it clearly shows that Robert was attached to imperial rank. All of Robert’s royal successors up to Charles of Anjou are said to have planned to conquer Constantinople. The influence of the imperial heritage was more complex and not restricted to the question of rank. Due to its many-sidedness the effects were manifold, and perhaps of greater impact on the politics of the Norman rulers than one might think. I will not discuss the difficult but very important question of the persistence of the Byzantine and Arabic element in the administration.29 I allude to the fact that there seems to be a continuous – but somehow blurred – influence from the Roman and Byzantine law and its ideas and ideals. The indicators are far reaching; from the practice of punishment (blinding, castration) to the claim of the Norman kings to judge and guarantee peace, promulgate laws for a vast

  Thomas Dittelbach, Geschichte Siziliens. Von der Antike bis heute (München, 2010),

26

p. 30.

 Houben, Roger II., p. 134.   Eve Borsook, Messages in mosaic. The royal programmes of Norman Sicily (1130– 1187) (Woodbridge, 1998); Otto Demus, The mosaics of Norman Siciliy (New York, 1950); József Deér, The dynastic porphyry tombs of the Norman period in Sicily (Cambridge, Mass. 1959); William Tronzo, ‘Byzantine Court Culture from the Point of View of Norman Sicily. The Case of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo’, in: Henry Maguire (ed.), Byzantine court culture from 829 to 1204 (Washington, DC, 1997) p. 101–14; Ernst Kantorowicz, Laudes Regiae. A study in liturgical acclamations and mediaeval ruler worship. With a study of the music of the laudes and musical transcriptions by Manfred F. Bukofzer (Berkeley, 1958), pp. 157–66. 29   David Abulafia, ‘The Italian other. Greeks, Muslims, and Jews’, in David Abulafia (ed.), Italy in the Central Middle Ages (1000 – 1300) (Oxford, 2004), pp. 215–236; Horst Enzensberger, ‘Chanceries, charters and administration in Norman Italy’, in Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe, The society of Norman Italy (Leiden/Boston/Köln, 2002), pp. 51–67. 27 28

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area and collect compilations in the tradition of the Corpus Juris.30 For Roger II we have the so-called Assizes of Ariano, which can be regarded as one of the most important legal works of the twelfth century. Another field of action that could enrich a ruler with imperial glory was church policy. The strong position of the Norman kings towards the episcopate of southern Italy supports this line of argumentation. The close cooperation of the bishops and the king mirrors the situation in late antiquity and in Byzantium.31 The dominant royal influence can be observed in the case of the Byzantine theologian Neilos Doxapatres. He challenged the supremacy of the pope over the bishoprics of southern Italy, perhaps on behalf of Roger II, which once again proves the strong connection between southern Italy and Byzantium.32 Scholars   See for these duties of an emperor P. J. Alexander, ‘The strength of Empire and Capital as seen through Byzantine eyes’, Speculum 37 (1962), pp. 339–357, here p. 348. Hugo Falcandus says that Roger was that strict because of the newness of his realm: La Historia o Liber de Regno Sicilie e la Epistola ad Petrum Panormitane Ecclesie Thesaurarium di Ugo Falcando, (ed.) G.B. Siragusa (Rome, 1897), p. 6. English translation: The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’ 1154–69, (trans.) G.A. Loud and Thomas Wiedemann (Manchester, 1998), p. 58: ‘In short, he made efforts to administer justice in its full rigour on the grounds that it was particularly necessary for a newly-established realm, and to exercise the options of peace and war by turns, with the result that he omitted nothing that virtue requires, and had no king or prince as his equal during his lifetime. Now as regards the fact that some writers categorise many of his actions as tyrannical and call him inhuman because he imposed on many men penalties that were severe and not prescribed by the laws, it is my opinion that as a prudent man who was circumspect in all things, he intentionally behaved in this way when his monarchy was only recently established so that wicked men should not be able to wheedle any impunity for their crimes; and that while those who deserved well (to whom he showed himself mild) should not be discouraged by excessive severity, there should nevertheless be no place for contempt as a result of excessive mildness. And if perhaps he seemed to have acted somewhat harshly against some, I suppose that he was forced to it by some necessity. For there was no other way in which the savagery of a rebellious people could have been suppressed, or the daring of traitors restrained’. 31   See for the history of the bishops Norbert Kamp, ‘The bishops of southern Italy in the Norman and Staufen Periods’, in Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe, The society of Norman Italy (Leiden/Boston/Köln, 2002), pp. 185–209 and especially for the history of the latin church before Norman times Graham A. Loud, The Latin Church in Norman Italy (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 10–59. 32  Houben, Roger II., p. 96 and 108: Neilos claims that after the fall of Rome the capital has lost its primacy too in favour of Constantinople:‘Das Opus ist eine historische Geographie der kirchlichen Welt, gewissermaßen ein Pendant zur Erdkunde des al-Idrīsī. Es diente wohl auch dazu, dem Papst zu zeigen, daß sein Primat keineswegs unumstritten war. Man kann nicht ausschließen, daß Roger das Werk verfassen ließ, um Rom damit zu drohen, die Bistümer seines Königreichs eventuell dem Patriarchen von Konstantinopel zu unterstellen. Ernst gemeint war aber eine solche Drohung kaum, denn dazu waren die 30

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have also argued that the Norman kings were entitled permanent papal legates – another hint to the special dignity of the Sicilian rulers.33 The legitimization for this position was the role that the Norman kings played in converting the Sicilian people and integrating the realm into the Latin Church.34 This was one of the noblest functions of an emperor. A third field of study may be found in economic structures and trade relations, very stable elements of the imperial heritage.35 Trade and taxes are of great importance because they provide the wealth needed for a magnificent imperial representation. The Norman kingdom was well known for its incredible wealth, the emperor-like grandeur blinded many – it was symbolic capital in political confrontations. One of the best indicators for the connection of symbolic and real power is the golden coins first minted under Roger II. They were not only central for emperor-like representation but also crucial for the payment of large amounts.36 Wealth played a pivotal role in maintaining military force: Beziehungen des Königs zu Byzanz zu gespannt’. See in general Graham A. Loud, ‘The papacy and the rulers of southern Italy’, in Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe, The society of Norman Italy (Leiden/Boston/Köln, 2002), pp. 185–209 and especially for the history of the latin church before Norman times Graham A. Loud, The Latin Church in Norman Italy (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 151–184. 33   See for the status of the Norman rulers József Deér, Papsttum und Normannen. Untersuchungen zu ihren lehnsrechtlichen und kirchenpolitischen Beziehungen (Cologne, 1972), pp. 164–202. 34   Gaufredus Malaterra said that Roger thought that he would have profit for his soul and his body if he could acquire the fruits and the income of the country that was occupied by people that repulse God: De Rebus Gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi Ducis fratris eius, auctore Gaufredo Malaterra, (ed.) Ernesto Pontieri (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, Bologna, 1927–8), lib. II, c. 1, p. 29). See also Romuald of Salerno which reports that Roger II had pursued the conversion of Jews and Muslims at the end of his life: Romuald of Salerno, Chronicon, (ed.) C.A. Garufi (Città di Castello, 1909–1935), p. 236: Circa finem autem vite sue secularibus negotiis aliquantulum postpositis et ommissis, Iudeos et Sarracenos ad fidem Christi convertere modis omnibus laborabat et conversis dona plurima et necessaria conferebat. See also Jeremy Johns, ‘The Greek Church and the Conversion of Muslims in Norman Sicily?’, Byzantinische Forschungen 21 (1995), pp. 133–157; Alex Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily. Arabic speakers and the end of Islam, (London, 2003); Peter Herde, ‘The Papacy and the Greek Church in southern Italy between the eleventh and the thirteenth century’, in Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe, The society of Norman Italy (Leiden/Boston/Köln, 2002), pp. 213–251. 35   This does of course not mean that trade relations did not change over time. See Houben, Roger II., p. 14. 36   See David Abulafia, ‘The Crown and the Economy under Roger II and His Successors’, Dumbarton Oaks papers 37 (1983), pp. 1–14, see for the gold coinage especially p. 5: ‘the profits from the grain trade with Africa seem to be visible in the coined gold of

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the mercenary troops of Norman Sicily exceeded feudal papal and imperial forces.37 The availability of strong forces for a longer time than the forces of their adversaries was – apart from geographical factors (the ‘splendid isolation’ of Sicily) – one of the main stabilising factors of the Norman rule. Economic and trade relations, in general, also influenced the Norman expansion. The ways of trade prefigured the streets of war.38 However, economic interests could also limit the risk of military interventions: hence, this must be considered as the background for the anecdote describing Roger II’s rude response to a request to initiate war with northern Africa.39 In addition, mediators between different worlds crossed the borders along the lines of travel and commerce, introducing information and knowledge from all over the Mediterranean. The Norman policy of pragmatic tolerance is to be localised within the wider context of these developments.40 The Norman realm was not some sort of home of the terreur du monde, but rather an empire keeping peace and enabling exchange. Two facts substantiate the influence of an imperial paradigm on Norman actions in southern Italy: firstly, the policy of Roger II was interpreted as being ‘imperial’; Alexander of Telese described the conquest of Naples by implicitly connecting the Roman rule of the city with the Norman victory.41 Furthermore, the Regno’ and also Robert S. Lopez, ‘Settecento anni fa: il ritorno all’oro nell’occidente ducentesco’, Rivista storica italiana 45 (1953), pp. 19–55, 161–198. 37   The organization of warfare – especially the use of mercenaries – is another element of the imperial heritage. 38   David Abulafia, ‘The Norman kingdom of Africa and the Norman expeditions to Majorca and the Muslim Mediterranean’, Anglo-Norman Studies. Proceedings of the Battle Conference 7 (1984, 1985), pp. 26–49. See also Alexandri Telesini Abbatis Ystoria lib. I, c. 4, p. 8. Translation: ‘When he had become a young man and been made a knight, and was thus in a position to exercise his rights as lord, he showed such activity and demonstrated such admirable firmness, ruling the whole province of Sicily so well and strongly, and exercising such terrible authority over all that no robber, thief, plunderer or other malefactor dared to stir out of his lair. He was most richly endowed with gold, silver and other goods, and this led all to hold him in the greatest awe. Not only his own people but foreignors from faraway lands feared him greatly. He conquered other islands, one of which was called Malta. It was his firm intention to occupy other islands and lands’. This shows clearly the two main dynamics of an empire: peace inwards, expansion outwards. 39  Houben, Roger II., p. 19. 40   Hubert Houben, ‘Religious toleration in the south Italian peninsula during the Norman and Staufen periods’, in Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe, The society of Norman Italy (Leiden/Boston/Köln, 2002), pp. 319–339. 41   Alexandri Telesini Abbatis Ystoria, lib. II, c. 12, p. 24. Translation: ‘While he was staying there the Magister Militum of the city of Naples, by name Sergius, realising that in Roger there was such mighty strength and valour, went to him, constrained not by warlike

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in 1135 during the assembly of Merseburg, the Byzantines and Venetians accused Roger of having ‘grabbed’ Africa – ‘the third part of the world’ – and of having it stolen from the Byzantine emperor.42 A second aspect might be the covetous imperial and papal struggle for the rule of southern Italy. In doing so, they not only attempted to gain access to Sicily’s prosperity, but also to elimate an independent, insolent and therefore dangerous ruler who pretended to be in a king-like, or even emperor-like position.43 Moreover, the continuity of administrative, economic and religious structures offered bridgeheads enabling the Byzantine emperor to intervene in Roger’s realm.44 The Norman nobility, unsatisfied with the current political situation, were approached by foreign conquerors looking for allies. More specifically, the nobles came into conflict with the autocratic behaviour of the Norman kings. Their disagreement was probably aggravated by differing notions of monarchical power: the strong focus on rank, almost an exaggerated claim, seems to have contradicted with Norman traditions. Some of these Norman traditions corresponded to necessities in ruling southern Italy: cleverness and pragmatism helped handle the complexly interwoven layers of the southern Italian heritage. Greed and an enterprising spirit enabled the Normans to benefit from existing structures and ways of communication. Another factor of Norman tradition seems to be the unsteadiness of political organization and the strong position of the second tier. The imperial heritage of southern Italy enhanced the position of the king to an overly glorified and sacralised ruler, aggravating the conflicts with the potentates. The connective feature of these two dimensions became apparent in the strange narration of means but by fear alone, and surrended to him lordship over this city which, amazing to say, after the Roman Empire has never been subjected by the sword. Now he surrended it to Roger, constrained by word alone’. See also lib. III, c. 19, pp. 60–61. Translation: ‘It was a most ancient city which Aeneas was said to have founded when he had landed there on his voyage: it was of great size and was defended on its southern flank not only by the height of its walls but by the Tyrhenian Sea. On its other sides it was protected by very high walls. Because of this it was considered to be unstormable, and indeed impregnable except for the danger of famine. Once upon a time the ruler of the city, by the order of Octavianus Augustus, had been Virgil, the greatest of poets, and in it he had composed a huge volume of verses in hexameters’. 42   ‘S. Petri Erphesfurtensis continuatio Ekkehardi’, in Monumenta Erphesfurtensia saec. XII., XIII., XIV., (ed.) O. Holder-Egger (Hanover/Leipzig 1899), pp. 34–44, here p. 42. 43   Dione Clementi, ‘The relations between the papacy, the western roman empire and the emergent kingdom of Sicily and Southern Italy 1050–1156’, Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo 80 (1968), pp. 191–212. 44   Paul Magdalino, The empire of Manuel I Komnenos 1143 – 1180 (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 83–95. One of the Byzantine bridgeheads was Brindisi as the invasion of Byzantine troops in the time of William I shows. See Falcandus, History, c. 3, p. 14.

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Richard of Cluny. According to him, Roger had killed or expelled all noblemen from his kingdom and then extorted the imperial crown from the pope.45 In the eyes of some of their subjects and many other monarchs, the Norman kings acted like Sicilian tyrants – comparable to Verres and Dionysius. But did the Sicilian sun cause all Norman tradition to dry out and diminish just as the northern plants did in the garden of the prince of Salina in Tomasi di Lampedusas Gattopardo? Not at all. The so-called ‘Normans’ seemed to be strongly connected with France, perhaps because they felt more French than Viking, and thus they initiated a strong process of Latinization that altered the imperial heritage in a far-reaching way: religion, economy and society – flows and structures of communication – changed.46 Southern Italy became a realm of its own and Sicily opened up to Latin Europe.47 The Sicilian kings themselves increasingly turned into members of the European ‘royal society’ as advocati papae and ideal crusaders.48 German, French and Spanish dynasties inherited the Norman kings. The multilayered sediments of Sicily’s imperial heritage, enriched with Norman stratifications, continued to have an effect that was in some ways intoxicating: Frederick II, the grandson of Roger II, became emperor and all of his successors, including Henry VII, strove for dominance over southern Italy: Sicilia capta ferum victorem cepit.

  Richard of Cluny, ‘Ex Richardi Pictaviensis Chronica’, (ed.) G. Waitz, in MGH SS 26 (Hannover, 1882), pp. 74–86, here: 80f. 46   See Graham A. Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman conquest of southern Italy?’, in Graham A. Loud (ed.), Conquerors and churchmen in Norman Italy (Aldershot, 1999), pp. 13–34. 47   Carlrichard Brühl/Albrecht Noth, Urkunden und Kanzlei König Rogers II. von Sizilien, Cologne 1978, pp. 36–55 for the chancery of Roger II; see also for the general development Erich Caspar, Roger II. (1101 – 1154) und die Gründung der normannischsicilischen Monarchie, Innsbruck 1904, pp. 328–434. At the court of Roger II French seemed to be the common language see Houben, Roger II., pp. 114–15. Hugo Falcandus, p. 6 reports that Roger held transalpines in high regards. Translation, p. 58: ‘When he heard that any persons were either effective counsellors or famous warriors, he would honour them with gifts to encourage their virtue. Since he derived his own origin from the Normans and knew that the French race excelled all others in the glory of war, he chose to favour and honour those from north of the Alps particularly’. 48   Timothy Reuter, Vom Parvenü zum Bündnispartner. Das Königreich Sizilien in der abendländischen Politik des 12. Jahrhunderts, in Theo Kölzer (ed.), Die Staufer im Süden. Sizilien und das Reich (Sigmaringen, 1996), pp. 43–56. 45

Chapter 8

Imperial Tradition and Norman Heritage: Cultures of Violence and Cruelty Thomas Foerster

‘Tears at first are followed by a better fortune’. This Ovidian quotation is used by a late twelfth century chronicler to tell the history of Emperor Henry VI of Hohenstaufen and his conquest of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily.1 This kingdom, which the emperors had claimed since the time of Charlemagne, was conquered in 1194 and, as another chronicler remarks, ‘reduced to a province of the empire’.2 Henry had renewed the old imperial claim on the basis of his wife Constance’s hereditary rights. A first attempted conquest failed in 1191, but better fortune followed three years later, when the rival king Tancred of Lecce was dead and Henry, with much less resistance, could conquer the kingdom. Henry’s rule in the South in many sources, and in modern historiography as well, is characterized by excessive cruelty. In historical research this emperor is often overshadowed by his father, Frederick I Barbarossa and by his son, Frederick II. The only light in this shade appears to be the sparks and glowing of a red-hot iron crown, which he is said to have nailed to the head of a usurper.3 This captivating image has fascinated historians for centuries and has even served

1   Historia de expeditione Friderici imperatoris, in Anton Chroust (ed.), Quellen zur Geschichte des Kreuzzuges Kaiser Friedrichs I., Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, n. s., 5 (Berlin, 1928), pp. 1–115, p. 110: Prius tamen de victoria invicti imperatoris Heinrici non est tacendum, quod, sicut dicit sapiens: flebile principium melior fortuna sequitur [cf. Ovid, Metam., 7, 518], strenuus triumphator triste initium quod in Neapolitana obsidione occurerat, lęto fine commutavit. For a translation, see The Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa: The Expedition of the Emperor Frederick and Related Texts, (trans.) Graham A. Loud, Crusade Texts in Translation, 19 (Farnham, 2010), here p. 130. 2   Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, (ed.) Adolf Hofmeister, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, 47 (Hanover, 1912), chap. 39: in provincia redacta. 3   Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 39. The image of that crown as being red-hot was added in later tradition.

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as a more captivating title for popular books on the age of the Hohenstaufen.4 Cruelty and violence are often found in medieval history, in an age that is still repeatedly called the ‘Dark Ages’.5 Historical representations of these phenomena have received much attention in modern scholarship.6 Recent studies point to a development in the twelfth century in particular in which violence and cruelty went through a basic process of change and recovery.7 In this regard, the violent rule of Henry VI must also be interpreted.8 However, many contemporary texts still reveal an attitude of awe about his implementation of cruelty. Such incidents are even reported in chronicles that can be seen as panegyric for Henry.9   Dieter Breuers, Die glühende Krone. Die Staufer und ihre Zeit (Bergisch Gladbach, 2002). 5   Günther Mensching, ‘Vorwort’, in Günther Mensching (ed.), Gewalt und ihre Legitimation im Mittelalter, Contradictio, 1 (Würzburg, 2003), pp. 9–12, here p. 10. Cf. Jan Rüdiger, ‘Gewalt im Kontext der Kulturen: Prolog’, in Michael Borgolte, Juliane Schiel, Bernd Schneidmüller and Annette Seitz (eds), Mittelalter im Labor. Die Mediävistik testet Wege zu einer transkulturellen Europawissenschaft, Europa im Mittelalter, 10 (Berlin, 2008), pp. 306–14, here p. 306. 6   Thomas Scharff, ‘Reden über den Krieg: Darstellungsformen und Funktionen des Krieges in der Historiographie des Frühmittelalters’, in Manuel Braun and Cornelia Herberichs (eds), Gewalt im Mittelalter. Realitäten – Imaginationen (Munich, 2005), pp. 65–80; Manuel Braun, Cornelia Herberichs, ‘Gewalt im Mittelalter: Überlegungen zu ihrer Erforschung’, in Braun and Herberichs (2005), pp. 7–37; Lauro Martines, ‘Introduction: The Historical Approach to Violence’, in Lauro Martines (ed.), Violence and Civil Disorder in Italian Cities 1200–1500, UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Contributions, 5 (Berkeley, 1972), pp. 3–18; for a distinction between violence and cruelty, see Daniel Baraz, Medieval Cruelty. Changing Perceptions, Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. Conjunctions of Religion & Power in the Medieval Past (Ithaca, 2003); Baraz, ‘Violence or Cruelty? An Intercultural Perspective’, in Mark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery and Oren Falk (eds), ‘A Great Effusion of Blood’? Interpreting Medieval Violence (Toronto, 2004), pp. 164–89; see also Thomas Foerster, ‘Gewalt im Kontext der Kulturen: Gewalthöhepunkte: Einleitung’, in Borgolte, Juliane Schiel, Bernd Schneidmüller and Annette Seitz (eds), Mittelalter im Labor. Die Mediävistik testet Wege zu einer transkulturellen Europawissenschaft (Berlin, 2008), pp. 496–98); for violence as part of political culture see Martines, ‘Introduction’, pp. 13–17. 7  Baraz, Cruelty, pp. 75–90; Udo Friedrich, ‘Die Zähmung des Heros: Der Diskurs der Gewalt und Gewaltregulierung im 12. Jahrhundert’, in Jan-Dirk Müller and Horst Wenzel (eds), Mittelalter: Neue Wege durch einen alten Kontinent (Stuttgart, 1999), pp. 149–79, here p. 152; and Thomas N. Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government (Princeton, NJ, 2008), pp. 278–88. 8   See also Knut Görich, Die Staufer: Herrscher und Reich, Beck’sche Reihe (Munich, 2006), pp. 77–79. 9   Cf. Godfrey of Viterbo, Gesta Heinrici VI., (ed.) Georg Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 22 (Hanover, 1872), pp. 334–38, lines 130–35. Many 4

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Violence as part of political culture is no easy matter to detect in the sources. However, in one respect, detailed information can be found and discussed: the dealing with and treatment of the political opponent,10 particularly in captivity. During the conquest of Sicily hostages were taken, traitors and conspirators were incarcerated and the defeated royal family was imprisoned.11 As a case study, Henry’s conquest and rule of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily reveals a great deal of information regarding the hybridization of political culture. A few of these developments shall be highlighted in this article. Immediately following his imperial coronation Henry invaded the Norman Kingdom of Sicily to enforce, as he himself stated, both the imperial and the hereditary claim of his wife Constance.12 Tancred, however, could mobilize the resistance in the kingdom, and during a siege of Naples in 1191 Henry’s campaign came to a stand-still. An epidemic forced the emperor to abandon the siege and to withdraw to Germany, leaving behind his spouse, who had been captured by the Salernitans and several German military commanders with the orders to continue the war against Tancred. This invasion can be seen as an imperial campaign. This is also evident when examining the modes of political culture applied, particularly in the treatment of the political opponent. As recent scholarship has pointed out, hostagetaking had been a very common political instrument in conflicts and served to secure peace throughout the Middle Ages.13 Hostages were mostly treated Italian chroniclers, on the other hand, still apply the old notion of the furor Theutonicus to their narrative as an explanation of the enemy’s cruelty; see e.g. Annales Casinenses, (ed.) Georg Heinrich Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores 19, (Hanover, 1866), pp. 303–20, ad a. 1192. Cf. Francesco Giunta, ‘Sul ‘furor theutonicus’ in Sicilia al tempo di Enrico VI’, in Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi Ruggeriani (2 vols, Palermo, 1955), vol. 2, pp. 433–53. 10   See generally Matthew Strickland, ‘Killing or Clemency? Ransom, Chivalry and Changing Attitudes to Defeated Opponents in Britain and Northern France, 7–12th centuries’, in Hans-Henning Kortüm (ed.), Krieg im Mittelalter (Berlin, 2001), pp. 93–122; John Gillingham, ‘Killing and Mutilating Political Enemies in the British Isles from the Late Twelfth to the Early Fourteenth Century: A Comparative Study’, in Brendan Smith (ed.), Britain and Ireland 900–1300: Insular Responses to Medieval European Change (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 114–34. 11   Cf. the overview in Evelyn Jamison, Admiral Eugenius of Sicily: His Life and Work and the Authorship of the Epistola ad Petrum and the Historia Hugonis Falcandi Siculi (London, 1957), pp. 154–56. 12   Thomas Foerster, ‘Romanorum et regni Sicilie imperator: Zum Anspruch Kaiser Heinrichs VI. auf das normannische Königreich Sizilien’, Archiv für Diplomatik, 54 (2008): pp. 37–46, here pp. 39–45. 13   Martin Kintzinger, ‘Geiseln und Gefangene im Mittelalter: Zur Entwicklung eines politischen Instrumentes’, in Andreas Gestrich, Gerhard Hirschfeld and Holger Sonnabend

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honourably and were allowed a certain amount of freedom; only in cases of a breach of agreement would they suffer the harsher conditions of detention or even corporal punishments.14 Against this backdrop it is evident that during his campaign in 1191 Henry closely adhered to the aforementioned traditions of political culture.15 During the initial successes in the campaign hostages were mostly likely taken in the defeated cities and castles, namely in Rocca d’Arce, Sora, Atina and, most prominently, Salerno.16 This can be no more than an assumption, however, since the sources do not provide detailed and explicit information in this respect. Nevertheless, Henry’s adherence to northern traditions may be illustrated by one example of a very prominent captive. In one important charter issued in 1191 for the Abbey of Montecassino he discussed his aforementioned actual claim to the Kingdom of Sicily.17 This monastery, called a specialis imperialis camera18 by Henry, had been one of the most important imperial supporters in central Italy. However, the abbot had, in 1190, sworn allegiance to Tancred. Roffred of Insula had acted as abbot of Montecassino since 1188 and had later been elected cardinal priest of SS. Marcelino e Pietro.19 When Tancred was made king, Roffred hesitated at first, probably because of the clear alignments within (eds) Ausweisung und Deportation: Formen der Zwangsmigration in der Geschichte, Stuttgarter Beiträge zur historischen Migrationsforschung, 2 (Stuttgart, 1995), pp. 41–59, here p. 59. 14   Cf. generally Kintzinger, ‘Geiseln’, pp. 44–47; Adam J. Kosto, ‘Hostages and the Habit of Representation in Thirteenth-Century Occitania’, in Robert F. Berkhofer III, Alan Cooper and Adam J. Kosto (eds), The Experience of Power in Medieval Europe, 950– 1350 (Aldershot, 2005), pp. 183–93, pp. 141–47; cf. generally Hannelore Zug Tucci, ‘Kriegsgefangenschaft im Mittelalter: Probleme und erste Forschungsergebnisse’, in HansHenning Kortüm (ed.), Krieg im Mittelalter (Berlin, 2001), pp. 123–40. 15   Gerd Althoff, Die Macht der Rituale: Symbolik und Herrschaft im Mittelalter (Darmstadt, 2003), pp. 156–57. 16   Peter Csendes, Heinrich VI., Gestalten des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (Darmstadt, 1993), p. 100. See also the list of conquered cities in Die Regesten des Kaiserreiches unter Heinrich VI. 1165 (1190) – 1197, (ed.) Gerhard Baaken ( J.F. Böhmer, Regesta Imperii IV: Lothar III und ältere Staufer, Abt. 3), vol. 1 (Cologne, 1972); vol. 2 (Cologne, 1979), no 378 [henceforth: RI IV, 3]: Melfi, Potenza, Barletta, Bari, Molfetta, Giovinazzo, Siponto and Trani. 17   RI IV, 3, no. 152. 18   RI IV, 3, no. 389–391; cf. the note in RI IV, 3, no. 390. 19   Klaus Ganzer, Die Entwicklung des auswärtigen Kardinalats im Hohen Mittelalter. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Kardinalskollegiums vom 11. bis 13. Jahrhundert, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 26 (Tübingen, 1963), p. 141. See also Werner Maleczek, Papst und Kardinalskolleg von 1191 bis 1216: Die Kardinäle unter Coelestin III. und Innocenz III., Publikationen des Historischen Instituts beim Österreichischen Kulturinstitut in Rom. I. Abteilung, Abhandlungen, 6 (Vienna, 1984), p. 68.

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the abbey. Richard of San Germano reports that it was only after Tancred finally secured his kingship that Roffred changed his mind.20 When Henry approached with his army in 1191, Roffred was ill, but the men of San Germano urged the abbot to swear allegiance to the emperor.21 Even so, this support of Henry’s declared enemy, which could have alienated the specialis imperialis camera, could not be left unpunished by the emperor. Roffred was imprisoned by German troops and brought to Germany. In his place the dean and Hohenstaufen stalwart Adenulf was put in charge of the monastery. The fact that Roffred witnessed some of Henry’s charters on the way north shows that he had not been held in a dungeon, but rather in honourable and open custody and perhaps even as a hostage rather than as an imprisoned opponent. In 1193 Roffred returned to his abbey.22 Thenceforth he was most loyal to Henry and fought in many wars against Tancred in Northern Apulia, there joining the campaigns of Berthold of Künßberg and Diepold of Schweinspeunt.23 When Henry entered the kingdom in 1194, he was given a magnificent reception by Roffred.24 The abbot even preceded Henry’s army during the conquest in order to accept the various cities’ submission.25 During Henry’s solemn Christmas court in Palermo 1194, Roffred was rewarded: the only three charters preserved from this court were all in favour of Montecassino, because he was ‘well aware of [Roffred’s] loyalty in our activities and the successes of the empire’.26 Roffred was therefore clearly kept in honourable captivity, which left the option open to change his allegiance to Henry again and later even become one of the most loyal followers of the emperor in Italy. He was probably released some time in 1192. When Roffred returned to Italy, he first had to leave his brother

  Richard of San Germano, Chronica, (ed.) Carlo Alberto Garufi, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 7, 2 (Bologna, 1938), ad a. 1190. 21   Richard of San Germano, Chronica, ad a. 1191: Tunc enim dictus Roffridus Casinensis abbas in monasterio Casinensi graviter infirmabatur, quem urgentibus ipsis hominibus Sancti Germani, oportuit ipsi Imperatori iurare. 22   Richard of San Germano, Chronica, ad a. 1193: Roffridus dictus Casinensis abbas de Alemannia rediens, relicto ibidem obside Gregorio germano suo. 23   Summarizing: Csendes, Heinrich VI., pp. 134–35. 24   Richard of San Germano, Chronica, ad a. 1194. 25   Richard of San Germano, Chronica, ad a. 1194: dicto Casinensi abbate preeunte; Ganzer, Entwicklung, pp. 141–44; cf. Gerhard Baaken, ‘Das sizilische Königtum Heinrichs VI.’, Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, germanistische Abteilung, 112 (1995): pp. 202–44, here pp. 210–11 and pp. 218–19. 26   RI IV, 3, no. 389–91; the quotation 390: Roffredi abbatis eiusdem ecclesie cuius devotionem in agendis nostris et imperii efficacem sumus experti. 20

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Gregory behind.27 Whether it was due to his brother being kept as a hostage, or to a real change of allegiance that made Roffred one of the most important supporters of Henry’s claim in Sicily is anyone’s guess. At any rate, in this respect his case may serve as an example for the treatment of captives and hostages during Henry’s first attempted conquest in 1191. It is evident that in this year Henry widely followed well-established western and northern European traditions of political culture and of conflict resolution. These traditions were also followed in his reconciliation with Henry the Lion,28 and Richard the Lionheart’s famous captivity in Germany has also been interpreted in recent scholarship in similar terms. Richard hardly endured any violent treatment, and his release was rather characterized by amicitia.29 Again, following long-standing traditions, upon his release hostages were exchanged.30 Political culture in Norman Sicily was entirely different. Christoph Reisinger acknowledges that ‘Tancred at times combined the means of violence and inviting offers’,31 but this was not the basic character of his rule. Tancred generally adhered to the particular political traditions of Norman Sicily that had developed during the twelfth century and that were essentially based on violence and at times cruelty. In a recent study, Theo Broekmann has fundamentally examined this particular Norman tradition of the rigor iustitiae.32 Whereas in other medieval kingdoms the notions of pax dei and chivalric ideals had led to   Richard of San Germano, Chronica, ad a. 1193: Roffridus dictus Casinensis abbas de Alemannia rediens, relicto ibidem obside Gregorio germano suo. 28   Stefan Weinfurter, ‘Erzbischof Philipp von Köln und der Sturz Heinrichs des Löwen’, in Stefan Weinfurter, Helmuth Kluger, Hubertus Seibert and Werner Bomm (eds), Gelebte Ordnung – Gedachte Ordnung: Ausgewählte Beiträge zu König, Kirche und Reich (Ostfildern, 2005), pp. 335–61, here pp. 353–54; and Stefan Weinfurter, ‘Investitur und Gnade: Überlegungen zur gratialen Herrschaftsordnung im Mittelalter’, in Marion Steinicke and Stefan Weinfurter (eds), Investitur- und Krönungsrituale. Herrschaftseinsetzungen im kulturellen Vergleich (Cologne, 2005), pp. 105–23, here pp. 105–6. Generally see Gerd Althoff, ‘Konfliktverhalten und Rechtsbewußtsein: Die Welfen im 12. Jahrhundert’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 26 (1992): pp. 331–52. For Henry’s administration in Germany, see Ingeborg Seltmann, ‘Formen der Herrschaftsausübung in Deutschland unter Heinrich VI.’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 36 (1985): pp. 761–69. 29   Knut Görich, ‘Verletzte Ehre: König Richard Löwenherz als Gefangener Kaiser Heinrichs VI.’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 123 (2003): pp. 65–91. 30   Roger of Howden, Chronica, (ed.) William Stubbs, Rerum Britannicarum medii ævi scriptores, 51, vol. 3 (London, 1870), vol. 4 (London, 1871), here vol. 3, p. 300. 31   Christoph Reisinger, Tankred von Lecce. Normannischer König von Sizilien 1190–1194, Kölner Historische Abhandlungen, 38 (Cologne, 1992), p. 222: ‘Zuweilen kombinierte Tankred die Mittel der Gewalt und der verlockenden Angebote’. 32   Theo Broekmann, ‘Rigor iustitiae’. Herrschaft, Recht und Terror im normannischstaufischen Sizilien (1050–1250), Symbolische Kommunikation in der Vormoderne 27

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consensual and rather peaceful models of conflict resolution,33 the Hauteville kings enforced their power and their comprehension of justice with terror and rigour. The southern Italian chronicler Hugo Falcandus on occasion asserts that this cruelty and violence is, in fact, the only possibility to ascertain the king’s power against opposing noblemen.34 In Norman Sicily, therefore, corporal punishment was common political practice. After both Tancred and his son Roger had died, Henry’s second campaign to the south met with considerably less resistance: Naples, Tancred’s adamant stronghold in 1191, was taken with ease and the army marched on to Salerno.35 For having captured the empress and surrendered her to Tancred, the city would have to fear the worst. The account by the quite well-informed Roger of Howden reads: ‘and because the people of Salerno had behaved treacherously towards him, as above stated, in delivering the empress Constance into the hands of king Tancred, to avenge the said betrayal he either put to death all the more powerful citizens of that city, or else condemned them to exile, and put up their wives and children for sale to his troops’.36 It is explicitly stated that this city was destroyed and plundered and her citizens enslaved in revenge for Constance’s

(Darmstadt, 2005). Interestingly, Broekmann examines these notions for the eras of the Hauteville kings and Frederick II, but only marginally for Henry VI. 33   Cf. basically Gerd Althoff ’s works on the ‘Rules of the Game’ and on conflict resolution: Gerd Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter. Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde (Darmstadt, 1997); as well as on rituals: Althoff, Macht der Rituale. Cf. furthermore John Gillingham, ‘Civilizing the English? The English Histories of William of Malmesbury and David Hume’, Historical Research, 74 (2001): pp. 17–43, and Althoff, ‘Killing’. See also Bisson, Crisis, pp. 1–21. 34   La ‘Historia’ o ‘Liber de Regno Sicilie’ e la Epistola ad Petrum Panormitane Ecclesie Thesaurarium di Ugo Falcando, (ed.) Gian Battista Siragusa, Fonti per la Storia d’Italia, 22, (Rome 1897), p. 6: nec enim aliter rebellis populi ferocitas conteri aut proditum poterat audacia coerceri; cf. Broekmann, Rigor iustitie, pp. 119–23. 35   For Henry’s itinerary cf. Dione R. Clementi, ‘Some Unnoticed Aspects of the Emperor Henry’s Conquest of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 36 (1953/54): pp. 328–59, here pp. 348–54; cf. the old but still valuable account by Theodor Toeche, Kaiser Heinrich VI., Jahrbücher der deutschen Geschichte 18 (Leipzig, 1867), here pp. 195–202; and furthermore Csendes, Heinrich VI., pp. 148–52. 36   Roger of Howden, Chronica, vol. 3, pp. 268–69: Et quia Salernitani proditiose egerant adversus eum, ut supra dictum est, tradentes Constantiam imperatricem in manu Regis Tankredi, in vindictam illius proditionis, omnes illius civitatis potentiores aut morti tradidit, in exilium damnatos relegavit, et uxores et filias eorum exposuit exercitui. (Trans.) The Annals of Roger of Howden, (trans.) Henry T. Riley (London, 1853), vol. 2, p. 340.

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captivity. This is also confirmed by other sources.37 One German chronicler even accuses the entire city of lese majesty: ‘He ordered Salerno, the most powerful city of Apulia, to be deprived of all its honour and glory and its inhabitants to be expelled, in punishment for it having previously injured the majesty of the imperial dignity’.38 Henry’s cruelty in this city was therefore, if not excused, at least comprehensible to both German and Italian sources as well as English ones. In this respect, we cannot assume that Henry adhered to one certain tradition of political culture; similar procedures could be expected throughout twelfth century Europe. Frederick Barbarossa’s destruction of Milan is only one example that recently has been convincingly explained in terms of the emperor’s honor. Knut Görich has stressed honour as one fundamental motive in the noble society of the twelfth century and particularly in the politics of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.39 Defending this honour often resulted in violence and cruelty. In the late years of Barbarossa’s reign the concept of honour was gradually replaced by that of the law.40 However, throughout the high Middle Ages ‘the maintenance of honour and status is the concern, rather than the increase of peace in the abstract’.41 One might assume that the notions of honour, combined with that of the law, prevailed and were still of major importance for Frederick’s son Henry VI in 1194. After the destruction of Salerno, Henry’s army moved on to Palermo. Queen Sibylla brought her son, King William III, and the royal treasury to Caltabellotta Castle. Henry sent Count Richard of Carinola to her in order to negotiate the surrender, to which she soon agreed.42 On 20 November 1194 Henry celebrated a triumphal entry into Palermo, which in modern scholarship is generally 37   Annales Ceccanenses, (ed.) Georg Heinrich Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 19 (Hanover, 1866), pp. 275–302, ad a. 1194: pro vindicta uxoris suae, quam dederant regi Tancredo. 38   Historia de expeditione Friderici, pp. 107–8: Salernum munitissimam civitatem Apulię quę prius imperatorię dignitatis maiestatem lęserat, omni honore et gloria sua privatam et incolis suis denudatam cepit. (Trans.) Loud, Crusade, 129. 39   Knut Görich, Die Ehre Friedrich Barbarossas. Kommunikation, Konflikt und politisches Handeln im 12. Jahrhundert, Symbolische Kommunikation in der Vormoderne (Darmstadt, 2001). 40  Görich, Die Ehre Friedrich Barbarossas, pp. 327–30. 41   Richard W. Kaeuper, ‘Chivalry and the “Civilizing Process”’, in Richard W. Kaeuper (ed.), Violence in Medieval Society (Rochester, NY, 2000), pp. 21–35, here p. 34. 42   For an overview see Thomas Foerster, ‘The Carmen Ceccanense: An Early 13th Century Poem on the Kingdom of Sicily’ [forthcoming]. In the account of Roger of Howden the surrender in Palermo was peaceful and honorable, cf. Roger of Howden, Chronica, vol. 3, pp. 269–70.

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interpreted as the ritualistic demonstration of the Hohenstaufen takeover.43 The Hauteville dynasty had ended; Henry was king of Sicily; the unio regni ad imperium was reality. Some time after this, Henry wrote a circular letter, probably in numerous copies,44 one of which has been preserved.45 This letter reads: by God’s grace we peacefully possess the whole Kingdom of Sicily and Apulia. But then some magnates of the kingdom, who at first had sternly been opposing us, and whom we had restored to our favour, these have ambushed us with abominable treachery against our person. But since there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed,46 God’s grace made their treachery being detected, and some of the traitors convicted of their betrayal, and so all of them on our orders were simultaneously captured and put in irons.47

This alleged conspiracy has long been discussed in modern scholarship.48 In his panegyric Liber ad honorem augusti, Peter of Eboli reports and discusses these incidents in detail. He relates that at first Henry would not even believe in the news that letters had been found that revealed the alleged conspiracy.49   Baaken, ‘Königtum’, pp. 212–31; Csendes, Heinrich VI., pp. 152–53; Thomas Ertl, ‘Der Regierungsantritt Heinrichs VI. im Königreich Sizilien 1194: Gedanken zur zeremoniellen Bewältigung der unio regni ad imperium’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 37 (2003): pp. 259–89; Ertl, ‘Otto von St. Blasien rekonstruiert den triumphalen Einzug Heinrichs VI. in Palermo (1194)’, Römische Historische Mitteilungen, 43 (2001): pp. 227–56. 44  Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, p. 130. 45   Henry VI to Archbishop Walter of Rouen, San Marco d’Alunzio, 1195 January 20 (RI IV,3, no. 401, print: Radulph of Diceto, Ymagines Historiarum, (ed.) William Stubbs, Rerum Britannicarum medii ævi scriptores, 68, vol. 2 (London, 1876), p. 125. 46   Cf. Mt 10, 26 and Lk 12, 2. 47   Henry VI to Archbishop Walter of Rouen: significamus discretioni tue, quod nos per Dei gratiam totum regnum Sicilie et Apulie in pace possidemus. Cum autem quidam magnates regni, qui nobis satis contrarii primo existerunt, gratiam nostram recuperassent, ipsi postmodum nefandam proditionem contra personam nostram machinati sunt. Sed quia nichil opertum quod non reveletur gratia Dei proditio illa fuit detecta et quorundam proditorum proditione manifesta, unde omnes eos pariter iussimus captivari et in vinculis detineri. 48   See e.g. Theo Kölzer, ‘Sizilien und das Reich im ausgehenden 12. Jahrhundert’, in Historisches Jahrbuch, 110 (1990): pp. 3–22, here p. 15 (based on the interpretations of Francesco Giunta, ‘Sul furor theutonicus’). 49   Peter von Eboli, Liber ad honorem Augusti sive de rebus Siculis: Codex 120 II der Burgerbibliothek Bern. Eine Bilderchronik der Stauferzeit, (ed.) Theo Kölzer and Marlis Stähli (Sigmaringen, 1994), part. XLII: ducit et in dubiam verba relata fidem. Cf. Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, p. 134. 43

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Several sources report these events.50 Godfrey of Viterbo tells how ‘the palatine counts, convened like that, Margaritus, and the little king thus united, and other magnates firmly bound together, have sworn to kill the emperor’.51 Henry’s reaction to this conspiracy is discussed in most sources. Both Italian and German chroniclers relate the almost excessive cruelty with which the alleged conspirators were punished. Even the panegyric Gesta Heinrici VI, most likely written by Henry’s teacher and tutor Godfrey of Viterbo, report Henry’s reaction to the event: the worst traitors were eradicated. The Count of Balbano he cast into the sea, some the emperor had deprived of their lives, so that peace and harmony would prevail in everything. On the gallows he put the count of Acerra; some he killed by the sword, some by the saw. Some he deprived of their eyesight.52

Whereas in Godfrey’s account Henry has already been described as a ruler who took good notice of the rigor iustitiae, who deployed cruelty only in a just cause, Peter of Eboli, on the other hand, disagrees with most other chroniclers and relates that at first Henry wanted to be mild and delayed the deserved (meritum) punishment.53 Some sources, however, do not mention any conspiracy at all, and thus the captivity of the nobles appears as mere despotism on Henry’s part.54 Sicardus of Cremona only notes that Henry imprisoned Margaritus of Brindisi ‘and whoever else he wanted to’.55 Neither does the early thirteenth century French Carmen Ceccanense mention any cause for Henry’s actions (namely the taking of Tancred’s family captive), simply asking: ‘Why do you ask after the very miserable sorrow of these children? Do you not know the deceits in the German   As a collection of sources still useful: Toeche, Kaiser Heinrich VI., pp. 573–86. For a discussion see Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, pp. 345–49. 51   Godfrey of Viterbo, Gesta Heinrici VI, lines 145–48: Palatini comites simul congregati, / Margaritus, regulus simul sociati, / Et magnates alii firmiter firmati, / Cesarem occidere ita sunt iurati. Cf. also Annales Casinenses, ad a. 1195. 52   Godfrey of Viterbo, Gesta Heinrici VI, lines 129–35: Proditores pessimos cuntos estirpare. / Balbanensem comitem proiecit in mare, / Quosdam fecit cesar vivos decortare, / Pacem cum concordia omnibus prestare. / Ponit in patibulo comitem de Cerra; / Quosdam cedit gladio, quosdam secat serra, / Quosdam privat lumine. 53   Peter of Eboli, Liber ad honorem augusti, part XLII. 54   Cf. e.g. Annales Siculi, (ed.) Georg Heinrich Pertz, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 19 (Hanover, 1866), pp. 494–500, ad a. 1195. 55   Sicardi episcopi Cremonensis chronica, (ed.) Oswald Holder-Egger, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 31 (Hanover, 1903), pp. 22–181, p. 174: Margaritum excecans, ipsum et quos voluit captivavit. 50

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mores? All promises were broken, and along with their mother the children were put in chains’.56 Early on Roger of Howden pointed to the cruel corporal punishments that later were inflicted upon the captives, and he gives a detailed account of the captures, also without mentioning a conspiracy: In the same year, Henry, emperor of the Romans, arrested the nobles of Sicily, and threw some of them into prison, while others he put to death, after inflicting upon them various tortures. He also caused the eyes to be put out of Margarite, the admiral, to whom he had given the Dukedom of Durazzo, and the Principality of Taranto; and after that had him emasculated.57

The majority of modern scholarship assumes that this conspiracy had been feigned and was a convenient opportunity for Henry to almost wipe out the political elites of the regnum.58 Whereas nineteenth century German scholarship has still tried to prove Henry innocent of such an extraordinary fraud,59 later scholars, namely Evelyn Jamison, have rather tried to prove the Sicilian nobles innocent.60 One might add that it is unlikely (at the very least) that the Sicilian nobility would have surrendered after Tancred’s death without any more notable resistance. Be that as it may, the question of the conspiracy’s factuality cannot be answered here (as the sources are conflicting). Still, modern scholarship has mostly focused on this question, but the treatment of the different captives has not been addressed as a subject. In terms of crime and punishment, it is rather punishment that is reported by the sources and is therefore deemed as important: the captives – or prisoners – taken after the alleged conspiracy were treated as conspirators by Henry. However, the sources provide conflicting information about the various captives. Some present them as hostages, some as imprisoned traitors. In addition, the conditions apparently varied for the different captives. The   Carmen Ceccanense, lines 70–72: Cur nimis infelix natorum tristia quęris? / Tu fraudes morum non nostis Teutonicorum? / Omnia turbantur, pueri cum matre ligantur. 57   Roger of Howden, Chronica, vol. 4, p. 27: Eodem anno Henricus Romanorum imperator cepit magnates Siciliæ, ex quibus quosdam incarceravit, quosdam diversis pœnis afflictos morti tradidit; Margaritum etiam admiralem, cui ipse dederat ducatum de Duraz, et principatum de Tarente, et principatum maris, evulsis oculis et abscisis testiculis, excæcari et ementulari fecit. (Trans.) Riley, Annals, vol. 2, pp. 405–6. 58   Kölzer, ‘Sizilien und das Reich’, p. 15 (cf. n. 48 above). See also Broekmann, Rigor iustitiae, pp. 244–45 (with the incorrect perception that Peter of Celano had been the main culprit). For a summary of earlier scholarship in this respect cf. Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, pp. 127–28. 59  Toeche, Kaiser Heinrich VI., pp. 573–86. 60   Most notably Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, pp. 122–45. 56

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German chronicler Otto of St Blasien, for instance, relates that Henry had allocated special punishments (exquisitis suppiliciis) to the captives,61 giving the impression that they were punished according to their crimes. To some extent, then, the different punishments related for the different captives and prisoners should provide some information as to the crimes for which they were accused. It is therefore inevitable that these captives are studied individually and that their conditions of detention and their treatment are examined in detail. Who actually had been involved in this conspiracy, or who was at least accused of this crime, is rather difficult to detect. Henry himself, as mentioned before, only speaks of ‘some magnates of the kingdom’.62 However, in his Liber ad honorem augusti, Peter of Eboli provides a list of those whom he (and probably later official propaganda) saw as conspirators.63 Furthermore, the quasi-official Historia de expeditione Friderici lists the captives who had been brought to Germany.64 For the most part, these lists tally, albeit with some differences.65 The most prominent captives were, of course, Tancred’s widow Sibylla, his son King William and his daughters.66 As Roger of Howden relates, Henry did not consider Tancred’s family as kings, but rather as regni invasores. Apparently he even had the graves of Tancred and his son Roger opened and the bodies deprived of all royal ornaments.67 However, in order to end the opposition as soon as possible he sent envoys to Sibylla in order to negotiate the surrender. Sibylla and William would be granted their family heritage, namely the County of Lecce and the Principality of Taranto, if she surrendered the city, the castle, the treasury, and the royal insignia. After agreement was reached they were first put in honourable custody, a fact that is not self-evident given Henry’s treatment of the late kings Tancred and Roger as usurpers. The aforementioned conspiracy, of course, changed these conditions. William’s and Sibylla’s involvement in this plot, or at least in the accusations, is difficult to detect. Henry’s wording quidam magnates regni rather conveys the impression that the queen and the boy king   Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 39: Quos omnes captos in vincula coniecit et exquisitis suppliciis affectos miserabiliter enecavit. 62   See n. 47 above. Similarly see Sigeberti Continuatio Aquicinctina, (ed.) Ludwig Konrad Bethmann, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 6 (Hanover, 1844), pp. 405–38, ad. a. 1194: Optimates etiam illius regionis, qui contra eum coniuraverant et illum interficere disponebant, cepit et incarceravit. 63   Peter of Eboli, Liber ad honorem augusti, Illustrations, fol. 136r. 64   Historia de expeditione Friderici, p. 110. 65   For a thorough discussion, see Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, pp. 122–45 and 345–49. 66   For royal captivity, see Matthew Strickland, War and Chivalry: The Conduct and Perception of War in England and Normandy, 1066–1217 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 183–203, 230–57. 67   Roger von Howden, Chronica, vol. 3, p. 270. 61

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were not counted among those. However, in the later tradition, particularly in official propaganda, she was seen as the driving force behind this plot.68 In addition, the Annales Aquenses mention her as a conspirator, whereas Richard of San Germano uses the term treason.69 In 1195 the captive royal family was brought to Germany and was placed in different prisons: William to Castle Hohenems and Sibylla with her daughters to Hohenberg Abbey. Many sources indicate that William (together with many other prisoners) was blinded during his captivity. Blinding had been a very important and common form of corporal punishment throughout medieval Europe. On many occasions different sources mention the blinding of political (and high-ranking) opponents in Byzantium70 where blinding had been common practice to both defang and defame political opponents.71 In the political culture of the medieval West blinding was a measure prominently used for the crime of lese majesty,72 but not only for deterrent purposes. Godfrey of Viterbo, for   Peter of Eboli, Liber ad honorem augusti, Illustrations, fol. 136r.   Annales Aquenses, (ed.) Georg Waitz, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 24 (Hanover, 1879), pp. 33–39, ad a. 1194 and Richard of San Germano, Chronica ad a. 1194. 70   Nicetae Choniatae Historia, (ed.) Jean-Louis van Dieten, Corpus Fontium 68 69

Historiae. Byzantinae, 11/1 (Berlin, 1975), pp. 147–50, 263–64, 366–67, 450–52. Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 43; Chronica regia Coloniensis, (ed.) Georg Waitz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, [18], (Hanover, 1880), p. 158 (Rec. II: cecatur Rec. I: emascularetur); Chronica ignoti monachi S. Mariae de Ferraria, in Ignoti monachi S. Mariae de Ferraria Chronica et Ryccardi de sancto Germano Chronica Priora, (ed.) Augusto Gaudenzi, Monumenti Storici 1/1, (Naples, 1888), pp. 11–39, ad a. 1183 and 1197 [henceforth Chronica S. Mariae de Ferraria]: for the second occurrence in 1197 cf. Rudolf Pokorny, ‘Kreuzzugsprojekt und Kaisersturz: Eine übersehene Quelle zu den staufischbyzantinischen Verhandlungen zu Jahresbeginn 1195’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, 62 (2006): pp. 65–83, here p. 81.

71   Apparently, according to these Byzantine traditions one Greek envoy to Pope Celestine III had been blinded when he was caught by imperial troops. In this matter Henry VI in 1196 assured the pope that ‘this evil inflicted upon him [the envoy]’ occured without the emperor’s knowledge, order or consent: RI IV, 3, no. 534 (Print: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et regum, vol. 1, (ed.) Ludwig Weiland, Monumenta Germaniae Historica Legum sectio IV (Hanover, 1893), p. 523 [henceforth MGH Const. I.]): vos scire volumus, quod malum illi illatum moleste ferimus, cum neque de conscientia nostra processerit neque mandato. 72   Cf. generally Meinrad Schaab, Blendung als Politische Massnahme im abendländischen Früh- und Hochmittelalter, unpublished PhD thesis (Heidelberg, 1955). See also Geneviève Bührer-Thierry, “Just Anger”’ or “Vengeful Anger”’? The Punishment of Blinding in the Early Medieval West’, in Barbara H. Rosenwein (ed.), Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an

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instance, stresses that the male captives of 1194 had been blinded ‘so that they [the Sicilians] would not have any leaders’.73 Particularly regarding Tancred’s son, King William III, the Carmen Ceccanense reports that it was only after he was blinded and soon after this killed that his mother and his sisters would be allowed to live.74 In other words, by being blinded William was eliminated as a possible heir to the throne. One thirteenth century chronicle even relates that Henry ‘ordered to gouge [William’s] eyes out and to castrate him, so that from him no progeny could be begot’.75 The contemporary German chronicler Otto of St Blasien was touched by his fate and prayed for William. In his account, William’s captivity is already given the later-known legendary traits. He describes how ‘when he came to adulthood, he abandoned transitory matters and, so it is said, sought these eternal with good works, eager for Heaven since he was unable to attend earthly affairs’.76 One might speculate as to William’s involvement in the mentioned conspiracy. As he was only four years old, however, it should probably not be overestimated. For Henry the prince, while alive, must have been a constant threat to his Sicilian legacy and a symbolic figure for future resistance; it was this fact that sealed William’s fate. Concerning the treatment of the captives that Henry mentions as quidam magnates regni, and also the reason for their captivity, the sources provide us with conflicting information. Most texts, however, both from Italy and Germany, name one captive explicitly: Admiral Margaritus of Brindisi. Emotion in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1998), pp. 75–91, here pp. 79–91. According to BührerThierry, ‘“Just Anger”’, p. 79, blinding was a ‘political punishment that tended to deprive the person who attacked the royal majesty from the capacity to contemplate this majesty in its very radiance’. See also Klaus van Eickels, ‘Gendered Violence: Castration and Blinding as Punishment for Treason in Normandy and Anglo-Norman England’, Gender and History, 16 (2004): pp. 588–602, here p. 593; and Broekmann, Rigor iustitie, pp. 13–16 73   Godfrey of Viterbo, Gesta Heinrici VI, line 152: Mares privat lumine, non habent ductores. 74   Carmen Ceccanense, lines 75–76: Lumine turbato puero post multa necato, / Mater et inbelles binę uixere puellę. 75   Thomas Tuscus, Gesta Imperatorum et Pontificum, (ed.) Ernst Ehrenfeuchter, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 22 (Hanover, 1872), pp. 483–528, p. 508: Quos oculis privari mandavit iussitque castrari, ne ab eis posset soboles generari. 76   Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 41: Qui ubi ad virilem etatem pervenit, de transitoriis desperans, bonis operibus, ut fertur, eterna quesivit, celestibus inhiando, quia terrenis non potuit. Nam de activa translatus coacte contemplative studuit, utinam meritorie. (Trans.) Loud, Crusade, p. 188. Cf. also Francesco Panarelli, ‘S. Maria di Picciano (MT) e gli ultimi sovrani della dinastia Altavilla’ Quellen der Forschung aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 90 (2010): pp. 53–72, who points to the eponymous monastery as the final resting place of William III. I would like to thank the author for allowing me to read his manuscript before publication.

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In German sources he is referred to as pirata (what might link back to the experiences of Markward of Annweiler as commander of the imperial fleet), whereas both Italian and English chroniclers use the correct title admiralis. The generally well-informed Historia de expeditione Friderici states he had been sent to Germany among other captives,77 ‘to prevent them establishing their power again’;78 there they were imprisoned in Trifels Castle.79 A similar interpretation is also expressed by Burchard of Ursberg who mentions the captives as sureties or guarantees (vades), which implies hostages.80 In the same way the Annals of Marbach make no mention of a conspiracy, or of the captives being blinded.81 According to these accounts, Margaritus was most likely brought to Germany as a hostage for security. This also seems to be the assumption of a chronicler from Weingarten, who relates that after the uprising of 1197 the captives – among them Margaritus – had been blinded or incarcerated (implying honourable detention prior to this incident). However, the same text speaks of Margaritus as treacherous and as having been sent ahead to Germany instead of playing a role in Henry’s later triumph.82 Other sources, first and foremost Peter of Eboli, explicitly accuse him of having been involved in the alleged conspiracy of 1194.83 This accusation resulted in Henry’s order to blind Margaritus. This is reported by a vast amount of sources, but interestingly not the texts that primarily saw the captives as hostages. Otto of St Blasien mentions Margaritus amongst the nobiles captivos in Trifels Castle, having been sent there for perpetual imprisonment

  Historia de expeditione Friderici, p. 110. Cf. Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, pp. 347–49.  Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, p. 347, erroneously reads this passage as referring to the captives themselves. 79   Historia de expeditione Friderici, p. 110: Maiores tamen et meliores, ne ullas vires resumere de cetero possent, secum in Teutoniam reduxit, quos etiam sub arta custodia in castro suo munitissimo et firmissimo Triuallis detineri et servari iussit. Cf. Loud, Crusade, p. 130. 80   Burchard of Ursberg, Chronicon, (ed.) Oswald Holder-Egger and Bernhard von Simson Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatism editi 16 (second edn, Hanover, 1916), p. 72: de subiectione et fidelitate vades accepit quosdam nobiles et potentes terre, inter quos erant archiepiscopus Salernitanus et duo comites, germani fratres eiusdem, et quidam Margaritus, qui potens fuit in mari pirata. 81   Annales Marbacenses qui dicuntur, (ed.) Hermann Bloch, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, [9], (Hanover, 1907), ad a. 1195. 82   Hugonis chronici continuatio Weingartensis, (ed.) Ludwig Weiland, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 21 (Hanover, 1869), pp. 473–80, ad. a 1194 (cod. I). 83   Peter of Eboli, Liber ad honorem augusti, Illustrations, fol. 136r. Cf. Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, pp. 120–23, 132, and pp. 345–47. Cf. Godfrey of Viterbo, Gesta Heinrici VI, line 150. 77 78

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(eternis vinculis).84 The Continuatio Admuntensis mentions him as a conspirator, who, accordingly, was put in irons and blinded.85 Other culprits are mentioned, although they have been killed immediately. Hence Margaritus was apparently not sentenced as one of the leaders of this alleged conspiracy. We can therefore not clearly determine which of the chroniclers was confused and whether Margaritus was held captive as a hostage or was imprisoned as a conspirator. Margaritus’ blinding, however, makes the latter more probable. Hostages would have been taken earlier by Henry during his siege of Sicily. In his chronicle Roger of Howden reports that at first Margaritus had even been granted his former possessions, namely the Duchy of Durazzo (Durrës), the Principality of Taranto and the Principality al Mare.86 This is surprising, since in October 1194 Henry had already banished Margaritus from the kingdom in his privilege for Messina.87 However, assuming an agreement between the emperor and the admiral soon after that time does not seem very far-fetched. Margaritus must have surrendered together with Sibylla.88 Some time later, as the English chronicler continues without further specification, Henry arrested large parts of the Sicilian nobility, apparently for no real reason. Many were killed or exiled, but as Roger of Howden in the aforesaid passage mentions, ‘Margarite, the admiral, to whom he had given the Dukedom of Durazzo, and the Principality of Taranto’ had been blinded and emasculated.89 Most likely, therefore, Margaritus was accepted first, perhaps in honourable captivity, and only later was incarcerated, blinded and castrated. These punishments indicate that he was at least accused of being involved in the alleged conspiracy. Similarly,   Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 41: Margaritam vero archipiratam et Ricardum comitem imperatricis consaguineum, luminibus, ut dictum est, privatos eternis vinculis apud Trivels deputavit. Sicardus of Cremona, Cronica, p. 173, relates that he had been accused for Empress Constance’s captivity, what according to other sources was interpreted as high treason; this, however, is rather unlikely, because other captives were accused of this crime and Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 39, mentions one captive, which was not Margaritus, who had been skinned explicitly for a crimen lese maiestatis. 85   Continuatio Admuntensis, (ed.) Wilhelm Wattenbach, in Georg H. Pertz (ed.), 84

Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 9 (Hanover, 1851), pp. 579–93, ad a. 1194: et Margaritum cum aliis illius terrae principibus, qui contra Romanum imperium conspiraverant, vinculatum in Alamanniam abduxit et cecavit. See also Annales Aquenses ad a. 1194. Sicardus of Cremona, Cronica, p. 173, relates that Margaritus in 1191 had captured Constance. This, however, seems to be the result of misinformation.   Roger of Howden, Chronica, vol. 3, p. 270: et imperator dedit ei ducatum de Duraz et principatum de Tarenta, et principatum maris. 87   RI IV, 3, no. 380. 88   Cf. Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, p. 120. 89   See n. 57 above. 86

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albeit without mentioning Margaritus explicitly, Henry VI himself had the events narrated in his aforementioned official letter, most likely counting him among the ‘magnates of the kingdom, who at first had sternly been opposing us, and whom we had restored to our favour’.90 The other name that is mentioned in most of the sources is Archbishop Nicholas of Salerno. This might be due to the fact that in 1191 he defended Naples together with Margaritus and had thereby gained some notoriety, or it might indicate that the captivity of a bishop was considered outrageous by these chroniclers. Nicholas, who in 1181 succeeded Romuald Guarna in the see of Salerno, was a son of Chancellor Matthew of Aiello and had been one of Tancred’s closest advisors.91 He, too, is mentioned among the hostages in the Historia de expeditione Friderici,92 and, similar to the case of Margaritus, Burchard of Ursberg sees him as a hostage rather than as an incarcerated conspirator.93 Similarly again, the Annales Marbacenses also refer to him as a captive without mentioning a conspiracy and without relating his later treatment. After the Salernitans had first signalized their allegiance to the approaching emperor in 1191, Nicholas fled to Naples. Peter of Eboli mentions letters he sent to the citizens of his city, apparently reminding them of the loyalty they owed Tancred.94 Official imperial propaganda, as represented in this work, therefore seems to accuse him of having aided and abetted the Salernitans in capturing Constance and surrendering her to King Tancred. More importantly, however, Peter also mentions and depicts him among the conspirators of 1194. Above the depiction of the conspirators, Nicholas is again shown as dictating a letter to a scribe, most likely indicating the letters that were later used as evidence for the conspiracy.95 In this regard he was instead accused of being the alleged conspiracy’s initiator. Again, the information from the various sources is conflicting, but for Nicholas’ case other evidence can be used. During the captivity of the Sicilian magnates, the papacy in diplomatic negotiations worked towards their release,   See n. 47 above.   See basically Norbert Kamp, Kirche und Monarchie im staufischen Königreich Sizilien, 1: Prosopographische Grundlegung: Bistümer und Bischöfe des Königreichs 1194–1266, vol. 1: Abruzzen und Kampanien, Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften, 10/1, 1 (Munich, 1973), pp. 425–32. 92   Historia de expeditione Friderici, p. 110. Cf. Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, pp. 347–49. 93   Burchard of Ursberg, Chronicon, p. 72. 94   Peter of Eboli, Liber ad honorem augusti, part. 21, when Constance addresses the rebelling citizens: Si presul scripsit, tamen, ut reor, irrita scripsit […] Credite pastore profungo, qui natus ab ydra / Ut coluber nunquam degenerare potest. 95   Peter of Eboli, Liber ad honorem augusti, Illustrations, fol. 136r. 90 91

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particularly for the church officials. The letters sent to Henry VI are not preserved, but Henry’s answer is. On 25 July 1196 he wrote to Pope Celestine III, also on behalf of Nicholas himself. In this letter he promised to reconsider the verdicts about the imprisoned or exiled bishops. The respective passage for Nicholas of Salerno reads: Concerning the requests you have put forward regarding the release of the archbishop of Salerno, we say that it is agreed and evident for us (even though you might know him for worthy), in which and how many occasions he injured our majesty and was inimical to our representatives, and for that he deserved not only captivity, but in fact much worse.96

The letter continues: For the release of the same archbishop, it is lawful that we cannot give satisfaction to this letter of your will, but with regard to your intervention we have ordered that he should be treated more leniently and held more honourably, but still in a way that we have this security by him that nobody could inflict injury on us.97

Without doubt, in Henry’s view Nicholas had been the most important captive, not only because he was the highest-ranking, but also because of the crimes of which he accused him. He speaks of the crimen laesae maiestatis, but also stresses the function of a hostage or of the terms of his captivity as a deterrent. Henry is rather unclear as to the reasons for his imprisonment. As Jamison justifiably points out, his accusations could refer to an alleged conspiracy as well as to the captivity of Constance or to the defence of Naples in 1191. The wording of the injured majesty, however, seems to point to the empress’ imprisonment. In addition, the fact that the pope apparently asked for an improvement of the conditions of Nicholas’ detention implies that he had not been held in honourable captivity, as a hostage might have, although his imprisonment clearly served for security. In Henry’s wording various reasons and accusations seem to be intermingled.   MGH Const. I, p. 375: Ad hec cum pro absolutione archiepiscopi Salernitani preces vestras nobis porrexeritis, dicimus, quod vobis constat et manifestum est, si scire dignum duxeritis, in quot et quantis nostrum leserit maiestatem nostrisque agendis fuerit contrarius, per que non tantum captionem, sed etiam peiora meruisset. Cf. RI IV, 3, no. 534. 97   MGH Const. I, p. 375: De absolutione igitur eiusdem archepiscopi licet ad presens vestre non satisfacere possimus voluntati, intercessionis vestre intuitu ipsum benignius tractari faciemus et honestius teneri, ita tamen quod eam de ipso habeamus securitatem, ut nullam nobis possit inferre lesionem. Cf. RI IV, 3, no. 534. 96

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In general, sole military opponents received honourable treatment by Henry, at least in the beginning, and thus Nicholas’ defence of Naples was most likely not the reason. Apart from Henry’s letter referring to a crimen laesae maiestatis, only Peter of Eboli mentions Nicholas as linked with Constance’s captivity in Salerno. This could reflect a later change of official imperial propaganda, which would also explain Henry’s statement. As one chronicle reads, in 1194 the Salernitans were punished for the insult to Henry’s majesty.98 However, had that been the official accusation of Nicholas as early as November 1194, he would have already been imprisoned by that time, just as Salerno had been captured and punished without further delay. The Gesta Innocentii relate that he was accompanying Sibylla when she surrendered Caltabellotta and when Henry received her.99 Based on a later addition in one of Peter of Eboli’s illustrations, Jamison also assumes that he had been in charge of Caltabellotta and was entrusted with the guard of William III before the surrender.100 The fact that he had not been imprisoned right away, therefore, leaves only one possibility: that in December 1194 he was charged with conspiracy, or, more precisely, with being the initiator of the conspiracy. Among the other captives mentioned by name were most notably Count Richard of Aiello101 and Admiral Eugenius of Sicily.102 In 1195 Eugenius came back to Sicily together with Chancellor Conrad of Hildesheim, who most likely esteemed the admiral’s administrative experience. This sparing of the captive might indicate that he had originally been a hostage on honourable terms, probably taken before the conspiracy. The same might be assumed for both Richard of Aiello and one certain John who is also mentioned in these lists. They were the brothers of Archbishop Nicholas of Salerno. According to the common practice in which taking the kinsmen of notable leaders as hostages was often demanded, they were probably exchanged before the conspiracy was unveiled. Concerning the further treatment of those hostages and the other captives the   Historia de expeditione Friderici, pp. 107–8: Salernum munitissimam civitatem Apulię quę prius imperatorię dignitatis maiestatem lęserat, omni honore et gloria sua privatam et incolis suis denudatam cepit. 99   Gesta Innocentii, PP. III., (ed.) Jean-Paul Migne, in Patrologia Latina, 214 (Paris, 1890), cols. 15–228, chap. 18. Cf. Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, p. 138. Interestingly, the Carmen Ceccanense, which stands quite close to the Gesta Innocentii, does not mention Nicholas at all. 100  Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, p. 139. 101   Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 41, mentions that together with Margaritus he had been blinded in captivity. 102   His life and career, as well as his captivity have been thoroughly examined by Jamison, Admiral Eugenius; on his captivity see pp. 122–45. 98

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sources provide no more detailed information. However, in summary it can be said that in 1194 Henry also took hostages, probably before or right after the triumphal entry in Palermo in late November 1194.103 It was only after the accusation of conspiracy that other captives were taken, namely the political elite of Norman Sicily itself. After that both hostages and conspirators were brought to Germany, as many sources state, in a triumphus.104 Henry’s army and his court, bringing the captives with them, returned north and reached Germany in late June 1195.105 William was held captive in Hohenems Castle in what is today Vorarlberg. Sibylla and her daughters were brought to the convent of Hohenberg in Alsace, whereas the other captives were imprisoned in Trifels Castle in the Palatinate.106 Many of them were released later, particularly on the pope’s aforementioned instigation,107 whereas William had been blinded and could not hope for a release. The cruelty of their punishments was a novelty in German political culture. Later accounts do not make any clearer distinctions and confuse the events of different years. One more account of the alleged conspiracy of 1194 is found in Otto of St Blasien’s chronicle. On Henry’s detection of the conspirators he notes: They were all arrested and thrown into prison where he had them put painfully to death with hideous tortures. He deprived the archpirate Margaritus, one of the country’s most powerful barons, and Count Richard, a man of great learning, of their eyes. He had one person convicted of treason skinned alive, and he ordered that a man who aspired to the royal crown should have a crown fixed to him by iron nails. He had some people tied to a stake, surrounded by a pyre and cruelly put to death by burning, and others fastened to the ground with stakes through their bodies. By these actions he struck fear into all the nations round about, not

  This is also the interpretation of the Historia de expeditione Friderici, p. 110: Maiores tamen et meliores, ne ullas vires resumere de cetero possent, secum in Teutoniam reduxit, quos etiam sub arta custodia in castro suo munitissimo et firmissimo Triuallis detineri et servari iussit. Cf. generally Strickland, War and Chivalry, pp. 230–57. 104   Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 41; Sigeberti Continuatio Aquicinctina, ad. a. 1195; Chronica S. Petri Erfordensis moderna, in Oswald Holder-Egger (ed.), Monumenta Erphesfurtensia saec. XII, XIII, XIV, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, [42], (Hanover, 1899), pp. 117–369, ad a. 1195; Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 39; cf. also Chronica regia Coloniensis, p. 158. 105   RI IV, 3, no. 401–60a. 106   Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 41. 107   For their later release see Foerster, ‘The Carmen Ceccanense’. 103

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only on this side of the ocean, but on the other side as well; all were absolutely petrified by his severity.108

Inflicting pain and cruel death was, of course, not original to the twelfth century, neither to the Kingdom of Sicily nor to the empire. Throughout the Middle Ages, as in other cultures, corporal punishment had been an important part of politics.109 This violence could be utilized for the deterrent effects mentioned by Otto of St Blasien, but in addition it was quite often a punishment that mirrored the crime on the culprit’s body.110 However, whereas in the empire and other northern kingdoms the aforementioned forms of consensual conflict resolution were common practice, in Norman Sicily this terror was used to a much greater extent. To Henry and his northern followers this particular aspect of political culture in the South must have been entirely foreign; yet the emperor soon recognized its political potential. In the later years of his Sicilian reign Henry did, in fact, apply the rigor iustitiae to a much greater extent than even in 1194. One example can be seen in the execution of Richard of Acerra, Tancred’s most important military commander, who had been captured by Diepold of Schweinspeunt in 1196. Several sources speak of his execution. The fact that most accounts give similar information attests to the indignation this incident aroused.111 The Annales Ceccanenses report that the emperor came to Capua, and ‘there he found Count Richard of Acerra in the prisons, so he had him convicted and ordered him to be bound with his feet to a horse’s tail and to be dragged through the filth of all roads in Capua; and he ordered that after this he should be hanged by his feet, and he remained   Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 39: Quos omnes captos in vincula coniecit et exquisitis suppliciis affectos miserabiliter enecavit. Nam Margaritam archipiratam, potentissimum illius terre baronem, cum quodam comite Richardo litteris adprime erudito oculis privavit et quendam lese maiestatis convictum pelle exutum decoriavit, quendam vero regno aspirantem coronari coronamque per timora clavis ferreis transfigi precepit, quosdam stipiti alligatos piraque circumdatos exurens crudeliter extinxit, quosdam vecte perforatos ventretenus humo agglutinavit, ac per hec omnibus in circuitu nationibus non solum in cismarinis, verum etiam in transmarinis partibus severitatem eius metuentibus maximum terrorem incussit. (Trans.) Loud, Crusade, p. 186. 109   See generally Strickland, War and Chivalry, pp. 230–57; see also Mark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery, and Oren Falk, ‘Introduction’, in Mark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery and Oren Falk (eds), ‘A Great Effusion of Blood’?: Interpreting Medieval Violence (Toronto, 2004), pp. 3–16; here p. 6; and Valentin Groebner, Defaced: The Visual Culture of Violence in the Late Middle Ages (New York, 2004). 110   Cf. Groebner, Defaced, p. 72. 111   Generally cf. Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, p. 154. 108

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hanging in the gibbet until the Emperor had died’.112 This episode is also similarly referred to by the anonymous monk of Ferraria.113 German and imperial sources mention it as well, but there, again, it is often stressed that this punishment was justified and adequate.114 Otto of St Blasien once more seems to confuse various pieces of information, but his account of Richard’s execution is no less cruel. He accuses Richard for Constance’s captivity in Salerno, and for that reason he had been hanged from a gallows with his head downwards.115 Another source also mentions his hanging and reports that he had been beheaded and his head put on a fork.116 The general information we find in most sources is basically confirmed by Richard of San Germano, who gives the most detailed account. After having been captured by Diepold and later handed over to Henry in a general court, the emperor had him tied to a horse’s tail and dragged through the streets of Capua. Richard, who was still alive, was then hanged with his head downwards. ‘After two days he was still alive, and then a certain German jester, whose name was Follis, in order please the emperor, hung quite a big stone to his neck, and thus put him to a dishonourable death.’117 After that Henry took certain representative measures for securing his rule118 and promoted Richard’s capturer Dipold to count of Acerra.119 All sources, even much later references, refer to the exceptional cruelty of this execution.120

  Annales Ceccanenses, ad a. 1197: postea ivit Capuam; et invento ibi comite Riccardo de Cerra in ergastulis fecit eum iudicare et per pedes ad caudam equi ligare et per lutum omnium platearum Capuae fecit deducere; et iussit eum post hoc per pedes appendi, et tam diu in patibulo mansit appensus, quousque imperator mortuus est. 113   Chronica S. Mariae de Ferraria, ad a. 1196: et comitem Riccardum Acerrarum mense Decembris apud Capuam patibulo suspendi precepit. 114   See e.g. Godfrey of Viterbo, Gesta Heinrici VI, line 133: Ponit in patibulo comitem de Cerra. 115   Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 39: sibique presentatum apud Capuam patibulo suspendit, capite deorsum verso. 116   See also Historia de expeditione Friderici, p. 115: suspendi fecit et in publico transitu civitatis in porta deorsum misso capite in furca levari fecit. 117   Richard of San Germano, Chronica, ad a. 1197: trahi primum ab equo per plateas Capue, et demum uerso deorsum capite suspendi uiuum iubet. Quem uiuentem post biduum quidam imperatoris ystrio Teutonicus cognomine Follis, ut ipsi imperatori placeret, ligato ad guttur eius non paruo lapidis pondere, ipsum turpiter exalare coegit. 118  Jamison, Admiral Eugenius, pp. 154–55. 119  Csendes, Heinrich VI., pp. 187–88. 120   See e.g. Annales Stadenses, (ed.) Johann M. Lappenberg, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, 16 (Hanover, 1859), pp. 271–379, ad a. 1196: Quendam etiam Richardum per plateas tractum suspendi fecit, quia eum Constantiae consilio inpotionare voluit. 112

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But how did Richard deserve such a punishment? His punishment was certainly rigourous, but was this the rigour of justice? His continuation of the resistance against Henry’s otherwise undisputed sway in Sicily had made him a rebel. Furthermore, he must have been accused of treason and conspiracy, and perhaps even lese majesty. Much more important was, of course, that his continuous fighting against Henry and the imperial forces made him a symbolic figure for the resistance. It is for that reason that his execution must have been ostentatiously cruel. Although the deterrent effects of public and ostentatious violence might have been the basic intention for Henry’s rigourous cruelty,121 as one German chronicler assumes,122 the effective results were, in fact, the opposite. One of the outcomes of the most violent corporal punishments is reported by the Annals of Marbach: ‘Therefore a great hatred arose against him among those who heard of this, both natives and foreigners’.123 Similar accounts are found in several sources, both German and Sicilian.124 In the end this hatred erupted into violence against Henry: in 1197 an uprising against Henry’s rule reunited all remaining Sicilian opponents of the Hohenstaufen inheritance.125 Apparently the emperor was to be killed on his hunting grounds, but Henry escaped and was saved. In the subsequent battles and skirmishes the insurgents were defeated and had to retreat to San Giovanni. Some chroniclers see the reasons for this uprising in the killing of the 1194 captives.126 During his reaction to this uprising Henry fully developed and deployed the ‘Norman’ political traditions of the South.127 According to various sources, he inflicted several mirroring corporal punishments upon the insurgents. The Historia de expeditione Friderici relate that Henry ‘humiliated 121   Cf. Gert Melville, ‘Ein Exkurs über die Präsenz der Gewalt im Mittelalter: Zugleich eine Zusammenfassung’, in Martin Kintzinger and Jörg Rogge (eds), Königliche Gewalt – Gewalt gegen Könige: Macht und Mord im spätmittelalterlichen Europa, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung, Beiheft 33 (Berlin, 2004), pp. 119–34, here pp. 125–26. 122   Historia de expeditione Friderici, p. 115: quosdam per mortem, quosdam per duram captivitatem in tantum humilians, ut de cętero nec vires nec robur habeant rebellandi. See also Godfrey of Viterbo, Gesta Heinrici VI, lines 129–35. 123   Annales Marbacenses, ad a. 1197: Proinde maximam adversum se invidiam tam ab incolis quam ab aliis qui hec preceperunt excitavit. 124   Otto of St Blasien, Chronica, chap. 45; Chronica regia Coloniensis, p. 160; Chronica S. Mariae de Ferraria, ad a. 1197. 125   See Toeche, Kaiser Heinrich VI., pp. 573–86; Csendes, Heinrich VI., pp. 189–92; Althoff, Macht der Rituale, pp. 156–59; Broekmann, Rigor iustitie, pp. 244–47. 126   Historia de expeditione Friderici, p. 114. Cf. Toeche, Kaiser Heinrich VI., pp.

573–74.

  For the punishment of rebels in general, see Strickland, War and Chivalry, pp. 230– 57, Gillingham, ‘Killing’, p. 134. 127

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some by death, some by harsh detention, so that the others had neither the men nor the courage to revolt’.128 This author clearly stresses the deterring effects of such punishment. Another chronicle mentions the ‘chosen and very cruel deaths’ with which Henry executed them.129 The most detailed account of Henry’s sentences is found in the Annales Marbacenses: ‘Almost all of them were slain and their king with some other leaders of that faction was captured alive. Those the emperor had pitiably crucified. For their king, however, he ordered that a crown was fastened to his head with iron nails, while the empress was present and saw this. Others he burned in the fire, and some he cast into the sea’.130 After this uprising corporal punishments were also inflicted upon the hostages from 1194. The killing of hostages when the negotiated truce or peace was not kept could, of course, be considered common practice. However, the Historia de expeditione Friderici relates that they had been killed for other reasons: ‘all the aforementioned whom he had brought with him to Germany he had killed and he ordered that they were punished as culprits of lese majesty and of having injured his person. And of all those who were held captive, nobody was spared’.131 Burchard of Ursberg also notes that after the 1197 rebellion Henry sent envoys to Germany with the order for the hostages (vades) to be blinded. Burchard seems appalled by the fact that these orders had really been carried out, even though Archbishop Nicholas of Salerno had been spared.132 Thus the captives and hostages had been punished for insulting Henry’s majesty. In this respect Henry had ignored older traditions of political culture and had implemented terror and cruelty as a new approach. In summary we can see a gradual hybridization of political cultures in the different parts of Henry’s empire during his short reign. This is particularly evident with regard to the treatment of political opponents, namely captives. It 128   Historia de expeditione Friderici, p. 115: quosdam per mortem, quosdam per duram captivitatem in tantum humilians, ut de cętero nec vires nec robur habeant rebellandi. 129   Hugonis chronici continuatio Weingartensis, ad. a 1196 (cod. II): exquisitis et crudellissimis mortibus extirpavit. 130   Annales Marbacenses, ad a. 1197: fere omnes ceciderunt et regem ipsorum cum aliis quibusdam eiusdem factionis auctoribus vivos ceperunt, quos imperator miserabiliter cruciari precepit. Nam regem presente imperatrice et vidente coronam clavis ferreis capiti eius affigi iussit et alios igne cremari, quosdam in mare mergi iussit. 131   Historia de expeditione Friderici, p. 115: eos etiam quos in Alamanniam secum eduxerat, qui etiam supra nominati sunt, omnes cęcari fecit et quasi reos lęsę maiestatis et personę lędendę puniri iussit. In quacumque igitur custodia quivis tenebatur, nulli parcebatur. 132   Burchard von Ursberg, Chronicon, p. 72: Rursus quidem comites et barones in Apulia rebellant imperatori, quocirca imperator missa legatione vades, quos acceperat, in Alamannia oculis excecari; quod et factum est, preter episcopum. See also Hugonis chronici continuatio Weingartensis, ad. a 1196 (cod. II).

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is unclear, though, for what reason the particular captives had been punished, mainly because the sources provide very conflicting information. At the time of their imprisoment in 1194, the captives could be categorized into three groups: members of the royal (usurping) family, hostages securing the peace agreement, and those accused of conspiracy. Their later treatment, however, changed according to mingled traditions; and, even more, their later appearances in the sources evince the aforementioned confusion among the historiographers. Still, a change in political culture can be observed during Henry’s reign in Sicily. Reisinger points out that ‘Henry did not commit the error to delay the occupation of the regnum by punishing the king’s former followers’.133 On the other hand, this proceeding could also be explained by the northern political traditions of conflict resolution to which the emperor at this time still adhered. However, soon after his triumphal entry in Palermo, Henry applied new modes of political culture. This has already been regarded in terms of diplomatic formula,134 but can now also be seen in the treatment of opponents. Instead of taking hostages, the 1194 conspiracy – feigned or real – gave Henry the opportunity to wipe out the elites of the kingdom. With the public sentence Henry demonstrated his royal (and imperatorial) rigor.135 As an act of symbolic communication the emperor displayed his familiarity with the political culture of the regnum. The public nature and ostentatious character of his verdict and the executions is, accordingly, stressed in several sources.136 Richard of San Germano states that the alleged conspirators were sentenced in a ‘general court’ (curia generalis),137 also confirmed by the Annales Casinenses (‘in a solemn court’; in solempni curia).138 Regarding Henry’s capture of Salerno, the same source reads: ‘as a vengeance for his insult he condemned some of the inhabitants to be killed by the sword, others to prison and several more to exile. The reasons for this were published for the army to agree upon’.139 However important Henry’s honor in this respect might have  Reisinger, Tankred von Lecce, p. 181: ‘Heinrich beging nicht den Fehler, die Inbesitznahme des regnum durch Strafgerichte gegen die ehemaligen Anhänger des Königs zu verzögern’. 134   Foerster, ‘Imperator’. 135  Broekmann, Rigor iustitiae, pp. 244–45. 136   See generally: Melville, ‘Exkurs’, pp. 125–26; Guy Halsall, ‘Violence and Society in the Early Medieval West: An Introductory Survey’, in Guy Halsall (ed.), Violence and Society in the Early Medieval West (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 1–45, here pp. 7–16, for ritualized violence pp. 32–34. 137   Richard of San Germano, Chronica, ad a. 1194. 138   Annales Casinenses, ad a. 1195. 139   Annales Casinenses, ad a. 1194: Salernum vi cepit, et in ultionem suae iniuriae habitatores partim gladio partim carceri, nonnullus exilio damnat, rebus publicatis et in 133

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been, that he had to subject his sentence to a public discussion might indicate that he sought legitimation for the destruction of the city. For the punishment of the particular captives we might already assume the implementation of the rigor iustitiae. These new measures had to be specially explained to the princes in the (German) imperial army, who might have expected a treatment according to the northern traditions they were used to. Although the political culture in Germany already featured indications of the rigor iustitiae,140 the violent and deterring implementation of them in the South must have been unthinkable for the emperor’s German army, and even more so for the princes (and chroniclers) who had remained in the North. In a region where the carrying of dogs had long been considered one of the worst punishments,141 Henry’s cruelty must have caused some raised eyebrows at the very least. Unlike in Norman Sicily, the social structure of the empire was entirely founded on the consensus between the comparatively very strong nobility and the king and emperor.142 This different social structure had developed completely different forms of conflict resolution than in Norman Sicily.143 Ritualized forms of submission were the standard case, rather than the implementation of royal rigour by violence, terror, and cruelty. One contemporary example from the empire, particularly in comparison to the execution of Richard of Acerra, is the case of Henry of Brunswick. Both Richard and Henry were amongst the most powerful noblemen under Henry’s rule in their respective realms. Henry, the son of the influential Duke Henry the Lion of the Welf family, deserted Henry’s army during the siege of Naples in 1191 and defected.144 On those grounds he must have been seen as a traitor and a rebel, just as Richard of Acerra had been. However, in the solemn Würzburg court in January 1194, Henry was restored to the emperor’s grace. This happened, of course, before the actual conquest of Sicily, where the changes in political culture under Henry are most evident, but it also shows how different political traditions in the North truly were. praebendam exercitus addictis. 140   Weinfurter, ‘Investitur und Gnade’, p. 121. 141   Stefan Weinfurter, ‘Tränen, Unterwerfung und Hundetragen: Rituale des Mittelalters im dynamischen Prozeß gesellschaftlicher Ordnung’, in Dietrich Harth and Gerrit Jasper Schenk (eds), Ritualdynamik. Kulturübergreifende Studien zur Theorie und Geschichte rituellen Handelns (Heidelberg, 2004), pp. 117–37. 142  Althoff, Macht der Rituale, pp. 157–59. 143   See generally: Gerd Althoff, ‘Schranken der Gewalt: Wie gewalttätig war das “finstere” Mittelalter?’ in Horst Brunner (ed.), Der Krieg im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit. Gründe, Begründungen, Bilder, Bräuche, Recht (Wiesbaden, 1999), pp. 1–23. 144  Csendes, Heinrich VI., pp. 102–3, Toeche, Kaiser Heinrich VI., p. 199.

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In point of fact, we are dealing with two different problems here: firstly the actual hybridization of political culture, and secondly its obscure and confused integration in historical narratives (which in itself provides evidence of different political cultures and their intermingling). The former, the actual changes under Henry VI, can be observed as a gradual process of hybridization. Whereas in 1191 Henry had mostly adhered to northern traditions of conflict resolution and took hostages in honourable detention according to those traditions, in 1194 an alleged conspiracy gave him the opportunity to put his familiarity with the Norman rigor iustitiae on display. The cruel execution of Richard of Acerra in 1196 and the most violent suppression of the revolt in 1197, but most of all the unclear treatment of the captives of 1194 evidence his abandonment of the aforesaid northern traditions. This gradual process is also observed in contemporary sources. William of Newburgh interprets Henry’s rule as the slow emergence of a classical tyrannis.145 Generally the interplay of different and intermingling political traditions and heritages can be interpreted as creating a capital of various gestures and standards of communication from which a political actor could choose, according to necessities and local circumstances. Henry VI encountered completely new forms of symbolic political communication during his conquest and reign of Sicily. This enlarged political capital he adopted readily, especially since kingship under Frederick Barbarossa had lost some of its old political instruments in the face of the beginning implementation of the rigor iustitiae in Germany.146 In some aspects Henry later tried to synchronize the political traditions that had evolved in Sicily and in Germany, but for implementing the rigor iustitiae in Germany in the same way as in Norman Sicily the princes had too much power. It was, in fact, for that reason that conflict resolution in the empire had still mostly been consensual. As a case study Henry’s reign in Sicily reveals the hybridization of political culture in very few years: this emperor merged political traditions from Northern Europe with the political heritage he found in the South. Most recently Sverre Bagge has expressed the notion that such politics of violence, although they add to the general image of the violent Middle Ages, should be considered much more modern and almost democratic, because this penal culture made no difference regarding the social

145   William of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicanum, (ed.) Richard Howlett, Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, [82]: Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 1 (London, 1884), vol. 5, p. 7. 146   Cf. Weinfurter, ‘Investitur und Gnade’, particularly pp. 121–23. See also Broekmann, Rigor iustitiae, p. 112.

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status of the culprit.147 The differences between Germany and Norman Sicily in the 1190s could be interpreted in similar terms. The second problem of the two mentioned above is the later interpretation of such incidents in the sources. The fact that the later chroniclers, particularly German chroniclers, confuse the incidents and ascribe violence to Henry in a very general way, evinces that these historiographers did not comprehend the intermingling of political traditions, particularly in terms of violence; for that reason they interpreted the information they received against the backdrop of their own understanding of political culture and could not even imagine noblemen being held captive for other reasons than the exchange of hostages.148 Interestingly, not a single one of them uses the common term obses for what they interpreted as hostages. This confusion in the contemporary interpretation, therefore, is itself evidence for the hybridization of political culture. This becomes even more clear when looking at panegyric and quasi-official sources. These texts do not make a distinction between hostages and conspirators, most likely because official propaganda had lost interest in the initial reasons for detention and therefore reinterpreted them all as conspirators. However, it is more the historiographic traditions than the actual accounts that reflect differences in political culture.149 Having followed different, mainly German and West European traditions of political culture, Henry later came into the heritage of Norman Sicily. In keeping with the aforementioned general distinction of tradition and heritage the northern traditions can also not be understood in essentialist terms. These traditions were permanently shaped and re-discussed. Henry’s Norman inheritance, particularly the southern heritage of political culture, caused another reshaping of political traditions. In this respect we might assume that political culture was also generally hybrid. Sicily as a political ‘third space’ had brought forth its very own traditions, which Henry inherited and implemented without delay. Terror and cruelty soon became even more important under Henry than they had ever been under the Norman kings of Sicily. During the takeover of 1194 many Norman – or rather Hauteville – traditions were discontinued, but at least in terms of violence their legacy lived on. Thus, the first tears were indeed followed by a better fortune, but for Henry’s captives the tears came last.

147   Sverre Bagge, ‘Changing the Rules of the Game: Norwegian Politics in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’ [forthcoming]. I would like to thank the author for allowing me to read his manuscript. 148   For a similar interpretation, see van Eickels, ‘Gendered Violence’, p. 597. 149   Cf. Foerster, ‘Gewalthöhepunkte: Einleitung’.

Chapter 9

Creators of Identities in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily Francesco Panarelli

Si vicinorum quis perniciosus ad ipsos confugiebat, eum gratanter suscipiebant. Moribus et lingua, quoscumque venire videbant, informant propria, gens efficitur ut una. (If any malefactor among the neighbours sought refuge with them, they welcomed him. / To anyone they saw coming they taught their customs and language, so as to form a single people).1

The preceding quote by William of Apulia reflects the attitude of the first Norman groups serving the Lombard princes, even before the Aversa investiture of 1030. The succinct statement by the mysterious poet and chronicler captures some essential aspects of the ethnogenesis of the Normans in Italy: a group of knights, in some periods guided by non-Normans (Atenulf, Arduin, Argyrus), who did not hesitate to encompass external subjects, including malefactors, as long as they were willing to share customs and language.2 Underlying this choice was certainly the fact that there were very few knights, but also that they were 1   William of Apulia, La Geste de Robert Guiscard, (ed.) Marguerite Mathieu, (Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici, Testi e Monumenti, Testi 4) (Palermo, 1961) (= GA), p. 108, l. I, vv. 165–68, p. 108. This passage has often been highlighted in the historiographic discussion on the Norman ‘identity’, cf. Ralph Henry Carless Davis, The Normans and Their Myth (London, 1976), p. 89; for an interpretation of the passage cf. lastly Emily Albu, The Normans in Their Histories: Propaganda, Myth and Subversion (Woodbridge, 2001), p. 114. Further reference to the composite nature of the Norman armed forces is found in the description of the army used in the siege of Palermo in 1072: William of Apulia, La Geste, l. III, v. 235, p. 176. 2   An extreme case of the failure to univocally identify the Normans is that of the Byzantine chronicles, which generally use the names Franks, Celts, Barbarians while there are only five instances of ‘Normans’ in Anna Comnena; cf. Michel Balard, ‘Les Normands vus par les Chroniqueurs byzantines du XIIe siècle’, in Pierre Bouet and François Neveux

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open to ‘cross-breeding’, if not to hybridization:3 the events of the following decades were to show that it was in the interests of the Normans, rather than of the locals, to learn the customs and language of the other people.4 A good litmus test for our argument seems to be the figure and work of William of Apulia. Unlike Amatus of Montecassino, William did not have a monastic tradition behind him nor did he feel obliged to justify policy decisions; unlike Geoffrey Malaterra he was not characterised by any declaration of origin or membership, apart from the adjective Apulus.5 With Geoffrey, William shared the desire to narrate the acts of a great Norman leader (Roger I and Robert Guiscard), but in narrating the feats of Roger I of Sicily, Geoffrey identified himself with the victorious Norman knights by demonstrating his participation in the events; in contrast, William did not focus on his own origins (eds), Les Normands en Méditerranée dans le sillage des Tancrède. Colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle (24–27 septembre 1992) (Caen, 1994), pp. 225–34, at p. 227. 3   For discussion and numerous bibliographical references, see the report by Thomas Foerster and Stefan Burkhardt, ‘Tradition and Heritage: The Normans in the Transcultural Middle Ages’ in this book. 4   The bibliography on this is vast, especially in English cf. Marjorie Chibnall, The Debate on the Norman Conquest (Manchester, 1999), Hugh M. Thomas, The English and the Normans. Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity 1066–c.1220 (Oxford, 2003). Recently Ewan Johnson, ‘Origin myths and the construction of medieval identities: Norman chronicles 1000–1100’, in Richard Corradini, Rob Meens, Christina Pössel and Philip Shaw (eds), Texts and Identities in the Early Middle Ages, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisc-Historische Klasse, Denkschriften 344 Band, Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters Nr. 12 (Vienna, 2006), pp. 153–64, and Johnson, ‘Normandy and Norman Identity in Southern Italian Chronicles’, in John Gillingham (ed.), AngloNorman Studies XXVII (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 85–100, where the analysis is essentially based on the Chronicles of William of Apulia and Geoffrey Malaterra, showing that in William of Apulia political virtue is primarily a quality of the individual and not of the group and that the indigenous Italic peoples basically had to choose between a Byzantine and a Norman government that could ensure the unity and cohesion that was lacking. Therefore an “ethnic” description of the conquest is of less interest than the definition of the virtues of the individual leaders (Origin Myths, p. 163). In Italian, a recent intelligent treatment is found in Rosa Canosa, Etnogenesi normanne e identità variabili. Il retroterra culturale dei Normanni d’Italia fra Scandinavia e Normandia, (Turin, 2009). 5   For a brief presentation of the figure and the critical bibliography, see Francesco Panarelli, ‘Guglielmo Appulo’, in Dizionario Biografico degli italiani, vol. 60 (Rome, 2003), pp. 794–797 and Panarelli, ‘Goffredo Malaterra’, in Dizionario Biografico degli italiani, vol. 57 (Rome, 2001), pp. 541–545; in the edition of Malaterra’s book cf. M.A. Lucas-Avenel, ‘La nouvelle édition de la chronique de Geoffroi Malaterra’, Archivio Normanno-svevo, I (2008): pp. 31–50 and Edoardo D’Angelo, ‘Philologia ancilla historiae: I Prologhi storiografici normanno-svevi e il contributo dell’ecdotica e della filologia’, Filologia Mediolatina, XVII (2010): pp. 105–35.

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in his narration of Robert Guiscard or give even a glimpse of his own integration or assimilation, nor did he try to give his work the tone of a saga of the conquest of a people.6 William’s story is therefore an early manifestation of the hybridization that was one of the distinctive features of the Norman experience: the fact that above all he celebrates the virtues of Robert Guiscard and his progeny does not stop him from simultaneously showing solidarity with the local components conquered by the Normans (a combination of Greeks and Lombards), and expressing admiration for the Emperor Alexios Komemnos. He fuses the various aspirations so well that he gives no sure hint either about his status (a layman or more likely a monk), or about his origin (whether he was Norman, Lombard or Greek). If not through a broader, more innovative label than Apulus, he gives a description that in its succinctness lends itself to many interpretations, but above all allows for a regional, rather than an ethnic characterization. On this basis one can look for elements in his work that help to outline a profile of a distinct Norman identity, but in this paper I will try to turn the viewpoint around so as to find and emphasize the aspects of the Norman policy in favour of consolidating the identities of the populations in southern Italy (exemplary in this sense is the fact that William called himself Apulus). Concerning the focus of this volume suggested by the organisers, I feel the need to point out that I will examine the eleventh century more closely than other centuries, and in regard to the geographical scope will concentrate on the area of the Duchy of Apulia, with only a few references to Sicily, because of its particular position compared to the mainland. I will begin with the most eminent and most revolutionary example: the establishment of the kingdom. It was an original creation that did not date back to Norman traditions, but, if we admit the 1139 Pontifical privilege, would date back to the Sicilian tyrants at the earliest.7 After 1130 the monarchy was to be the constant reference point on the political horizon, both for Sicily and for the mainland. But in organising the local area the Normans also created new structures and districts, both from the feudal point of view – with the counties   The opposite view is expressed in Canosa, Etnogenesi normanna, p. 83.   On the Norman conquest and the formation of the kingdom, for brevity’s sake see Raffaele Licinio and Francesco Violante (eds), I caratteri originari della conquista normanna. Diversità e identità nel Mezzogiorno (1030–1130), Atti delle sedicesime giornate normannosveve. Bari 5–8 ottobre 2004 (Bari, 2006); Nascita di un regno. Poteri signorili, istituzioni feudali e strutture sociali nel Mezzogiorno normanno (1130–1194). Raffaele Licinio and Francesco Violante (eds), Atti delle diciassettesime giornate normanno-sveve (Bari, 10–13 ottobre 2006) (Bari, 2008); Hubert Houben, Ruggero II di Sicilia. Un sovrano tra Oriente e Occidente (Rome, Bari, 1999). 6 7

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– and from the administrative angle – with public districts, which through slow growth would find their consolidation in the Hohenstaufen period and transmit it to the modern age. While at first a relation with the existing scenarios (Principality of Capua, Duchy of Naples, or of Gaeta) seems to have been preserved, the history of the Duchy of Apulia gives an idea of the innovative capacities of the Normans.8 A title lacking a royal tradition (the Duchy of Apulia) was used to permanently replace the Principality of Salerno, which, although far more established, had become unsuitable for including and evoking the areas of Apulia for centuries in the Byzantine orbit. The innovation was the result of having to cope with differing political and administrative traditions at the same time without being seen to clearly favour one over the other (obvious chronological questions also arise: the Norman Duchy of Apulia was created in 1059, while Salerno was taken in 1077). Perhaps the greatest creativity was found in the gradual definition of the layout of the provinces of the giustizierati and the conestabuliae, which marked the emergence of previously unknown areas, districts like Basilicata, Molise, but also Capitanata, Principato, Terra di Bari and Terra d’Otranto. These outcomes appeared more clearly in the long run, but that made an indelible mark on the administrative geography of the South. The choice of counts’ seats overturned the previous situation, making towns of quite minor importance the capitals of the area, towns such as Andria or Montescaglioso, or even Conversano. These decisions were not without consequences, due to the well-known Norman desire to have the centre of political power coinciding with the centre of ecclesiastical power. This double role favoured the rise of urban seats; even when they did not become the centre of the diocese, they saw the foundation of important monasteries, as happened in Montescaglioso (MT). The foundation of real dynastic monasteries (at Venosa, Aversa, Montescaglioso, Conversano, Montepeloso and so forth) has been highlighted by studies in historiography, especially by Hubert Houben, but was basically a constant practice for most of the Middle Ages and should not be considered a typical feature of only the Norman world.9 The monasteries worked as creators of   The title dux Apulie had a very brief history prior to the Normans during the eleventh century: Jean-Marie Martin, ‘Les institutions politico-administratives lieés à la conquete. Le duché’, in Raffaele Licinio and Francesco Violante (eds), I caratteri originari della conquista normanna. Diversità e identità nel Mezzogiorno (1030–1130), Atti delle sedicesime giornate normanno-sveve. Bari 5–8 ottobre 2004 (Bari, 2006), pp. 305–33. 9   Focusing more on the Hauteville family are the works of Hubert Houben, Il ‘Libro de capitolo’ del Monastero della Ss. Trinità di Venosa (Cod. Casin. 334): una testimonianza 8

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identity for the newly ruling people, but also as points of cohesion and identity for the local populations. The more they remained tied to the founding family and to ambiguous ethnic characterisations, the more the monasteries proved to be ephemeral and lacking roots. As regards another fundamental component of the political, social and institutional picture in the south of Italy, namely the city, I will try to clarify to what extent Normans and urban populations interacted in mutually defining their new identities. I will, however, try to refrain from the complex historiographical issue of the general relationship between the Norman conquest and the development of an urban civilization in the South, which would lead us astray from the focus of this paper.10 Many of the cities I will mention certainly do not fall into definitions of medieval cities like that proposed by Chris Wickham: ‘a relatively populated settlement, functionally separate from the other surrounding towns, with at least three of the following characteristics: master craftsmen and artisans (especially), a concentration of landowners, an important administrative and religious role and a major market’.11 Not all communities underwent urban development in the centuries that followed; some stopped at the stage of ‘quasicity’, or returned to a more rural stage. Nevertheless, in that crucial period, the del Mezzogiorno normanno (Galatina, 1984); Houben, ‘Da Venosa a Monreale. I luoghi di memoria dei Normanni nel Sud’, in Michael Borgolte, Cosimo Damiano Fonseca and Hubert Houben (eds), Memoria. Ricordare e dimenticare nella cultura del medioevo (Bologna, Berlin, 2002), pp. 51–60; for the Montepeloso case and other comitali dynasties, cf. Francesco Panarelli, ‘Monaci e priori della Chaise-Dieu a Montepeloso’, in Francesco Panarelli (ed.), Archivi e reti monastiche tra Alvernia e Basilicata: il priorato di Santa Maria di Juso e la Chaise-Dieu. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Matera-Irsina 21–22 aprile 2005, (Galatina, 2007), pp. 59–83 and Francesco Panarelli, ‘Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche legate alla conquista. I monasteri’, in Raffaele Licinio and Francesco Violante (eds), I caratteri originari della conquista normanna. Diversità e identità nel Mezzogiorno (1030–1130), Atti delle sedicesime giornate normanno-sveve. Bari 5–8 ottobre 2004 (Bari, 2006), pp. 349–69; for further developments, Graham Loud, ‘Politics, Piety and Ecclesiastical Patronage in TwelfthCentury Benevento’, in Errico Cuozzo and Jean-Marie Martin (eds), Cavalieri alla conquista del Sud. Studi sull’Italia normanna in memoria di Léon-Robert Ménager (Rome, Bari, 1998), pp. 283–312. Lastly, for an overall reconstruction of the history of monkhood in the Norman age, see H. Houben, Die Abtei Venosa und das Mönchtum im normannisch-staufischen Süditalien, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 80 (Tübingen, 1995). 10   For the debate on the southern city in the Italian context cf. Giovanni Vitolo, ‘“In palatio Communis”. Nuovi e vecchi temi della storiografia sulle città del Mezzogiorno medievale’, in Giorgio Chittolini, Giovanna Petti Balbi and Giovanni Vitolo (eds), Città e territori nell’Italia del Medioevo. Studi in onore di Gabriella Rossetti (Vitolo, Naples, 2007), pp. 242–94; Giancarlo Andenna, ‘Città e corona’, in Raffaele Licinio (ed.), Nascita di un regno, (Bari, 2008), pp. 259–94. 11   L’Italia del primo medioevo (Milano, 1982), p. 67.

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eleventh century, the transformation into a real city was a plausible prospect for all of them. According to widely accepted studies in historiography, in the early stages of the conquest the Normans preferred to settle outside cities, so as to obtain most of their income from the countryside and concentrate their possessions there.12 This is confirmed by the fact that ‘Norman’ quarters did not exist in medieval cities (an exception is Aversa and to some extent Melfi, predominantly Norman cities). But this is obvious, given the Normans’ low demographic figures in the south of Italy, which can in no way be compared to a Völkerwanderung; nor can they be compared to groups that specialised in one profession, such as the Amalfitans. If we want to accept the historiographic hypothesis in explaining this disinterest, it becomes rather contradictory to blame the Normans for the fact that a communal civilisation did not develop in the south of Italy. In this case too, the relationship was much more complex and cannot be reduced to the fact that the Normans were extraneous to the city, or even worse, to a sort of punitive attitude to the urban world on the part of the Norman knights, who supposedly first acted as predators and then concentrated on the reinforcement of the bureaucratic machine of the royal court of Palermo, to guarantee the control of the territory and the cities.13 It is no coincidence that a figure like William of Apulia, more so than other synchronic chronaclers, gives the urban world a central role in his narration of the conquest by the Normans. In one respect, the progression of the Norman leaders’ advance was based on the cities that fell: Troia, Bari, Trani, Venosa, Otranto, Acerenza (conquered by Humphrey after 1053) and Cariati, Rossano, Cosenza and Gerace (conquered by Guiscard after 1059).14 William was certainly not alone in discussing a relationship to the cities, but he did so by presenting this relationship as essential to the overall balance of the conquest and non-traumatic for the inhabitants of the cities. From the outset he stressed the pacts underlying the Normans’ entrance into the cities,15 valorizing the powers of persuasion that   Paolo Delogu, ‘I Normanni in città. Schemi politici ed urbanistici’, in Società, potere e popolo nell’età di Ruggero II. Atti delle terze giornate normanno-sveve, Bari 23–25 maggio 1977 (Bari, 1979), pp. 173–205; Franco Porsia, ‘I segni sul terriotrio. Città e fortificazioni’, in I caratteri orginari della conquista, pp. 217–49; in general, the contributions collected in Itinerari e centri urbani nel Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo, Atti delle decime giornate normanno-sveve, Bari 21–24 ottobre 1991 (Bari, 1993). 13   The case for the Normans’ non-hostility towards the cities is argued vigorously in P. Oldfield, City and Community in Norman Italy (Cambridge, 2009). 14   William of Apulia, La Geste, l. II, vv. 293-p. 148; l. II, vv. 413–15, p.154. 15   William of Apulia, La Geste, l. II, vv. 398–401 p. 120, for Bari, Giovinazzo, Monopoli. See also the speech that Amatus of Montecassino puts into Arduin’s mouth in favour of the Normans before the citizens of Melfi: Amatus of Montecassino, Storia de’ Normanni, p. 78. 12

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Amatus of Montecassino also highlighted in the Norman leaders, even when they were non-Normans (see, for example, the speech he put into the mouth of the Lombard Arduin when he had to convince the people of Melfi to let the Norman knights into the city for the first time).16 But Malaterra also recalled the cases of Gerace and Cosenza.17 It was always the generosity of the leaders, the Hauteville family, that consolidated the power of the new dominators: for instance, at Bari after the surrender of 1071, or in 1076 in the taking of Salerno, or again in the way Trani capitulated in 1073.18 On the other hand, William underlined the fundamental role of the Norman chiefs in founding new cities. In addition to the more obvious dicussion by Aversa.19 William also mentioned the foundations of Corato and Bisceglie, Barletta and Andria, where the verbs edidit, fabricavit and aedificavit,20 referring to Peter of Trani, show that the basic trait used to identify an area separate from the countryside was ‘urban’ and that these areas were defended by the construction of walls. After all, Isidore of Seville had said Urbs ipsa moenia sunt,21 to underline the essential character of a set of walls in separating and identifying an urban community. And the Normans knew this, too. A later episode with Roger II provides another, famous, example. In 1140, Roger aroused the amazement and the sympathies of the Neapolitans by calculating the length of the city walls: ‘The king revealed the number of paces around their city as he had carefully measured it. At which the whole people affirmed that the king was wiser and more interested than any of his predecessors and were astounded that the measurement of the city had never been taken, while the king had taken the trouble to have it done’.22 It is an interesting reference to Roger II’s ‘predecessor’, who actually did not exist, and it had the effect of implicitly suggesting a comparison with the Neapolitan dukes, who had not been as smart as he was (as Roger II’s harshest critic, Falco of Benevento, says):   Amatus of Montecassino, Storia de’ Normanni volgarizzata in antico francese, (ed.) Vincenzo de Bartolomaeis (Fonti per la Storia d’Italia 76) (Rome, 1935), p. 78. 17   Gaufredus Malaterra, De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti ducis fratris eius, (ed.) Ernesto Pontieri (RIS2 5,1) (Bologna, 1925–1928), pp. 37–38 and p. 91. 18   William of Apulia, La Geste, l. III, vv. 142–60, p. 172; vv. 371–85, p. 184. 19   William of Apulia, La Geste, l. I, v.180, p. 108. 20   William of Apulia, La Geste, l. II, vv. 30–31, p. 132. 21   Isidori Hispalensis episcopi Etymologiae sive Origines, L. XV, 1. 22   The episode becomes even more interesting since it comes from the only chronicler clearly opposed to the Hauteville and the Normans; Falco di Benevento, Chronicon Beneventanum. Città e feudi nell’Italia dei Normanni, (ed.) Edoardo d’Angelo (Florence, 1998), ad a. 1140. 16

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measuring meant appropriating the walls and the city in its most important component. While Peter of Trani gave a specific urban profile to the cities that were to become the most important urban communities north of Bari, the Campanian branch of the Drengots founded, or rather fortified, Aversa and Roger I tied his name to Mileto by fortifying it, setting up an important Benedictine monastery there, establishing the bishopric and building the cathedral – transforming it from a castrum into a civitas.23 The case of Melfi was different, where, strictly speaking, the Normans neither founded it nor built walls, but it received a new and indelible stamp from the common taking of possessions carried out in that town by the presumed first twelve counts and by the creation of twelve squares.24 Melfi became the city symbolising the first stage of the conquest; it was no coincidence that when Pietro di Trani started his first revolt, he provocatively went to occupy Melfi.25 The knights did not only impose castles to control the city, but also equipped the city with the essential element of defence. And after guaranteeing safety with the walls, by building or reinforcing them, they also had to prove themselves able to psychologically ensure the security of the inhabitants. What may be the longest episode in William of Apulia’s work is worth mentioning here in relation to the minor centre of Giovinazzo. Involved in the revolt of 1072–73, the city near Bari had fallen to Robert Guiscard and had also ceded some young people as hostages to pledge its loyalty. The unimaginable happened in 1079, when Argirizzo joined the rebels and threatened to harm the hostages given as a pledge of loyalty to Guiscard if the citizens did not join the revolt against Guiscard himself. This time the people of Giovinazzo refused to give in (and in fact the text points out the fidelitas of the city), keeping their oath of loyalty to the duke, a loyalty that was not ethnic or independentist: the choice was between a lord like Robert who had shown he was capable of keeping his word and protecting his allies, and the rebels, who were largely composed of Normans (led by Abelard, Robert Guiscard’s nephew) and who did not keep their word. William tries, in a poetic tone, to depict the torments of the citizenry forced into a choice that endangered the lives of their sons given in hostage.26 Moreover, the experience of the siege, and its repetition, with the need to organize the payment of a tribute or to decide if, how and to whom to capitulate, was an important moment in the definition of the identity of the community, as was seen in Giovinazzo, but as also emerged clearly in Troia and Bari, two     25   26   23 24

Benedetto Vetere, Salerno ‘cattedrale’ Aversa e Troia città nuove? (Galatina, 1997). William of Apulia, La Geste, l. I vv. 313–17, p. 116. Amatus of Montecassino, Storia de’ Normanni, p. 186. William of Apulia, La Geste, l. III, vv. 540–605, pp. 194–96.

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of the cities most prepared to revolt. The negative case par excellence was that of Benevento, which according to Falco of Benevento forged its identity in opposition to the Normans’ affirmation. Here the construction of identity proceeded through opposition to the new dominant power, but it was also provoked by it. Without wanting to depict the relations between the conquerors and the city as being idyllic, as friction, contrast and violence were obviously present, it is worth underlining the fact that William of Apulia, like the other chroniclers of the first generation, never talks about the actual destruction of cities, but rather of exemplary actions. The extreme example is the cruel way in which Roger Borsa took revenge on the Troians who had dared to rebel in 1082;27 moreover, the Troians rebelled precisely because they had been deprived by the father, Robert Guiscard, of the defence of the walls. It is of minor importance that other sources say that the emperor Alexius had plotted for the uprising of the centres of the Gargano and Capitanata: William’s speech brings into focus the protection of the city’s identity as the primary motivation of the revolt. Real destruction was narrated in the first decades of the twelfth century, but destroying a city involved a considerable deployment of forces and equipment. And in fact the consequences of ‘destructions’ like that of Venosa, Alife, Montescaglioso, Bisceglie and Trani carried out by Roger II in the struggles of the 1130s were expected to be shortlived. News about them was often given by the tendentious Falco of Benevento, seeking to show Roger II in the worst light. The ones remembered in greater detail were those of Troia in 1133, Aversa in 1135, Bari in 1156, which were perhaps the most radical in their intentions. In the case of Bari, generally presented in the historiography as an episode of extreme cruelty in repressing demands for the city’s autonomy, there were actually no lasting effects on the city either. Nor must its significance be amplified: fifteen years later, in 1162, Frederick I Barbarossa would behave in the same way with the far more powerful Milan, and with effects that were even less profound. None of these destructions had lasting effects on the cities, which in a few years were repopulated. The consequences of these violent actions on cities must not be over-estimated and they must be considered in a broader dialectic between monarchy and city, the dominators and the dominated, which does not envisage the annihilation of the cities involved.28 But with this we are already shifting the focus towards a period of consolidation for the kingdom.   William of Apulia, La Geste, l. IV, vv. 506–12, pp. 230–32.   Much emphasis has been placed in recent years in German historiography on the political and symbolic meaning of the Normans’ demonstration of violence in Italy; cf. Theo Broekmann, Rigor iustitiae: Herrschaft, Recht und Terror im normannisch-staufischen Süden (Darmstadt, 2005). 27 28

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For the purposes of a discourse on the city’s construction of identity, it is more useful to go back to the eleventh century and to William of Apulia, who in presenting the Norman advance from the observation point of the city, yet again suggests a comparison in favour of the new conquerors, paradoxically pointing to the Byzantine general Giorgios Maniaces as the best ally for a Norman advance. About him, William painfully tells of the reprisals against Matera and Monopoli in 1042, made even more detestable because they were carried out with ferocious cruelty against the very weakest – in Matera against the peasants who had not been able to find refuge inside the city’s fortifications.29 And an emblematic action by Maniaces is also mentioned by Amatus of Montecassino, taken from Leon Marsicanus. In 1040, in the unlucky campaign in Sicily when Maniaces took Syracuse, a man indicated the place where the relics of Santa Lucia were preserved. Maniaces took possession of the relics, placed them in a silver reliquary and sent them to Constantinople.30 No explicit condemnation by Amatus is given, but it is clear that the general saw the provinces as being at the service of Byzantium and plundered them for the glory of the capital instead of strengthening them to govern them. Maniaces was not looking for ways to stabilise a fresh conquest but for ways to ensure his own fame and wealth to use in his relations with Byzantium. Here, too, the Norman attitude was quite the opposite, as demonstrated by a series of episodes in which, with the more or less explicit consent of the Norman lords, a single urban community carried out the inventio and the translatio of relics, at times from a declining centre to a rising one, but without the translation of the relics to Normandy or the imposition of forms of worship of foreign extraction.31 For example, between 1060–70 the invention of St Cataldo’s relics in Taranto occurred, undertaken by Drogo of Trani, while in 1080 in Acerenza, Archbishop Arnaldo handled the invention of the body of St Canio, the martyr who was to become the patron of the Acerenza archdiocese, that is, of most of the present-day region of Basilicata. Surrounded by the rediscovery of the relics of Saints Fortunatus, Gaius, Anthes, and later Felice, Cirinus and Quingesius, in 1080 the relics of St Matthew were also transferred to the new cathedral in

  William of Apulia, La Geste, l. I, vv. 455–60, p. 122. See also the contribution of Corinna Bottiglieri in this volume. 30   Amatus of Montecassino, Storia de’ Normanni, p. 68; a similar story exists about the relics of St Agatha of Catania, which, however, were returned to the city after a few decades. See also the contribution of Corinna Bottiglieri in this volume. 31   Amalia. Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini nella Campania medievale (secc. XI– XII) (Salerno 2004). 29

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Salerno, freshly conquered by Robert Guiscard.32 The worship of St Matthew was certainly not new, but the duke made a despotic attempt to take over the city’s tradition, expressed in the repeated visions narrated by Amatus of Montecassino, in which St Matthew actually blessed the Norman conquest.33 And it was again Amatus who narrated an instructive episode. With Salerno finally conquered, the duke asked Prince Gisulf to return the tooth of St Matthew that he had taken from the church (‘the duke did it because he did not want the city to lose that relic’). The new lord of the city was also concerned about safeguarding the patron saints, unlike the old prince, who actually tried to cheat by returning the tooth of a Jew instead of that of the saint. The trick failed and in the end Robert got the precious relic back.34 This attitude was diametrically opposed to the attitudes of Maniaces in Syracuse and Gisulfo because of the desire to guarantee the identity of the conquered city, which the relics they possessed and venerated helped to define. In these cases the will of the new Norman lords was more manifest; but they did not necessarily need to be the direct protagonists of the translations. In Trani, around 1060, Archbishop John ordered the translation of the relics of San Leucio, while fifty years later Archbishop Bisantius asked for a new saint to be raised to the altars (a rare example of a new saint in an urban context), namely Nicholas Pellegrino, to whom the cathedral would also be dedicated.35 Next followed St Mark in Bovino, ordered by Robert in 1090, and St Sabino, on the orders of archbishop Elia in Bari, in 1091.36 Cases also occurred in which the rediscovery of relics took place in contradiction to the duke’s power, as in 1104 with the invention and translation of the relics of Saints Eleuterius, Ponzianus and Anastasius, the confessor to Troia Cathedral. 32  Oldfield, City and Community, p. 238, Amalia Galdi, ‘I santi e la città. Agiografie e dedicazioni’ in Paolo Delogu and Paolo Peduto (eds), Salerno nel XII secolo. Istituzioni, società, cultura. Atti del convegno internazionale (Salerno, 2004), pp. 170–187; for Salerno Paolo Delogu, Mito di una città meridionale (Salerno, secoli VIII–XI) (Naples, 1977), p. 182. For the area of Apulia Thomas Head, ‘Discontinuity and Discovery in the Cult of Saints. Apulia from Late Antiquity to the High Middle Ages’, Hagiographica. Rivista di agiografia e biografia della Società internazionale per lo studio del Medioevo Latino, VI (1999): pp. 184– 211. 33   Amatus of Montecassino, Storia de’ Normanni, p. 151. 34   Amatus of Montecassino, Storia de’ Normanni, p. 370. 35   Da ultimo cf. Paul Oldfield, ‘St. Nicholas the Pilgrim and the City of Trani between Greeks and Normans, c.1090–c.1140’, in Christopher P. Lewis (ed.), Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2007, Anglo-Norman Studies, XXX (Woodbridge, 2008), pp. 168–181. 36   Cf. Jean-Marie Martin, La Pouille du VIe au XIIe siècle, (Collection de l’Ecole française de Rome 179) (Rome, 1993), pp. 618–20.

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The duke’s power had nothing to do with the great feat of 1087, when sailors from Bari stole the relics of St Nicholas from Myra for Bari. Vera von Falkenhausen argued that the Bari translation contributed substantially to the search for an identity in the community of Bari after the Norman conquest.37 Later it was the citizens who made Roger refrain from hindering the construction of the basilica and promise not to take the relics away from the city. St Nicholas was therefore an example of the worship of a saint that was new to the city and not imposed by Norman or ducal power. An undertaking of this kind would not have been possible in the Byzantine age, but it cannot be attributed to the Normans either: they were not the direct protagonists, but they were responsible for the conditions in which such an operation could be planned and carried out, that is, the separation of Bari from Byzantium to which the people of Bari, or at least a majority of them, had aspired since the times of Melo. Under the power of the duke a process of forming an identity was underway that was to reach its apex in the period of the independent principality of Grimoald Alfaranite. Closely connected to the invention/translation of relics was the construction and reconstruction of cathedrals or other important places of worship, for example the beginning of the new building site for the new cathedrals in Taranto in 1060, in 1080 in Salerno, and in Acerenza and Capua. In 1090 this also occurred in Trani and Troia. Essentially all the cathedrals in Apulia and Basilicata were reconstructed between the mid-eleventh and end of the twelfth century.38 This construction, however, was not directed exclusively by a group of lords (as was the situation with castles), but was undertaken with the shared desires of the citizenry. While ’new’ bishops were certainly coming from France,39 it must not be forgotten that the recruitment of the majority of the bishops was still on a local, if not urban, basis; and it was the bishops who supervised the work of constructing the sacred buildings. In Salerno the alliance between Archbishop Alfano and Robert was sealed by the building of the new city church; in Trani

  Vera von Falkenhausen, ‘Bari bizantina: profilo di un capoluogo di provincia (secoli IX–XI)’, in G. Rossetti (ed.), Spazio, società, potere nell’Italia dei Comuni (Naples, 1986), pp. 195–227. 38   Jean-Marie Martin, ‘Cathédrale et cité en Italie méridionale au Moyen Age’, in Giovanni Santini (ed.), Cattedrale, città e contado tra Medioevo ed Età moderna. Atti del Seminario di studi, Modena, novembre 1985 (Milano, 1990), pp. 29–39; Gerardo Sangermano, ‘La cattedrale e la città’, in Paolo Delugo (ed.), Salerno nel XII secolo (Salerno, 2004), pp. 149–169; Oldfield, City and Community, pp. 236–38. 39   See the contribution of Graham A. Loud in this volume. 37

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an inscription reminds us that the cathedral was built by the gens pia Tranensis;40 while the gates of Troia revendicate the city’s historical link with its bishopric.41 Even in these situations the Norman lords did not seem to direct or impose the solutions, but to allow the ambitions of the local populations find an outlet in the building of places of worship, often cathedrals containing relics, so that they would become places representing the city’s identity, in an often more liberal way than the descriptions of revolts and repressions listed in the chronicles might lead us to believe. Aversa, Melfi, and Mileto are cities that were clearly influenced by the Norman presence, but they have a transitory centrality which seems to link their fortunes to the dynastic monasteries that were built in the vicinity and that only had a brief, though memorable, flowering. The lasting results were obtained in other towns that were already established when the Normans arrived (Bari, Salerno), or those whose importance was understood in part during the early Norman period, only to reach maturity in the documentary evidence in the midtwelfth and thirteenth centuries (e.g. Matera, Andria, Barletta). This was due to the realisation that a dialectically constructive interaction was needed between the conquerors and the urban communities, who, after all, could not foresee the city’s independence as the final outcome. It seems a paradox (from which we are slowly freeing ourselves) for southern historiography, but also in the urban observatories: the Normans seemed to behave as impollinators, in favour of urban identities, rather than tenacious opposition. And so the Normans would prove capable of convincing figures like William of Apulia, who, though not Norman, became involved in the cohesive movement that the Normans had generated.

 Delogu, I Normanni in città, p. 192.   Antonio Cadei, ‘Exegi monumentum aere perennius. Porte bronzee di età normanna in Italia meridionale e Sicilia’, in Cosimo Damiano Fonseca, Hubert Houben and Benedetto Vetere (eds), Unità politica e differenze regionali nel Regno di Sicilia. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di studio in occasione dell’VIII centenario della morte di Guglielmo II, re di Sicilia (Lecce-Potenza, 19–22 aprile 1989) (Galatina, 1992), pp. 135–49, esp. 144–46. 40 41

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Chapter 10

The Rise of the Normans as Ethnopoiesis Sigbjørn Sønnesyn

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet – it is not difficult to agree with the Bard on that. But this principle is only valid when what is named has an independent existence regardless of our naming of it. A name on its own would be quite unintelligible without a shared knowledge and understanding of some entity, real or imagined, to which the name could refer. This applies to ethnic entities as much as to roses or bards; an ethnic tag like ‘the Normans’ would hardly make any sense in the absence of a group of people to which this term would be understood as a reference. With this in mind, let us look at the account the Norman historian Robert of Torigni gives of the origins of the gens Normannorum: The Normans, who by origin were Danes, left lower Scythia led by one Rollo, and travelled across the ocean and entered Gaul, in the part that faces Britain, and occupied the city of Rouen. The area is still called Normandy after them. Charles, known as the Simple, ruled the Franks at this time. The Normans, which in their barbarian language means men from the North, are so called because they came originally from that part of the world. Charles, king of the Franks, however, having struck a pact with them, gave his daughter Gisla to Rollo to be his wife, and gave to him the land now called Normandy. […] And so in the year of the incarnation of our Lord 912, at the blessed font of the sacred Trinity, Rollo was baptised by Franco, archbishop of Rouen, and was received from the font by Robert, duke of the Franks, who gave Rollo his own name. […] Seeing that their leader had become a Christian, the pagans left their idols behind and assumed the name of Christ, and unanimously flocked to baptism; and from then on the Norman people, believing in Christ, was placed under the Faith.1   Robert of Torigni, Chronique de Robert de Torigni, abbé du Mont-Saint-Michel, (ed.) Leopold Delisle (Rouen, 1872), pp. 11–13: Northmanni, origine Dani, duce quodam Rollone nomine, a Scitia inferiore egressi, atque per Oceanum vecti, […] Galliam, qua in parte Britanniam respicit, pervaserunt, civitatemque in ea Rothomagum occupantes usque in hanc diem Northmaniam de suo nomine vocaverunt. Francis tunc Karolus qui Simplex dictus est imperabat. Northmani vero lingua barbarica quasi homines septentrionales dicti sunt eo quod 1

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Elisabeth van Houts has shown how Robert is the last of a tradition of historians, beginning with Dudo of Saint-Quentin and including William of Jumièges and Orderic Vitalis, who portray Rollo’s treaty with the Frankish king and his ensuing baptism as the origin of the Normans as a separate people.2 In this precise moment the term Northmanni ceases to be a mere description denoting the geographical origins of diverse bands of robbers, and becomes the proper name of a proper people. What’s in a name? At the very least, the belief that the object named exists. Before these crucial events in 912 AD there was the Viking menace of the men of the North; after, there was a gens Normannorum. By giving Rollo and his followers a name and calling them a gens, Robert is making a significant statement concerning what sort of group we are dealing with henceforth. Exactly how to construe such a statement, however, seems to escape anything resembling a consensus within modern scholarship. The meaning of the term gens and the nature of medieval ethnicity has been most hotly debated within early medieval studies, seeing as this period saw the emergence of what for a long time was seen as the peoples of the nation states of modern Europe.3 primum ab illa mundi parte venerunt. Karolus autem rex Francorum, inito cum eis foedere, filiam suam Gislam Rolloni uxorem dedit, et eam terram quæ nunc Northmannia vocatur ei concessit. […] Anno igitur dominicæ incarnationis nongentesimo XII, benedicto fonte in nomine sanctæ Trinitatis, Rollo a Francone archiepiscopo Rothomagensi baptizatur; quem Robertus dux Francorum a fonte excipiens, ei suum nomen imposuit. […] Videntes autem pagani ducem suum christianum esse, relictis idolis, Christi nomen suscipiunt, ac unanimes ad baptismum convolant, et exinde gens Northmannorum, Christo credens, fidei subacta est. 2   For this tradition, see in particular Elisabeth van Houts (ed.), The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni (2 vols, Oxford, 1992– 1995). See also Leah Shopkow, History and Community: Norman Historical Writing in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Washington, DC, 1997). 3   The classic work within this field is arguably Reinhard Wenskus, Stammesbildung und Verfassung. Das Werden der frühmittelalterlichen Gentes, (second edn, Cologne, 1977). His seminal work marked a clear break with the previous, biology-centred notion of ethnicity that had particularly dominated the German discourse on ethnicity. Wenskus argued that the early medieval gentes were social and political constructs centred on elite families, which formed a Traditionskern ensuring continuity through the propagation of a common history and culture. Wenskus’s approach has been further developed by e.g. Herwig Wolfram and Walter Pohl. See also the surely needlessly vituperative tone in the debate on early medieval ethnicity in e.g. Walter Goffart, ‘Does the Distant Past Impinge on the Invasion Age Germans?’, in Andrew Gillett (ed.), On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages (Turnhout, 2002), pp. 21–37 and Alexander C. Murray, ‘Reinhard Wenskus on “Ethnogenesis”, Ethnicity, and the Origin of the Franks’, in Gillett, On Barbarian Identity, pp. 39–68, and the provoked response in Walter Pohl, ‘Ethnicity, Theory, and Tradition: A Response’, in Gillett, On Barbarian Identity, pp. 221–39. More recent publications include Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths (Berkeley, 1988), Patrick J. Geary, ‘Ethnic identity as a situational construct in the early Middle

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Outside of the hotly debated field of early medieval ethnicities, however, the Normans and their relations to their neighbours have been among the most studied examples of medieval ethnic identities.4 By most modern reckonings, however, Robert’s usage of the term gens in relation to the Normanni would appear entirely illegitimate. When medieval notions of ethnicity, usually expressed in the sources with terms like gens or natio, are discussed in modern scholarship, the consensus seems to be that this medieval notion was built around some core elements including shared biological descent, observable cultural forms, and a shared language.5 In order to account for the existence of separate Ages’, Medieval Perspectives, 3/2 (1991): pp. 1–17; Herwig Wolfram, ‘Origo et Religio. Ethnic traditions and literature in early medieval texts’, Early Medieval Europe, 3/1 (1994): pp. 19–38; Ian N. Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms: 450–751 (London, 1994); Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History (London, 2005); Walter Goffart, Barbarians and Romans A.D. 418–584. The Techniques of Accommodation (Princeton, 1980); Patrick J. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton, 2002); Alheydis Plassmann, Origo gentis. Identitäts- und Legitimitätsstiftung in früh- und hochmittelalterlichen Herkunftserzählungen (Berlin 2006); and the publications of the European Science Foundation’s project on the transformation of the Roman world, particularly the volumes Hans-Werner Goetz, Jörg Jarnut and Walter Pohl (eds), Regna and Gentes: The Relationship between Late Antique and Early Medieval Peoples and Kingdoms in the Transformation of the Roman World (Leiden, 2003) and Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (eds), Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities (Leiden, 1998). 4   On ethnicity in the Middle Ages in general, see e.g. Robert Bartlett, ‘Medieval and Modern Concepts of Race and Ethnicity’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 31/1 (2001): pp. 39–46; Susan Reynolds, ‘Medieval Origines Gentium and the Community of the Realm’, History, 68/224 (1983): pp. 375–90; and the papers collected in Simon Forde, Lesley Johnson and Alan V. Murray (eds), Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages (Leeds, 1995), particularly Anthony D. Smith, ‘National Identities: Modern and Medieval’. For an impressively thorough catalogue and typology of histories of ethnic groups in the Middle Ages, see Kersken, Geschichtsschreibung im Europa der ‘nationes’: Nationalgeschichliche Gesamtdarstellungen im Mittelalter (Köln, 1995). For the Normans, the classical studies are the provocative study of R. H. C. Davis, The Normans and their Myth (London, 1976), and the response by Graham A. Loud, ‘The Gens Normannorum – myth or reality?’, in R. Allen Brown (ed.), Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies 4 (1981), pp. 104–16; for these, cf. below. More recently, the most thorough study is Hugh M. Thomas, The English and the Normans: Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation and Identity 1066–c.1220 (Oxford, 2003). Other important publications include Cassandra W. Potts, ‘Atque unum ex diversis gentibus populum effecit: Historical Tradition and the Norman Identity’, in Christopher Harper-Bill (ed.), Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies 18 (1996), pp. 139–152; Shopkow, History and Community; and Emily Albu, ‘The Normans and their Myths’, The Haskins Society Journal, 11 (2003): pp. 123–35. 5   Perhaps most clearly expressed in Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe (London, 1994), p. 197, but see also e.g. Geary, ‘Ethnicity as a situational construct’; Goetz, ‘Gens.

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peoples, genealogies were proposed extending backwards into some mythical time of the distant past; inborn national characteristics were attributed; and languages were explained in relation to the linguistic fragmentation following the towering fiasco of Babel.6 But Robert’s account of the gens Normannorum flies in the face of what is often presented as the medieval concept of ethnicity. The biological, and presumably linguistic, origins of the Normans were Danish, and they specifically leave their former customs behind to create new, improved ones. The Normans, as opposed to most peoples of the high Middle Ages, can be seen to come into being more or less from scratch. How is this materialization of a new gens portrayed in the source material handed down to us? Our main source supply concerning Norman self-perception in terms of ethnic identity, as well as how this people was perceived by its neighbours, is constituted by the remarkably fecund tradition of historiography found in the Benedictine monasteries which experienced a significant revival in the wake of the Norman surge to power.7 In the absence of ethnographic treatises or dissertations on social anthropology from this period, we are to a great extent reliant on the astonishing number of historiographical texts produced in Normandy from Dudo of SaintQuentin onwards, and after the Norman Conquest also in England. So reliant, in fact, that R. H. C. Davis saw fit to challenge the notion that the Normans ever were a proper people in any meaningful sense of the word.8 Davis proposed that the notion of Normannitas propagated by these historians was little more than a myth, a conspiracy of historiographers (to paraphrase Tom Stoppard). Graham Loud wrote an influential article in 1981 refuting Davis’s central tenets, and I propose in the following to proceed further along the road Professor Loud mapped out; that is, to read these central texts on their own terms and attempt to recover the ideas and notions of ethnicity at play in them.9 What factors could create, perpetuate and constitute a true people according to the historians on whom our knowledge of Normannitas in Normandy and England relies? And what may this tell us about prevalent notions of ethnicity among these historians?

Terminology and perception of the “Germanic” peoples from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages’, in Corradini et al. (eds), The Construction of Communities, pp. 39–64; and Reynolds, ‘Medieval Origines Gentium’. 6   See in particular Reynolds, ‘Medieval Origines Gentium’, and Bartlett, Making of Europe. 7   See e. g. Shopkow, History and Community. 8   Cf. Davis, The Normans and their Myth. 9   Loud, ‘Gens Normannorum’.

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Medieval texts accounting for the origins of individual peoples are often collectively referred to as origines gentium, or ethnogeneses.10 Mythical ancestry and cultural characteristics are often regarded as playing a central role in these texts. But the historical texts chronicling the emergence of the Normans do not easily fit this mould; instead of a description of a passive process of the receiving of ethnic identity handed down over generations, the Norman people come into being through the active agency of central actors like the founding father Rollo, his helpers and spiritual advisers, and also the constitutive members of the gens Normannorum themselves. I would therefore like to suggest that in this context, at the very least, we ought rather to speak of an ethnopoiesis, the making of a people, rather than an ethnogenesis, the birth of a people. The crucial question for my present concerns can thus be formulated in the following way. From what principles, by what dynamics, and along which lines did the historians along the English Channel envision such an ethnopoiesis to proceed? We have seen that Robert of Torigny’s account of the coming into existence of the Norman people neglects to mention common descent, a shared culture, a common language, or shared laws, that is, the usual suspects as main criteria of ethnicity within modern research literature. The creation of the people is prior to the development of these institutions. Furthermore, Robert is in this presentation entirely in line with the tradition of historical narratives of which he was a continuator. The narrative of the founding of the gens Normannorum, from Dudo’s version onwards, requires a far richer notion of ethnicity than mere biological communion in order to be intelligible. In fact, Dudo made a major point of the ancestral heterogeneity of the Normans. He recounts a dream vision experienced by Rollo while staying for a time in England before his final settlement on the northern shores of France.11 In the dream, Rollo saw   Reynolds, ‘Medieval Origines Gentium’ and Wolfram, ‘Origo et religio’.   Dudo of Saint-Quentin, De moribus et actis primorum normannorum ducum, (ed.) Jules Auguste Lair (Caen, 1865), p. 146: quadam nocte, soporifera lethei malis quiete per membra leniter serpente, videre videbatur præcellentissimis quodam præcelsiore Franciscæ habitationis monte se positum: ejusque montis in cacumine fontem liquidum et odiferum, seque in eo ablui et ab eo expiari contagione lepræ et prurigine contaminatum; denique illius montis cacumine adhuc superstes, circa basim illius hinc inde et altrinsecus, multa milia avium diversorum generum, varii coloris, sinistras alas quin etiam rubicundas habentium, quarum diffusæ longe lateque multitudinis inexhaustam extremitatem perspicaci et angustato obtutu non poterat comprehendere; cæterum congruenti incessu atque volatu eas sibi alternis vicibus invicem cedentes, fontem montis petere, easque se convenienti natatione sicuti solent tempore futuræ pluviæ abluere, omnibusque mira infusione delibutis, congrua eas statione sine discretione generum et specierum, sine ullo contentionis jurgio, mutuo vicissim pastu quasi amicabiliter comedere; easque deportatis ramusculis festinanti labore nidificare: quin etiam suæ visionis imperio voluntarie succumbere. 10

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himself standing on top of a high mountain, from the summit of which there flowed a spring in which Rollo washed away the leprosy and itch with which he was infected. Thus cleansed he saw numerous birds of different kinds flocking together around the mountain, and, having cleansed themselves in the spring, they united and became one flock under him without regard for their former genera and species. They built their nests around the mountain and followed Rollo’s command. When he awoke Rollo gathered his chieftains to enlist their help in interpreting the vision, but it was a Christian prisoner of war who brought its meaning into the open: the mountain represented the Church of France, with its baptismal spring.12 Once Rollo had been purified in that spring, he would draw onto himself a large and variegated multitude that would be shaped into a single people through baptism and settle under Rollo’s command. In Dudo’s narrative, subsequent events were to fulfil this prophecy, and this version of events was retained by William of Jumiéges and Orderic Vitalis as well as by Robert of Torigny.13 In England, William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon also identified Rollo as the origin of the Norman people, which can only be taken in a biological way if we assume that William and Henry failed to realize the inherent impossibility of the notion.14 We must also question the explanatory power of shared cultural forms and behavioural patterns as a causal factor for the emergence of ethnic group identity. Prior to Rollo’s settlement in Normandy, none of the historians describe significant cultural differences between Rollo’s band and the population of their  Dudo, De moribus, pp. 146–7: Tunc […] captorum unus christianæ religionis fide imbutus […] mysticum illius visionis intellectum explanavit, dicens: Mons Franciæ quo stare videbaris, Ecclesia illius designatur. Fons, qui in summitate montis erat, baptismus regenerationis interpretatur. Per lepram et pruriginem, qua infectus eras, commissionis tuæ scelera et peccata animadvertas in eo ablui et ab eo lepræ pruriginisque morbo expurgari, te lavacro sacri baptismatis regenerari, et ab omnibus peccatis emundari. Per volucres diversorum generum, lævas alas habentes puniceas, quarum infinitissimam extremitatem exhaurire visu non poteras, homines, diversarum provinciarum scutulata bracchia habentes, tuique effecti fideles, quorum innumeram multitudinem coadunatam videbis, animo deprehendas; per alites fonte infusas, et in eo alternatim ablutas, communique comestione edentes, populum antiquæ fraudis contagio pollutum, typico baptismate abluendum, sacrosancti corporis et sanguinis Christi alimonia saginandum; per nidos, quos circum montes faciebant, vastarum urbium moenia reædificanda intelligas. Tibi aves diversarum specierum obtemterabunt; tibi homines diversorum regnorum serviendo accubitati obedient. 13   For a thorough exposition of how Dudo was used by later Norman historians, see in particular van Houts (ed.), Gesta Normannorum Ducum. 14   See William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, (ed.) Roger A. B. Mynors, Rodney M. Thomson and Michael Winterbottom (Oxford, 1999), pp. 200–3; and Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, (ed.) Diana Greenway (Oxford, 1996), pp. 314–15. 12

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country of origin. They were outstanding men in their own country, but their distinction was one of degree rather than kind.15 After the establishment of the Duchy of Normandy under Rollo, the Normans underwent profound changes and repudiated their former way of life.16 In different ways the individual historians narrate the considerable development the Normans – as well as other gentes – underwent without jeopardizing their common identity.17 Observable cultural forms do not form a constitutive element of the gens as such, but can instead be seen as dependent upon the dynamics by which the gens is changed and developed. A separate cultural identity may thus not in any way explain the emergence of the Normans as a people. At this point we may lift our eyes from the specifically Norman context and ask ourselves what grounds we have for expecting a notion of ethnicity founded on these elements in the first place. In the absence of detailed, analytical medieval treatises on the subject, modern scholarship has seized upon a rather limited selection of scattered medieval mentions of the issue as expressive of a pervasive notion of ethnicity in this period. This limitedness is not restrictive enough to allow me to present all these passages, however, so a few examples will have to suffice. A passage often highlighted in this context is found in the Carolingian Benedictine abbot and writer Regino of Prüm’s account of the various practices of various ecclesiastical provinces.18 In the introduction to this work, Regino explained the variation in practices within one unified, universal Church with the variations that naturally occur between individual peoples: ‘Just as different peoples differ between themselves in descent, manners, language, and laws, so the holy and universal church throughout the world, although joined in the unity of faith, nevertheless varies its ecclesiastical customs among them’.19 Regino   See e.g. Dudo, De moribus, pp. 141–2, and Gesta Normannorum Ducum, vol. 1, pp. 34 ff.   This is amply illustrated in the Visio Rollonis quoted above. 17   Rollo’s vision is the classic example for the Normans. For the English, see in 15 16

particular William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, vol. I, p. 457: Illa fuit dies fatalis Angliae, funestum excidium dulcis patriae, pro novorum dominorum commutatione. Iam enim pridem moribus Anglorum insuaverat, qui varii admodum pro temporibus fuere. Nam primis adventus sui annis vultu et gestu barbarico, usu bellico, ritu fanatico vivebant; sed postmodum, Christi fide suscepta, paulatim per incrementa temporis, pro otio quod actitabant exercitium armorum in secundis ponentes, omnem in religione operam insumpsere.   See e.g. Reynolds, ‘Medieval Origines Gentium’, p. 383, Geary; ‘Ethnicity as a Situational Construct’, p. 19; Bartlett, ‘Medieval and Modern Concepts of Ethnicity’, p. 47; Goetz, ‘Gens’, p. 47. 19   Printed in Friedrich Kurze (ed.), Reginonis abbatis Prumiensis Chronicon cum continuatione Treverensi, MGH, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi, vol. [50] (Hanover, 1890), p. xx. Latin text: ea maxime inserere curavi, quae 18

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might have been surprised to learn that through this passage he inadvertently supplied posterity with what has been regarded by several scholars as the ‘classic medieval formulation of the criteria of ethnicity’.20 In one sense this is entirely uncontroversial – Regino is clearly stating a set of fundamental criteria by which the differences between individual peoples could be discerned, and there is no reason to doubt that these factors remained crucial parts of the substantial content of ethnic identities throughout the high Middle Ages. Still, we must be wary of reading more into such statements than what they could reasonably be presumed to reveal. For instance, this should not in any way be read as Regino’s definition of ethnicity. This is not only to say that it is not cast in the classical form of providing the proximate genus and specific difference of the definiendum, but even to claim that no such definition may be derived from it. Regino’s statement tells us very little of what his notion of ethnicity as such was. It would in no way be contradictory to claim simultaneously both that individual human beings differ from each other through their inherited characteristics, behavioural patterns, the way they speak and the principles from which they act, and that the definition of a human being is a living organism endowed with a rational soul, that is, a member of the genus animal differentiated from other animal species through the faculty of reason. None of the criteria for differentiating between individual human beings here enter into the definition of humanity as such. Mutatis mutandis, this holds true for Regino’s statement as well. It seems that the main reason why so many modern scholars see Regino’s comment as something approaching a definition of ethnicity is that it comes close to echoing the classical modern definition of ethnicity as the categorization of people into groups based on distinguishing characteristics.21 If this is so, then the identification of Regino’s statement and others like it as adequate answers to the question ‘what was the medieval notion of ethnicity?’ appears to be begging his periculosiis temoribus nostris necessariora esse cognovi et quae ad susceptum propositae cause negotium pertinere videbantur. […] Nec non et illud sciendum, quod, sicut diverase nationes populorum inter se discrepant genere moribus lingua legibus, ita sancta universalis aecclesia toto orbe terrarum diffusa, quamvis in unitate fidei coniugatur, tamen consuetudinibus aecclesiasticis ab invicem differt. Translation from Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900–1300 (Oxford, 1984), p. 257. 20  Bartlett, Making of Europe, p. 197. 21   This definition has been explored and challenged in several central publications over the last few decades. For the Anglophone audience, among the classics in this field we find e.g. Fredrik Barth, ‘Introduction’, in Fredrik Barth (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, (Bergen/Oslo/London, 1969); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford, 1983); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (second edn, London and New York, 1991) and Anthony D. Smith, The Nation in History: Historiographical Debates about Ethnicity and Nationalism (Cambridge, 2000).

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the question entirely. Such statements are only to be taken as definitions if one assumes that the medieval definition would be more or less like the modern one – which, of course, is the very question to be answered. My next example of medieval statements taken as representative of pervasive notions may initially appear more promising, in that it at least has the form of a definition. The entry on ethnic and political terms in Isidore of Seville’s massively influential Etymologies has been read as offering a definition of gens as a biological category.22 In fact, however his definition of gens is remarkably vague and open, in claiming that the term denotes a multitude of people sprung from one source, or distinguished from other nations through their own proper gathering.23 The final clause, of course, throws the whole question open just as the preceding definition seemed to have settled the case conclusively. There can be little doubt that Isidore’s linking of gens and genus to gignendo, thus emphasizing the origin of these terms as related to efficient causes bringing something about, is basically correct; but that does not in any way entail that Isidore saw them as exclusively biologically determined categories. Isidore makes clear in the entry on etymology that the knowledge of the origin of words is a necessary element in gaining and understanding of their full meaning, but he never makes any claim that the origins alone constitute the meanings of words and terms. The openness of the definition, moreover, in fact more accurately reflects Isidore’s actual usage of these terms in his other works, where they occur interchangeably with their cognates such as natio or populus.24 Furthermore, based on other passages, Isidore has been described as presenting a concept of gens as a malleable group bound together by a common language.25 But again confusion reigns as to how language may explain the rise of peoples. While on one occasion Isidore claims that peoples arose from languages and not vice versa,26 which seems to give language some causal power in relation to ethnogeneses, he elsewhere says that many peoples could rise from the same language, which leaves the existence  Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities, p. 254, and Goetz, ‘Gens’, pp. 44–5.   Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, IX, 2, (ed.) Wallace M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911), vol. 1 (unpaginated). Latin text: Gens est multitudo ab uno principio orta, sive ab alia natione secundum propriam collectionem distincta, ut Graeciae, Asiae. My translation and emphasis. 24   See above all Jeremy DuQuesnay Adams, ‘The political Grammar of Isidore of Seville’, in Arts libéraux et philosophie au Moyen Age: Actes du IVe Congrès international de philosophie médiévale, Montréal, Canada, 27 août – 2 septembre 1967 (Montréal and Paris, 1969), pp. 763–775, and Jeremy DuQuesnay Adams, ‘Populus’ of Augustine and Jerome: A Study in the Patristic Sense of Community (New Haven, 1971). 25   See e.g. Bartlett, Making of Europe, p. 197. 26   Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae IX, i: Ideo autem prius de linguis, ac deinde de gentibus posuimus, quia ex linguis gentes, non ex gentibus linguae exortae sunt. 22 23

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of separate peoples unexplained by linguistic criteria alone.27 Both the biological and the linguistic reading of Isidore’s notion of ethnicity can be supported by isolated passages from Isidore, but the almost diametric opposition between them, as well as the inconsistencies in which such readings place the poor Sevillan bishop, forcefully illustrate the problems of using Isidore as a reliable source of any technical usage. If my argument so far is tenable, the passages modern scholarship has identified as expressive of the medieval notion of ethnicity signally fail to explain the sudden emergence of the Norman people. While crucial elements for assigning particular ethnic identities have been identified, we are still far from accounting for how medieval thinkers would explain the emergence of ethnic identities as such. If so, we need to look at the narratives of the emergence of the Normans with fresh eyes, to try to identify what they mark out as important. Of course, the most immediately eye-catching feature of these narratives is the emphasis placed on Rollo’s conversion and baptism. This event, however, does not seem sufficient in and of itself to explain the making of a new people. Peoples and portions of peoples had been converted on numerous occasions in the centuries prior to the emergence of the Normans, thereby without necessarily bringing about corresponding ethnic fluctuations. Such conversion stories are highlighted in the Anglo-Norman historiographical corpus, thus we can rest assured that the historians knew about them and knew how to present them.28 In what way can the events of 912 as presented by these historians account for the emergence of a new people? A possible point of departure could conceivably be the fact that even in classical times genealogical terms like gens and natio were used interchangeably with socio-political terms like populus.29 Although proper usages may be discerned for each of these terms, the distinctions are blurred even in the most systematic of authors. It is not unreasonable, in my opinion, to suggest that this usage reflects a perceived merging of entities with the properties singled out by these various terms; that is to say, that from an early date in the Latin tradition, gentes exhibited the properties of socio-political communities. A closer look at the fundamental notion of human communities as such in the Latin tradition may be of help here. From this perspective, classical and patristic literature provides a wealth of statements discussing relevant issues. Let us start with the Romans. Like 27   Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae IX, i: Initio autem quot gentes, tot linguae fuerunt, deinde plures gentes quam linguae; quia ex una lingua multae sunt gentes exortae. 28   The most immediate example here is of course the Angli, who retained a strong ethnic identity after accepting Christianity. 29   Cf. Adams, ‘Populus’.

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the Normans, the Romans themselves recognized the variegated multitude that turned into the populus Romanus after the founding of Rome. The great historians noted how the nascent people of Rome drew sustenance from allowing all who came there to join them.30 And Cicero, the most studied Roman prose writer throughout the Middle Ages explicitly positions this founding myth within the framework of social and political thought, in a way that arguably harmonizes with historical and poetic versions of the same. Cicero holds that it is an essential part of human nature that human beings form communities, that they spend their lives in society with others: ‘It seems quite clear to me from the state in which we are born, that there should be a bond of community between all of us, but stronger the closer we are to each other’.31 Important here is the meaning of the word societas, here translated as ‘bond’. While the modern ‘society’ is often taken to mean an organizational, social unit, the Latin societas often means ‘bond’, ‘connection’, or ‘companionship’, in this context the bond that ties the constituents of a social unit together. This bond differs in strength based on the proximity of the relationship that the bond maintains. The firmest, most steadfast bond is that of friendship, amicitia. Cicero defines this bond as: ‘The benevolent and loving consensus on all things human and divine’.32 This means sharing the same, true conception of the supreme good, and a life according to the excellences or virtues that this supreme good entails. 30   See e.g. Sallust, Coniuratio Catalinae, (ed.) Leighton D. Reynolds, Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford, 1991), 6, p. 8: Urbem Romam, sicuti ego accepi, condidere atque habuere initio. Troiani, qui Aenea duce profugi sedibus incertis vagabantur, cumque iis Aborigines, genus hominum agreste, sine legibus, sine imperio, liberum atque solutum. Hi postquam in una moenia convenere, dispari genere, dissimili lingua, alii alio more viventes, incredibile memoratu est, quam facile coaluerint: ita brevi multitudo dispersa atque vaga concordia civitas facta erat. And also Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, (ed.) Robert Maxwell Ogilvie, Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford, 1974), I, 8, p. 12: Rebus divinis rite perpetratis vocataque ad concilium multitudine quae coalescere in populi unius corpus. Nulla re praeterquam legibus poterat, iura dedit […]. Deinde ne uana urbis magnitudo esset, adiciendae multitudinis causa vetere consilio condentium urbes, qui obscuram atque humilem conciendo ad se multitudinem natam e terra sibi prolem ementiebantur, locum qui nunc saeptus descendentibus inter duos lucos est asylum aperit. Eo ex finitimis populis turba omnis sine discrimine, liber an seruus esset, auida novarum rerum perfugit, idque primum ad coeptam magnitudinem roboris fuit. Cum iam virium haud paeniteret consilium deinde viribus parat. Centum creat senatores, sive quia is numerus satis erat, sive quia soli centum erant qui creari patres possent. Patres certe ab honore patriciique progenies eorum appellati.

31  Cicero, De amicitia, (ed.) Jonathan G. F. Powell, Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford, 2006), V, 19, pp. 327–28: Sic enim mihi perspicere videor, ita natos esse nos, ut inter omnes esset societas quaedam, maior autem ut quisque proxime accederet. 32  Cicero, De amicitia, VI, 20, p. 328: omnium divinarum humanarumque rerum cum benevolentia et caritate consensio.

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While this close agreement on the highest good is the very foundation of the tightest bond of friendship, it is also the core of the bond that holds together a res publica. In De re publica I, 39, Cicero defines res publica as ‘the affairs of the people. But a people is not any gathering of humans, but the coming together of a crowd bound together by a common view on what’s right and an association of common utility’.33 In other words, a mutual commitment to justice and the common good is what makes a raw multitude become a people. As we have seen, Cicero says quite explicitly that there is one kind of bond between human beings, the strength of which differs according to proximity. The difference is thus not in kind but in degree. Fundamentally speaking, the most intimate bond between human beings was a moral one. Society, the natural condition for mankind, was thus to Cicero simultaneously founded on ethics and the only arena where a good way of life could be practiced. The res publica was more than anything a moral community, bound together through a common view on the good life for human beings. Crucially, Cicero’s moral-political thought supplied Augustine with the conceptual framework for the latter’s magnum opus on Christian ethics and politics, De Civitate Dei. The same basic understanding of human communities in their ideal state as perfective of the individual soul is at play in Augustine’s thought as in Cicero’s,34 although the emphasis shifts from political communities to communities of faith and religious observance. Augustine’s abstract definitions often betray a direct Ciceronian influence. In the crucial discussion of human communities in De Civitate Dei, for instance, Augustine assumes Cicero’s definition of a res publica quoted above, before proceeding to argue that only a community founded on the Christian faith could fulfil the criteria of that definition.35 True justice entailed complete submission to God, which was   Cicero, De re publica, (ed.) Jonathan G. F. Powell, Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford, 2006), I, 39, p. 28: Est igitur, inquit Africanus, res publica res populi, populus autem non omnis hominum coetus quoquo modo congregatus, sed coetus multitudinis iuris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatus. 33

  This may seem a strange claim considering the very real pessimism concerning the political sphere found in particular in Augustine’s later works. The literature emphasising this is massive; the classic in this field is Henri-Xavier Arquillière, L’augustinisme politique: Essai sur la formation des théories politiques du moyen-age (Paris, 1934); but see also e.g. Herbert A. Deane, The Social and Political Ideas of St Augustine (New York, 1963); Robert W. Dyson, Normative theories of society and government in five medieval thinkers: St. Augustine, John of Salisbury, Giles of Rome, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Marsilius of Padua (Lewiston, NY, 2003), and Robert Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (Cambridge, 2004). For my reasons for making this claim, see my arguments below. 35   Cf. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, (ed.) Bernhard Dombart (Leipzig, 1878), II, 21, pp. 79–83. 34

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a property of the Civitas Dei rather than of the Roman republic.36 Augustine’s dictum from sermon 103 is illustrative of the same general and fundamental idea: ‘Grant a point of unity, and a populus exists; take that unity away, and it is a mob’.37 The unifying principle of a populus was proportionally analogous to what determined the unity and character of a human soul, that is, the ordering of reason and will to a notion of the highest truth and the highest good.38 This organic analogy soon became a common way of describing the Civitas Dei or the true ecclesia.39 The Christians were united into one body through their adhesion to one head; and this was made tangible through the sacrament of the Eucharist, where every fidelis literally was given a share of the corpus Christi, thus becoming part of the corpus mysticum of which Christ was the head – in a way closely analogous to that in which a king was the head of the body politic.40 We also find the same basic notion replicated in the staple texts of Western monasticism; texts which formed a significant part of the formation of most of the historians of the first Normans.41 Different kinds of communities, political, social, ecclesiastical and even monastic, were thus conceived of along basically the same lines in the literary tradition we are dealing with here. The quintessentially human form of community was on its most basic level a voluntary union directed towards a common purpose, the good life and flourishing of the members of the community. For our present concerns, however, the crucial question remains: how can such a notion of community explain the presentation of gentes in the Anglo-Norman historiographical tradition? Space does not allow for a comprehensive analysis of these historiograhical texts at present to show the individual ways in which they portray the ethnopoiesis of the Normans; a small number of examples must bear the burden of illustrating pervasive tendencies. Even in this very sketchy form, however, the elements of   Ibid., p. 83: vera autem iustitia non est nisi in ea re publica, cuius conditor rectorque Christus est, si et ipsam rem publicam placet dicere, quoniam eam rem populi esse negare non possumus. Cf. the more detailed discussion of this point in De Civitate Dei, XIX, 21. 37  Augustine, Sermo 103, (ed.) Jacques Paul Migne in Patrologia Latina 38, 0615: Da unum, et populus est: tolle unum, et turba est. 38   See again, De Civitate Dei, II, 21 and XIX, 21. 39   A very useful survey of the sources may be found in Henri de Lubac, Corpus Mysticum: The Eucharist and the Church in the Middle Ages: A Historical Survey (Notre Dame, 2007). 40   For the organic analogy in classical and medieval political thought, the fundamental study is still Tilman Struve, Die Entwicklung der organologischen Staatsauffassung im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1978). 41   See for instance John Cassian, Collationes, Collatio XVI de amicitia, (ed.) Jacques Paul Migne, in Patrologia Latina 49, cols. 1011C–1044A, and Richard W. Southern, Saint Anselm: A Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge, 1990), pp. 139–40. 36

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classical and patristic socio-political thought briefly sketched out here provide us with some grounds, I would argue, for regarding the events of 912 as containing the sufficient and necessary elements for the creation of a new people according to this conceptual scheme. Rollo’s decision to be baptized is explicitly presented as uniting his followers towards a transcendent end, creating the kind of bond that made a genuine community possible. The freshly appointed duke of Normandy proceeded to institute laws and provide for the well-being and flourishing of his people in a manner reminiscent of Cicero’s identification of justice and the common good as the constituent elements of a proper people, while this alignment towards the will of God ipso facto aligns his leadership with the ideals of Christian communities propagated by the Augustinian tradition. Dudo’s verse apostrophe to Rollo’s baptism sums this up with admirable, and in Dudo’s case unaccustomed, clarity: Good Duke, pious Duke, patrician ever to be venerated, Everything which your soul drank in your dream is now present to you Serve through propitious baptism what you have already promised Leave the abominable service of Satan, and his harmful rites, Seek the true God with prayer and desire always Observe the precepts of his mandates. Give laws to the people, and true principles of justice to the learned. The people will rejoice continuously, enjoying peace, Living always under your power.42

The elements Dudo presents here in verse are elaborated in the subsequent prose sections, and replicated by the historiographical tradition. Here we find the Ciceronian ideals of a people united through justice and common utility, within an Augustinian framework where just laws and social peace follow naturally from Rollo’s fundamental commitment to God. The baptism and the political events accompanying it are thus presented in a narrative that invokes the ideals of the socio-political conceptual scheme permeating the intellectual and literary heritage forming the backbone of Western intellectual culture. The modernist notion of nation states saw political communities as emerging naturally from ethnic groups. If my reasoning so far is correct, the medieval   Dudo of Saint-Quentin, De moribus, p. 169: Dux bone, Dux pie, Patrici semperque verende, / Adsunt cuncta tibi, quae somno animus tuus hausit. / Serva baptismo quod jam promiseris almo. / Linque opus infandum Satanae, quin toxica sacra, / Quaere Deum verum vote et prece supplice semper, / Observa mandatorum praecepta suorum, / Da leges populo, doctis sancitaque jura. / Pace fruens populus gaudebit tempore cuncto, / Subque tua ditione morans semper, habitansque. 42

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view was the diametrical opposite. Over time, cohabitation could not but lead to consanguinity; and communal action towards shared ends would institute cultural conformity. These factors, however, were not sufficient to explain the emergence of new peoples – the observable reality of peoples emerging, merging, and disappearing was irreconcilable with a concept of ethnicity based exclusively on these factors. Following the interpretation of our sources, I have suggested here that only the political and religious unions of will and reason, which within the Augustinian appropriation of central classical ideas were never possible to keep entirely distinct, had the power to fuse a collection of individuals into a higher unit. The making of a people is a collective act – Rollo leads, but his new people follow him willingly and in full awareness of what they are doing.43 In the historical accounts of the emergence of the Normans, just as in the socio-political thought of Rome and the Church, it is this act of voluntary unification towards a common aim that marks the passage from mere multitude to populus. The distinctive characteristics of individual peoples follow as consequences of this act of ethnopoiesis, but the act itself is causally prior to them. The constitutive members of the new people did not lose their ancestry or all their customs; and the bias of various historians caused the specifically Norman mores to be evaluated in diverging ways in contemporary and later texts. Still, these historians agree to a remarkable extent on the core causal factors in bringing a new people into being. Only through the creation of a community envisioned in the same mode as any other proper human community could the necessary foundations for the emergence of a gens be laid. In conclusion: through recounting and celebrating the central figures and values of a people’s origin, historians could encourage new generations to participate in the act of perpetuating the people. It has sometimes been suggested that the writing of history lay outside the purview of the monastic profession.44 Our monks would have objected. They might have argued that the message to be found in their histories echoes the message of St Peter to the scattered early 43   For the role of individuals in the emergence of separate peoples see e.g. Boethius, An. Manl. Sev. Boetii Commentaria in Porphyrium a se translatum II, (ed.) Jacques Paul Migne, in Patrologia Latina 64, col. 0087D: Una, inquit, generis significatio est, quae in multitudinem venit a quolibet uno principium trahens, ad quod scilicet ita illa multitudo conjuncta est, ut ad se invicem per ejusdem unius principium copulata sit: ut cum Romanorum genus dicitur, multitudo Romanorum ab uno Romulo vocabulum trahens, et ipsi Romulo, et ad se invicem quasi quadam nominis haereditate conjuncta est. Eadem enim quae a Romulo societas descendit Romanos inter se omnes uno generis nomine devincit et colligit. 44   See for instance Richard Vaughn, ‘The Past in the Middle Ages’, Journal of Medieval History, 12/1 (1986): pp. 1–14; and John Gillingham, ‘Civilizing the English? The English Histories of William of Malmesbury and David Hume’, Historical Research, 74/183 (2001): pp. 17–43.

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Christians: ‘But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Who in times past were not a people: but are now the people of God. Who had not obtained mercy: but now have obtained mercy’.45 In this way, an account of an act of ethnopoiesis could be a continuation of that very act itself.

45   1 Peter, Chapter 2, Verses 9–10. Vulgate text: vos autem genus electum regale sacerdotium gens sancta populus adquisitionis ut virtutes adnuntietis eius qui de tenebris vos vocavit in admirabile lumen suum qui aliquando non populus nunc autem populus Dei qui non consecuti misericordiam nunc autem misericordiam consecuti.

Chapter 11

Keeping it in the Family: Re-reading Anglo-Norman Historiography in the Face of Cultural Memory, Tradition and Heritage 1

Benjamin Pohl

In an anonymous text from the mid-twelfth century which depicts the siege and capture of Lisbon in 1147, we can find a vivid expression of what – following Charles W. David’s argument concerning the work’s probable authorship – we might call Anglo-Norman tradition and cultural heritage.2 The author of this text was once believed by the manuscript’s most recent editor and translator to have been an active participant of the crusade enterprise who was travelling with the Anglo-Norman forces from Suffolk.3 Christopher R. Cheney, however, has

  This article provides a focus different from that of my original contribution to the conference in April 2010, which discussed the relationship between the two Norman kingdoms of England and Sicily in the Middle Ages. The reason behind this decision is rooted in the concluding plenary discussion that we had on the last day of the conference. As Vera von Falkenhausen has correctly pointed out, and with consent of the other participants, the conference’s primary focus on the peripheries of the Norman world, especially England and southern Italy, led to a regrettable neglect concerning the role of its very centre and origin, that is, the Duchy of Normandy. Therefore, it seemed only fair and also desirable to seize her helpful suggestion and change the focus of my final contribution to investigate Normandy’s crucial role in shaping Norman tradition and transcultural heritage. 2   For a definition and discussion of the two terms ‘heritage’ and ‘tradition’ see below pp. 225–227 and cf. Thomas Foerster and Stefan Burkhardt, ‘Tradition and Heritage: The Normans in the Transcultural Middle Ages’ included in the present volume. 3  See De Expugnatione Lyxbonensi, The Conquest of Lisbon, (ed.) Charles W. David, Records of Western Civilization (New York, 2001), pp. 40–46 and David, ‘The Authorship of the De expugnatione Lyxbonensi’, Speculum, 7 (1932): pp. 50–54. Also cf. Christopher R. Cheney, ‘The Authorship of the De expugnatione Lyxbonensi’, Speculum, 7 (1932): pp. 395–96 including another short comment by Charles W. David. 1

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argued that he also could have been a monk affiliated to Norwich Cathedral.4 In any case, the English chronicler’s literary account should be considered equally instructive and significant for questions of collective identity and cultural memory in the Anglo-Norman world of the later eleventh and early twelfth centuries as the works of other Norman historians such as Orderic Vitalis, whose voluminous Historia Ecclesiastica is generally considered a prime example of the self-perception of the so-called gens Normannorum. Before turning to Orderic and some of his predecessors, we shall briefly discuss the anonymous chronicler’s insightful treatment of Norman identity and group consciousness around the middle of the twelfth century.5 Similar to Orderic, the clerical author of the text known as De expugnatione Lyxbonensi reveals a specific understanding of the ethnic and cultural background of the Normans, more precisely, of the Second Crusade’s Anglo-Norman regiment that took part in the actual siege; just like his fellow chronicler from the abbey of St Évroult in Normandy, the travelling scribe from East Anglia chose a particular stylistic and rhetorical device to convey this notion to his prospective audience. As is often the case throughout Orderic’s Ecclesiastical History, the account of the siege of Lisbon also contains a vibrant and colourful characterization of the Norman people within a fictive speech attributed to one of its leaders, Hervey de   Cheney, ‘Authorship’, p. 396.   On the still ongoing discussion about Norman identity or Normannitas, see especially Hugh Thomas, The English and the Normans, Ethnic Hostility, Assimilation, and Identity 1066–c.1220 (Oxford, 2003), pp. 32–45, Graham A. Loud, ‘The “gens Normannorum’”: Myth or Reality?’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 4 (1982): pp. 104–16, here pp. 111–16, Loud, ‘The Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of England, 1066–1266’, History, 88 (2003): pp. 540–67, here pp. 545–48, Ian Short, ‘Tam Angli quam Franci: Self-Definition in AngloNorman England’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 18 (1995): pp. 153–75, Nick Webber, The Evolution of Norman Identity, 911–1154 (Woodbridge, 2005), pp. 18–39, Rosa Canosa, Etnogenesi normanne e identità variabili, Il retroterra culturale dei Normanni d’Italia fra Scandinavia e Normandia (Turin, 2009), pp. 107–22, Ewan Johnson, ‘Normandy and Norman Identity in Southern Italian Chronicles’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 27 (2005): pp. 85–100, John Gillingham, ‘Henry of Huntingdon and the Twelfth-Century Revival of the English Nation’, in Simon Forde, Lesley Johnson and Alan V. Murray (eds), Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages, Leeds Texts and Monographs 14 (Leeds, 1995), pp. 75– 101, David Bates, Normandy before 1066 (Harlow, 1982), pp. 236–52, Bates, ‘Normandy and England after 1066’, English Historical Review, 104 (1989): pp. 851–80, here pp. 873– 76 and the various contributions in Simon Forde, Lesley Johnson and Alan V. Murray (eds), Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages, Leeds Texts and Monographs 14 (Leeds, 1995) and Véronique Gazeau, Pierre Bauduin and Yves Modéran (eds), Identité et Ethnicité, Concepts, débats historiographiques, exemples (IIIe–XIIe siècle), Tables rondes du CRAHM (Caen, 2008). 4 5

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Glanvill, under whose military command the Norman crusaders were fighting.6 It is in the words allegedly spoken by the Anglo-Norman commander in front of his retainers who have gathered for council that we can identify some important features of what might or might not have constituted such a thing as a medieval Norman identity or Normannitas.7 According to the chronicler, it was in a state of great turmoil, with everyone shouting, that Hervey de Glanvill addressed his audience with the following speech:8 For now that so great a diversity of peoples (gentium diversitas) is bound with us under the law of a sworn association, and considering that we find nothing in its dealings which can justly be made a subject of accusation or disparagement, each of us ought to do his utmost in order that in the future no stain of disgrace shall adhere to us who are members of the same stock and blood (ne in nos eiusdem sanguinis generisque socios vitabunda infamie in posterum macula cohereat). Nay more, recalling the virtues of our ancestors, we ought to strive to increase the honour and glory of our race (laudem et gloriam generis nostri) rather than cover tarnished glory with the rags of malice. For the glorious deeds of the ancients kept in memory by posterity are the marks of both affection and honour (insignia enim veterum a posteris in memoriam reducta, et amoris et honoris indicia sunt). If you show yourselves worthy emulators of the ancients (emulatores veterum), honour and glory will be yours, but if unworthy, then disgraceful reproaches. Who does not know that the race of the Normans declines no labour in the practice of continuous valour (Normannorum genus quis nesciat usu continuate virtutis laborem recusare nullum)?9

  See David (ed.), De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, pp. 12–25. For medieval battle speeches and the Norman literary tradition, see John R. E. Bliese, ‘The Courage of the Normans – A Comparative Study of Battle Rhetoric’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 35 (1991): pp. 1–26 and Bliese, ‘Rhetoric and morale: a study of battle orations from the central middle ages’, Journal of Medieval History 15 (1989): pp. 201–26, here pp. 207–9. 7   See Hugh Thomas’ discussion of Normannitas in Thomas, English, pp. 32–45 and Laura Ashe, Fiction and History in England, 1066–1200, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 68 (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 55–64. Also cf. Nick Webber, ‘England and the Norman Myth’, in Julia Barrow and Andrew Wareham (eds), Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters, Essays in Honour of Nicholas Brooks (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 211–28, here pp. 227–28. 8   Unless stated otherwise, the modern English translation follows that presented by Charles Wendell David in De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, pp. 53–186. 9   De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, pp. 104–6. 6

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However, for all the martial prowess and honourable valour ascribed to the Norman people, identified by the medieval author as the Normannorum genus,10 in the very same passage Hervey de Glanvill laments the more recent behaviour of his Norman retinue. Reminding his followers that their evil actions will shed a bad light on their own race as well as on those of their brothers in arms, he entreats them to change their ways and always bear in mind the reputation of their ancestors. Living up to one’s tradition is therefore all the more important: [for] the race of your innocent colleagues (genus vestrum innoxium) will be held responsible for this crime [of yours]; and it is certainly a shame that Normandy, the mother of our race, must bear, and that undeservedly, in the eyes of so many peoples who are here represented the everlasting opprobrium of your outrageous actions (et certe pudet quod generis nostri mater Normannia et immerito a tot nationum que hic adsunt gentibus perpetuum vestri facinoris sustinebit obprobrium).11

What reverberates from these lines is a pronounced awareness of the Normans’ reputation as a kin group (nos eiusdem sanguinis generisque socii)12 as well as of their own historical tradition. According to Hervey de Glanvill’s passionate speech recorded in De expugantione Lyxbonensi, remembering the lives and deeds of one’s forbears and preserving them in the communicative memory of present and future generations (in memoriam reducere) is only part of what constitutes – or should constitute – the Normans’ collective identity; only by re-activating these memories and becoming emulators of their ancestors (emulatores veterum)13 can the Anglo-Normans of the mid-twelfth century live up to their cultural tradition. Only then, according to the assumption presented within the text, can they really be considered as part of the Norman people, the genus or gens Normannorum. In keeping with Jan and Aleida Assmann’s seminal work in the field of cultural memory studies, I contend that what we find in the cited passages as well as in the works of other Anglo-Norman chroniclers of the eleventh and twelfth centuries is a historical consciousness, a Geschichtsbewusstsein,14 that helped constitute a   On the terminology see Loud, ‘Gens Normannorum’, pp. 108–9. Also cf. Herbert Grundmann, Geschichtsschreibung im Mittelalter, Gattungen – Epochen – Eigenart (third edn, Göttingen, 1978), pp. 12–17. 11   De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, pp. 106–8. 12   De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, p. 106. 13   De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, p. 106. 14   See especially Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Die Gegenwart der Vergangenheit im früh- und hochmittelalterlichen Geschichtsbewusstsein’, Historische Zeitschrift, 255 (1992): pp. 61–97, here pp. 62–64; Goetz, ‘Der hochmittelalterliche Geschichtsschreiber und seine Quellen, zur 10

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collective identity by referring to – as well as drawing from – a shared ‘cultural memory’.15 This cultural memory and the information it contains are not, however, simply to be equated with a community’s present consciousness, that is, with how its members define and identify themselves as well as each other at a certain point in time and by means of everyday communication. Nor are all of these memories equally valuable or useful in the face of specific social, political or cultural developments that affect and often define human collectives from historiographischen Praxis im Spiegel von Geschichtsverständnis und Geschichtsbewusstsein’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 32 (1997): pp. 1–18, here pp. 12–14; Goetz, ‘Historical Consciousness and Institutional Concern in European Medieval Historiography (11th and 12th centuries)’, in Sølvi Sogner (ed.), Making Sense of Global History (Oslo, 2001), pp. 349–65, here pp. 352–55 and Goetz, ‘The Concept of Time in the Historiography of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, in Gerd Althoff, Johannes Fried and Patrick J. Geary (eds), Medieval Concepts of the Past, Ritual, Memory, Historiography, Publications of the German Historical Institute (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 139–65. Also cf. Franz-Josef Schmale, Funktion und Formen Mittelalterlicher Geschichtsschreibung, Eine Einführung (Darmstadt, 1993), pp. 38–84 and Ursula Schaefer, ‘Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit im Mittelalter’, in Michael Maurer (ed.), Aufriß der Historischen Wissenschaften, vol. 5: Mündliche Überlieferung und Geschichtsschreibung (Stuttgart, 2003), pp. 148–87. 15   For a definition of the terms ‘collective memory’ and ‘cultural memory’ as they are understood and used throughout this study, see the seminal works by Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen, Beck’sche Reihe (sixth edn, Munich, 2007), pp. 48–65, Assmann, ‘Communicative and Cultural Memory’, in Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (eds), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies (Berlin, 2010), pp. 109–18 here pp. 110–12, Jan Assmann and Jan Czaplicka, ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Identity’, New German Critique, 65 (1995): pp. 125–33 here pp. 128–33, Aleida Assmann, ‘Four Formats of Memory: From Individual to Collective Constructions of the Past’, in Christian Emden and David R. Midgley (eds), Cultural Memory and Historical Consciousness in the German-Speaking World Since 1500, Cultural History and Literary Imagination 1 (Bern, 2004), pp. 19–38 and Aleida Assmann, ‘Memory, Individual and Collective’, in Robert E. Goodin and Charles Tilly (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis, The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science (Oxford, 2006), pp. 211–24 here pp. 220–23. Also cf. Dietrich Harth, ‘The Invention of Cultural Memory’, in Goodin and Tilly (2006), pp. 85–96, Daniel Levy, ‘Das kulturelle Gedächtnis’, in Christian Gudehus, Ariane Eichenberg and Harald Welzer (eds), Gedächtnis und Erinnerung, Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Stuttgart, 2010), pp. 93–101 and Gerald Echterhoff, ‘Das kommunikative Gedächtnis’, in Gudehus, Eichenberg and Welzer (2010), pp. 102–8. On the different theories used by modern scholars in the burgeoning field of cultural memory studies, see Siegfried J. Schmidt, ‘Gedächtnis und Gedächtnistheorien’, in Ansgar Nünning (ed.), Metzler Lexikon Literatur- und Kulturtheorie (fourth edn, Stuttgart, 2008), pp. 237–39, Ansgar Nünning, ‘Gedächtnis, kulturelles’, in Nünning (2008), pp. 239– 40 and Sabine Moller, ‘Das kollektive Gedächtnis’, in Christian Gudehus, Ariane Eichenberg and Harald Welzer (eds), Gedächtnis und Erinnerung, Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch (Stuttgart, 2010), pp. 85–92.

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the outside as well as from the inside. Remembering only certain parts of the collective past while forgetting or restraining others necessarily leads to the creation of a canon, the content of which is usually thought to provide the most essential reference points for a community’s collective identity.16 Creating and maintaining such a canon, however, cannot be the task of the community as a whole, that is to say, of all of its members. Rather, in order to ensure both the canon’s selectivity and its relative stability in the face of historical change and generational transition, access to its content must be reduced to a limited group of experts who are capable of selecting, managing and mediating the information contained in the community’s cultural memory. Yet, to reach all the members of a community – be it a kin group, people or nation – those memories included in a canon delineating the collective past first have to be encoded within certain media and then be transmitted into the realm of everyday communication in which most if not all of the members of the community can actively partake. This crucial mediating process eventually connects the two general formats of the collective memory defined by Jan and Aleida Assmann as ‘cultural memory’ and so-called ‘communicative memory’;17 in short, it is only by means of specific memory media – including monuments, buildings, rituals, and of course literary texts – that the collective past which was previously carefully constructed from the content of the cultural memory can be re-activated to shape the community’s present identity.18 Thus, in keeping with the theoretical and methodological framework of the present volume as outlined by Thomas Foerster and Stefan Burkhardt in their introductory chapter, we can contend that the same processes that mediate between a community’s cultural and communicative memory, and vice versa, also turn heritage into tradition.19 Heritage, in this sense, would by and large be synonymous with the sum total of 16   See Jean-Claude Schmitt, ‘Das Gedächtnis im Mittelalter’, in Eva Dewes and Sandra Duhem (eds), Kulturelles Gedächtnis und interkulturelle Rezeption im europäischen Kontext, Vice Versa, Deutsch-französische Kulturstudien (Berlin, 2008), pp. 33–46. Also cf. Aleida Assmann, ‘Canon and Archive’, in Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (eds), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies (Berlin, 2010), pp. 97–108 here pp. 100–2 and Herbert Grabes, ‘Cultural Memory and the Literary Canon’, in Erll and Nünning (2010), pp. 311–20 here pp. 311–12. 17   Assmann, ‘Communicative and Cultural Memory’, pp. 116–18. 18  Assmann, Gedächtnis, pp. 51–3. 19   See the general introduction by Brian Graham and Peter Howard, ‘Introduction: Heritage and Identity’, in Brian Graham and Peter Howard (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity, Ashgate Research Companion (Ashgate, 2008), pp. 1–18 here pp. 1–8. See also Sara McDowell, ‘Heritage, Memory and Identity’, in Graham and Howard (2008), pp. 37–54 here pp. 38–46, Kenneth R. Olwig, ‘“Natural”’ Landscapes in the Representation of National Identity’, in Graham and Howard (2008), pp. 73–88 here

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historical experience and collective remembrance that is accumulated over time and stored somewhere within the vast archives of a community’s cultural memory. Due to its archival character, however, all information contained and accumulated within a community’s cultural heritage will remain sedimentary; it can only be arranged chronologically and never follows any order but the one dictated by the ‘natural’ sequence of historical events. To put it simply, we could say that heritage, at least in its basic form, is both static and largely unorganized. Consequently, it is not eligible for semantic encoding for it lacks internal coherence. In other words, although heritage can be thought of as the sedimentary deposition of the past, it remains fragmentary and semantically uncharged; it has not yet acquired the coherent narrative structure that is required within the discursive processes of communication to establish a community’s historical consciousness and take part in the construction of its collective identity.20 Heritage, therefore, is simply the raw material from which collective memories can emerge by means of narrative construction and semantic encoding. Once this encoding takes place and a particular vision of the collective past is successfully communicated among the members of a wider community, heritage becomes tradition. If tradition, then, is defined in this volume as the ‘memory of a social group which is activated to integrate the members and hold up a certain identity’,21 that is to say, a dynamic memory that is constructed both implicitly and explicitly and that is never entirely stable but constantly being ‘shaped and re-shaped’,22 then it is the very process of reconciling the past with the present – thereby creating a specific historical consciousness – that bridges generational gaps and constitutes a sense of community. Tradition, then, describes both the consciousness of a collective past that is derived and constructed from a common heritage and the identification with it; thus, it is a process rather than a product. In addition, unlike heritage it cannot exist outside a particular discourse; tradition is always subject to construction and is thus a task that needs to be carried out by experts.23 pp. 85–86 and Jo Littler, ‘Heritage and “Race”’, in Graham and Howard (2008), pp. 89–104 here pp. 89–93. 20   Schmidt, ‘Gedächtnis’, p. 238 and Assmann, ‘Communicative and Cultural Memory’, pp. 116–17. 21   Foerster and Burkhardt, ‘Tradition’, p. 17. 22   Foerster and Burkhardt, ‘Tradition’, p. 17. 23   For the literary products of this expert culture, see Birgit Neumann, ‘The Literary Representation of Memory’, in Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (eds), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies (Berlin, 2010), pp. 333–43 here pp. 341–42. On the theories of discourse connected to this methodology, see Ansgar Nünning, ‘Literatur, Mentalitäten und kulturelles Gedächtnis: Grundriß, Leitbegriffe und Perspektiven einer anglistischen Kulturwissenschaft’, in Nünning (ed.), Literaturwissenschaftliche Theorien, Modelle und

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We can conclude that maintaining a sense of community and historical belonging which embraces the cultural memory of several generations and constantly needs to be reconciled with the present state of affairs, or simply living up to one’s tradition, is a process with two preconditions: first of all, the sedimentary residues of the past must be re-assessed and re-arranged in a semantically coherent way, which usually takes the form of a narrative. Of course, only certain memories will be integrated into the narrative that is about to be created – a highly selective process that brings us back to the function of the canon.24 Secondly, this narrative, which draws from as well as helps define a certain canon, needs to be codified in durable medial form; it has to be ‘inscribed’.25 Only then can it be successfully transmitted between the different formats of the collective memory and eventually be mediated among the members of a wider community by means of everyday communication. Needless to say that not all mediating processes are always successful. As we shall see later, some of the Anglo-Norman writers of the later eleventh and early twelfth centuries had obvious difficulties with reconciling the past or its codification with the present.26 This article seeks to exemplify the relationship between historical consciousness, cultural memory and narrative construction in two steps. As a first step, I will investigate how the Normans’ cultural heritage was turned into historical and literary tradition. In other words, by a comparison of different texts I shall point out how individual aspects of the past were arranged, or rather re-arranged, in order to create a coherent narrative account. Since every historical narrative needs a beginning, this study will primarily be concerned with the origin of the Norman people, its ethnogenesis.27 In this context, particular attention will be paid to depictions of generational awareness and Methoden, Eine Einführung (third edn, Trier, 1988), pp. 173–98 and the various contributions to Jürgen Fohrmann and Harro Müller (eds), Diskurstheorien und Literaturwissenschaft (Frankfurt am Main, 1988). 24   See Assmann, ‘Canon and Archive’, pp. 98–99, Assmann, ‘Funktionsgedächtnis und Speichergedächtnis: Zwei Modi der Erinnerung’, in Kristin Platt and Mihran Dabag (eds), Generation und Gedächtnis, Erinnerungen und kollektive Identitäten (Opladen, 1995), pp. 169–85, here pp. 177–81 and Assmann, Erinnerungsräume, Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses (fourth edn, Munich, 2009), pp. 133–42. 25   See the discussion on ‘inscription’, ‘superscription’ and ‘forgetting’ in Thiemo Breyer, On the Topology of Cultural Memory, Different Modalities of Inscription and Transmission (Würzburg, 2007), pp. 103–5. 26   See below, pp. 248–250. 27   See the discussion by Cassandra Potts, ‘Atque unum ex diversis gentibus populum effecit: Historical Tradition and the Norman Identity’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 18 (1995), pp. 140–42.

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generation conflict, as well as to personifications of child- and motherhood with relation to the history of Normandy and her sons in the early tenth century.28 As a subsequent step, I shall ask how different literary versions of the Normans’ origo gentis, their ethnopoiesis so to speak,29 that were composed during the eleventh and twelfth centuries differed from each other and how each of them eventually relates to a particular socio-political discourse and a specific memory canon. Apart from De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, the texts under consideration shall comprise the works of Dudo of St Quentin, Orderic Vitalis, William of Malmesbury and two shorter anonymous poems. Returning to De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, we can see the Duchy of Normandy portrayed not only as the homeland of the Norman people, but also personified as a mother figure. According to the chronicler, Hervey de Glanvill would not tolerate his men’s behaviour for it stained not only their own reputation, but also and especially that of Normandy, the mother of their people (generis nostri mater Normannia);30 and it is as a mother that Normandy was embarrassed and humiliated in front of all the other nations (nationes) and people (gentes) that were present at the council due to the behaviour of her own wayward sons and their outrageous deeds.31 It is she who eventually has to take the blame for the Norman crusaders’ misconduct, meaning that whatever mischief is performed by the latter inevitably reflects upon the reputation of the gens Normannorum in general, and thus on its mitochondrial Eve, Normandy, the mother of all who descended from her and are united by blood and birth (eiusdem sanguinis generisque socii).32 In other words, what we have here is the literary depiction of an almost classical scenario in which the grieving and mourning mother figure has to suffer unjustly from her offspring’s transgressions. The generation conflict apparent in this scenario warrants further discussing. Apparently, Normandy is envisioned here as a dignified lady who over the years gave birth to many a noble warrior who brought fame to the Norman people (laudem et gloriam generis nostri),33 the memories of which are still present and very alive in the minds of   See below, pp. 9–13.   The term ethnopoiesis was introduced to our discussion of Norman heritage and tradition by Sigbjørn Sønnesyn to whom I am deeply indebted for the friendly and helpful commentary on my investigation of Dudo and his version of the Normans’ origo gentis. Cf. Sigbjørn Sønnesyn, ‘The Rise of the Normans as Ethnopoiesis’ in the present volume. 30   De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, p. 108. 31   On medieval concepts of motherhood and their social relevance, see especially Clarissa W. Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1991), pp. 236–46. 32   De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, p. 104. 33   De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, p. 104. 28 29

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subsequent generations; in effect Normandy has been betrayed by some of her most recent offspring. However, according to the speech attributed to Hervey de Glanvill in De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, it was only among the members of the present generation that the reputation of the Normans and their ancestry became threatened. The solution offered by the Normans’ military leader is indeed quite simple; having neglected the memorable deeds and virtuous lives of their forbearers who descended from Norman stock during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the Anglo-Norman troops must look to the past in order to return to the reputable ways of those who went before them, knowing that these alone are the proper marks of affection and honour (insignia enim veterum a posteris in memoriam reducta, et amoris et honoris indicia sunt).34 The past ultimately becomes the stylized role model for the present, representing a somewhat distant yet familiar age of virtue and glory, kept alive in the memory of future generations and continually re-enacted through faithful imitation (emulatio veterum).35 When the account of the Siege of Lisbon was composed in the second half of the twelfth century (that is, at the time when Stephen of Blois had reigned over England but had Normandy wrenched from him by Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou, after which Henry II re-united both dominions under the English crown for another three decades), several generations had passed since the foundation of Normandy in the early tenth century.36 Which of them Hervey de Glanvill was referring to in his speech and whose deeds were to be remembered and imitated by posterity is not specified by the chronicler.37 However, judging from the textual context, it seems very likely that the binding element between the Anglo-Norman followers of the mid-twelfth century crusader and their famous ancestors, most probably including the   De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, p. 104.   De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, p. 104. 36   On the historical relationship between England and Normandy in the Middle Ages, see especially David Bates, ‘The Rise and Fall of Normandy, c. 911–1204’, in David Bates and Anne Curry (eds), England and Normandy in the Middle Ages (London, 1994), pp. 19–36, here pp. 29–32; David Crouch, ‘Normans and Anglo-Normans: A Divided Aristocracy?’, in Bates and Curry (1994), pp. 51–68, here pp. 63–65; Lesley Abrams, ‘England, Normandy and Scandinavia’, in Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (eds), A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World (Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 43–62; Katherine Keats-Rohan, ‘Le role des élites dans la conolisation de l’Angleterre (vers 1066–1135)’, in Pierre Bouet and Véronique Gazeau (eds), La Normandie et l’Angleterre au Moyen Âge (Caen, 2003), pp. 39– 60, here pp. 44–47; and Richard Gameson, ‘La Normandie et l’Angleterre au XIe siècle: le témoignage des manuscrits’, in Bouet and Gazeau (2003), pp. 129–78, here pp. 146–51. 37   For medieval battle speeches in general, see Richard F. Miller, In Words and Deeds, Battle Speeches in History (Hanover, 2008), pp. 1–64 and pp. 186–230. 34 35

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all-time heroes of Anglo-Norman historiography such as Rollo, Richard I and of course William the Conqueror, was their shared cultural heritage.38 Quintessentially, it was a heritage that was derived from a common origin in the Duchy of Normandy and then turned into tradition by means of the specific historical consciousness that reverberates from De expugnatione Lyxbonensi. In keeping with the terminology offered by P. Nora in his investigation of collective memories in the historical development of the French nation,39 we can contend that for the Anglo-Normans of the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Duchy of Normandy represented a crucial lieu de mémoire, that is, a site of memory which came to embody a manifestation of their historical consciousness and helped shape their identity. As the French historian points out in his overview ‘mémoire collective’, published in 1978, ‘l’histoire s’écrit désormais sous la pression des mémoires collectives’.40 In other words, returning to our discussion of the memory canon, we can say that what essentially defines these lieux de mémoire is their very ability to represent or rather enshrine parts of this canon and be charged with sentiments of group consciousness and historical belonging.41 This does not mean, however, that the memories that come to be connected or ascribed to a particular site are always historically accurate or that they relate to the history of the place as it originally happened. Quite the contrary, in many if not most cases the memories that are ascribed to and inscribed in a certain lieu de mémoire are   For Rollo see Lucien Musset, ‘L’origine de Rollo’, in Lucien Musset (ed.), Nordica et Normannica, Recueil d’études sur la Scandinavie ancienne et médievale, les expeditions des Vikings et la fondation de la Normandie, (Paris, 1997), pp. 383–87 and David C. Douglas, ‘Rollo of Normandy’, English Historical Review, 228 (1942): pp. 417–36, here pp. 434–36. Also cf. Nancy P. Gordon, ‘Rollo: Norwegian-born count of Rouen (r. 911–c.932)’, in Shelley Wobrink (ed.), Great Lives from History (Pasadena, 2005), pp. 900–3. 39   His most important study for the current undertaking is Pierre Nora, Les Lieux de mémoire, 3 vols (Paris, 1984–92). The whole work has been provided in translation as Pierre Nora, Rethinking France, Les Lieux de mémoire, 4 vols (Chicago, 1999–2010); see especially vol. 4: Histories and Memories. 40   Pierre Nora, ‘Mémoire collective’, in Jacques Le Goff, Roger Chartier and Jacques Revel (eds), La nouvelle histoire (Paris, 1978), pp. 398–401, here p. 400. 41   For a recent summary on the topic of lieux de mémoire and their significance to cultural studies, see Pim de Boer, ‘Loci memoriae – Lieux de mémoire’, in Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (eds), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies (Berlin, 2010), pp. 19– 26, here pp. 19–21, Astrid Erll, ‘Lieux de mémoire/Erinnerungsorte’, in Ansgar Nünning (ed.), Metzler Lexikon Literatur- und Kulturtheorie (fourth edn, Stuttgart, 2008), p. 423 and Patrick Schmidt, ‘Zwischen Medien und Topoi: Die Lieux de mémoire und die Medialität des kulturellen Gedächtnisses’, in Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (eds), Medien des kollektiven Gedächtnisses, Konstruktivität – Historizität – Kulturspezifität, Media and Cultural Memory 1 (Berlin, 2004), pp. 25–44. 38

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strictly speaking anachronistic, meaning that they originate not in the historical context of the place itself but out of particular social or political discourses of the present; thus, they relate back to the past as it is constructed from a present point of view and manifested in a community’s historical consciousness.42 As a result, those sites of memory that easily relate or that can be related to the current memory canon are most likely to be employed in the construction of group consciousness and collective identity. The memories they embody are those that constitute and define the community’s tradition. Largely disconnected from their chronological context, they henceforth adhere to the structure dictated by the narrative that embraces a community’s historical consciousness; in a sense, the lieux de mémoire themselves become timeless. The inner coherence of this narrative structure, however, is defined semantically rather than chronologically. With regard to De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, the Duchy of Normandy serves as an important site of memory for the Normans’ consciousness as a cultural and ethnic community; it is here that their historical traditions seem to have converged and created a vital reference point for their collective self-perception. In fact, this function appears to have grown all the more important once the dukes of Normandy and their successors had conquered new territories and founded new kingdoms beyond the borders of north-western France.43 Despite the rapid growth and expansion of the Norman world during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, or maybe exactly because of it, the Duchy of Normandy continued to play a crucial part in the Anglo-Normans historical consciousness as a people, for it continued to provided them with the manifestation of a common

  See the helpful discussion on the different modes of historical narratives by Peter Munz, ‘The Historical Narrative’, in Michael Bentley (ed.), Companion to Historiography (London, 1997), pp. 833–52. Also cf. David Carr, Time, Narrative, and History (Bloomington, 1986), pp. 153–86. 43   See Graham A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow, 2000), pp. 60–91; Truesdell S. Brown, ‘The Political Use of the Past in Norman Sicily’, in Paul Magdalino (ed.), The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe (London, 1992), pp. 191–210, here pp. 193–96; Elisabeth van Houts, ‘The Norman Conquest through European Eyes’, English Historical Review, 110 (1995): pp. 832–53, here pp. 852–53; van Houts, ‘The Political Relations between England and Normandy before 1066 According to the Gesta Normannorum ducum’, in Raymonde Foreville (ed.), Les mutations socio-culturelles au tournant de XIe–XIIe siècles (Paris, 1984), pp. 85–97; Peter S. Noble, ‘Romance in England and Normandy in the Twelfth Century’, in David Bates and Anne Curry (eds), England and Normandy in the Middle Ages (London, 1994), pp. 69–78, here pp. 75–76; as well as the various contributions to Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (eds), A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World (Woodbridge, 2002). 42

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origin.44 And yet, we should keep in mind that only a few if any of Hervey de Glanvill’s retainers who were addressed by his speech at the council were actually born in Normandy; even if Charles W. David is correct in suggesting an East Anglian provenance for both the chronicler himself and the Norman troops with whom he was travelling,45 chances are that most of them were born and raised on English soil rather than in the Norman duchy. However, supposing that the chronicler’s account is in any way representative of Anglo-Norman selfperception and historical consciousness at the time of its composition, and I can see no compelling reason why it should not be, we have good reason to believe that, even as late as the mid-twelfth century when the Siege of Lisbon took place, the Anglo-Normans were sometimes looking back to the lands beyond the English Channel for reasons of self-definition and collective identification.46 The metaphor of Normandy as a mother figure appears to have served this purpose particularly well, for it implied both a common ancestry and a blood relation persisting beyond geographical and generational boundaries. In an anonymous poem, also dating to the middle of the twelfth century, we can find echoes of a similar relationship between the heirs of the Norman conquerors and their distant ancestors who founded the Duchy of Normandy by carving it from the Carolingian Empire.47 Similar to the account of the Siege of Lisbon, the short poem relates the Normans’ historical tradition back to a single mother-like figure. This time, however, it is not Normandy as a whole but its capital city which is portrayed in terms that describe a familial relationship. ‘Noble Rouen, ancient city, mighty, respectable,’ the poem begins, ‘the Norman people (gens Normanna) has put itself in command over you’.48 The particularly   See Emily Albu Hanawalt, ‘Dudo of St. Quentin: The Heroic Past Imagined’, Haskins Society Journal, 6 (1994): pp. 115–17 and Mathieu Arnoux, ‘Before the Gesta Normannorum and Beyond Dudo: Some Evidence on Early Norman Historiography’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 22 (1999): pp. 38–41. 45   See n. 3 above. 46   For a detailed discussion of the different historiographical traditions in England and Normandy, see Norbert Kersken, Geschichtsschreibung im Europa der ‘nationes’: Nationalgeschichtliche Gesamtdarstellungen im Mittelalter (Cologne, 1995), pp. 78–125 and pp. 126–367. Also cf. Nancy Partner, Serious Entertainments, The Writing of History in Twelfth-Century England (Chicago, 1977), pp. 183–230; Antonia Gransden, Historical Writing in England, c. 550 to c. 1307 (Ithaca, 1995), pp. 136–65; and Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Making History, The Normans and Their Historians in Eleventh-Century Italy (Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 87–171. 47   To my best knowledge, the most recent edition of the poem is still provided by Charles Richard in Richard (ed.), Notice sur l’ancienne bibliothèques des échevins de la ville de Rouen (Rouen, 1845), p. 37. 48   Richard (ed.), Notice, p. 37. 44

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interesting part here is the somewhat paradoxical assumption that Rouen had to be conquered before it could become a mother figure for the gens Normanna. As we shall see later, this idea had already been presented elsewhere some hundred and fifty years earlier, namely in the work of Dudo of St Quentin who was writing in the early eleventh century.49 According to the twelfth century poem, however, once the Normans had successfully established their dominion over the ancient city of Rouen (urbs antiqua) – probably referring to the grant of Rouen and its hinterland to Rollo in the wake of the Treaty of Saint-Clair-surEpte in 91150 – it became the birthplace of many a successful conqueror. As the couplets continue, the position of Rouen as a site of memory and vital reference point within the Anglo-Norman world becomes increasingly evident: Thanks to your powers all Britain was conquered (viribus acta tuis devicta Britannia servit); and turbulent England, cold Scotland and ferocious Wales, all with their hands stretched out, paid their tribute to you. […] From you came forth, made from pure Norman blood (ex te progenitus, Normanno sanguine clarus), the conqueror who rules supreme, Roger,51 wise and rich. You mighty Roger, you mightiest of kings (maxima gloria regum); Conqueror of Italy and Sicily, and Africa (subditur Ytalia et Siculus, tibi, subditur Afer); Feared by Greece and Syria, and even Persia; Ethiopia, the white, and Germany, the dark, they all ask for you to rule them, to watch over them. They seek your true belief and your lavish hand to grant them protection. You alone are worthy of the empire of the world (tu dignum imperio solum dijudicat orbis).52   See below, pp. 236–244.   See Lucien Musset, ‘Ce que l’on peut savoir du traité de Saint-Clair-sur-Epte’, in Lucien Musset (ed.), Nordica et Normannica, Recueil d’études sur la Scandinavie ancienne et médievale, les expeditions des Vikings et la foundation de la Normandie (Paris, 1997), pp. 377–81. 51   This reference relates to Roger II, the first Norman king of Sicily, whose kingship was officially confirmed by the antipope Anacletus II in 1130. On the historical background, see Hubert Houben, Roger II. von Sizilien, Herrscher zwischen Orient und Okzident, Gestalten des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (Darmstadt, 1997), translated into English as Houben, Roger II of Sicily, A Ruler between East and West, (trans.) Graham A. Loud and Diana Milburn, Cambridge Medieval Textbooks (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 30–59. 52   Richard (ed.), Notice, p. 37. 49 50

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Once again, the image of Normandy and its capital is that of a noble progenitor whose fertility gave rise to a potent and powerful line of conquerors, who gained possession not only of the British Isles, but also of the wealthy lands in the Mediterranean. According to the poet, it was by unity of blood (Normanno sanguine clarus) that these conquests were achieved, causing fear among many of the mightiest nations of the world and forcing them into submission or tribute (tibi debita solvunt).53 The Normans are clearly perceived as a people destined for glory, chosen by birth to be kings or even kings of kings. While some of them conquered England and her neighbours, others became rulers in their own right who rose to power in the southern peripheries of medieval Europe.54 Yet, their roots are traced back to a single common origin, namely the city of Rouen, thought of as the very birthplace of the Norman people, the dignity of which is described in the poem as equal to that of Rome, similar in name and honesty (Rome similis, tam nomine quam probitate).55 What comes across prima facie as little more than a rather fanciful wordplay invented by the author of the poem in order to highlight the tradition of Rouen and her imperial honour (imperialis honorificentia)56 – with the city of Rome being the ultimate epitome of the Roman emperors and their power over vast parts of the Latin world – could also be read in a way that brings the whole poem yet one step closer to the idea of the Normans’ origo gentis.57 Along with many other meanings and references in the thriving historical and literary discourse of the eleventh and twelfth centuries,58 the city of Rome maintained its significance

  Richard (ed.), Notice, p. 37.   For the Norman conquest of southern Italy, see especially Loud, Robert Guiscard, pp. 92–185, Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy?’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 25 (1981): pp. 13–34 and Loud, ‘Churches and Churchmen in an Age of Conquest: Southern Italy 1030–1130’, Haskins Society Journal, 4 (1993): pp. 37–53. 55   Richard (ed.), Notice, p. 37. 56   Richard (ed.), Notice, p. 37. 57   See Alheydis Plassmann, Origo gentis: Identitäts- und Legitimitätsstiftung in frühund hochmittelalterlichen Herkunftserzählungen, Orbis medievalis 7 (Berlin, 2006), pp. 11– 31 and 243–64. Also cf. Plassmann, ‘Der Wandel des normannischen Geschichtsbildes im 11. Jahrhundert: Eine Quellenstudie zu Dudo von St. Quentin und Wilhelm von Jumièges’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 115 (1995): pp. 188–207, here p. 207 and Susan Reynolds, ‘Medieval origines gentium and the Community of the Realm’, History, 68 (1983): pp. 375–90, here pp. 380–82. 58   See the various contributions to Bernhard Schimmelpfennig and Ludwig Schmugge (eds), Rom im hohen Mittelalter: Studien zu den Romvorstellungen und zur Rompolitik vom 10. bis zum 12. Jahrhundert (Sigmaringen, 1992). 53 54

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as both caput mundi and the jurisdictional head of the Latin orbis christianus.59 It was here that the papal primacy over the Church was still thought to reside, especially after the events that caused the so-called Schism of 1054 and its aftermath in which the Normans themselves played no minor role.60 It was also in Rome that Christianity had experienced its triumphant success after being granted the rank of a religio licita and later becoming the official belief of the Roman emperors, beginning of course with the famous vision and conversion of Constantine – a tradition that soon became shrouded in legend and continued to spark the imagination and interpretation of medieval writers both secular and ecclesiastical. Even though the actual birthplace of Christianity lay far to the east, with the city of Jerusalem having been recently re-conquered from Muslim dominion by the armies of the First Crusade, to the mind of a mid-twelfth century writer, Rome was still vividly present as the one place where Western imperial power and Christian belief had long ago entered their most fruitful and momentous relationship ever, thereby becoming one of the most significant and potent lieux de mémoire in the Latin historiographical tradition and beyond.61 In a sense, it was a site of rebirth, a place which, despite its pagan origins, was   See Horst Fuhrmann, ‘Ecclesia Romana – Ecclesia Universalis’, in Schimmelpfennig and Schmugge (1992), pp. 41–46, Michael Seidlmayer, ‘Rom und Romgedanke im Mittelalter’, in Bernhard Kytzler (ed.), Rom als Idee (Darmstadt, 1993), pp. 158–87 and Arnold Angenendt and Rudolf Schieffer, Roma – Caput et fons (Opladen, 1989). 60   See especially Axel Bayer, Spaltung der Christenheit: Das sogenannte morgenländische Schisma von 1054 (Cologne, 2002), pp. 46–62; Bayer, ‘Das sogenannte Schisma von 1054’, in Peter Bruns and Georg Gresser (eds), Vom Schisma zu den Kreuzzügen, 1054 – 1204 (Paderborn, 2005), pp. 27–39. On the relationship between the papacy, Rome, Byzantium and the Normans, see Matthew Bennett, ‘The Normans in the Mediterranean’, in Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (eds), A Companion to the AngloNorman World (Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 87–102; Dione Clementi, ‘The Relations between the Papacy, the Western Roman Empire, and the Emergent Kingdom of Sicily and South Italy, 1050–1156’, Bullettino dell‘Istituto italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivio Muratoriano, 80 (1968): pp. 191–212; Hartmut Hoffmann, ‘Die Anfänge der Normannen in Süditalien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 49 (1969), pp. 95–144; Hoffmann, ‘Langobarden, Normannen, Päpste. Zum Legitimitätsproblem in Unteritalien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 58 (1978), pp. 137–80; and the collection of primary texts in Joszef Deér, Das Papsttum und die süditalienischen Normannenstaaten, 1053–1212, Historische Texte Mittelalter, 12 (Göttingen, 1969). Also cf. Graham A. Loud, ‘Byzantine Italy and the Normans’, in James D. Howard-Johnston (ed.), Byzantium and the West, Proceedings of the XIXth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies 1984 (Amsterdam, 1988), pp. 215–33 and Loud, ‘The papacy and the rulers of southern Italy, 1058–1198’, in Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe (eds), The Society of Norman Italy, The Medieval Mediterranean 38 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 151–84. 61   See notes 58 and 59 above. 59

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turned into a Christian capital under Constantine and his successors and which soon witnessed crucial historical and ecclesiastical developments that shaped the world as it was known to the author of the Rouen-poem and his contemporaries. With these traditions and memories in mind, the allegory between Rouen and Rome presented in the poem appears as a powerful statement concerning the rebirth of Normandy’s capital city under the Norman rulers. Just like ancient Rome, Rouen could look back on a history before the key event to which it owed its prominent position as a lieu de mémoire.62 And yet, it was only after it was conquered by Rollo and his followers in the early tenth century that Rouen’s function as a birthplace of the gens Normannorum could truly unfold.63 Like Constantine in Rome, Rollo was not born a Christian, nor did he come to Normandy as one. As with the case of Constantine, Anglo-Norman literary tradition, following Dudo of St Quentin, depicts Rollo experiencing a vision leading to his baptism,64 and only after his conversion was Normandy created or re-created as the birthplace of a chosen Christian people, a people who were reborn or re-invented in the wake of its conquest, the members of which would soon gain dominion over or even create new powerful kingdoms throughout Europe. The idea of a re-birth in the face of Christianization, possibly inspired by existing literary traditions concerning the conversion of the first Christian emperor,65 helps resolve the apparent paradox of Normandy or Rouen as simultaneously the mother of the gens Normannorum and the object of the Normans’ first conquest. With regard to Rome, the city’s transformation into a Christian capital did not take place before it was conquered by Constantine on his campaign through Italy, which saw his military victory over Maxentius in 312;66 it thus remained a predominantly pagan place, even though the new sole ruler of the Latin West began soon after to grant a number of concessions or even privileges to his Christian subjects, including the so-called Edictum Mediolanense.67 However, it   See notes 39 and 40 above.   For the early tradition of historical writing in Normandy, see Leah Shopkow, History and Community, Norman Historical Writing in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Washington, 1997), pp. 35–117 and Arnoux, ‘Beyond Dudo’, pp. 29–38. 64   See Alexander H. Krappe, ‘Rollo’s Vision in the Norman Chronicles of Dudo of St. Quentin and his Successors’, Neophilologus, 8 (1923): pp. 81–5. 65   Although his father Constantius I Chlorus had already treated the Christian population of the Roman Empire with less rigour and animosity than had his own predecessors by reducing the persecutions to a minimum, Constantine was the first Roman emperor actually to embrace baptism, thereby becoming part of the Christian communio. 66   See Brandt, Konstantin, pp. 54–52. 67  Brandt, Konstantin, pp. 69–72. 62 63

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was not before Constantine became the sole ruler of the whole Roman Empire by defeating Licinius and having him executed that Christianity within Rome gained momentum, with Constantine clearly perceiving himself as Christ’s agent under Christian divine right.68 His rule over both parts of the Roman Empire became increasingly connected to or even derived from divine appointment. The somewhat similar portrayal of Roger II in the poem supports such a reading, for the first Norman king of Sicily is described in terms that qualify him not only as a king, but as a king of kings, a conqueror beyond compare, an emperor in the tradition of Rome who alone was worthy and capable of ruling over the ‘empire of the world’ (tu dignum imperio solum dijudicat orbis).69 If we were to relate the allegory between Rouen and Rome in the midtwelfth century poem to the depiction of Normandy in De expugantione Lyxbonensi, two texts that are actually nearly contemporary but for which we have no indication of any intertextual relationship, Hervey de Glanvill’s indignation concerning the exposure and humiliation of Normandy becomes even more plausible. If Normandy and her capital could still be perceived by these Anglo-Norman chroniclers as the mother figure of a chosen people, a race of conquerors equalling or even surpassing the rulers of other kingdoms and maybe even equal in dignity to the Roman emperors following Constantine, then putting her to shame would be a violation of her imperial honour, that is, a calling into question of the noble traditions which the Normans claimed for themselves in their historical writing since the days of Dudo of St Quentin.70 Beginning with Dudo’s work, the earliest history of the Norman duchy, that is to say, the period embracing its very foundation and the lives and deeds of the first three successive rulers, was habitually described by Anglo-Norman chroniclers as the rise of a chosen people, the leaders of which were destined by God and by birth to unite different peoples under a single rule.71

  See Piepenbrink, Konstantin, pp. 85–115.   Richard (ed.), Notice, p. 37. 70   For Dudo see Leah Shopkow, ‘The Carolingian World of Dudo of Saint-Quentin’, Journal of Medieval History, 15 (1989): pp. 19–37; Dudo, History, pp. ix–xxviii; and Eleanor Searle, ‘Fact and Pattern in Heroic History: Dudo of St. Quentin’, Viator, 15 (1984): pp. 1–5. Also cf. Barbara Vopelius-Holtzendorff, ‘Dudo von Saint-Quentin: der erste Geschichtsschreiber der Normandie (987–1015)’, unpublished thesis (1970), pp. 71–109. 71   For Dudo’s work in relation to the writing of national history in the earlier Middle Ages, see Kersken, Geschichtsschreibung, pp. 81–6. Also cf. Emily Albu, The Normans and Their Histories: Propaganda, Myth and Subversion (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 7–46. 68 69

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The narrative structure of Dudo’s Historia Normannorum72 is divided into four books, each of which is dedicated to one of four dramatis personae, namely Hasting (Hastingus), Rollo (Rollo), William Longsword (Willelmus) and Duke Richard I (Ricardus).73 It is in the second book, devoted to Rollo, that we can find the first known literary account of the Normans’ origo gentis.74 Similar to Hervey de Glanvill’s speech in De epugnatione Lyxbonensi, the role of Normandy is described in the terminology of a biological or familial relationship. However, the picture drawn by Dudo is even more complex. While tracing the Normans’ most distant ancestors back to the Siege of Troy – by no means an uncommon motif among Western medieval chroniclers75 – he then locates their more recent descent in Scandinavia, more explicitly on the island of Dacia.76 Yet by the time the followers of Antenor, who allegedly had fled Troy together with their leader and wandered the Mediterranean in exile, eventually reached the regions between the River Danube and the Scythian Sea (a Danubio ad Scythici ponti),77 they were not yet Normans. It is not until much later that Dudo begins to attribute this name to them. However, even before Rollo and his retainers finally arrive on the borders of Francia, the first reference to a mother figure appears, even though it does not explicitly refer to the gens Normannorum but to their most recent forbearers. In one of the numerous short poems or apostrophae included in Dudo’s work, Dacia is referred to as the mother and nurturer of her protégées, nurslings who are sent to the Gauls through the casting of lots (Dacia, sorte tuos quae Gallis mittis alumnos).78 One of them is Rollo himself who has to leave the island after 72   The more popular title De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum actually goes back to the work’s nineteenth century editor Jules Lair. For a discussion concerning the possible original title of Dudo’s work, see Elisabeth van Houts, ‘The Gesta Normannorum Ducum: a History without an End’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 3 (1980): pp. 106–8. 73   See the editorial remarks by Eric Christiansen in Dudo of St. Quentin, The History of the Normans, (trans.) Eric Christiansen (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. xiii–xxii. 74   See Plassmann, Origo gentis, pp. 248–50 and Pierre Bouet, ‘Dudon de SaintQuentin et Virgile: L’Énéide au service de la cause normande’, in Lucien Musset (ed.), Recueil d’études en homage á Lucien Musset (Caen, 1990), pp. 215–36. Also cf. Marjorie Chibnall, The Normans, The Peoples of Europe (Malden, 2000), pp. 1–8. 75  Chibnall, The Normans, pp. 227–30, Reynolds, ‘Origines gentium’, pp. 376–78 and Plassmann, Origo gentis, pp. 360–65. 76   For Dudo’s allegory between the Daci and the Danai, see Dudo, History, 16–7 and the discussion by Emily Albu, ‘The Normans and Their Myths’, Haskins Society Journal 11 (1998): pp. 124–26. 77   Dudo of St. Quentin, De moribus et actis primorum Normanniae ducum, (ed.) Jules Lair (Caen, 1865), p. 129. 78  Dudo, De moribus, p. 144.

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a fierce argument with the Dacian king. Still a heathen and not yet conscious of his faith, Rollo sails to England and battles the Anglo-Saxon forces before eventually making peace with their leader and then setting off for continental Europe. It is here, in the heart of Carolingian France, that the Norman people will soon afterwards come into existence, ushered in by the conquest and conversion of Rollo and his followers.79 This ethnogenesis is foreshadowed in the few couplets that precede the prose account of Rollo’s voyage to Normandy via the island of Scanza and the British Isles:80 So, to this man, good fortune will furnish success and enrichment, Wealth will be showered on Rollo, affluence on him be conferred; Francia, you will be fruitful in your fortunate offspring (Francia deque tuis genitis fecunda beatis), Formed of the seed commingled of noble Christian believers (Spermate nobelium concretis Christicolarum), Once there is peace between Francia’s sons and the Dacians, (Dacigenis cum Francigenis jam pacificatis) Then will she breed and give birth, and pregnant, bring forth (Gignet producens, expurget, proferet ingens) Kings and archbishops, dukes also and counts, nobles of high rank (Reges, pontificesque, duces, comites, proceresque): Under whose rule, Christ-led, all the world will rejoice and prevail (sub quibus orbis ovans pollebit, principe Christo), And by whom churches will everywhere be increased in number (et quibus ecclesiae fecundabantur ubique), And they will rejoice in new and continuing progeny (Atque novo quorum, gaudebunt, perpete foete), By whom, triply made pure in baptism, three times (ter, trinaeque, quibus baptismate purificatis), Have the squadrons of angels been increased to supply the lost tenth (jam superum turmae decimae vice perditae adauctae).81

The terminology used by Dudo to relate this scene is quite revealing for our understanding of his historical and generational consciousness. What we encounter here is actually a close metaphorical description of the various stages that lead up to childbirth. With Rollo’s arrival in Francia, soon followed by an   Potts, ‘Historical Tradition’, pp. 140–43.   Unless stated otherwise, the modern English translation follows that presented by Eric Christiansen in Dudo, History, p. 28. 81  Dudo, De moribus, p. 144. 79 80

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account of his baptism,82 a new seed is said to have been planted into the Frankish womb (spermate nobelium concretis christicolarum)83 due to a peace agreement between the pagan Scandinavian intruders – not yet described as Normans – and the Christian Franks. As a result of this impregnation, Francia will prepare to bear a most fortunate offspring; before long she will breed and give birth (gignet producens, expurget, proferet) to a chosen people, consisting of kings, dukes and counts (reges, […] duces, comites) as well as archbishops (pontifices) who will reign justly under Christ’s guidance (principe Christo).84 Furthermore, they shall themselves be perpetually succeeded by a rich and fruitful progeny (atque novo quorum, gaudebunt, perpete foete), thus preserving their people’s glory. In short, while Francia transformed into what then became Normandy – with Richard being the first Norman ruler to officially bear the title of duke and becoming the protagonist of the last of Dudo’s books – she also re-invented herself as the mitochondrial Eve of a new and powerful people, the heritage of which embraced both Frankish and Viking roots that had become intertwined under the auspice of Rollo’s baptism.85 Similar to the narrative structure that we encountered in the anonymous twelfth century poem, Dudo’s Normandy also had to be conquered before she could perform this evolutionary transformation. Moreover, just like the ancient city of Rouen, the Norman duchy was not entirely created from scratch; quite the contrary, by the time Rollo and his troops penetrated into the Carolingian heartlands, the province of Francia was already looking back on quite a long-standing historical and ecclesiastical tradition.86 However, the rich monastic landscape that the Carolingians had inherited from the Merovingian rulers and which was soon reformed under the reign of Charlemagne and his sons experienced a setback due to the ongoing Viking raids of the ninth and early tenth centuries.87 In a sense, it was the Normans’ own ancestors who had long devastated the very regions that would eventually become the Duchy of Normandy, and some of those who arrived with Rollo early in the tenth century may even have participated in the more recent raids.   On Rollo’s baptism see Douglas, ‘Rollo’, pp. 431–33 and Potts, ‘Historical Tradition’, pp. 140–41. 83  Dudo, De moribus, p. 144. 84  Dudo, De moribus, p. 144. 85   On the influence of ‘foreign’ literary and cultural traditions in the works of Dudo and his contemporaries, see especially Elisabeth van Houts, ‘Scandinavian Elements in Norman Literature of the Eleventh Century’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 6 (1983): pp. 108–21, Kersken, Geschichtsschreibung, pp. 81–86 and Plassmann, Origo gentis, pp. 289–91. 86  Plassmann, Origo gentis, pp. 116–90. 87   On the history of tenth and eleventh century, Normandy see Bates, Normandy, pp. 1–43 and Bates, ‘Rise and Fall’, pp. 19–22. 82

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Yet, once their leader had accepted baptism by the hand of a certain Archbishop Franco and, according to Dudo, married the king’s daughter Gisla,88 many of his men followed in embracing the Christian faith. It is from this decisive moment on that they are portrayed in the Historia Normannorum as a new and noble people and that Rollo is increasingly referred to as Robert, the name of his new Frankish godfather.89 Embedded within this momentous event is the concept of a threefold regeneration: while Rollo himself is reborn (regeneratus)90 as Robert in the waters of holy baptism, the Scandinavian Vikings who sailed, fought and settled with him are collectively reborn as the Normans, and finally Francia, that is to say, those parts which were granted to Rollo and his men by Charles the Simple in 911,91 are likewise reborn as Normandy – thus the Normans’ ethnogenesis is complete. The narrative and semantic entanglement of these three moments which are combined within the portrayal of Normandy describe her as a mother who after being inseminated and impregnated by a foreign intruder – a scenario strikingly similar to the description of the Norman conquest of Rouen in the twelfth century poem92 – transforms and re-invents herself in the vocation of motherhood; this process is employed by Dudo in order to hammer home two crucial arguments. Firstly, it allows him to clearly separate the first Norman rulers – all of whom he somewhat anachronistically identifies as dukes even before the time of Richard I93 – from their Viking ancestors; in this context, Rollo’s regeneration (regeneratio)94 as Robert is all the more important for it demarcates the Christian ruler from the pagan pirate. This dichotomy is intensified through the pretext of Rollo’s life and deeds as described and arranged in the Historia Normannorum. The first book in the composition of Dudo’s work, and also the shortest one, is dedicated not to a Norman ruler – for it predates the Normans’ ethnogenesis included in the second book – but to the exact opposite, a Viking raider and plunderer by the name of Hasting, produced by the chronicler as the antithesis to the later dukes of Normandy. Dudo’s story about Hasting, the first literary account ever to mention this semi-legendary figure, is one that is antithetical to   See Dudo, De moribus, p. 170–72.   Douglas, ‘Rollo’, p. 432. 90  Dudo, De moribus, p. 147. 91   Musset, ‘Traité de Saint-Clair-sur-Epte’, pp. 379–80 and Chibnall, Normans, pp. 9–38. 92   See above, pp. 233. 93   See Albu, ‘Dudo of St. Quentin’, pp. 117–18. 94  Dudo, De moribus, p. 147. 88 89

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the later story of the gens Normannorum as a chosen people.95 In a sense, Hasting himself comes to embody all the character traits that the post-baptism Rollo successfully abandons; he serves as the epitome of the very last generation to truly separate the Vikings from the gens Normannorum, while Rollo’s life in contrast marks the very moment of transition, thus requiring him to be split into two personae who go by two different yet largely homonymous names. As a result, Rollo is on one hand Normandy’s conqueror, a relationship which, with regard to Dudo’s choice of terminology (sperma […] gignere producens […] proferre),96 could well be interpreted in a sexual or biological way; on the other hand, he is as ‘duke’ Robert her firstborn son – a paradox that once more reminds us of the Rouen poem. As for the gens Normannorum, conceived as the result of this quasi-biological conjunction, Rollo also fulfils a double function. In the Historia Normannorum, he is designed to be the first real Norman, that is, Normandy’s firstborn son and the very first to embrace the Christian faith, thereby paving the way for his followers and their successors. Simultaneously, he is also presented as their father figure, the conqueror of Normandy who produced the very seed from which the Norman people was bred within the Frankish womb.97 It is in Dudo’s account of the life and deeds of Rollo that we witness a pseudo-imperial claim that was closely modelled on classical literary traditions and their description of the noble Roman emperors, most notably Constantine.98 Similar to the allegory between the two cities of Rouen and Rome in the short poem dating to the twelfth century and the characterization of the Sicilian king Roger II as a ruler worthy of the kingdom of the world,99 the account of Rollo’s arrival on the continent exhibits a clear reference to Roman imperial traditions as they were known at the time – preserved for example in Eusebius’ Vita Constantini and the popular medieval ‘forgery’ known as   For Hasting see Frederic Amory, ‘The Viking Hasting in Franco-Scandinavian Legend’, in Margot H. King and Wesley M. Stevens (eds), Saints, Scholars and Heroes, Studies in Medieval Culture in Honor of Charles W. Jones, vol. 1: The Anglo-Saxon Heritage (Collegeville, 1979), pp. 265–86. Also cf. Jean-Guy Gouttebroze, ‘Exclusion et integration des normands Hasting et Rollon’, in C.U.E.R.M.A. (ed.), Exclus et systèmes exclusion dans la literature et la civilisation médiévales (Aix-en-Provence, 1978), pp. 299–311. 96  Dudo, De moribus, p. 144. 97   I am greatly indebted to Professor Emeritus Michael Clanchy for pointing me in the direction of a possible relationship between Frankish and Norman traditions, especially as to the question of whether the Normans in Normandy and England were imagining themselves to be the heirs of the Franks. 98   On the survival of Carolingian as well as classical traditions in Dudo’s work, see Shopkow, ‘Carolingian World’, pp. 21–5. 99   See above, pp. 232. 95

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the Constitutum Constantini, which in turn was partly derived from the Actus Silvestri, an earlier source dating from the late fourth or early fifth century.100 In Dudo’s work, Rollo experiences two visions while on his voyage, both of which relate to his future in Normandy, and the birth and rise of the Norman people under his leadership.101 In the second of these visions, appearing to him in his sleep, Rollo seemed to behold himself placed on a mountain, far higher than the highest, in a Frankish dwelling (videre videbatur praecellentissimis quodam praecelsiore Franciscae habitationis monte se positum). And on the summit of this mountain he saw a spring of sweet-smelling water flowing, and himself washing in it, and by it made whole from the contagion of leprosy and the itch, with which he was infected (seque in eo ablui et ab eo expiari contagione leprae et prurigine contaminatum); and finally, while he was still staying on top of that mountain, he saw about the base of it many thousands of birds of different kinds and various colours (multa milium avium diversorum generum, varii coloris), but with red left wings, extending in such numbers and so far and so wide that he could not catch sight of where they ended, however hard he looked. And they went one after the other in harmonious incoming flights and sought the spring on the mountain, and washed themselves, swimming together as they do when rain is coming; and when they had all been anointed by this miraculous dipping, they all ate together in a suitable place, without being separated into genera or species, and without any disagreement or dispute, as if they were friends sharing food (congrua eas statione sine discretione generum et specierum, ine ullo contentionis jurgio, mutuo vicissim pastu quasi amicabiliter comedere). And they carried off twigs and worked rapidly to build nests; and furthermore, they willingly yielded to his command.102

Awaking from his dream, Rollo immediately consults a learned man of the Christian faith, probably a priest, who then interprets the vision as follows: The mountain in Francia where you seemed to be standing represents the church of that land. The spring which was on the summit of the mountain means the rebirth of baptism (fons, qui in summitate montis erat, baptismus regenerationis interpretatur). By the leprosy and itch with which you were infected, you may understand the crimes and sins which you have committed, which were washed away therein; and by your being purged from that disease of leprosy and itch you   Karen Piepenbrink, Konstantin der Große und seine Zeit (second edn, Darmstadt, ²2007), p. 125. 101   See Krappe, ‘Rollo’s Vision’, pp. 81–82. 102  Dudo, De moribus, p. 146. 100

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were to be born again in the font of holy baptism (te lavacro sacri baptismatis regenerari) and cleansed from all sins. By the different kinds of birds with their crimson left wings, whose furthest extremity you were unable to reach with your gaze, you may understand men of different provinces with shields on their arms, who have done fealty to you, and whom you will see joined together in a countless multitude (per volucres diversorum generum, laevas alas habentes puniceas, quarum infinitissimam extremitatem exhaurire visu non poteras, homines diversarum provinciarum scutulata brachia habentes, tuique effecti fideles, quorum innumeram multitudinem coadunatam videbis, animo deprehendas). By the birds bathed in the spring and washed therein by turns, and feeding in common: the people infected by the taint of the Old Deceiver, to be washed by the sign of baptism and feasted on the sustenance of the sacred body and blood of Christ. By the nests, which they were making round the mountains, you may understand the walls of the devastated cities which are to be rebuilt. The birds of different sorts will obey you: men of different kingdoms will kneel down to serve you (tibi aves diversarum specierum optemperabunt; tibi homines diversorum regnorum serviendo accubitati obedient).103

The cleansing of Rollo in the holy spring of baptism and his deliverance from the affliction of leprosy, which in itself is designed to signify his renouncing of the pagan heresy in favour of the true belief, is highly reminiscent of the vision and conversion of Constantine as related by his biographer Eusebius of Caesarea.104 Even though in Eusebius’ account the Roman emperor was by no means asleep – as neither was Rollo – when his fate was revealed to him in a vision containing the popular words ‘by this conquer’ (in hoc [signo] vinces) and given that Constantine’s conversion actually did not take place until he was lying on his deathbed, it is difficult to ignore certain similarities between the two narratives. Facing death, Constantine is said by his biographer to have reflected on his past deeds, and ‘when he became aware that his life was ending, he perceived that this was the time to purify himself from the offenses which he had at any time committed, trusting that whatever sins it had been his lot as a mortal to commit, he could wash them from his soul by the power of the secret words and the saving bath’.105 Unlike Constantine, Rollo does not accept  Dudo, De moribus, pp. 146–47.   On Constantine’s vision, his biographer Eusebius and the historical context of the latter’s work, see Hartwin Brandt, Konstantin der Große: Der erste christliche Kaiser (Munich, 2006), pp. 53–63 and Piepenbrink, Konstantin, pp. 37–42. 105   Unless stated otherwise, the modern English translation follows that presented by Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall in Eusebius, Life of Constantine, (trans.) Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall, Claredon Ancient History Series (Oxford, 1999), here p. 177. 103 104

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baptism when faced with death, but at a time when he was still very alive and well.106 However, keeping in mind his rebirth as Robert after his conversion to Christianity, we could well read the scenario described by Dudo as a moment of transition, with the Viking chieftain Rollo dying at the exact moment when the Christian duke Robert is born. Furthermore, such a re-reading would dovetail nicely not only with Eusebius’ Vita Constantini, but also with the so-called Donation of Constantine, probably the most popular and also one of the most infamous medieval forgeries.107 Similar to Eusebius’ version, this ex post account of Constantine’s conversion places the baptism scene late in the emperor’s life, depicting a visit by the two apostles Peter and Paul and Rollo telling his followers ‘to rejoice that I, having been withdrawn from the shadow, have come to the true light and to the knowledge of truth (et abstracto a tenebris ad veram lucem et agnitionem veritatis me pervenisse gratulamini)’.108 However, what brings this account closer to Dudo’s narrative is the circumstance that Constantine experiences a vision in his sleep. The two apostles tell Constantine that ‘this man, when thou shall have led him to thyself, will himself show thee a pool of piety; in which, when he shall have dipped thee for the third time, all that strength of the leprosy will desert thee (hunc cum ad te adduxeris, ipse tibi piscinam pietatis ostendet, in qua dum te tertio merserit, omnis te valitudo ista deseret leprae)’.109 Moreover, as soon as this had occurred the emperor is told to ‘make this return to thy Saviour, so that by thy order throughout the whole world the churches may be restored (quod dum factum fuerit, hanc vicissitudinem tuo salvatori compensa, ut omnes iussu tuo per totum orbem ecclesiae restaurentur)’110 – a passage which again is quite reminiscent of the promise made to Rollo, predicting that under his rule numerous cities shall be rebuilt, signified by the nests built by the countless birds in his vision.111 Furthermore, waking from his momentous dream, Constantine – just as Dudo’s Rollo – seeks the council of   See above, p. 240.   See Nicolas Huyghebaert, ‘Une légende de fondation: le Constitutum Constantini’, Le Moyen Âge, 85 (1979): pp. 177–209 and Horst Fuhrmann, ‘Konstantinische Schenkung und abendländisches Kaisertum’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 22 (1966), pp. 63–178. 108   Unless stated otherwise, the modern English translation follows that presented by Johannes Fried in Fried, Donation of Constantine and Constitutum Constantini, The Misinterpretation of a Fiction and its Original Meaning, Millennium-Studien 3 (Berlin, 2007), pp. 139–40. For a critical edition of the Latin text, see Constitutum Constantini, (ed.) Horst Fuhrmann, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Fontes iuris Germanici antique in usum scholarum separatim editi, 10 (Hanover, 1968), p. 67. 109   Constitutum Constantini, pp. 70–71. 110   Constitutum Constantini, p. 71. 111   See above, p. 243. 106 107

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a learned man educated in the teachings of Christ the saviour whom he begs to interpret the dream for him. This man, of course, is none other than Pope Sylvester. Finally, both Constantine’s and Rollo’s conversion – in the first case an absolutio, in the latter case a regeneratio – go beyond a mere personal change of faith; in both cases, an entire people is converted to Christianity. While Constantine orders the sign of the cross to be attached to the shields of his soldiers to mark them as one army fighting in the name of his new God, Rollo unites people from different kingdoms (homines diversorum regnorum)112 and birds of various genera (volucres diversorum generum)113 under his command, the latter of which all have crimson wings that also represent their shields and relate them to a single army and community.114 The positive outcome of this unification process is summarized in yet another apostropha taken from Dudo’s work and dedicated to Rollo. Once liberated from their misdoing and following their leader in accepting baptism, Rollo’s followers shall ‘taste of mysteries holy, homes will they make, in the nests round the peak of the mountain, churches will they build as well and sustain them with diverse donations (libabunt mystica sacra, nidorumque domos facient montis juga circa, ecclesiasque struent diverso munere fultas)’.115 As we can see, both Constantine’s and Rollo’s turn to Christianity were closely connected to an institutional rehabilitation of the Christian Church, with the former ordering to partly restore the Christians’ possessions that had been taken from them in the wake of their persecutions, and the latter rebuilding the monasteries that had been destroyed by the Viking raiders of the preceding decades. In both cases, the rulers made an attempt to make good the errors of their pagan predecessors by supporting the Christian religion and its institutions. As a result, Rollo is addressed by Dudo in the most reverential way: dux bone, dux pie. Patrici semperque verende.116 That Rollo’s rebirth as a Christian prince was not equally accepted among all Anglo-Norman chroniclers as a momentous turning point – or rather an inception – in the Normans’ cultural tradition becomes evident in a short poetic lament on the death of William Longsword. Bemoaning Rollo’s firstborn son who had been conceived with his father’s first wife or mistress Poppa in the last decade of the ninth century,117 the so-called Planctus Willelmi Spata Longa is  Dudo, De moribus, p. 147.  Dudo, De moribus, p. 146. 114   Krappe, ‘Rollo’s Vision’, pp. 81–2. 115  Dudo, De moribus, p. 169. 116  Dudo, De moribus, p. 169. 117   See Cassandra Potts, ‘Normandy 911–1144’, in Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth van Houts (eds), A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World (Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 23–38. 112

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less enthusiastic about Rollo’s personal piety than the authors examined so far. In the poem, it is William himself who is credited with the role of being the first Christian ruler who descended from Norman stock; it is he who, ‘born in a region beyond the sea, son to a father who persisted in the heathens’ ill-belief (in errore paganorum permanente), and to a mother who was blessed with true faith (matre quoque consignata alma fide), was blessed in the sacred waters (sacra fuit lotus unda)’.118 Yet, although it is William rather than his father who is presented by the anonymous author as the ideal ruler who was the first to embrace baptism, thus paving the way for an entire people following his example, the scenario itself largely remains the same. Moreover, by claiming that William was born in a region beyond the sea (in orbe transmarino natus) – probably a reference to either Bayeux or, even more likely, Rouen119 – the poem once again highlights the position of Normandy and her capital city as the birthplace of the gens Normannorum. Similar to Dudo’s account, the unknown poet also imagines the Norman people as the product of a union between Viking traditions and Christian virtues, exemplified through the incorrigible heathen Rollo and his Christian mistress Poppa. This union is finally sealed in the sacred waters of their sons’ baptism.120 We will now return to the first aspect of our investigation, the portrayal of Normandy as a mother figure of the gens Normannorum. From what we have gathered so far by a comparison of De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, the Historia Normannorum of Dudo of St Quentin and two anonymous poems dating to the middle of the tenth and twelfth centuries respectively, the Duchy of Normandy appears to have been conceived by the Anglo-Norman writers as a fertile procreator giving birth to many a conqueror throughout the centuries. During the first two hundred years after the Normans’ ethnogenesis, that is, until the end of the eleventh century, the sources generally appear rather optimistic concerning the nature of this mother-son relationship. Of course, this hardly comes as a surprise when one considers the Norman conquerors’ success throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries – a period of extensive expansion and settlement that saw not only the expansion and development of the Duchy of Normandy, but also the Norman conquest of England, the creation of their southern dominions with important power bases at Melfi, Aversa, Bari and Palermo and

118   A critical edition of the Planctus is provided by August Becker, ‘Der Planctus auf den Normannenherzog Wilhelm Langschwert (942)’, Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur, 63 (1940), p. 194. 119   Becker, ‘Planctus’, p. 191. Also cf. Douglas, ‘Rollo’, p. 423. 120   Potts, ‘Normandy’, p. 25.

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the creation of the principality of Antioch.121 Therefore, with the ‘Norman achievement’122 still gaining momentum, the contemporary chroniclers and poets had every reason to stress the unity and concord between Normandy and her sons, the successes of whom throughout Europe did not cease to do justice to their mother’s reputation and the self-image of the gens Normannorum. However, as we have seen in De expugantione Lyxbonensi, this relationship appears to have been in steep decline by the middle of the twelfth century.123 The Normans, who by that stage had long left the duchy and whose own sons or even grandsons had been born outside Normandy and possibly had never even been to Rouen, Bayeux or Caen themselves, had dissented from the ways of their forbearers and cultivated new and sometimes alternative cultural traditions.124 Before long, their cultural memory came to comprise of lieux de mémoire other than Normandy, sites of memory that were closer to their own self-perception which had developed out of different and increasingly independent discourses within the Normans’ new dominions. With the Duchy of Normandy gradually ceasing to be identified as the Normans’ homeland, new identities and new memories emerged, leading to the creation of separate historical traditions.125 Speaking metaphorically, the sons of Normandy had learned, for better or for worse, to stand on their own feet and take their first steps into a world of opportunities that soon led them far beyond the borders of their former home. With their expansion into the very peripheries of medieval Europe came their emancipation from the traditions and memories they had inherited through the early works of dedicated writers such as Dudo of St Quentin or the author of the Rouen poem.126 In other words, the changed historical consciousness of the Normans’ successive generations eventually led to an inevitable generational conflict with the memories of their predecessors. While some twelfth century writers were lamenting these processes of emancipation and estrangement, such as the author of De expugnatione Lyxbonensi or the famous chronicler of   See the different chapters in Chibnall, Normans, pp. 39–72 and pp. 73–104. Also cf. John France, ‘The Normans and crusading’, in Richard P. Abels and Bernard S. Bachrach (eds), The Normans and their Adversaries at War: Essays in Memory of C. Warren Hollister (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 87–101. 122   The slightly misleading term goes back to the title of a publication by David C. Douglas and is discussed by Foerster and Burckhardt, ‘Tradition’, pp. 1–4. 123   Loud, ‘Gens Normannorum’, pp. 105–7. 124  Chibnall, Normans, pp. 105–60. 125   For a recent discussion on the Norman homeland and the relationship between classical geography and the gens Normannorum, see Amanda J. Hingst, The Written World, Past and Place in the Work of Orderic Vitalis (Notre Dame, 2009), pp. 19–41. 126   See above, pp. 233–235. 121

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St Évroult, Orderic Vitalis, others like William of Malmesbury seem to have welcomed the growing independence of the Normans’ conquered territories from the duchy. In Orderic’s Historia Ecclesiastica, composed during the first half of the twelfth century and certainly one of the most elaborate and concise histories of the Norman people, this generational conflict is once again depicted in terms describing a familial relationship. According to Orderic, one day the sons of Normandy began to quarrel amongst each other, thus threatening the duchy’s unity and causing their mother much grief and bitter distress:127 But although Normandy was not attacked from outside she was very far from enjoying peace and safety, since she was perniciously troubled by her own children (quoniam a filiis suis nequiter uexabatur), and suffered continual sharp pangs, like a woman in labour (et indesinentem angustiam uentris quasi parturiens patiebatur). If the Norman people (Normannica gens) would live according to the law of God and be united under a good prince they would be as invincible as were the Chaldaeans under Nebuchadnezzar and the Persians and Medes under Cyrus and Darius and the Macedonians under Alexander, as their many victories in England and Apulia and Syria amply testify (ut in Anglia et Apulia Siriaque frequens uictoria testimonium illi perhibet). But because strife divides them among themselves they take arms to rend each other; though they conquer other peoples they defeat themselves (exterorum uictores a sese superantur), and as their hostile neighbours look on with scorn they belabour and mercilessly butcher each other, so that their mother Normandy is constantly in tears (unde suae matris oculi crebo lacrimantur).128

The terminology used by Orderic is particularly revealing concerning his perception of the relationship between Normandy and her offspring. The pain caused to the duchy through the actions of her own sons (filii sui) is equated with that of a mother in the prelude to childbirth (et indesinentem angustiam uentris quasi parturiens patiebatur).129 This formulation seems to serve an important purpose. First of all, it recalls Normandy’s role as the progenitor of the Norman people as it had been established and promoted in the works of writers such as Dudo. This memory alone would not be a reason to grieve, for it actually describes an event that was cherished like few others within the 127   Unless stated otherwise, the modern English translation follows that presented by Marjorie Chibnall in Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, vol. 6, (ed. and trans.) Marjorie Chibnall, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1978), pp. 456–57. 128  Orderic, Ecclesiastical History, p. 456. 129  Orderic, Ecclesiastical History, p. 456.

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Anglo-Normans’ historical consciousness, namely their own ethnogenesis which constituted an important buttress of the Norman memory canon;130 rather, it is the sharp contrast to these memories which is established through the deviant behaviour of the successive generations of the gens Normannorum that now causes Normandy to agonize so that her eyes are filled with tears (unde suae matris oculi crebo lacrimantur).131 In contrast to Orderic’s account, that of his contemporary William of Malmesbury betrays a certain relief about the alleged break in the Normans’ tradition. (Malmesbury was born only a decade or so later than Orderic but remained in England, whereas Orderic was given to the abbey of St Évroult in Normandy as a child oblate at the age of ten, that is, roughly around the date of William’s birth.) In his Gesta regum Anglorum, William also reverts to biological allegories in order to describe Normandy’s changing relationship with her progeny, placing particular emphasis on her relationship to England. According to William, it was not long ago that on the borders of Normandy one could see a woman, or rather a pair of women, with two heads, four arms, and everything else double down to the navel; below that two legs, two feet, and everything else single (tunc quoque in confinio Britanniae et Normanniae portentum uisum est. In una uel potius duabus mulieribus duo erant capita, quattuor brachia, et cetera gemina omnia usque ad umbilicum; inferius duo crura, duo pedes et cetera omnia singula). One of them laughed, ate, and talked; the other cried, fasted, and said nothing. There were two mouths to eat with, but only one channel for digestion. In the end one died, and the other lived; the survivor carried round her dead partner for nearly three years, until the heavy weight and the smell of the corpse were too much for her also (ridebat comedebat loquebatur una, flebat esuriebat tacebat altera; ore gemino manducabatur, sed uno meatu digerebatur. Postremo una defuncta superuixit altera; portauit pene triennio uiua mortuam, donec et mole ponderis et nidore cadaueris ipsa quoque defecit). Some people thought, and the idea was even published, that these women signified England and Normandy which, although geographically divided, are yet united under one rule (putatum est a quibusdam, et litteris etiam traditum, quod hae mulieres Angliam et Normanniam signicauerint, quae, licet spatiis terrarium sint diuisae, sunt tamen sub uno dominio unitae).132   See Assmann, ‘Canon and Archive’, pp. 97–99.  Orderic, Ecclesiastical History, p. 456. 132   Unless stated otherwise, the modern English translation follows that presented by Roger A. B. Mynors, Rodney Thomson and Michael Winterbottom in William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum Anglorum, The History of the English Kings, vol. 1, (ed. and trans.) Roger A. B. Mynors, Rodney Thomson and Michael Winterbottom, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1998), pp. 384–86. 130 131

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Unlike Orderic or the other authors examined so far, William does not demonstrate any regret for Normandy’s alleged death for any other reason than the burden of carrying around her corpse. Quite the contrary, the chronicler appears to be relieved regarding the prospect of England’s emancipation from her deceased conjoined twin sister, for in his judgement it should not be that Normandy, dead and nearly sucked dry, is supported by the financial strength of England, until maybe she herself is overwhelmed by the violence of her oppressors. O happy England, if the moment ever comes when she can breathe the air of that freedom whose empty shadow she has pursued so long! As it is, she bewails her lot, worn by calamity and wasted by taxation, with all the nobility of ancient days extinct (Mortuam et pene exhaustam Normanniam uigens pecuniis sustentat Anglia, donec et ipsa fortassis succumbat exactorum uiolentia; felix si umquam in libertatem respirare poterit, cuius inanem iam dudum persequitur umbram. Nunc gemit calamitatibus afflicta, pensionibus addicta, et omni nobilitate antiquorum extincta).133

In contrast to most texts presented and interpreted in this article, the account taken from the Gesta regum Anglorum is the only one which seems to fully embrace the important generational change that took place in the Normans’ historical consciousness during the one and a half centuries that had passed between the days of Dudo and the mid-twelfth century. Based on this reading or rather re-reading of Anglo-Norman historiography by the example of Dudo of St Quentin, Orderic Vitalis, William of Malmesbury and the three anonymous authors of De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, the Planctus Willelmi and the short twelfth century poem on the city of Rouen, I will conclude by formulating some important observations: First, the relationship between the Normans and their homeland was likely to be perceived as one of generational change and generational conflict that repeatedly came to be described in the terminology of a biological derivation or familial relationship. Secondly, with the Normans’ conquests throughout Europe, a generational development that was paralleled by a vast geographical expansion, came new experiences that often fostered processes of collective redefinition and re-evaluation of existing traditions. Over the centuries, it became increasingly challenging if not impossible to uphold and maintain an inherited memory canon without modifying it according to present circumstances. This development can partially be retraced through studying some of the successive stages of Anglo-Norman historical writing. Of course, given that three out of the six texts that have been reassessed in this article cannot be attributed to a  William, Gesta regum, p. 386.

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particular author and must therefore remain anonymous, the exact provenance and chronological relationship of the sources must remain open to further investigation. With the exception of William of Malmesbury and his Gesta regum Anglorum, many of the Anglo-Norman chroniclers of the twelfth century betray an increasing struggle in re-conciliating their community’s historical consciousness with the historical traditions and cultural memories that they had inherited from their predecessors. One particularly puzzling challenge was to reconcile and harmonize the traditional lieux de mémoire such as the Duchy of Normandy with those identity markers that had entered the cultural memory canon more recently due to ongoing historical developments and different formations of discourse. As discussed in the theoretical introduction to this volume, in periods that are ‘characterized by mobility and permanent transitions, homogeneity of cultures cannot be assumed’,134 and ‘no one will deny that culture is constantly in a state of flux and re-discussed permanently’.135 Therefore, we should regard the Anglo-Norman chroniclers’ increasing difficulties in relating back their communities to a single site of memory as a crucial indicator of both the power and the discursiveness of cultural memories in the formation and ongoing negotiation of collective identity and historical consciousness. Even though some of these chroniclers whose works have been at the core of this article were attempting to ‘keep it in the family’, eventually they could not escape the fact that this very family had long become divided through the increasing estrangement and emancipation of its different generations.

  Foerster and Burkhardt, ‘Tradition’, p.5.   Ibid., p. 7.

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Chapter 12

Norman Topographies of Conquest: Mapping Anglo-Norman Identities onto Ireland Amy C. Mulligan

Introduction A remarkable depiction of Ireland and surrounding areas (Figure 1) is found in a manuscript from about 12001 in the National Library of Ireland, (Dublin, N.L.I. MS 700) sandwiched between the late twelfth century Topographia Hiberniae (‘Topography of Ireland’) and Expugnatio Hiberniae (‘Conquest of Ireland’) both written by Giraldus Cambrensis (c. 1146–c. 1223),2 a prominent CambroNorman cleric and later bishop whose family-members, the Geraldines, were instrumental in the Norman conquest and settlement of Ireland. The map was likely made by Giraldus, or commissioned by him and created by someone in his circle following the Norman conquest of Ireland, which began in 1169,3 and thus   The manuscript has been dated on paleographical and textual grounds to about 1200. A. B. Scott, ‘Introduction’, in A. B. Scott and F. X. Martin (eds), Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio Hibernica: The Conquest of Ireland (Dublin, 1978), xxxvii. 2   The figure Giraldus Cambrensis is known by several names, including Gerald of Wales, or Gerald the Welshman (a different translation of Giraldus Cambrensis), Gerald de Barri etc. As several scholars have discussed, Giraldus had a complex identity, Welsh on the maternal side, Norman and English on the paternal side, and these different names (and scholarly preference for one over the other) all point to different strands of his various loyalties and understanding of his multi-faceted, hybrid identity. Several scholars have discussed Giraldus’ complex, transcultural or hybridized identity and his own responses to it: see, for instance, ‘“Giraldus Cambrensis” or “Giraldus the Welshman”?’ in Robert Bartlett, Gerald of Wales: A Voice of the Middle Ages (Gloucestershire, 2006), pp. 16–30, and Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (ed.), Hybridity, Identity and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles (New York, 2006), specifically the chapter entitled ‘In the Borderlands: The Identities of Gerald of Wales’ at pp. 77–108. 3   As Robert Bartlett writes of Norman immigration to Ireland, it took place in 1

two stages: ‘The first was short, from 1169 to 1171, but intense and very important

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it provides a largely contemporary and politically-invested view of Ireland from a Norman perspective.4 Most maps of the period place both Britain and Ireland in the margins of the world, Britain deemed to be almost as geographically distant as Ireland from the religious, intellectual and cultural centers of civilized European life. However, as Kathy Lavezzo argues, N.L.I. 700 has the specific purpose of transforming Britain, which here occupies the middle position on the map, ‘from world margin to regional centre’. Emphasizing Ireland’s assumption of the role of most extremely located land, Lavezzo makes the point that while the map successfully ‘plays up the problem of Irish geographic marginality as much as possible, it represses the way that problem could extend to Ireland’s English neighbor’.5 Indeed, in the N.L.I. 700 representation of Europe, England is enclosed in mainland Europe’s embrace, while Ireland, and more particularly, the parts of Ireland that were most resistant to Norman conquest, are situated slightly beyond those community-defining European boundaries, parts of Ireland even extending into the unknown and dangerous territory of the world ocean. While the visual components of the map emphasizing Ireland’s extremity certainly accomplish the strategic work of normalizing England and confirming England’s status as an integral part of the European community – in other words, Ireland’s geographic alterity is highlighted to prove England’s normativity – I believe that simultaneously N.L.I. 700 also works to create a unified, cohesive whole, in which Ireland is clearly and thoroughly linked to Britain (as well as to continental Europe). A quick comparison with other world maps produced in the period makes this a bit clearer. For instance, the Psalter Mappa Mundi (Figure 2) produced in England c. 1265, situates Ireland in the typical way, beyond the edges of the world in a peripheral position parallel to that of the monstrous races on the right field of the map, and England too exists in the outermost realms. As geographic placement and proximity to the world’s center suggested much about normative identity and membership in the community of European civility, this is significant. The design program in the N.L.I. 700 map (Figure for the future. In this stage the patterns were ecological. Norman, Welsh and Flemish frontiersmen from south Wales, within sight of Ireland, seized an opportunity to intrude there in the pursuit of wealth. The Irish Sea, that Mediterranean in parvo, linked rather than divided. In the second stage, however, beginning in 1171, the intervention of the English Crown transformed the situation. The new men in Ireland relied upon Königsnähe, nearness to the king, not nearness to Ireland, as the basis of their Irish involvement […]. The ecological aspect was being overshadowed by the purely political’. Robert Bartlett, ‘Colonial Aristocracies of the High Middle Ages’, in Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay (eds), Medieval Frontier Societies (Oxford, 1989), p. 30.   Scott, ‘Introduction’ to Expugnatio Hibernica.   Kathy Lavezzo, Angels on the Edge of the World: Geography, Literature and English Community, 1000–1534 (Ithaca, 2006), pp. 66, 68. 4

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1), however, is quite strikingly different. As Thomas O’Loughlin has argued, ‘It would seem that the chief interests of its creator lay in the prominently drawn British Isles on the one hand, and the connection between those islands and Rome on the other’.6 In Giraldus’ map, the centers of power are linked visually, and the land does not provide hindrance or impassable borders, but instead suggests easily connected pan-European links all going back to Rome. Through repetition of images and symbols, Ireland is represented as poised to fit easily into the European Christian network, which certainly coheres with Giraldus’ work as a cleric and ambitious church leader, and furthermore highlights one of the major reasons for the Anglo-Norman invasion and conquest of Ireland; the reform of an Irish Church depicted as morally and theologically corrupt, as will be discussed below. For the purposes of this essay, however, I will not be focusing on relationships with Rome, but rather, the ways in which Ireland is linked to Britain and is created in the documents of the Norman conquest of Ireland as a space that invites Anglo- and Cambro-Norman settlement and establishes a Norman Ireland. Turning back to N.L.I. 700 (Figure 1), it can be seen that Ireland is in many ways depicted as a miniature Britain, and formal geographical differences are downplayed. Ireland, like Britain, has four major rivers, four marked religious centers, and even the placement of names is remarkably similar. The Ireland of N.L.I. 700 is drawn as very much a fitting part and logical extension of continental Europe, but, also, in its formal representation it is almost like a small child existing in a close, natural relationship with Britain. And it is this aspect of the territorial logics – of how the sources stylize or create the impression of a natural, inevitable, and positive mapping of Anglo-Norman and CambroNorman identity onto Ireland – that this essay treats, specifically through examination of the use of topographical discourse and landscape-based rhetoric, metaphors, images and logic. I am interested in the ‘textualization of territories’,7 and specifically in the ways that Norman conquest and verbal mapping of the Normans onto parts of Ireland becomes a literary process and a territorialtextual experience. Jane Jacobs discusses the ways in which imaginary and material geographies ‘are not incommensurate, nor is one simply the product, a disempowered   Thomas O’Loughlin, ‘An Early Thirteenth-Century Map in Dublin: A Window into the World of Giraldus Cambrensis’, Imago Mundi, 51 (1999): p. 28. 7   Theorizing the ‘textualization of territories’ and the ‘territorialization of texts,’ and what it means to ‘write place’ is further discussed in the introduction and subsequent essays in Sylvia Tomasch and Sealy Gilles (eds), Text and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1998), p. 5. 6

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surplus, of the other’, but rather, they are ‘complexly intertwined and mutually constitutive’.8 Imaginary and material geographies together gave energy and drive to the territorializations that constitute imperialism […]. The social construction of space is part of the very machinery of imperialism. In the name of the imperial project, space is evaluated and overlain with desire: creating homely landscapes out of “alien” territories, drawing distant lands into the maps of empire, establishing ordered grids of occupation. These spatial events did not simply supplement the economic drive of imperialism, they made it make sense; they took it from the visioned to the embodied, from the global reach of desire to the local technologies of occupation. They established the beginnings of that most permanent legacy of imperialism: the contest between that which, through space itself, has been “naturalised” and that which has been made “illegitimate”.9

In this essay, I want to examine the process by which Norman identity is mapped onto Ireland; specifically, how a peripheral, ‘alien territory’ is made into a ‘homely landscape’; the ways in which the geography, or topography, of Norman Ireland is both imagined and physically materialized, or how a space for Norman conquerors and settlers is constructed through textual culture; and the complex interplay between words, images, acts and deeds as Ireland is drawn into an Anglo-Norman ‘map of empire’. As I will show, in the Topographia and the Expugnatio there is a strong emphasis on place, on landscapes, and in verbally detailing the topography, imagining and imaging it. Can we begin to see these writings about Ireland not just as records of conquest but, moving to a more literary-theoretical level, as actual textual conquests of land? Is capturing and disciplining the land through words just as important, and perhaps more so, than the political act of conquest itself ? In response, I suggest that writing the land is another way of owning, capturing, and controlling a territory, and that by experiencing the text readers and listeners also participated in the repeated event of conquering Ireland, making it into a Norman space, with each hearing, reading or remembering of the text. This is a particularly significant and poignant process in the case of Norman Ireland, which never became a full political or historical reality. As so many scholars have pointed out regarding the ‘Norman achievement’, and as Suzanne Conklin Akbari puts it:

  Jane M. Jacobs, Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City (London/New York, 1996), p. 158. 9   Jacobs, Edge of Empire, pp. 158–59. 8

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If there is a distinctive quality to be singled out in Norman culture, across Europe and the Mediterranean, it is precisely the quality of adaptability: that is, the chameleon-like ability to blend in, to assimilate, to take up numerous elements already present in a local culture, and to embed them within a layer of “Normannitas” that binds them all together.10

The arrival of the Normans in Ireland and their consequent conquest and settlement there comprises a situation that is somewhat different than in other sites of Norman settlement, especially in terms of the consequent creation of transcultural and transnational identities. As Thomas Foerster and Stefan Burkhardt write in the introduction to this volume, ‘This adaptability, the ability just to abandon one’s own traditions for the sake of integration, has been seen by many scholars as one of the most important common features of the different Norman conquests’.11 Ireland, however, presents a different case. Indeed, it is perhaps the lack of easy cultural transplantation, the resistance found in Ireland, and the difficulties experienced by the Normans there – resulting in what has been called a failed conquest – that is most interesting. As one of the CambroNorman heroes in Giraldus’ Expugnatio declares, there is no happy transcultural transformation or easy, accepted hybridity to be found in Norman Ireland, nor, indeed, as later becomes clear, in Britain: ‘We are now constrained in our actions by this circumstance, that just as we are English as far as the Irish are concerned, likewise to the English we are Irish, and the inhabitants of this island and the other assail us with an equal degree of hatred’.12 Ireland posed a threat to successful Norman transcultural processes. While the ‘Norman achievement’ may be evidenced in France, England, Italy and elsewhere, as discussed in this volume, the Irish situation is far more fraught. As Rees Davies writes in an analysis of medieval Ireland and Wales, Europe’s western frontier zones provided a significant challenge to Norman conquest and colonization. Ireland and Wales comprised

  Suzanne Conklin Akbari, ‘Between Diaspora and Conquest: Norman Assimilation in Petrus Alfonsi’s Disciplina Clericalis and Marie de France’s Fable’, in Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (ed.), Cultural Diversity in the British Middle Ages: Archipelago, Island, England (New York, 2008), pp. 21–22. 11   Thomas Foerster and Stefan Burkhardt, ‘Tradition and Heritage: The Normans in the Transcultural Middle Ages’ included in the present volume, pp. 1–18. 12   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, I. 23, ll. 16–18, pp. 80, 81. Citations, given here in English, are from the excellent edition and translation by Scott and Martin (full reference given in footnote 1). The Expugnatio Hibernica is also found in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, Rolls Series, 8 vols, J. S. Brewer, J. F. Dimock, G. F. Warner (eds), (London, 1861–91), vol. 5. 10

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frontierlands in cultural terms, where a new, confident, aggressive, north-western European, Latin- and French-dominated aristocratic and ecclesiastical culture came into contact, and often confrontation, with native cultures profoundly different from it in their economic configuration, political assumptions, ecclesiastical norms, social customs, and literary and artistic traditions.13

The Norman invasion and conquest of Ireland began in 1169 and in the first stages was quite successful. Pockets of Ireland, especially in the southern and eastern parts of the country, were settled by the Anglo-Normans and became communities that adhered to Anglo-Norman traditions of language, law, farming and economic practices. These communities were interspersed and were often surrounded by native Irish communities that also staunchly kept to their own traditions and practices, ultimately creating hostile and clearly divided societies and a climate of distrust, discrimination and disenfranchisement.14 The initially triumphant Norman conquest of Ireland stalled and had begun to fail after the midpoint of the thirteenth century and the English government and English settlers in Ireland had gradually come to terms with the painful truth that the conquest of Ireland was, and was to remain, piecemeal, uncertain, and incomplete. Consequently Ireland in the fourteenth century […] was a country of halves, half under native and the other half under Anglo-Norman rule.15

While other Norman territories demonstrate assimilation, in Ireland a series of frontiers or marches, and separate native Irish and Anglo-Norman societies and institutions were obtained instead. This institutionalized duality ‘sanctioned and promoted a mentality of separation and discrimination which in its turn begat a profound psychological frontier’.16 Unable to conquer Ireland fully, the Normans maintained occupation primarily of the eastern and southern parts of Ireland and administered government from Dublin, this extended area later referred to as the ‘Pale’. Battles over territories and control characterized the successive history of Ireland. Indeed, those Norman settlers who adopted Irish ways were branded ‘degenerates’ and deemed uncivilized, and in successive years legislation was 13   Rees Davies, ‘Frontier Arrangements in Fragmented Societies: Ireland and Wales’, in Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay (eds), Medieval Frontier Societies (Oxford, 1989), p. 77.

  Rees Davies, ‘Frontier Arrangements’, p. 78.   Rees Davies, ‘Frontier Arrangements’, pp. 77–78. 16   Rees Davies, ‘Frontier Arrangements’, p. 79. 14 15

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enacted to guard against the very adoption of local Irish identities. While this legislation dates to the very end of the thirteenth century, it does speak to the concerns that throughout the period characterized the mixing of Irish and Angloor Cambro-Norman peoples, escalating enough to finally require legislation as a guard against any real integration of the Normans into native Irish culture. A 1297 Irish parliamentary statute shows the anxiety this cultural fusion caused, and how firmly set against it the descendents of the Normans in Ireland were. The statute is concerned with the Anglo- and Cambro-Normans of the next generations who have ‘gone native’, and style themselves as Irish, and it thus required them ‘to relinquish the Irish dress at least in the head and hair’, and if they refuse to comply willingly, to forcibly compel them ‘by arrest of their body and imprisonment’.17 The long-term failure of intermingling in Ireland resulted ultimately in a situation of two nations, the geographically distinct Norman area of the Pale, as well as an institutionalized system of economic, political and legal dispossession and disenfranchisement for those both of Irish blood and those who persisted in embracing native Irish customs. Here I do not seek to further examine these divided societies, or to consider the many possible reasons as to why the Norman achievement could not extend to Ireland, but rather, to examine what work the Norman-authored textual accounts of Ireland accomplish when a Norman Ireland was far from being a historical or political reality. In the remainder of this article I would like to suggest at least one way in which this very uncertain and unsuccessful ‘conquest’ of the land, of Irish territories, is dealt with in the literature, and the ways in which, I believe, the literary accounts of Ireland, a Cambro-Norman cleric’s rendering or, pushing it a bit farther, the verbal creation of Ireland’s topography, start to do the work of conquest that neither martial acts nor administrative force could accomplish. In short, I want to look at the way that the land is conquered, described, and tamed within textual renderings of Ireland composed just after the time of the Anglo-Norman invasion. To address these issues the essay focuses on Giraldus Cambrensis’ Topographia and the Expugnatio Hibernica, a detailed account of the Normans in Ireland. The Topographia is static and, through its layering of information from the mythic past to the contemporary medieval present, and its thorough and encyclopedic detailing of the places, peoples and animals that characterize Ireland, it depicts a bounded, fixed and controlled or ‘safe’ Ireland. The Expugnatio provides very different but nonetheless telling examples of the strategic and dynamic usages of place, and numerous scenes in the text showcase graceful Norman movement through Irish territories and 17   Irish Historical Documents (London, 1977), (ed.) Edmund Curtis and Robert Brendan McDowell, p. 37. Cited and discussed in James Muldoon, Identity on the Medieval Irish Frontier (Gainesville, 2003), p. 39.

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into positions of power, many of which are eventually lost for lack of support, consolidation and proper governance, as Giraldus bewails at the close of the text. Planting the Seeds for a Norman Ireland: the Topographia Hiberniae The use of landscape images and sustained efforts in mapping, in fixing, and in detailing Ireland’s geography, while employed most extensively and unabatingly by him, is not of course specific to Giraldus.18 Indeed, even the language of a key document of the Norman invasion and conquest of Ireland makes extended use of such land-logics and topographical images, terms and metaphors. In 1155, the English pope Adrian IV issued the papal bull Laudabiliter granting all of Ireland to King Henry II of England and his descendents. The papal bull states that the English takeover of Ireland was explicitly for ‘enlarging the boundaries of the Church, restraining the downward course of vice, correcting evil customs and planting virtue, and for the increase of the Christian religion’.19 Powerful documents like Laudabiliter convey the message that Ireland needs saving from the Irish, but more interestingly it does so in terms of boundaries, or the way that the land is marked out, and in the language of ‘planting’ virtue, sowing good in the fertile, though largely under-used and sadly neglected soil of Ireland, and ‘rooting out’ the ‘weeds of vices’.20 As we shall see, the theme of the planter, a 18   The other contemporary literary account of the Norman invasion and settlement of Ireland also makes innovative use of the landscape, though using rather different methods, as I plan to discuss in more detail elsewhere. La Geste des Engleis en Yrlande (‘The Deeds of the Normans in Ireland’), popularly translated and known as The Song of Dermot and the Earl, is one of only two surviving extant sources about the coming of the Normans to Ireland in the twelfth century. (the other surviving account is Giraldus’ Latin Expugnatio Hibernica discussed here). While I cannot go into detail here, I argue that Deeds of the Normans in many ways suggests confirmation of the special relationship with the land enjoyed by the Normans as proposed in Giraldus’ Topographia as outlined above. For the most recent edition of the text, with translation and notes, see The Deeds of the Normans in Ireland, La Geste des Engleis en Yrlande: A new edition of the chronicle formerly known as The Song of Dermot and the Earl, (ed.) Evelyn Mullally (Dublin, 2002). 19   Irish Historical Documents, Curtis and McDowell, p.17. cited in Muldoon, Identity, pp. 36–37. 20   Giraldus provides quotation of Laudabiliter, the privilege of Pope Adrian IVin the Expugnatio, which features numerous phrases connoting planting and agriculture throughout the text: Henry II, as a ‘true Catholic prince’ should strive to ‘enlarge the boundaries of the church, to reveal the truth of the Christian faith to peoples still untaught and barbarous, and to root out the weeds of vice from the Lord’s field’. As Adrian writes, ‘That Ireland, and indeed all islands on which Christ, the sun of justice has shed His rays, and which have received the teachings of the Christian faith belong to the jurisdiction of blessed Peter and

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responsible steward who sees to the needs and encourages the land to flourish, to realize its fecundity, the well-tended virtue producing a bountiful crop of non-heretical Roman Christians, creates a powerful and strategically used set of images, metaphors and logics. The focus on such agricultural and ‘growing’ language and images certainly finds a context in the perception of Anglo-Norman agrarian society and economy as superior to the far more loosely organized Irish pastoral economy. However, rather than remaining an economic issue, it becomes in the literature an ethical and moral one: the Irish are degenerate and immoral because of their passivity and lack of careful stewardship over the land, thus showing a lack of entitlement to the territory. The incoming Normans, on the other hand, offer a more godly, active, responsible and effective mode of overseeing the land, and their organized stewardship will result in the Irish territories finally being able to come to full fruition as God intended. This logic and set of structuring land-based metaphors are very much central to Giraldus’ own evocation of Ireland and his imagining of an Ireland that, as the Topographia seeks to demonstrate, is poised to accept and welcome the Normans as the new settlers, stewards and rulers of Ireland. While its title varies somewhat in different manuscripts, Giraldus Cambrensis himself referred to his account of Ireland’s history and mythic prehistory, its people, places and creatures as the Topographia, or ‘Topography’, a most fitting title in that Giraldus does, as its etymology suggests, ‘write place’. Namely, he verbalizes a specific Ireland into being, and his version of this country is one that remains, that is exported back to England, and reified as the full text is recited in Oxford in 1188, as will be discussed below. Here, though, I would like to turn to selected and particularly telling episodes to reveal some of Giraldus’ the holy Roman church is a fact beyond doubt […]. So we are all the more eager to implant in those islands the offshoot of faith’, and as he has stated himself willing, Henry II is granted leave ‘to root out from there the weeds of vices’. And ‘we regard it as pleasing and acceptable to us that you should enter that island for the purpose of enlarging the boundaries of the church, checking the descent into wickedness, correcting morals and implanting virtues, and encouraging the growth of the faith of Christ; that you pursue policies directed towards the honour of God and the well-being of that land, and that the people of that land receive you honourably and respect you as their lord […]. Take action to ensure that the church there may be enhanced, that the Christian religion may be planted and grow […]’. Cited by Giraldus Cambrensis in Expugnatio II. 5, ll. 24–64, pp. 144–47. For the edited text of Laudabiliter, see M. P. Sheehy, Pontificia Hibernica, I (Dublin 1962), pp. 15–16, with English translation in Curtis and McDowell, Irish Historical Documents, pp. 17–18. Whether or not the bull is genuine, and how Giraldus’ version may have departed from an original, has been much discussed. See note 233 in Scott and Martin, Expugnatio Hibernica, p. 323, for discussion and further bibliography.

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topographical strategies, the kind of topoi he graphs or ‘writes out’, and what his textualized Ireland accomplishes. Giraldus begins his Topographia with the account of its inspiration, his goals in creating the text, and his valorization of words over material objects. In his dedication of the book to Henry II, Giraldus does mention that, in paying homage to his lord, he could have sent concrete, material evidence of Ireland, could have ‘sent your Highness some small pieces of gold, falcons, or hawks with which the island abounds’.21 Instead, he considers the different attributes, features and accounts of Ireland he has collected, and ‘Those which I have thought worthy of being remembered I have, I hope usefully, put together and propose them for your attention’.22 Because, as he writes to King Henry, ‘since I thought that a high-minded prince would place little value on things that easily come to be – and just as easily perish – I decided to send to your Highness those things rather which cannot be lost. By them I shall, through you, instruct posterity. For no age can destroy them’.23 He maintains, then, that a textual rendering of the land, a verbal ordering is more permanent and of greater value than material evidence quarried from the land itself. What he essentially accomplished was to write a new Ireland into being, one that has little bearing upon reality, but which operates convincingly, perhaps through a shared suspension of disbelief, or the need, political and otherwise, to believe in a specific version of an Ireland in need of Norman disciplining. And it is, of course, important that he appeals to Henry II, ‘invincible king of the English, duke of Normandy, count of Anjou and Aquitaine’24 at the outset. By invoking and involving the king, the figure at the head of the Anglo-Norman body politic, Giraldus thus clearly ties his literary enterprise to the political   Gerald of Wales, The History and Topography of Ireland, (ed. and trans.) John H. O’Meara (New York, 1982), p. 32. (Henceforth referred to as History and Topography); Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hibernica in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, Rolls Series, 8 vols, J. S. Brewer, J. F. Dimock, G. F. Warner (eds), (London, 1861–91), vol. 5, p. 21. (Henceforth referred to as Topographia). I have cited the English translation by John O’Meara, and the second reference is to the Latin text. Although it is not widely available, O’Meara has also edited and published an edition of Recension I of the Latin text, on which his translation is based: John J. O’Meara, ‘Giraldus Cambrensis in Topographia Hiberniae: Text of the First Recension’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Volume 52, Section C: 1948–50, pp. 113–78. 22   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 31; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 21. 23   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 32; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 21. 24   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 31; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 20. 21

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enterprise of Anglo-Norman rule and expansion of empire. To repeat Jane Jacobs’ words, Giraldus here actively participates in the Anglo-Norman imperial project, and in his enticing Topographia ‘space is evaluated and overlain with desire’, presented in a way that is literally fit for a king and his expansionist program, and Giraldus’ account serves to map out future possibilities, to whet a royal appetite by ‘establishing ordered grids of [potential and appealing] occupation’.25 Part of the way he accomplishes this is by cataloguing the riches and wonders this newly annexed territory has to offer. In the address to Henry II, Giraldus stresses the scientific, or eye-witness, objective nature of his account. He says explicitly that when he encountered unknown places, peoples, and things in Ireland, like a dedicated scientist or anthropologist he ‘began to examine everything carefully’, and asked such seemingly objective questions as, he writes, ‘what was the position of the country, what was its nature, what was the origin of the race, what were its customs; how often, and by whom, and how, it was conquered and subjugated’26, and so on. Significantly, following the dedication to the king, the figure around whom the Anglo-Norman empire-building revolves, he begins the account by mapping Ireland, by giving its contours, size and position. In a very matter of fact way, Giraldus fixes Ireland in relation to Britain: Ireland, the largest island beyond Britain, is situated in the western ocean about one short day’s sailing from Wales, but between Ulster and Galloway in Scotland the sea narrows to half that distance […]. Ireland, then, lies parallel to Britain in such a way that if you sail to the west from any British port you will meet Ireland at some point. Nevertheless Britain is twice the size of Ireland. For Britain from south to north is eight hundred miles long, and about two hundred miles broad; while Ireland in the same way stretches in length from the Brendacian mountains to the island of Columba that is called Torach – that is, a distance of eight days at forty miles a day; and in breadth stretches from Dublin to the hills of Patrick and the sea beyond Connacht – that is, a distance of four days. 27

Giraldus demonstrates authority and control over the land by charting and mapping it, by fixing it in position. At risk of anachronism and of making Giraldus’ Topographia appear more formally organized and structured than it is, his project might be compared to those of the eighteenth century naturalists who began to catalogue the contents of the natural world, and for whom ‘natural   Jacobs, Edge of Empire, pp. 158–59, discussed above, pp. 255–256.   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 32; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia,

25 26

p. 20.

  Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, pp. 33–4; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 22. 27

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history conceived of the world as a chaos out of which the scientist produced an order’, the scientist serving to make sense of and structure an otherwise disordered mess.28 Like these eighteenth century scientists, Giraldus presents a thorough and unified view of the island of Ireland, and seeks to convince us of its incontrovertible factuality. He goes farther than that, though, in arguing for his objectivity and his role as a neutral, scientific recorder of clear fact. When he questions the accounts of Bede and Solinus and their assertions that Ireland lacks bees but has vineyards, he writes, in a statement valorizing the travelling scholar and eyewitness collector of clearly evidenced truths, that Neither would it be strange if these authors [Bede and Solinus] sometimes strayed from the path of truth, since they know nothing by the evidence of their eyes, and what knowledge they possessed came to them through one who was reporting and far away. For it is only when he who reports a thing is also one that witnessed it that anything is established on the sound basis of truth.29

While it has the sound of objectivity, and despite his perhaps overly selfconscious claims about its eyewitness factuality, Giraldus’ Topographia is highly strategic. Through the selection of details he chooses to convey in building and assembling this textual geography of Norman Ireland, it is as invented, as imagined and as suggestive as the map that is preserved in the N.L.I. 700 manuscript. The questionable truth-value of Giraldus’ account, or its nature as a piece of propagandistic writing is of course nothing new, and even the first audiences of Giraldus’ texts were highly skeptical of his account and its veracity, as he addresses explicitly in the Expugnatio, as discussed below.30 What I want to point out though, is that while most criticisms of Giraldus and his often xenophobic depictions of Ireland have focused on Giraldus’ bestializing and dehumanizing depictions of the Irish people, Giraldus is a bit more subtle, and perhaps even more persuasive, in the ways he shows the land itself as a kind of actor in the drama of Norman conquest. Indeed, his descriptions of the land may, in contrast to his ethnographic profiles of the Irish people, come across as neutral, though I argue that they are quite sophisticated and highly propagandistic accounts which successfully, and without much resistance, map a place for the Normans in the 28   Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, (New York/ London, second edn, 2008), p. 30. 29   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 35; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 29. 30   See pp. 274–275.

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land itself. In short, borrowing the terminology of Mary Louise Pratt, 31 what is remarkable about Giraldus is the way in which he, in the Topographia, ‘naturalizes’ the myth of Norman (or Anglo-Norman) superiority. We know, however, that like so many other medieval travel writers, his account, for all his objective posturing, has little to do with reality: while Giraldus did visit Ireland on two occasions before composing the Topographia, he probably did not travel extensively, and his Ireland is, in many ways, invented.32 His goal is typically to provide an argument for Ireland’s need for discipline, reform and tending at the hands of the Normans. Some examples show how this works. In part two of the Topographia Giraldus tells of an area in northern Ireland that was inhabited by ‘a people very much given to vice, and particularly addicted, above any other people in Ireland, to bestiality’.33 There was a well there, which if left uncovered, ‘would immediately overflow to such an extent that it would wipe out and destroy the whole district and people’.34 Of course, many years later a woman leaves it uncovered and ‘Within an hour the whole people and their flocks were overwhelmed in this local and provincial flood. The whole area was covered with a sea of water which remained there and made a permanent lake’,35 thirty miles long and fifteen miles wide. Giraldus then interprets this event, saying, ‘It looked as if the author of nature [God, that is] had judged that a land which had known such filthy crimes against nature was   In Mary Louise Pratt’s insightful discussion of purportedly objective Linnaen ‘scientific’ lists detailing European and African physiological and behavioral attributes, she makes the following point: ‘One could hardly ask for a more explicit attempt to “naturalize” the myth of European superiority’. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, p. 32. 32   On his first visit, there is no proof that he went outside of the neighborhoods of Cork and Waterford (14), and on his second visit his travels were not much more extensive, though it seems he traveled, by boat, from Dublin to Waterford, and, as he seems to know some things about Arklow and Wicklow, Meath and Kildare, he may have seen the Shannon and Loughs Ree and Derg, but, as O’Meara writes, ‘that is all we can reasonably conclude. The rest of the country was probably unvisited by him, as most of it was, up to that time, by his fellow Normans’. (Gerald of Wales, The History and Topography of Ireland, in John O’Meara (ed. and trans.), (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1982), p. 14. In short, much of Giraldus’ account is hardly the eyewitness, scrupulous information gathering and measurement taking that he would have us believe from his introduction, and we do well to bear that in mind, as this has important implications. 33   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 64; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 91. 34   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 64; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 91. 35   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 65; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, pp. 91–2. 31

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unworthy not only of its first inhabitants but of any others in the future’.36 Here we see Irish vice, bestiality in particular, being punished by the land, and the land being created by Giraldus as a kind of agent, behaving according to moral precepts and God’s own will.37 In part two Giraldus states that ‘Wolves in Ireland generally have their young in December, either because of the extreme mildness of the climate, or rather as a symbol of the evils of treachery and plunder which here blossom before their season’.38 As many other critics have discussed in terms of Giraldus’ famed werewolves described earlier in part two – the humans cursed with wolf form for their sins39 – the Irish are likened to or depicted as subhuman, literal animals. What is of interest here is that again, when pointing to Irish inhumanity and a bestial character that requires disciplining, nature-based language and metaphors are used: in this otherwise topographically and physically ideal land, wolves bear young in December, the most barren (and inappropriate) time in the year. Just as the cruel wolves, which can be arguably read as the bestial Irish themselves, ‘blossom before their season’, the Irish moral and ethical code is also unhealthy and improperly exists, which is to say that treachery and plunder flourish prematurely. It is implied that with the proper rule and stewardship of the Normans, the land’s movement in happy synchronization with the seasons according to the agricultural calendar will be restored, and this harmonized system will not foster unhealthy, inapt, immoral growths. It is striking that even in this metaphor-laden allegory, agricultural imagery and logic drive the statement of Irish immorality and illegitimacy in terms of an inappropriate, broken relationship with the land and the seasons that govern it. Other examples he provides point directly to a mishandling or improper stewardship of the land itself, suggesting that the Irish do not actually deserve Ireland, or its rich resources. In part three, Giraldus declares that the Irish

 

36

p. 92.

Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 65; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia,

  This is interestingly Part II of the Topographia, the part that was read out in Oxford to the clerics. 38   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 77; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 112. 39   See Caroline Walker Bynum, Metamorphosis and Identity (New York, 2001), pp. 15–18; Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, ‘Hybrids, Monsters, Borderlands: the Bodies of Gerald of Wales’, in Cohen (ed.), The postcolonial Middle Ages (New York, 2000), pp. 85–104; and Catherine Karkov, ‘Tales of the Ancients: Colonial Werewolves and the Mapping of Postcolonial Ireland’, in Patricia Clare Ingham and Michelle R. Warren (eds), Postcolonial Moves: Medieval through Modern (New York, 2003), pp. 93–109. 37

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are a wild and inhospitable people. They live on beasts only, and live like beasts. They have not progressed at all from the primitive habits of pastoral people. While man usually progresses from the woods to the fields, and from the fields to settlements and communities of citizens, this people despises work on the land […]. The wealth of the soil is lost, not through the fault of the soil, but because there are no farmers to cultivate even the best land: “the fields demand, but there are no hands”. How few kinds of fruit-bearing trees are grown here! The nature of the soil is not to be blamed, but rather the want of industry on the part of the cultivator. He is too lazy to plant the foreign types of trees that would grow very well here.40

This presents the need for new stewardship of Ireland’s resources, and shows the land as primed to receive the Normans from Britain, with their worthy agricultural technologies, the human equivalent of the ‘foreign types of trees’ that would thrive in Irish soil. In some cases the presence of the Normans from England is explicitly addressed, and operates to show the land itself accepting the Normans, yielding to Norman governance, even when at the dismay of the native Irish people. For instance, as if to dispel criticism that the Anglo-Normans who come to Ireland are anathema to it, in part one there are several discussions of how Ireland does not contain poisons, or even allow them onto Irish soil: ‘this fact is truly astonishing, namely, that if a poisonous thing is brought here from elsewhere, the island cannot, and never could, endure to keep it’.41 Perhaps, Giraldus suggests, there is ‘some hidden force of the land itself that is inimical to poisons, [so that] no poisonous animal can live here. And if poison be brought in, no matter what it be, from elsewhere, immediately it loses all the force of its evil’.42 Giraldus’ usage of land-based approval of the Normans becomes increasingly complex and strategic as he describes contemporary events. At one point, through the voice of an Irish king who knows how to read Ireland’s natural signs, Giraldus positions the land as issuing the sign of welcome to or at least acceptance of the Norman invaders. He tells his readers that in our days a frog [i.e. a poisonous creature] was found near Waterford […]. While the English, and more so the Irish, regarded it with great wonder, Duvenaldus, 40   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, pp. 101–2; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, pp. 151–52. 41   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 51; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 62. 42   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 51; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 62.

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The accounts of the territories and landscape elements of Ireland, and the land’s reaction to both the native Irish and the newly arrived Normans, are rich and complex, and as in the last example, in the structural paralleling of the poisonous reptile with the conquering English, even Giraldus’s account of the Irish topography suggests the tensions and anxieties which must have been very real. Nonetheless, overall, through the depiction of the land and its attributes, Giraldus’s Topographia provides an account of Ireland that welcomes and signifies a need for Norman presence, and ultimately shows a successful mapping of Anglo-Norman identities and Anglo-Norman interests, priorities, and interpretations, onto Giraldus’ Ireland. Expugnatio Hibernica: Textual Conquest of Ireland Expanding upon the literary critic Seamus Deane’s comment that ‘Yeats began his career by inventing an Ireland amenable to his imagination [but] ended by finding an Ireland recalcitrant to it’, the postcolonial theorist C. L. Innes writes that ‘while Yeats was able to reimagine and reclaim Ireland geographically in his early poems, tensions arise when he seeks to confront Ireland’s changing historical identity, or to weld together the geographical and the historical’.44 The same might be said of Giraldus Cambrensis, and we certainly see evidence of those tensions in the Expugnatio. While the Topographia might comprise a safe, static, and controlled imagining of a Norman-needing Ireland, the Expugnatio evidences the tensions Innes denotes and demonstrates the ways in which a historical twelfth century Ireland was far more fraught, unstable, and resistant to Normanization, or transcultural transformation. While Giraldus admits to and discusses the difficulties of the Norman conquest of Ireland that were 43   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 52; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, pp. 65–6. 44   Catherine Lynette Innes, The Cambridge Introduction to Postcolonial Literatures in English (Cambridge, 2007), p. 72. Original citation in Seamus Deane, Celtic Revivals: Essays in Modern Irish Literature (London, 1987), p. 38.

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historically well-known, his textual account nonetheless seeks to show Norman suitability to and fitting accession to the land and territories of Ireland. In his introduction to the Expugnatio, Giraldus links it to the Topographia, writing: In my Topography I treated of the position of Ireland, of the various characteristics of the land and of its contents, and also of the amazing natural phenomena found there, and I traced the ancestry of the races who have lived there from distant centuries down to our own days. Now therefore, at the insistent request of many men of rank, I have taken on the task of setting out in its own separate volume the deeds of our own time and the sequence of events in this latest conquest of Ireland […]. My Topography describes the events and scenes of time past. But the present history describes contemporary events.45

Even in his summary of the Topographia, Giraldus stresses the idea of multiple races coming to the island and its multiple conquests, thus destabilizing any sense of Ireland as belonging inalienably to a single race or group and consequently figuring the Normans as only the most recent group seeking to control this land, those driving this ‘latest conquest’. When he moves onto contemporary events, he has clear political arguments for the righteousness and legitimacy of a Norman-ruled Ireland, though by clever and calculated use of rhetoric, he is careful also to obviate the need for such outright justifications. Many of Giraldus’ main themes regarding the creation of a place for the Normans in Ireland evidenced in the Topographia run through the Expugnatio as well. Before turning to the specific points at which we see his contemporary elaboration of the Norman place in Ireland, it is worth looking momentarily at the ways in which Giraldus theorizes and valorizes the role of language, of literature, and of text, as this bears upon his project of textualizing and verbalizing the expugnatio of Ireland, in short, preparing it for wide, identityforming and enforcing consumption. When he conceptualizes his own literary productions, Giraldus again employs agricultural (as well as economic) metaphors which align his writing project with that of the Norman conquest of Ireland. He frames and justifies his textualization of the Norman conquest by arguing that ‘a knowledge of those events would be most useful to posterity’, and frames them in terms of the important act of ongoing planting and harvesting:

  Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, Introduction, ll. 1–13, pp. 2–3.

45

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Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage So, just as granaries which have not been kept full by the constant addition of new stocks are quickly emptied, just as treasure is squandered so easily if it is not made up again by fresh supplies of money, so too the results of the study which we imperfect humans engage in is quickly exhausted and vanishes if it is dependent on its own resources and is not helped by other men’s ideas.46

A bit later in the address, Giraldus states that the Norman invasion and conquest of Ireland is necessary for taming the land, replacing barbarity with civilization and religious righteousness, and Giraldus’ goal in the Expugnatio is ‘to unfold clearly the story of the subjugation of the Irish people, and of the taming of the ferocity of a very barbarous nation in these our own times’.47 It is Giraldus’ close family members, his brothers, uncles, and cousins who are the main actors in the actual invasion and conquest of Ireland (most of the characters in the Expugnatio are indeed closely related to Giraldus), clearing it of the unruly, barbaric, irresponsible Irish and planting, instead, righteous Norman lordship. Cambro-Norman entitlement to the land, and the fitness of these Normans for being planted and rooted in Ireland, is voiced throughout the text, as here in a speech by Robert FitzStephen: the broad acres of our inheritance and our native soil are lost to us through treachery at home and malice among our own people. It is not, then, greed of monetary rewards of the “blind craving of gold” that has brought us to these parts, but a gift of lands and cities in perpetuity to us and to our children […]. This man [Diarmait mac Murchada] loves our race; he is encouraging our race to come here, and has decided to settle them in this island and give them permanent roots there. Perhaps the outcome of this present action will be that the five divisions of the island will be reduced to one, and sovereignty over the whole kingdom will devolve upon our race for the future.48

The Cambro-Norman leaders here identify their lack of land in Wales, the dispossession from their native territories, and focus on the invitation and desire of Diarmait mac Murchada, who wishes to settle them and root them in the land. Giraldus sees himself in a parallel position, and in his literary rendering of this act of conquest of Ireland, he too seeks to transform a rough, uncultivated and fragmented territory into a rich and fruitful, unified and comprehensible 46   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, Address to Richard of Poitou/Preface, ll. 313– 17, pp. 20–21. 47   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, Address to Richard of Poitou/Preface, ll. 350– 52, pp. 22–23. 48   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, I. 12–23, pp. 48–49.

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landscape for posterity. His own project of writing the Norman conquest of Ireland is similarly about land improvement, about bringing a neglected territory to fruition: ‘I have decided that my Muse, as yet untrained, should exercise itself by way of practice in this field which, though it is confined and arid, rough and untilled, may yet be cultivated with the aid of my pen’.49 While the Geraldines and other early Cambro-Normans may have met with resistance and, as we have seen, an ultimate lack of success, as Giraldus explains in the Expugnatio,50 through Giraldus’ text, a fertile and yielding topography of contemporary Norman Ireland can be consumed and enjoyed. While in the Topographia Giraldus was concerned to show how he scientifically recorded his eyewitness account, in the Expugnatio he, on the other hand, draws attention to the workmanship, crafting and polishing, the artistic ‘literary-ness’ as it were, of the account he produces and his own role as virtuoso creator and artistic mediator. He allows us to see the way he conceptualized his own writing of Norman Ireland into being, and was very much aware that the textual act and verbal construction of Ireland become more powerful than mere reports or, returning to his Topographia preface, material evidence of the land. His theorization of the act of writing, its place in the world, and his own role as creator is fascinating:   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, Address to Richard of Poitou/Preface, ll. 358– 60, pp. 24, 25. 50   Giraldus does provide a clear and intelligent analysis of why the Norman 49

conquest of Ireland was finally not successful, much of which involves criticism of the king in not acting quickly or lending support to the first waves of Norman invaders and settlers, conquering the land quickly before Irish fighting strategies could be changed to more effectively combat the initially unfamiliar Norman combat methods, which is a clear and accurate assessment. Perhaps it is most significant however that he actually does offer a military plan in his text, he details and maps out in words a strategy whereby the Norman conquest of Ireland of which he writes might be embodied, might become a reality. See Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, II.38–9, pp. 244–53 for Giraldus’ detailed plan for successful conquest and governance of a Norman Ireland. As Scott writes, ‘His suggestion that three provinces of Ireland should be thoroughly conquered and fortified with castles, while the area beyond the Shannon was to be left to its own devices and isolated from the rest, was to find a place in the policy of the English administration at various times up to the seventeenth century […]’, (Scott, ‘Introduction’ in Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, xx–xxi). Giraldus’ text, then, becomes an even more critical tool of empire building, and through the Expugnatio he becomes even more like his Geraldine relations in his participation in the conquest. By the close of his text, we see, as Jacobs writes of later imperial projects, that ‘these spatial events did not simply supplement the economic drive of imperialism, they made it make sense; they took it from the visioned to the embodied, from the global reach of desire to the local technologies of occupation’ ( Jacobs, Edge of Empire, pp. 158–59).

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love of literature has drawn me from my boyhood years, and the study of eloquence in writing gives me pleasure as if it were the chief of all delights. So being possessed of this desire, I have progressed beyond many of my contemporaries in my searching enquiry into the workings of Nature as well as her vagaries, and taking thought for posterity I have not allowed the noble deeds of our time to vanish under a cloak of silence […] such a faithful investigation of individual events is a difficult task. So too is the orderly arrangement of the true facts once they have been elicited […]. Difficult too is the articulation of a cultivated style in order that what the author writes may sparkle with both words and images […]. Painstaking work is necessary; every point must be polished before it crosses the threshold of publication […]. Because words, when they have been uttered, fly off into the air immediately and vanish; they leave no abiding recollection of their having been praised or blamed. But since written works, once they have been published, do not pass away, they continue in being to the everlasting shame or renown of their author.51

He continues, quoting Cicero in the last lines: ‘history is the warrant of antiquity, “the eye-witness of times past, the shining light of truth, the lifeline of our memory, life’s instructor, the messenger of former times to us”’.52 Giraldus shows his own self-consciousness in constructing, polishing, and shaping his version of Norman Ireland. He is very much aware, and wants to remind us, too, that with his textual act he creates a substantial, verbal picture and account that becomes material and seductive enough to perhaps replace a darker and less satisfying historical reality, his words remaining and circulating when events, speeches, and memories have dissipated, and it is Giraldus’ version of Ireland that obtains.53 Moving into the body of the Expugnatio itself, in a variety of ways, Giraldus makes the point that it is the Normans who know how to correctly read Ireland and understand what the landscape requires, or what the land itself teaches   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, Intro, ll. 96–24, pp. 8–10, 9–11.   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, Intro, ll. 123–30, pp. 10, 11. 53   It is significant, of course, that the other contemporary account of the Norman invasion and conquest of Ireland from the Norman perspective, The Song of Dermot and the Earl, or variously, The Deeds of the Normans in Ireland, did not circulate widely, is found in fragmentary form in only one manuscript, with no known medieval references to the text (Mullally, Deeds of the Normans, p. 9), while manuscripts of the Topographia and Expugnatio are numerous, discussed, and in wide circulation almost immediately upon their completion. Giraldus was, of course, a masterful self-promoter, and he was, it can be said, successful in making sure his version of events and of Norman Ireland became a kind of ‘official version’. For a thorough discussion of the extensive manuscript tradition of the Expugnatio and the Topographia, with which it is often bound, see Scott, ‘Introduction’ to Expugnatio, xxxiv– lxxxv. 51 52

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through production of wonders and marvelous things. The episode of the cowman (discussed in the Topographia and briefly mentioned in the Expugnatio)54 provides one example of this. As Giraldus writes in the Topographia account it is his Cambro-Norman ancestors who behave appropriately and who wonder at the cow-man, but allow him a place at court, while the Irish persecute and kill him, ‘a fate which he did not deserve’.55 The native Irish are shown to be flummoxed and disconcerted by the wonders produced in Ireland and are led to commit violent acts against things they, as Giraldus suggests, do not understand, whereas the Normans easily accommodate them in the Ireland they govern and control. Giraldus writes explicitly about the appropriate responses to wonders occurring in the landscape, belief in them and proper response to them: But he ought to have more sense, and realize that, as Jerome says, there are found in the Scripture many things which are incredible and unlikely, but which nevertheless are true. For Nature has no power against the Lord of Nature. None of his creatures ought to criticize these things, but rather wonder at them and stand in awe of the works of the Creator. If we may borrow Augustine’s words to prove this same point, “How is that which comes into being by the will of God unnatural, when the nature of each individual thing created is itself the expression of the will of such a mighty Creator? So a prodigy does not occur contrary to Nature, but rather contrary to what has been hitherto known of Nature”.56

It is not only prodigies and monstrous beings, however, produced by Ireland that the Normans are adept at reading and handling appropriately; they are also shown as in possession of an easy familiarity with and ability to understand the logic of the land and respond using the right geographic ‘discourse’. The Irish figures in the Expugnatio, are, on the other hand, governed by the land, merged with and overcome by it rather than able to demonstrate mastery over it. This is seen in the portrait of Diarmait mac Murchada, the exiled king of Leinster who invites the Cambro-Normans to Ireland, and who ‘begged them in every way he knew to bring men of their own race and kin into the island in greater numbers’.57 He happily grants them land, his daughters, and succession to the kingship, and provides a foil to the Norman newcomers who aptly and very keenly take the land and its governance into hand. Giraldus does not seek to 54   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, pp. 73–4; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, pp. 108–9. Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, II. 15, ll. 51–4, pp. 170, 171. 55   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 74; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 108. 56   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, Intro, ll. 65–75, pp. 6, 7. 57   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, I. 12, ll. 8–9, pp. 52, 53.

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show Irish lack of interest in the land itself; rather, his strategy is to show that the Irish are more like the dumb animals and beasts which live in the wild landscape, dependent on the land itself, though not capable of rising to the level of human reason necessary to do what is best for the land, to rule it profitably or effectively, a duty which the Normans can easily fulfill. The way that the Irish are controlled by the land and by nature is telling. Diarmait mac Murchada is clearly figured in terms of the land, but as one who is driven by it and even obsessed with it, rather than a perspicacious reader of the landscape, or thoughtful steward of it. When Diarmait is abroad in Britain and Normandy seeking support so that he might reclaim the kingship of Leinster, Giraldus describes him thus: Diarmait, much fired by a desire to see his native land, and even more feeling the pull of that sweet longing which draws all men to their native soil, hastened without delay to southern Wales and the region of St David’s. This land is separated from Leinster only by the sea which, in the course of a crossing lasting only one day, does not at any time deprive one of the sight of land […]. So from the Welsh shore, drinking in at closer quarters, with the aid of the west wind, the wholesome Irish air, and, as it were, inhaling with his nostrils the sweet savour of the homeland he was longing for, he fed his gaze on the prospect of his native land – no small source of comfort, although a distant one, for one can scarcely distinguish between hills and clouds.

The depiction of Diarmait’s homesickness is touching, yet the problem of his overwhelming attachment is made clear in successive lines. In exchange for significant land grants in Ireland, Diarmait has obtained the promise of support from Robert FitzStephen and Maurice FitzGerald, yet he is unable to wait for the winds to change so that they can all cross with their troops in safety the following spring ‘with the arrival of the west winds and the first swallows’.58 Ever impatient, with a break in the weather in August, Diarmait ‘could no longer endure the deprivations of an exile’, and ‘he trusted himself to sail and wind, and, braving the dangers of the journey and the dangers of his own country, he was presently brought ashore in that hostile land. So, in his natural impatience, he exposed himself as a private person to his innumerable enemies’,59 his CambroNorman allies making their own journey across in the more propitious month of May. This passage has the effect of making Diarmait seem rash and even silly in his attachment to the land and consequent choice of a rushed, unwise   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, I. 2, ll. 44–45, pp. 30, 31.   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, I. 2, ll. 49–53, pp. 30, 31.

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and imprudent course of action adhered to primarily so that he can set foot on home soil and breathe Irish air more quickly. Diarmait is presented as almost naïvely overwhelmed by the pull of the land, and subject to it in contrast to the Cambro-Normans, who are not invested in native soil as much as new territories acquired through expansion and who can, with detachment, make savvier, more fully weighed decisions regarding the best course of action. Though it is left unstated, here and elsewhere one has the impression that Giraldus constructs a binary between subject – impassioned Irishman enslaved to the land – and his opposite, the agent – actively strategic Norman ruled by logic – who knows how to order, discipline, and obtain the most from the land. Diarmait is in other cases portrayed in a negative light, not quite demonstrating civilized or princely behavior, but more reminiscent of the barbaric, bestial Irish of the Topographia. When an early victory is won by Diarmait and his supporters, two hundred heads of the defeated are brought to Diarmait, who again shows unbridled excitement and uncontrolled, animalistic and ‘inhuman’ behavior: When he had turned each one [head] over and recognized it, out of an excess of joy he jumped three times in the air with arms clasped over his head, and joyfully gave thanks to the Supreme Creator as he loudly reveled in his triumph. He lifted up to his mouth the head of one he particularly loathed, and taking it by the ears and hair, gnawed at the nose and cheeks – a cruel and most inhuman act.60

Diarmait’s behavior and actions are portrayed as inhuman and savage, fully ignoble and ill-befitting a king. This type of dehumanizing portrayal of an Irish ruler is used elsewhere by Giraldus as well. In another instance, one CambroNorman hero, Griffin, has a dream in which the Norman leaders Hugh de Lacy and Maurice FitzGerald are attacked by a herd of wild swine, with a huge, fearsomely tusked boar at the forefront.61 Griffin knows, of course, to be on his guard, and it is no surprise to the reader to learn that the dream presages an ignoble attack by the Irish prince of Bréifne, Tígernán Ua Ruairc: ‘The one-eyed king, nursing villainous treachery in his heart, pretended to go a little way to the side to make water, and signaled to his men to come up at once with the utmost speed’.62 In Griffin’s dream, the Irish are embodied as swine while the Normans retain their human form. In the actual encounter, the Irish are similarly degraded not only by their treachery, but by the base act that their one-eyed, almost monstrous leader chooses to perform, pretending to go off and ignobly urinate.   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, I. 4, ll. 18–23, pp. 36, 37.   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, I. 41, ll. 5–10, pp. 112, 113. 62   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, I. 41, ll. 25–28, pp. 114, 115. 60 61

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Rushing out of the woods with the other attacking Irishmen, the cyclopean Ua Ruairc is killed by Griffin. The enemy head is sent off as a prize to Henry II, the Irish prince and his ‘boar’s head’ becoming the trophy from this Irish hunt.63 The Normans are figured as the humans in the landscape while the Irish are its beasts. Giraldus, of course, is elsewhere even more explicit about the savage, animalistic nature of the Irish, at one point in the Topographia asserting, as quoted above, that the Irish ‘are a wild and inhospitable people. They live on beasts only, and live like beasts’.64 Furthermore, the many accounts Giraldus provides of the Irish mating with animals, and their proclivity for bestiality, makes this point of species slippage in other, more vivid ways. Finally, in the later stages of the conquest of Ireland, one of the king’s retainers, John de Courcy, is sent to Ireland and begins making forays into the wildest part, the North: ‘for in this island, as in every country, the people of the North are always more warlike and savage’,65 Giraldus tells us. It is in this region of Ireland that, when the Normans and John de Courcy conquer parts of Ulaid, or Ulster, the native Irish are literally subdued until they sink into the landscape, no longer independent agents or bodies differentiated from the landmass itself. Though de Courcy’s forces are outnumbered by the Irish at Down, John’s courage at last won him the victory, and a great number of the enemy were killed along the sea shore where they had taken refuge. Then was fulfilled that famous prophecy of Columba the Irishman who, foretelling that battle many years previously, had said that in it the slaughter of the townspeople would be so great that their enemies would wade up to their knees in blood. For because the surface of the shore was soft and yielding, the weight of their bodies caused men to sink deep into it, and the blood pouring from their wounds remained on the surface of the slippery ground and easily came up to the knees and legs of their pursuers.66

In this horrific spectacle, the Irish enemies of the Normans are fully disembodied, and literally sink into and become part of the landscape which is now claimed and conquered as a Norman territory. This is a dramatic and rather awful scene, and the reduction of these bodies to conquered land becomes in the text inevitable and divinely sanctioned as it is prophesied by Ireland’s own saint,   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, I. 41, ll. 39–48, pp. 114, 115.   Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 101; Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia, p. 151. Discussed above on pp. 266–267. 65   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, II. 17, ll. 28–29, pp. 174, 175. 66   Giraldus Cambrensis, Expugnatio, II. 17, ll. 51–59, pp. 176, 177. 63 64

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Columba. As in the document Laudabiliter, the Norman conquest of Ireland too is a divinely sanctioned and, ultimately, inevitable act. As Irish blood merges into landscape, becoming territory rather than inhering in individuals who will govern territory, the Irish become like the land that needs governance, their bodies creatures dependent on the land, part of it rather than capable, reasoning human actors. The Irish, Giraldus’ depictions, metaphors, images, and topographical rhetoric suggests, are the fruits of conquest rather than competitors for governance of Ireland, and like the land, in Giraldus’ Expugnatio find themselves subdued by Norman forces. Performance of the Topographia: a Textual Conquest, a Textual Community Finally, in conclusion, I would like to turn to the actual performance of Giraldus’ Topographia. As he said in his dedicatory preface to King Henry II, Giraldus chose not to send material evidence of Ireland, specimens, for instance, of its gold, abundant falcons or hawks, but rather to create a written text containing accounts that, as cited earlier, ‘cannot be lost’ or ‘easily perish’, but which will ‘instruct posterity. For no age can destroy them’.67 His Topographia does indeed instruct, and in 1188, the text was delivered at Oxford. About the event, Giraldus himself writes (using the third person): When in process of time the work was finished and corrected, and not wishing to place the candle which he had lit under a bushel but to lift it aloft on a candlestick that it might shine forth, he determined to read it before a great audience at Oxford, where, of all places in England, the clergy were most strong and preeminent in learning. And since his book was divided into three parts, he gave three consecutive days to the reading, a part being read each day. On the first he hospitably entertained the poor of the whole town whom he had gathered together for that purpose; on the morrow he entertained the remainder of the scholars together with the knights of the town and a number of citizens. It was a magnificent and costly achievement, since thereby the ancient and authentic times of the poets were in some manner revived, nor has the present age seen nor does any past age bear record of the like.68   Gerald of Wales, History and Topography, p. 32. See discussion on p. 262 above.   Giraldus Cambrensis, De rebus a se gestis,in Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, Rolls Series, 8 vols, J. S. Brewer, J. F. Dimock, G. F. Warner (eds), (London, 1861–91), vol. I, pp. 72– 3. English translation in The Autobiography of Gerald of Wales, Harold Edgeworth Butler (Woodbridge, 2005), p. 97. 67 68

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This reading of the Topographia to three different social groups in Oxford also accomplished the importation of a specifically Norman Ireland back to England, and it might be argued that this oral performance resulted in the construction of a ‘third space’, a virtual Norman Ireland ‘travelled’, ‘conquered’, and to some extent ‘inhabited’ by all those who read or heard Giraldus’ account of the land and its wonders. It could have offered a critical, and far more comfortable, confidence-inspiring version of Norman Ireland, particularly when Ireland itself resisted full conquest. While I have focused on this particular performance of the Topographia, the same can be argued for the many readings, private and public, which Giraldus’s works on Ireland occasioned. What Giraldus does in the N.L.I. 700 map, the Topographia, and Expugnatio, is to write or imagine a Norman Ireland into being. While, as contemporary commentators noted, his version of Ireland is fantastic, unattested, heavily crafted and manipulated, it nonetheless becomes a very real thing, and truly, for many people back in England, Giraldus’ is the version of Ireland that obtained. As Giraldus well knew, a topography, a place conjured out of words and constructed out of ideas, images, and tales, had more force, and more convincingly real contours, than any physical artifact might. Giraldus’ Ireland is an imagined land that points to the superiority of the Normans in religion, governmental practices, land use and stewardship, and social customs, and it is in this way that Giraldus maps, in words and images, a Norman identity onto Ireland, and a Norman Ireland into being.

Chapter 13

Integration and Disintegration: the ‘Norse’ in Descriptions of the Early Rus Thorir Jonsson Hraundal

In Rus studies the term ‘Norman’ is rarely used and almost exclusively restricted to the name given to the centuries’ old debate on the origin of the Rus and their role in establishing the Kievan Rus state. The ‘Normanist controversy’, as it is referred to, was often deeply imbued with political and nationalistic agendas which assigned to the exponents, mainly Scandinavian or Slavic, either more Viking-ness or more Slavic-ness. Yet even the so-called ‘anti-Normanists’, that is those who advocated a predominant Slavic contingent behind the name Rus, seldom ruled out all Scandinavian admixture completely. Today, this burdensome nomenclature is gradually falling into disuse, and it is generally agreed that Scandinavian elements are detectable in written descriptions as well as in archaeological remains over a wide area in Eastern Europe. Sometimes a more culturally inclusive and multiethnic stance is taken by lumping Finnic and Baltic peoples together with Scandinavians and Slavs under this name.1 By the time of the appearance of Rus in the first half of the ninth century, however, this area was not the dominion of Slavic peoples, and much less that of Scandinavian peoples. A large part of western inner Eurasia was under the rule of the predominantly Turkic Khazars, extending over an area approximately stretching east to west from the Caspian Sea to the Dnieper river and north to south from the Samara Bend to the Black Sea. The Khazarian state existed until the mid-tenth century, with 965 as the traditional date of its final demise, although mention of the presence of Khazars does exist after that time. Another powerful state was that of the Bulghar in the Mid-Volga region, which came into being in the ninth century and lasted until the Mongols invaded in 1236. Yet these peoples do not figure prominently in Rus historiography. The inattention to this aspect of Rus studies on behalf of Russian or Soviet scholars 1   For a survey of Rus historiography see for example Omeljan Pritsak, The Origin of Rus: Old Scandinavian Sources Other than the Sagas (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), pp. 8–33 and K. R. Schmidt, ‘The Varangian problem. A brief history of the controversy’, in Varangian Problems, Scando-Slavica, suppl. I (Copenhagen, 1970), pp. 7–20.

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is in large part due to the fact that they were often hard pressed to play down the role of non-Slavic peoples in the emergence of the Russian state. In this respect Khazarian historiography suffered in particular, as the Khazars were predominantly Turkic and a part of them was also Jewish.2 The reasons underlying the reluctance of Scandinavian and other ‘Western’ scholars to give serious consideration to the Turkic peoples in their studies on the Rus are more difficult to identify. Perhaps it is partly due to their near absence in the Old Norse material, a fact that can probably be attributed to its considerable later composition and because the role of the Turkic peoples in the western Eurasian Steppe gradually diminished after the tenth century with the increased importance and expansion of the Rus state. Trends in Soviet scholarship regarding the Turkic peoples may also have influenced this development.3 As for source material, scholars have traditionally directed their   Thorough overview in Victor Shnirelman, The Myth of the Khazars and Intellectual Antisemitism in Russia ( Jerusalem, 2002). 3   Examples abound, but to name a few there are Egil Mikkelsen’s two contributions on Islam in Scandinavia and Vikings and Islam which almost completely eschew the Khazars and the Volga Bulghars, even though these peoples must be regarded as a possible source of Islamic influence – Egil Mikkelsen, ‘Islam and Scandinavia during the Viking Age’ in Byzantium and Islam in Scandinavia: Acts of a Symposium at Uppsala University, June 15–16 1996, (ed.) Edith Piltz. (Gothenburg, 1998, pp. 39–52), and ‘The Vikings and Islam’ in The Viking World, (eds) Stefan Brink and Neil Price (London and New York, 2008, pp. 543– 9). Torsten Edgren’s study on the eastern route of the Vikings reduces it to cover merely Finland and North-western Russia – Edgren, The Eastern Route: Finland in the Viking Age’, in Vikings: the North Atlantic Saga (Washington and London, 2000), 103–15. In the same volume we find a map of their raids where it is of note that none of their reported raids on the Caspian Sea in the tenth century conveyed to us by Arabic writers is shown. A related tendency is noticeable in Jens Peter Schjødt’s study on Ibn Fadlan’s account of the Rus, where he states that ‘it is possible that they [the Rus] had lived in the Volga region for two or more generations, and that they had acquired local Slavonic traditions’ and also that ‘Ibn Fadlan did not speak the language of the Rus, since he needed an interpreter, of whom we do not know whether he was an Arab, Scandinavian, or perhaps Slavonic’ – ‘Ibn Fadlan’s Account of a Rus Funeral: To what Degree does it Reflect Nordic Myths?’, in Reflections on Old Norse Myths, (eds) Pernille Hermann, Jens Peter Schjødt and Rasmus T. Kristensen (Turnhout, 2007, pp. 133–48, here p. 133). Schjødt appears to be blissfully unaware that all evidence we possess suggests that the Volga Bulghars and other peoples on the mid- and lower Volga at the time were predominantly Turkic. See also Wladyslaw Duczko’s rather peculiar approach of interspersing Old Norse words into a translation of Ibn Fadlan’s text, apparently to heighten the reader’s sense of the Rus described by him as authentic Norsemen: ‘When these basic problems [of inheritence] were settled it was time for the veizla, a fiest, held to the honour of the deceased, the man part having the form of drinking, which included drinking erfiol, inheritance beer’… ‘The Rus drank uslettuliga “without restrain”’… ‘It is most possible that the relatives and companions of the dead man were drekka brullaup, “drinking the wedding” 2

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attention mostly towards the Old East Slavonic, Byzantine and to some extent Old Norse material which conveys minimal information on contacts between the Rus and the Turkic peoples. One group of sources, however, differs considerably in this respect. Arabic geographical and historical writings from the ninth and tenth centuries frequently portray the political, economic and military might of the Turkic peoples and it is especially in this context that the early Rus are associated with them on numerous occasions. At variance with the Slavonic, Norse and Byzantine material which consistently places the Rus on a roughly north-south axis between Ladoga and Constantinople, it should be noted here that the Arabic material usually registers Rus in a more easterly region, approximately demarcated by Bulghar in the mid-Volga in the north, the Azov Sea in the west, the Caucasus in the south and the Caspian in the east. This is roughly the area of Khazar influence from the seventh to the tenth century. We shall examine a few cultural traits of the Rus and their contacts with these local cultures as it was perceived by the authors of this source material, with particular focus on the account by Ibn Fadlan of the funerary ritual that has played a significant role in studies on the early Rus. This article discusses three main points: firstly, the identity of the Rus and the identity and meaning of their ritual as it has traditionally been interpreted; secondly, an alternative look at their identity and ritual; and, finally, social and anthropological theories and their applicability to our interpretation. We shall begin by very briefly reviewing a few passages that can plausibly be taken to connect the Rus with Scandinavia: • Annales Bertiniani for the year 839: Rus accompanying an embassy from

Byzantium to the court of Louis the Pious in Ingelheim are identified as gens sueoni4 • A Byzantine source from the mid-tenth century, De administrando imperio, gives Old Norse names of Dnieper rapids:5

– Wladyslaw Duczko, Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe (Leiden, 2004), p. 144–5. J. Shepard and S. Franklin provide an important counterexample to such trends in The Emergence of the Rus: 750–1200 (Longman, 1996) where the authors take a more nuanced approach to the concepts of ethnicity and identity, and incorporate on many occasions the evidence of the Arabic sources and the wider cultural and political context of the region. 4   Annales Bertiniani, (trans. and ann.) Janet Nelson (Manchester, 1991), p. 44. 5   That is, the presumed underlying Old Norse form: Sigfús Blöndal, The Varangians of Byzantium, (trans., revised and rewritten) Benedikt S. Benedikz (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 9–12.

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Old Norse – English – Greek Sof eigi, ‘Don’t Sleep’, Εσσουπη Holmfors, ‘Island-Waterfall’, Ουλβορσι Gellandi, ‘Roaring’, Γελανδρι Eyforr, ‘Ever Violent’, Αειφορ Bárufors, ‘Wave-Waterfall’, Βαρουφορος Hlæjandi, ‘Laughing [ref. Noise of Water]’, Λεαντι Strukum, ‘[At the] Rapids’, Στρουκουν • The Old Slavonic Povest Vremennykh let, the so-called Primary Chronicle in which the Rus were called in from the north and Old Norse personal names (e.g. in treaties with Byzantium from 911 and 944/5) such as Karl, Ingjald, Farulf, Vermund, Hrollaf, Gunnar, Harold, Frithleif, Hroarr, Angantyr and more are mentioned6 • Continued usage of a few Scandinavian names in Kievan Rus, e.g. Ingvar, Ingeborg, Ingigerda, Rogvolod (Rognvald), Rogneda (Ragnheid)7 • Arabic writers add to this with Yaqubi’s comment (872) and later suggestions of Al-Masudi that the Rus are the same as the majus who raided al-Andalus (majus was one of the words used for Scandinavians in Al-Andalus).8 Many more indications could be mentioned, such as Old Norse material that often refers to the east and that also contains ‘Norsified’ toponyms from the region (Hólmgarður < Novgorod/Gorodische, Ráðstofa < Rostov, Súrdalir < Suzdal’, Palteskja < Polotsk)9 and runic inscriptions in Scandinavia commemorating journeys to the east as well as Scandinavian runes in Russia and Ukraine on stones, sticks and coins. Numerous archaeological finds over a vast area of modern Russia and Ukraine also show parallels with similar finds in Scandinavia.10   The Russian Primary Chronicle: The Laurentian Text, (trans. and ed.) by Samuel H. Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), p. 65. 7   Leontin Voitovich, Kniazha doba na Rusi: Portreti Eliti (Kiev, 2006), pp. 382, 384, 460, 244 seq., 285, 463. 8   Kitab al-buldan, (ed.) Michael de Goeje, in Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum (BGA), vol. 7, second edn, (Leiden, 1967), p. 304. Muruj adh-dhahab, (ed.) ‘Abd al-Amir’ Ali Muhanna (Beirut, 1991), pp. 187–88. Kitab surat al-ard, BGA, vol. 2, third edn, (Leiden, 1967), pp. 386–98. 9   E.g. Yngvarr’s saga víðförla, Örvar-Odds saga. 10   E.g. Ingmar Jansson, ‘Situationen i Norden och Östeuropa för 1000 år sedan – en 6

arkeologs synpunkter på frågan om östkristna inflytanden under missionstiden’, in Henrik Janson (ed.), Från Bysans til Norden: Östliga kyrkoinfluenser under vikingatid och tidig medeltid (Malmö, 2005), ‘Wikingerzeitlicher orientalischer Import in Skandinavien’,

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An important addition to these is the account of Ibn Fadlan who encountered the Rus on his journey from Baghdad to Volga Bulgharia in 921. The unique standing of this text as possibly the only extant eyewitness account of the early Rus makes it particularly inviting for an exploration of the cultural orientation of the Rus and has indeed repeatedly been introduced into the argument for them as Scandinavians. Not a few scholars have postulated that the Rus portrayed by Ibn Fadlan are Vikings, and even Odinic at that. Whereas the aforementioned examples, while certainly not entirely unproblematic, do suggest some kind of connection between the early Rus and Scandinavia, it shall be proposed here that Ibn Fadlan’s case allows for a somewhat more nuanced interpretation. Ibn Fadlan was an Arabic writer about whom practically nothing is known. He was a member of an embassy that was sent by the Caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 908–932) to the king of the Saqaliba who had petitioned the Caliph to send him someone who could instruct him in religious jurisprudence and the religious codes of Islam and who could construct a mosque. This embassy from the caliph to the king of the Volga Bulghars is not mentioned by any other writer of the period, nor is Ibn Fadlan himself. The only information we have is that provided by his account. His work (ar. risalah, ‘travelogue’) gives us a vivid account of the Rus, their clothing, jewellery and weapons, which he admires, as well as several aspects of their society he does not admire, such as sex in public and poor hygiene, causing him to claim that they are ‘the filthiest creatures of Allah’.11 He also describes how they moor their boats on the bank of the Atil (the common Turkic name for the river Volga), build large houses and set up figurines on the ground to whom they prostrate and seek aid from for the quick sell of their merchandise. The centre stage in Ibn Fadlan’s report on the Rus is given to a description of a funeral, apparently that of a chieftain or a highly regarded person of their community, accompanied by the sacrifice of a slave girl. In a rather coarse itemization, the ceremony is said to have unfolded as follows: • The chieftain dies and is placed in a tent for ten days while preparations

are made

• The slave girl/concubine is said to volunteer to die with him and receives

special treatment and dress, participates in drinking, singing and has intercourse with men in their tents

in Oldenburg-Wolin-Staraja Ladoga-Novgorod-Kiev: Handel und Handelsverbindungen im sudlichen und östlichen Ostseeraum während des frühen Mittelalters, Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission 69 (Mainz am Rhein,1988), 564–647.   Risalah, (ed.) Sami Dahhan (Damascus, 1959), p. 127.

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• The chieftain is laid in the boat along with his weapons and funerary

offerings, animals and food

• (The next stage of the ritual involves the) slave girl who is lifted by men

• • • • •

three times to look above and beyond a door frame structure where she claims to see her deceased ancestors and master in the Garden (or paradise, ar. jannah which means both), proclaiming that ‘it is beautiful and verdant’ She drinks from a beaker (nabidh, an alchoholic drink) and bids farewell to her female companions (other slave girls) Then the so-called ‘Angel of Death’ brings her into a tent that had been erected on the boat Six men have intercourse with the slave girl inside the tent The ‘Angel of Death’ oversees the killing of the slave girl, assisted by six men The ceremony ends with the closest relative of the deceased setting fire to the boat.

Ibn Fadlan’s much longer and elaborate description is both detailed and horrific and of the many curious features of the ceremony it is perhaps the ordeal of the slave girl that is most puzzling. In recent years several interpretations of this passage have been offered, most of which have largely converged in viewing the ritual as basically Scandinavian, or more specifically pertaining to the cult of Odin. The Danish historian of religion Jens Peter Schjødt seeks to demonstrate how it is rooted in the semantic world which is conveyed to us by Old Norse mythic literature and that Ibn Fadlan’s account could be used to reconstruct some of the ancient Scandinavian pagan customs. He sees the ceremony mainly as rite of passage, an initiation of the girl so that she might enter Valhalla with her master.12 The interpretations of the Norwegian scholar Morten Lund Warmind and the Polish archaeologist Wladyslaw Duczko run along similar lines to that of Schjødt. Warmind emphasizes the elevation of the slave girl’s social status and states: ‘The actual death, the strangling and the stabbing have long been recognized as the Odinic way of sacrificing kings. The happy girl [sic!] is sent to Odin to be with her master’.13 And Duczko writes, ‘The slave girl who voluntarily agreed to follow   Jens Peter Schjødt, ‘Ibn Fadlan’s Account of a Rus Funeral: To What Degree Does it Reflect Nordic Myths?’, in Pernille Hermann, Jens Peter Schjødt and Rasmus Tranum Kristensen (eds), Reflections on Old Norse Myths (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 133–46. 13   Morten Lund Warmind, ‘The Funeral of the Rus-chief ’, in The Ship as Symbol in 12

Prehistoric and Medieval Scandinavia, (ed.) Ole Crumlin-Pedersen and Birgitte Munch Thye (Copenhagen, 1995), pp. 136–37.

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her dead master was by this decision turned into his bride and while waiting for the end was acting as such. Turning the slave girl into the bride of the chieftain moved her from the low social position of a […] servant of the dead Rus to his official wife’.14 The Czech archaeologist Zdeněk Váňa even tried to recreate a visual interpretation of the scene where the ‘Angel of Death’ is depicted as lurking quite inactively in the background, and the whole atmosphere is one of serenity; a romantic image of a post-mortem sacred marriage.15 If we now compare these interpretations with the actual description of the slave girl’s death as it appears in Ibn Fadlan’s text there is an alarming discordance: The crone (the so-called ‘Angel of Death’) grabbed hold of her [the slave girl’s] head and brought her into the tent […] the men began to bang their shields with sticks so that the sound of her screaming could not be heard and so terrifying the other slave-girls who would not, then, seek to die with their masters. Six men entered the tent and all had intercourse with the slave-girl. Then they laid her down by the side of her master and two of them took hold of her feet, two her hands. The crone […] placed a rope around her neck and […] advanced with a broadbladed dagger and began to thrust it in and out between her ribs, now here, now there, while two men throttled her with the rope until she died.16

How the scholars mentioned above have been able to construe the depiction of multiple rapes and brutal strangulation as an illustration of a happy or peaceful occasion is intriguing. Leaving aside the veracity of Ibn Fadlan’s text or the precise meaning of this ritual it remains that there is an obvious and to some extent mysterious discrepancy, on several levels, between the words in the text and their interpretations.17 Regarding the cultural ‘origin’ or affiliation of the ritual it may on closer examination raise several problems to view the ceremony in Ibn Fadlan’s account as Scandinavian or Viking. One is that we do not possess any such or similar accounts in the Old Norse literature. Secondly, while there are traditions which can most decidedly be connected with Scandinavia on account of the archaeological evidence, such as the boat incineration, there are other elements  Duczko, Viking Rus, p. 145.   Zdeňek Vaňa, The World of the Ancient Slavs (London, 1983), p. 85. 16   James Montgomery (trans.), ‘Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah’, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, vol. 3 (2000), pp. 1–25, here p. 19. 17   See Timothy Taylor’s refreshingly different interpretation which draws our attention to the violence and the function of the ritual in containing the soul of the deceased within the liminal sphere. Timothy Taylor, The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death (London, 2002), pp. 86–143. 14 15

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which can not be explained as being uniquely Scandinavian. Indeed we can find parallels in other cultures from various periods: the strangling of a concubine during her master’s funeral has direct correspondence with Greek descriptions of Scythian rituals found in Herodotus’ writings.18 Moreover, the description of the place in the afterlife to which the slave-girl is heading ‘as beautiful and verdant’ and a place where she would join her whole family seems at odds with any description we possess of Valhalla, regardless of the not unimportant question whether women were allowed in at all. The treatment of the sacrificial victim as a noble person is parallel to sequences in the so-called pharmakoi ritual in several ancient Greek colonies.19 Even with just a few examples like these it has to follow that the elements of the Rus ceremony are not Scandinavia-specific, nor can they be seen as specific to the cult of Odin. Is it related then to similar rituals that transpired in the area in which the Rus subsisted at the time: that is, can we identify any elements that traditionally are attributed to Turkic peoples? Unfortunately the source material contains too little to provide us with definite answers or clear parallels. We should also avoid the pitfall of assuming any ‘purity’ regarding the traditions of the Turkic peoples who had been influenced by many traditions as well, in particular Iranian (due to symbiosis for centuries) and more recently at this stage, Islam. ‘Turkic’ is employed here as a broad term describing characteristics generally vinculated with the traditions attributed to them. We should also keep in mind that the Khazar state and probably Bulghar too, were multiethnic: veritable melting pots of cultures where mainly trade served as instigator of all kinds of cross-pollination. Accordingly, explaining specific customs that our sources connect with these peoples from the point of view of a particular religion such as Tengrism, may lead us to similarly rigid perspectives as held by those scholars who see it from the point of view of Old Norse mythology. Nevertheless, it may be possible to single out a few elements in Ibn Fadlan’s description that may be attributed to Turkic influence. The strangling of the girl has resonance in the Khazar initiation ritual of strangling a future khaqan – a tradition that is corroborated by two completely different and unrelated traditions, a Chinese chronicle on the Turkic tribe of Ashina and the Arabic on the Khazars.20 Corresponding to the moment when the slave girl gazes beyond the door-frame structure and sees her relatives, it is known that the the idea of a family reunion in the afterlife is a prominent part   Rafael Bezertinov, Tengrianizm: Religion of Turks and Mongols (2000).   Dennis D. Hughes, Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece (London, 1991), p. 139–40. 20   Peter B Golden, ‘Khazar Studies: Achievements and Perspectives’, The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives. Selected Papers from the Jerusalem 1999 International Conference (Leiden, 2007), pp. 7–58, here p. 55. 18

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of Turkic funerary rituals. Furthermore, this part of Ibn Fadlan’s description resonates with his account of such rituals among the Turkic Ghuzz, which includes both the passing on to a place termed ‘the Garden’ or paradise (Ar. al-Jannah), and the notion of a kind of reunion where the deceased would be attended to by servants. This is in fact not the only place where we encounter similarities between the two. Compare for example the following descriptions on the Ghuzz and the Rus respectively: When one of them falls ill, and he has jariyahs and slaves, they wait on him and the people of his household do not approach him. They pitch a tent for him, to one side of the other tents, where he remains until he either dies or recovers. If he is a slave or a poor man, they simply throw him out into the open plain and leave him there. […] When one of them falls ill, [Yaqut: they pitch a tent for him] away from them and cast him into it, giving him some bread and water. They do not come near him or speak to him, [Yaqut: indeed they have no contact with him for the duration of his illness], especially if he is socially inferior or is a slave. If he recovers and gets back to his feet, he rejoins them. If he dies, they burn him, though if he was a slave they leave him there as food for the dogs and the birds of prey.

Whether Ibn Fadlan was merely recycling his own text here is impossible to say. Even so it forces the question of why he would allot similar descriptions to these two groups. Did he perceive them as being similar in some ways? Another parallel with Turkic burial customs, albeit somewhat distant in time, is obtainable from the travelogue of the Swedish general Johann Schnitscher, who during service with the Chinese army described the funeral of one among the Kalmyks, one of the Altaic Steppe peoples.21 The third factor that should be taken into account in our identification of Ibn Fadlan’s Rus and their ritual is the information we can gather from Arabic sources other than Ibn Fadlan, most of which connect them geographically, economically and politically to the Khazars and the Volga Bulghars. Ibn Khurradadhbih, writing in the 840s, tells us that the Rus pass through Khazaria to the Caspian Sea where they sail to Djordjan with their merchandise; sometimes they even travel all the way to Baghdad on camelback.22 Ibn Rustah, writing around 900, states that those who carry out trade with the Volga Bulghars are the Khazars and the Rus, and furthermore that the Rus sell their slaves to them. According to Al-Masudi, writing in the mid-tenth century, the Rus live in Itil, the most 21   Johann Christian Schnitscher, An account of the Kalmyk land under Ayuki Khan, (trans. from the Swedish and ed.) John R. Krueger (Bloomington, IN, 1996).

  Kitab al-masalik wa ’l-mamalik, (ed.) Michael de Goeje, in Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, no. 6, second edn, (Leiden, 1967), pp. 115–16. 22

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important city of the Khazars, along with people of all religions. In complex legal matters they are reported to confer with the Muslim judges, and we are told that they are the slaves and soldiers of the Khazar ruler.23 Elsewhere Al-Masudi reports that what is possibly the Azov Sea belongs to the Rus and that no one else navigates there but them, and in yet another place he claims that they live in the vicinity of the Caucasus. According to this same writer, they appear to be on good terms with the Khazar governors, who in 912 allowed them to use the Volga to enter the Caspian Sea in order to raid peoples living on its coastline in exchange for half of what they would amass through their plundering. In short, our sources seem to repeatedly underline a special relationship between the Rus and the Khazars and the Volga Bulghars, one that apparently rested mainly on trade and diplomatic conventions that were lucrative for all three. This union, however tightly or loosely knit, may also be seen to be commemorated by way of genealogical tradition in an anonymous source dated to 1126 which presents the Rus and the Khazars as brothers.24 An important institution of Khazar polity was the comitatus, or military retinue. This system of mercenaries or slave-soldiers (Mamluk in Arabic) had been a prominent part of Islamic polity for centuries, but as Peter Golden has pointed out, this practice can be found in places across the Eurasian continent including Khazaria. The fundaments of this system consisted of warriors under the leadership of, and eventually attached by bonds of personal loyalty to, a warlord, prince or king. These were mostly young men, often of diverse origins, who for a variety of reasons (largely having to do with the prospect of war booty and fame) were attracted to charismatic war leaders.25 In the middle of the tenth century Al-Masudi writes that in fact both Rus and Muslims each constituted a special section of the army/security forces under the command of the Khazar khaqan. It has been suggested by James Montgomery that the Rus encountered by Ibn Fadlan may have been part of or somehow connected with this comitatus.26 Such references, of which there are more, may also be aligned with the information from at least four different sources (Annales Bertiniani sub anno, 839; Ibn Rustah, c. 900; and the Persian geographical work Hudud Al-Alam, late tenth century) that the leader of the Rus bears the title khaqan or ‘kaghan’, which in fact is a well attested title among Turkic peoples including the Khazars.   Muruj adh-dhahab, p. 187.   Mujmal al-Tawarikh, (ed.) M.T. Bahar (Tehran, 1939). 25   Golden, ‘Some Notes on the Comitatus in Medieval Eurasia with Special Reference to the Khazars’, Histoire Russe, 28 (2001), pp. 153–70, here p. 154. 26   Montgomery, ‘Vikings and Rus in Arabic Sources,’ in Living Islamic History: Studies in Honour of Professor Carole Hillenbrand, (ed.) Yasir Suleiman (Edinburgh, 2010), pp. 151–65. 23

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This particular point has been contended27 and by extension has raised the question of a Rus Khaganate. Perhaps it merely indicates that the Rus were vassals of or somehow dependent on the Khazar kaghan. Our sources here fail to fully illustrate what connection existed between the Rus and this title. A further case in point of these cultural contacts may also be the excavation of several Turkic warrior outfits at Birka along with other artefacts related to the east,28 and potentially Khazarian symbols on Islamic coins unearthed in northern Russia and Scandinavia.29 In addition to this, the extensive coin trade that began around 800 and which, until around 900 (in the late ninth century the route switched to east of the Caspian Sea under the auspices of the Samanids) stretched from the Caliphate through Khazaria in a north-western direction all the way to Scandinavia, is bound to have required contacts between peoples of various cultural backgrounds over a long period of time, not least those between the Rus and the Khazars.30 In addition to the often essentialist pursuit of the supposed ‘origin’ or provenance of the Rus, there looms the problem of delineating a working definition of their characteristics as a social group as they are portrayed by the Arabic writers. As we have already mentioned, fundamental differences exist between their depiction in the Old East Slavonic Primary Chronicle and the Arabic geographical literature. Influential for our approach to this subject are two scholars who both have a background in ‘oriental’ scholarship. In his meticulous article on the Rus in the Encyclopedia of Islam, Peter Golden suggested that it may be viable to view the Rus in the Arabic sources as being in a stage of development ‘as they began to penetrate Eastern Europe, not as an “ethnos”, in the strict sense of the term, for this could shift as new ethnic elements were added, but rather as a commercial and political organisation’.31 James Montgomery agrees with such an approach in his study and translation of Ibn Fadlan’s account of the Rus and adds that ‘in   For different views see Ildar Garipzanov, ‘The Annals of St. Bertin (839) and Chacanus of the Rhos’, in Ruthenica, 5 (2006): pp. 7–11, Peter B. Golden ‘The Question of the Rus Qaganate’, Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, vol. 2 (Wiesbaden, 1982), pp. 77–92. 28   Charlotte Hedenstierna-Jonson, ‘Borre style metalwork in the material culture of the Birka warriors: An apotropaic symbol’, Fornvännen 101 (2006), pp. 312–22, here p. 318. 29   Thomas S. Noonan, ‘When did Rûs/Rus’ Merchants first visit Khazaria and Baghdad?’, Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, vol. 7 (Wiesbaden, 1991): pp. 213–19, here p. 215. 30   Noonan (1991), pp. 213–19. 31   Golden, ‘Rus’, in Encyclopedia of Islam 2, vol. 8, (eds) C.E. Bosworth et al. (Leiden 1960–2005), p. 621. 27

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a time of such manifest change and lack of imposition of cultural uniformity, it would be unwise to look for unanimous consistency among the Rus, each group of whom may have represented a variable level of assimilation’. Furthermore, he regards the Rus ‘as a more fluid social unit than recent scholarship has hitherto, often with its interests firmly vested in nationalistic concerns, been willing to acknowledge’.32 Montgomery explored a variety of identities for Ibn Fadlan’s account but stresses his view that Ibn Fadlan’s picture is one of ‘a people in the process of ethnic social and cultural adaptation’ and suggests at one point that they may have been exposed to the influence of both the Volga Bulghars and the Khazars.33 It is precisely this social fluidity and cultural influence that needs to be examined further. It shall be argued here that despite the considerable material in all sources on the Rus combined, it is feasible to assume that at least parts of the early Rus were Scandinavian or of Scandinavian descent. Yet given their adaptability or pliability as we know it from other places in this period, such as Normandy and Sicily, and as it is indirectly conveyed to us by the Arabic sources, it is difficult to sustain the belief that a symbiosis with the cultures of the mid- to lower Volga region over a century and a half left them unaffected. The evidence we possess indeed invites a more nuanced interpretation of their identity than the rigid, overarching concepts of ethnicity such as ‘Scandinavian’ or ‘Slavic’ allow. Advances in theoretical anthropology and sociology, although usually aimed at synchronic research, may sometimes provide us with useful tools for grabbing hold of the hazy outlines of peoples in the distant past. From the mid-twentieth century onwards scholars have increasingly problematized and deconstructed older concepts of identity and critically addressed their limitations. In the 1960s and 70s, theory of a so-called ‘instrumental’ or ‘situational’ identity emerged in contrast with primordial ethnicity, with emphasis on biological descent and continuity of cultural commonalities. The influential Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth challenged the consensus on the traditional definition of ethnic groups and objected that it begs all the critical questions: while purporting to give an ideal type model of a recurring empirical form, it implies a preconceived view of what are the significant factors in the genesis, structure, and function of such groups. Most critically, it allows us to assume that boundary maintenance is unproblematical and follows from the isolation which the itemised characteristics imply: racial difference,   Montgomery, ‘Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah’, p. 4.   Montgomery, ‘Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah’, p. 5. Peter G. Foote and David M. Wilson, The Viking Achievement (New York, 1970), p. 408; also note the possibility of Turkic influence on the Rus, although it is reduced to a mere mention of it. 32 33

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cultural difference, social separation and language barriers […]. This also limits the range of factors that we use to explain cultural diversity: we are led to imagine each group developing its cultural and social form in relative isolation.34

Barth’s aim, as he later remarked himself, was to view ‘ethnic identity as a feature of social organization, rather than a nebulous expression of culture’ and managed to demonstrate that ‘ethnic groups and their features are produced under particular interactional, historical, economic and political circumstances: they are highly situational, not primordial’.35 In a more recent contribution anthropologist Liisa H. Malkki states that ‘to plot only “places of birth” and degrees of nativeness is to blind oneself to the multiplicity of attachments that people form to places through living in, remembering, and imagining them’.36 Her study on refugees may offer further analogies that may aid our analysis of the cultural orientation of the Rus as they are portrayed in the Arabic material. Malkki notes that ‘the most striking social fact about the [refugee] camp was that its inhabitants were continually engaged in an impassioned construction and reconstruction of their history as “a people” and that the “refugeeness”, comparable here to the roving nature of the Rus, “had a central place in these narrative processes”. Far from being a “spoiled identity”, refugee status was valued and protected as a sign of the ultimate temporariness of exile’.37 Similarly, as an itinerant community the Rus would conjure and reconjure their traditions, reinvent them in a state of mind where they were influenced by local cultures in order to forge a common identity, regardless of how ephemeral this identity would prove to be. Viewing the information on the Rus from the ninth and the early tenth centuries contained in the Arabic material through this kind of prism may prove fruitful. It can aid us not only in depicting the outlines of the social structure of the early Rus as a historical entity, but also in framing the writers’ representation of them, not least with regard to both what the factors were that caused our writers to perceive them as a distinct entity and which concepts are most apt   Fredrik Barth, ‘Introduction’ in Ethnic groups and boundaries. The social organization of culture difference, (ed.) Fredrik Barth (Oslo, 1969), pp. 9–38, here p. 11. 34

  Fredrik Barth, ‘Enduring and Emerging Issues in the Analysis of Ethnicity’, in The anthropology of ethnicity: beyond ethnic groups and boundaries, (ed.) by Hans Vermeulen and Cora Govers (Amsterdam,1994), pp. 11–32, here p. 12. 36   Liisa H. Malkki, ‘National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees’, in Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology (ed.) Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (Durham, London, 1997), pp. 52–74, here p. 72. 37   Malkki (1997), p. 66. 35

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to describe it. In some respects Ibn Fadlan’s account, our most detailed yet perplexing source, gains more plausibility when such a culturally hybrid, influx situation is taken into account; elements which seem non-reconcilable or contradictory when compared to one particular culture – a Scandinavian homeland culture, as the case has usually been – become a more acceptable feature of his description when our horizon is expanded with a more flexible, less primordialist, concept of identity. One that is ‘always mobile and processual, partly self-construction, partly categorization by others, partly a condition, a status, a label, a weapon, a shield, a fund of memories and so on […] a creolized aggregate composed through bricolage’.38 It is also remarkable that the Rus, as well as the Khazars, seem to all but disappear from this region after the tenth century, according to the Arabic sources. Faint and scattered memories of them are found in the following centuries but most appear to refer to the ninth and tenth centuries. A possible indication of their waning presence is a passage in the Persian History of Sharvan and Darband where a small fleet of Rus, compared to earlier accounts of their raids on the Caspian coast, are said to come to the aid of a local emir, Maymun, in his internecine strife in the region of Shirvan in eastern Azerbaijan: The amir Maymun secretly sought help from the Rus agains the ‘chiefs’ and in 987 the Rus arrived in eighteen ships. At first they sent one single ship to see whether the amir was eager to employ them. When they brought the amir out of (his confinement), the people of al-Bab [Darband TJH] in a joint effort massacred the Rus to the last man and the remaining ships sailed on to Masqat and plundered it.39

This account gives an overall impression that the Rus were not based too far away, particularly with regard to the single ‘probe’ ship. Perhaps this relates to one of the last remaining pockets of those eastern Rus who reached their height in the first half of the tenth century, judging by their presence in Arabic geographical and historical writings from the same period. It is unfortunate that our sources are not only fragmentary and problematic in many ways, but also simply not very interested in the more diverse aspects of the Rus such as language, place of origin, personal names, etc. They mainly seem to focus on their barbaric funerary rituals, which are also mentioned by Ibn Rustah and Al-Masudi, and their roles as traders and warriors. Ibn Fadlan, who was inquisitive by nature and who would have had a good opportunity to   Malkki (1997), p. 71.   A History of Sharvan and Darband, (trans. and ed.) Vladimir Minorsky (Cambridge, 1958), p. 45. 38 39

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acquire further information on where they came from, leaves us with a rather dry: min baladi-him, or ‘from their land’.40 In simplified terms it could be said that the early Rus, in various ways and for a wide variety of reasons, rather rapidly absorbed elements from local dominant cultures, which in the area we have discussed were predominantly Turkic, and thus may have entered into a state of certain cultural hybridity early on. This in turn could help us contextualize the many differing accounts of the Rus from this period, and to some extent their apparent disintegration at the end of that period in the sense that they had hybridized to the point of becoming an undistinguishable entity. In any case it appears that rigid definitions of ethnicity or identity that rest too much on ethnolinguistic taxonomy or the preservation of homeland traditions are not particularly helpful in the case of the early Rus. Their main markers of identity may not have been only their ancestors’ culture or heritage, language or religion, but also their role as a cog in the giant wheel that was trade and politics in the western Eurasian Steppe, which in turn had a profound effect on their traditions and heritage, perhaps nowhere described as vividly as in Ibn Fadlan’s account of the Rus funeral.

  Risalah, Dahhan, p. 151.

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Index Abelard of Hauteville 96 Abruzzi, Italy 44, 49 Acerenza, Basilicata, Italy 194, 198, 200 archbishopric 198 Adam, son of Gilbert the Norman 41, 55 Adelasia del Vasto, queen of Jerusalem 63, 87, 90–91, 93 Adenulf, dean of Montecassino 165 Adrian IV, pope 260 Aeneas, Roman hero 159 Africa 23, 61, 152, 158–159, 232 Agrigento, Sicily, Italy 63 bishopric 86 Ahmet/Roger 25 Albergheria, quarter of Palermo, Sicily, Italy 22 Alboin, king of the Lombards 111 Aldoynus ‘the Frank’ 40 Alexander II, pope 105 Alexander the Great, king of Macedon 59 Alexander of Telese, historiographer 38, 136, 152, 158 Alexios I Komnenos, Byzantine emperor 191 Alfanus I., archbishop of Salerno 102 Alfonso VI of Léon and Castile 154 Al-Idrīsī, geographer 31, 156 Al-Masudi, historian and geographer 282, 287–288, 292 Almohads 29 Al-Muqtadir, caliph 283 Amalfi, Campania, Italy 44–45, 61, 98 Amalfitan peninsula, Campania, Italy 44 Amatus of Montecassino, historiographer 79, 99, 128, 190, 194–196, 198–199

Anacletus II, (anti-)pope 232 Andrew of Limoges, strategos 74 Andria, Apulia, Italy 36, 52, 192, 195, 201 Angelus, bishop of Troia 105,109 Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxons 45, 53 Anjou county, France 155, 262 Anna Komnena, historiographer 155 Anne, mother of Grisandus 22–23, 25–27 Ansgerius, bishop of Catania 120 Antenor, Trojan elder 237 Antioch, principality of 1–2, 16, 247 Apulia, Italy 19, 31–33, 42, 52, 72, 98, 103–104, 109–110, 123, 152–153, 165, 168–169, 184, 192, 199–200, 248 duchy 39, 44, 46, 72, 83 Aquitaine duchy, France 262 Arce, Lazio, Italy 53 Arduin the Lombard 189, 194–195 Argirizzo, rebel 196 Argyrus, catepan of Italy 189 Ariano, Campania, Italy 52 Assizes of Ariano (1140) 64, 156 Ashina, Turkic tribe 286 Aspromonte mountains, Calabria, Italy 77 Atina, Lazio, Italy 164 Augustine, church father 214–215, 273 Augustus (Octavian), Roman emperor 159 Avellino, Campania, Italy 52 Aversa, Campania, Italy 38, 40, 45, 56, 194–197, 201, 246 ‘county’ 40, 42, 74, 131, 189, 192, bishopric 45 S. Lorenzo 66 Aymo of Arienzo 42

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Azerbaijan 292 Azov Sea 281, 288 Babel, Babylon 206 Baghdad, Iraq 32, 283, 287 Baltic 279 Bari, Apulia, Italy 44, 72, 86, 102–103, 142, 164, 194–201, 246 Barletta, Apulia, Italy 164, 195, 201 Bartholomew de Logotheta, canon at Reggio cathedral 76 Basil Boioannès, Byzantine catepan 104 Basileia, wife of William Culchebret 60 Basilicata, Italy 19, 58, 66–67, 98, 192, 198, 200 Bayeux, Dép. Calvados, France 35, 246, 247 Bede, scholar 264 Benevento, Campania, Italy; Beneventans 38, 44, 50, 98, 197 archbishopric 105, 110, 111 Berber 32 Berthold of Künßberg, German ministerialis 165 Birka, Ekerö kommun, Sweden 289 Bisceglie, Apulia, Italy 103, 195, 197 Black Sea 279 Blasios, monk in Nicandro di S. Nicone 87–88 Bohemond, Prince of Taranto and of Antioch 38–39, 130, 152 Bonos, notary 60, 62 Bova, Calabria, Italy 65, 77 Brindisi, Apulia, Italy 159 Britain 15, 203, 232, 254–255, 257, 263, 267, 274 Brittany, France; Bretons 39–40 Bruno of Cologne 81, 85, 92 Bulghars 280, 283, 287–288, 290 Burchard of Ursberg, historiographer Burgundy, France 54

Byzantine empire (see also Greece and Constantinople) 17, 47–48, 61, 98, 129, 136, 141–142, 144, 150, 155 Caen, Dép. Calvados, France 247 Caiazzo, Campania, Italy 111, 113 county 39, 111, 123 Calabria, Italy 19, 23, 31, 44, 47–48, 57–63, 65–76, 81–83, 86, 89–92, 98, 120, 128, 131, 152–153 Calixtus II, pope 54 Caltabellotta Castle, Sicily, Italy 84, 168, 179 Calvi, Campania, Italy 60 Capitanata, Apulia, Italy 47, 52, 55, 104, 192, 197 Capua, Campania, Italy 52, 98, 181–182, 200 principality 38–42, 44, 46, 50, 54, 72, 83, 192 bishopric 45, 111 Cariati (Kariates), Calabria, Italy 194 Carinola, Campania, Italy 39 Carolingians, dynasty 97, 239 Casa Professa, in Palermo, Sicily, Italy 22 Casauria, Abruzzo, Italy 49 Caspian Sea 279–281, 287–289, 292 Castrogiovanni (Enna), Sicily, Italy 91, 139 Catania, Sicily, Italy 74, 85, 93, 103, 119–123, 198 Catanzaro, Calabria, Italy 39 Caucasus mountains 288 Cefalù, Sicily, Italy 69 bishopric 76, 83, 93 Celestine III, pope 173, 178 Cerami, Sicily, Italy 70 battle (1063) 44, 139 Chaldaeans 248 Charlemagne, king of the Franks, emperor 161, 239 Charles III, the Simple, king of Western Francia 203, 240

Index Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily 155 China, Chinese 286–287 Christodoulos, emir of Palermo 59, 61–62, 68 Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero), philosopher 108, 149, 213–214, 216, 272 Cilento, region in Campania, Italy 58 Cluny, Dép. Saône-et-Loire, France 40 Comnenus see under Komnenos. Connacht, province of Ireland 263 Conrad of Querfurt, bishop of Hildesheim and Würzburg, chancellor 179 Constance, Holy Roman Empress 14, 161, 163, 167, 176–179, 182 Constans II, Byzantine emperor 104 Constantine I, the Great, Roman emperor 234–236, 243–245 Constantine Lascaris, grammarian 89–90 Constantinople (see also Byzantium and Greece) 58, 68–70, 74, 81, 89, 119–121, 154–156, 198, 281 Constantius I Chlorus, Roman emperor 235 Conversano, Apulia, Italy 192 county 39 Corato, Apulia, Italy 195 Cosenza, Calabria, Italy 194–195 Cotentin peninsula, France 40 Coutances, Dép. Manche, France 134 Crotone, Calabria, Italy 65 Cyrus the Great, king of Persia 248 Dacia see Denmark. Daddeus of Montefusco 50 Danube river 237 Darius I, the Great, king of Persia 248 Denmark, Danes 203 Desiderius, abbot of Montecassino 105, 107–108, 110 Deusdona 113–114 Deutesalve (Theophylaktos) of Simeri 59

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Diarmait mac Murchada, King of Leinster 270, 273–275 Diepold of Schweinspeunt, German ministerialis 165, 181–182 Dnieper river 279, 281 Drengot, dynasty 196 Drogo of Hauteville, half-brother of Robert Guiscard 145 Drogo of Trani 198 Drogo, father of Grisandus 24–25 Dublin, Ireland 253, 258, 263, 265 Dudo of S. Quentin, historiographer 13, 99, 128, 136, 204, 206–209, 216, 227, 232, 235–236 Durazzo (Dyrrachium/Durrës), Albania 171, 176 Duvenaldus, King of Ossory 267 East Anglia, England 220, 231 Egypt 46, 94 Einhard, biographer 101, 113–115 Eleutherius, supposed bishop of Aecae 116, 119 Elia, archbishop of Bari 199, Elvira, wife of Roger II, daughter of Alfonso VI of Léon and Castile 154 England, English 1–2, 4, 8, 11–18, 28, 39–40, 42, 45–46, 48, 53, 57, 73, 93, 122, 134, 168, 175–176, 206–208, 220, 228, 231–233, 238, 241, 246, 248–250, 253–254, 257–258, 260–262, 267–268, 271, 277–78, 282 Eremburga of Mortain 42 Ethiopia 232 Eugene (Eugenios tou Kalou) 72 Eugenius of Palermo, admiral 62 Euphemios, byzantine governor 155 Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, biographer 241, 243–244

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Falco of Benevento, historiographer 37–38, 43, 50, 52, 195, 197 Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimids 9, 32 Finns 279 Flanders, Netherlands/Belgium 39 Flandina, daughter of Nicholas of Reggio 61 Follis, jester 182 Francia, Frankish empire, Franks; France, French 1, 13, 80, 189, 203–204, 237–240, 239–242; 3–4, 11, 13–14, 17, 29, 31, 35–37, 39–41, 45–48, 50–51, 65, 73, 77, 80, 99, 109,120, 127, 131–133, 160, 170, 200, 207–208, 229–230, 238, 257–258 Franco, archbishop of Rouen 203, 205, 240 Frederick I, Barbarossa, Holy Roman emperor 161, 168, 187, 197 Frederick II, Holy Roman emperor 3, 33, 75, 160–161, 167 Fulco, chaplain 85 Gaeta, Lazio, Italy 192 Galloway, region of Scotland 263 Garcia Ramirez, king of Navarre 35 Gargano, Apulia, Italy 104, 197 Gaul 203 Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou 228 Geoffrey, count of Conversano 49, Geoffrey Malaterra, historiographer 79, 99, 120, 128, 131–132, 134–147, 190 George of Antioch, admiral 30, 46, 59, 61, 64, 68, 70, 72, 94–95 Giorgios Maniaces, catepan of Italy 198–199 Gerace, Calabria, Italy 65, 77, 194–195 Gerald of Wales see under Giraldus. Gerardus, bishop of Troia 118 Germany 8, 31, 163, 165–166, 172–175, 180, 184, 186–188, 232 Gilbert the Norman 41, 55

Giovinazzo, Apulia, Italy 197 Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales), historiographer 253, 257, 259, 261–277 Gisla (Gisela), wife of Rollo of Normandy, daughter of Charles III, the Simple 203–204, 240 Gislebertus, French soldier in the sack of Constantinople 120 Gisolf, notary 85 Gisulf II, prince of Salerno 51, 199 Godfrey of Vulturara 51 Godfrey of Viterbo, historiographer 162, 170, 173–175, 182–183 Gorodische, Veliky Nowgorod, Nowgorod Skaya Oblast, Russia 282 Goselinus, Calabrese soldier in the sack of Constantinople 120 Greece, Greeks (see also Byzantine empire) 4, 8, 14, 19, 46, 58–59, 61–62, 73, 75, 77, 80, 129–130, 137, 141, 191, 232 Gregory I, the Great, pope 111, 113, 115, Gregory, brother of Roffred of Insula 166 Griffin, Cambro-Norman hero 275–276 Grimoald Alfaranites, prince of Bari 200 Grisandus, cleric 22–28 Guaiferius, monk 106–110 Guaimar III, prince of Salerno 42, 49, 51 Guaimar IV, prince of Salerno, duke of Amalfi, duke of Gaeta, prince of Capua 42 Guaimar of Giffoni 42 Guaimarius de domina Lampadia 44 Guarnerius, scribe 85 Guiso, abbot of S. Lupus 113 Hasting, Viking 237, 240–241 Hauteville, dynasty 8–9, 19, 21, 39, 42, 61, 134–136, 143–144, 146–147, 167, 169, 188, 192, 195

Index Henry Aristippus, archdeacon of Catania 74 Henry II, king of the Romans, emperor 104, 107 Henry VI, Holy Roman emperor 2–3, 14, 31, 161, 162, 167–169, 177–178, 187 Henry I, king of England 46 Henry II, king of England 46, 228, 260–263, 276–277 Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria 166, 186 Henry of Brunswick 186 Henry (Rodrigo), count of Montescaglioso 35 Henry del Vasto 152 Henry of Huntingdon, historiographer 14, 208 Heraclitus, philosopher 6 Herbert of Middlesex, archbishop of Conza 36 Herodotus, historiographer 286 Hervey de Glanvill 220–222, 227–228, 231, 236–237 Hilduin, abbot of S. Denis, biographer 101 Hohenberg abbey (today Mont Sainte Odile/Odilienberg), Dép. BasRhin, France 173, 180 Hohenems Castle, Vorarlberg, Austria 173, 180 Hohenstaufen, dynasty 2, 10, 21, 161–162, 165, 169, 183, 192 Hrabanus Maurus, archbishop of Mainz, theologian 101 Hugh de Lacy, lord of Meath 275 Hugh Mamouzet 49 Hugh, son of Gerbert 49 Hugo Falcandus (Peter of Blois?), historiographer 35–37, 72–74, 125, 136, 156, 160, 167 Humphrey of Hauteville, Abagelard, count of Apulia and Calabria 194

299

Ibn Fadlan, writer 280-281, 283-290, 292293 Ibn Hạqal 32 Ibn Jubair, historiographer 30 Ibn Khurradadhbih, geographer 287 Ibn Rustah, geographer 287–288, 292 Ihon of Dol 40 Île-de-France 39–40 Ingelheim, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany 281 Ireland, Irish 17, 253–278 Isidore of Seville, scholar 195, 211–212 Italy 4, 8–10, 23, 31, 35–45, 47–48, 51, 53–54, 57–59, 63, 66, 70, 73, 75, 80–81, 95, 97–99, 104, 123, 127–133, 135–137, 139, 141, 143, 145–146, 149–150, 152–154, 156, 158–160, 164–165, 174, 189, 191, 193–194, 219, 232, 235, 257 Itil (Atil), defunct capital of Khazaria 287 Iudex Tarentinus 72 Jerusalem, Israel 234 John , archbishop of Trani 199 John Berard, historiographer 49 John de Courcy 276 John of Salisbury, bishop of Chartes, scholar 73 John of Troina, protonotarius 62, 85 John, admiral 61 John, son of Ermenioth 40 Jordan of Ariano 52 Judith of Grandsmesnil 42 Justinian I., Byzantine emperor 64 Khazars 279–280, 286–290, 292 Kievan Rus’ 17, 279, 282 Komnenos, dynasty 87 Ladoga Lake, Leningradskaya Oblast, Russia 281

300

Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage

Landulf de Greca, constable of Benevento 50 Lecce, Apulia, Italy 172 Leo III, pope 131 Leo VI, the Wise, Byzantine emperor 64 Leo 62 Leo Marsicanus (Leo of Ostia), historiographer 105, 111–115, 198 Licinius, Roman emperor 236 Lipari-Patti, see under Patti. Lisbon, Portugal 219–220, 228, 231 Liutprand, king of the Lombards 49 Lombardy, Italy 23 Lombards (in the kingdom of Sicily) 36–38, 42–45, 99, 123, 128–129, 131, 137, 144–145, 154, 191 Loritello, Apulia, Italy 39, 52 Louis the Pious, king of the Franks, emperor 115, 281 Lucas of S. Salvatore di Messina, archimandrite 84, 94 Lucera, Apulia, Italy 33 Luke of Isola di Capo Rizzuto, monk 66 Mabilia, daughter of Guaimar of Giffoni, wife of Simon 42 Macedon, Macedonians 248 Madelmus, abbot of Sancta Sophia of Benevento 113–114 Magny, Dép. Calvados, France 50 Magny-le-Désert, Dép. Orne, France 50 Maine, France 39 Maio of Bari, admiral 28, 72 Malta 16, 61, 64, 140, 158 Margaret of Navarre, queen of Sicily 35 Margaritus of Brindisi, admiral 170, 174 Markward of Annweiler, German ministerialis 175 Marsia, Marche, Italy 44 Martorana (S. Maria dell’Ammiraglio) see under Palermo. Matera, Basilicata, Italy 198, 201

Matthew of Aiello, chancellor 177 Matthew of Salerno, notary 72 Maurice, bishop of Catania 119–121 Maurice FitzGerald, lord of Lanstephan 274–275 Maxentius, Western Roman emperor 235 Maximilla, daughter of Roger I 60–61 Maymun, emir 292 Mazzara (Mazara del Vallo), Sicily, Italy 68 Median Empire 248 Melfi, Basilicata, Italy 131, 194–196, 201, 246 bishopric 45 Melus of Bari 104, 200 Mercogliano, Campania, Italy 52 Merseburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany 159 Merovingians, dynasty 97, 239 Messina, Sicily, Italy 36, 58, 68–69, 73–74, 90, 122, 139–140, 176 S. Salvatore 84, 88, 94 Milan, Lombardy, Italy destruction in 1162 168, 197 Mileto, Calabria, Italy 60, 201 bishopric 81, 84, 196 monastery Holy trinity 47, 67 Molise, Italy 192 Mongols 279 Monopoli (Monopolis), Apulia, Italy 194, 198 Monte Gargano (S. Michele al Gargano), Apulia, Italy 109 Monte S. Angelo, Apulia, Italy county 39 Monte Taburno, Campania, Italy 111 Montepeloso, Basilicata, Italy 192 Montescaglioso, Basilicata, Italy 41, 192, 197 Montevergine, Campania, Italy . monastery

50, 100

Myra, Antalya province, Turkey 102, 200

Index Naples, Campania, Italy 44, 52, 57, 61, 72, 90, 98–99, 107, 158, 163, 167, 177–179, 186 Duchy 152, 192 S. Sebastian 40 Nebuchadnezzar, biblical king of Babylon 248 Neilos Doxapatris, theologian 31 Nicholas II, pope 57, 66 Nicholas, archbishop of Salerno 177–179, 184 Nicholas Nettarios, abbot of S. Nicola di Casole 32 Nicholas Kalomenos 62 Nicholas of Mesa, camerarius 62, 84–85 Nicholas of Reggio, judge 61 Nicholas of Trani, Pilgrim 100 Nicholas Pellegrino 199 Normandy 1, 4, 8, 12–14, 16–17, 39, 46, 48, 53, 73, 80, 128, 136, 198, 203, 206, 222, 227, 231, 274, 290 duchy 2, 35, 38–39, 41–43, 53, 95, 127, 133–135, 146, 208–209, 216, 219, 227–231, 233, 235–242, 246–251, 262 Normans passim. Norway, Norwegians 8, 284, 290 Norwich, Norfolk, England cathedral 220 Novgorod (Veliky Novgorod), Novgorodskaya Oblast, Russia 282 Novi Velia, Campania, Italy 50–51 Oderisius, abbot of Montecassino 112–113, 117–119 Odilo of Soissons, scholar 101 Ofanto river 105 Oppidi Mamertina, Calabria, Italy 65, 77 Orderic Vitalis, historiographer 11, 38, 204, 208, 220, 227, 248, 250 Orianus, bishop of Troia 105, 109 Ossory (Osraighe), kingdom in Ireland 268 Otranto, Apulia, Italy 32, 194

301

bishopric 45 S. Nicola di Casole 32 Otto of S. Blasien, historiographer 172, 174–176, 180–182 Ovid, poet 6, 161 Oxford, Oxfordshire, England 261, 266, 277–278 Palermo, Sicily, Italy 21, 26, 58, 61, 63, 66, 68–69, 105, 138–140, 152–153, 168, 180, 185, 189, 246 Cathedral S. Michael (probably identical with S. Michael of the Andalucians, S. Anne, Palatine chapel, S. Mary of the Admiral 20–22, 26, 29, 84–86, 89, 91, 93 royal court 20, 27–28, 30–31, 46, 70, 72–74, 152, 165, 194 Pandulf, brother-in-law of William de Mannia 51 Paschal II, pope 110–111 Patti, Sicily, Italy bishopric 29, 76, 83, 85 Paul the Deacon, historiographer 99 Paul, Apostle 244 Persia, Persians 31–32, 232, 248, 288, 292 Pescara river, Abruzzo, Italy 51 Peter, Apostle 244, 266 Peter (a.k.a. Pierre, Perron, Perroun, Barrūn; Ahmat), master chamberlain 22, 29 Peter de Logotheta, canon at Reggio cathedral 76 Peter I, count of Trani 195–196 Peter of Blois (see also under Hugo Falcandus), poet 37, 42, 73 Peter of Eboli, historiographer 9, 21, 169–170, 172, 175, 177, 179 Philatahos of Cerami, theologian 155 Philip of Mahdīya, admiral 61 Philipp II Augustus, king of France 3 Phoenicia, Phoenicians 149

302

Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage

Plantagenets, dynasty 2 Plato, philosopher 74 Poitou, France 40 Polotsk, Vitsebskaya Voblast, Belarus 282 Polybius, historiographer 104 Pontecorvo, Lazio, Italy 115 Poppa, wife of Rollo of Normandy, daughter of Berengar II of Neustria 245–246 Ptolemy, geographer 31 Quarrels, kin group in Capua 38 Quintodecimo (Acquasanta Terme), Marche, Italy 103 Rabanus see under Hrabanus. Raul, brother of Roger Scannacavallus 60 Rainaldus, chaplain 85 Rainulf, bishop of Chieti 51 Rainulf, count of Caiazzo 38, 52 Rainulf, son of Richard of Capua 111, 113 Reggio di Calabria, Calabria, Italy 58, 76–77 Regino of Prüm, historiographer 209 Reichenau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany 97 Richard, bishop of Syracuse, archbishop of Messina 36, 42 Richard de Logotheta, bishop of Cefalù 76 Richard I, the Lionheart, king of England 122, 166 Richard I, count of Aversa and prince of Capua 74, 111 Richard II, prince of Aversa 40 Richard I, duke of Normandy 229, 237, 239–240 Richard, count of Acerra 181–183, 186–187 Richard, count of Aiello 179–180 Richard of Lingèvres, count of Andria 35 Richard, count of Carinola 168 Richard, count of Rupecanina 52

Richard of S. Germano, historiographer 165, 173, 182, 185 Richard, eunuch 27–29 Robert de Grandmesnil, abbot of St-Evroul 52 Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia and Calabria 42–43, 57–58, 98, 102, 105, 110, 116, 129–131, 133–136, 138–142, 144–145, 155, 190–191, 196–197, 199–200 Robert, duke of Normandy 38 Robert, duke of the Franks 203–204, 240 Robert, count of Caiazzo 111–113, 115 Robert, count of Loritello 43 Robert FitzStephen, constable of Cardigan 270, 274 Robert of Selby, chancellor 35 Robert, first husband of Mabilia (possibly Robert, lord of Eboli) 42 Robert of Torigny, historiographer 203–208 Rocca d’Arce, Lazio, Italy 164 Rodrigo see under Henry. Rodulf de Théville 40 Roffred of Insula, abbot of Montecassino 164–166 Roffred, praecentor in Troia 116–117 Roger II, king of Sicily 9, 19–22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 35–37, 41–42, 49, 52, 57, 59–61, 63–64, 68–72, 79–89, 91, 93–95, 98, 101, 125, 152–160, 195, 197, 200, 232, 236 Roger III, king of Sicily 167, 172 Roger Borsa, duke of Apulia 43, 85, 116–120, 129–130, 134, 136–137, 197 Roger I, count of Sicily 9, 19, 42, 44–45, 47, 57–58, 60, 63, 79–82, 84–93, 95, 131–132, 135, 138–140, 190, 196 Roger of S. Severino 42–43, 46 Roger Scannacavallus 60 Roger, arab landowner in Sicily 60

Index Roger of Howden, historiographer 122, 167–168, 171–172, 176 Rollo (Robert), duke of Normandy 13, 134–135, 203–204, 207–209, 212, 216–217, 229, 232, 235, 237–246 Roman Empire, Romans 4, 103, 127, 149, 159, 171, 212–213, 235–236 Romanus, abbot of S. Bartolomeo di Trigona 89 Rome, Lazio, Italy 23, 59, 90, 101, 109, 122, 152, 156, 213, 217, 233–236, 255 Romuald Guarna, archbishop of Salerno, historiographer 177 Rossano, Calabria, Italy 65, 70, 194 Rostov, Yaroslavskaya Oblast, Russia 282 Rouen, Dép. Seine-Maritime, France 14, 203, 231–233, 235–236, 239–241, 246–247, 250 Rudolf of Fulda, theologian 101 Rus see under Kievan Rus. Russia, Russians 17, 279–280, 282, 289 Salento, region in Apulia, Italy 58, 67, 74–75 Salerno, Campania, Italy 31, 44, 53, 98, 102, 107, 145, 153, 164, 167–168, 177–179, 182, 185, 195, 199–201 principality 36, 41–42, 44, 50, 52, 57, 144–146, 192 medical school 98 S. Massimo 106–107 Samanid Empire, Samanids 289 Samara bend, Samarskaya Oblast, Russia 279 Sangro, Abruzzo, Italy county 44 Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain 102 Saqaliba 283 Scandinavia, Scandinavians 1, 12–13, 17, 237, 239–240, 279–286, 289–290, 292 Scholarios 62

303

Scotland, Scottish 1, 16–17, 232, 263 Scythia, Scythians 203, 237, 286 Scythian Sea sea Black Sea. Secundinus, supposed bishop of Aecae 103–104, 106, 108–109, 116, 119 Sergius, magister militum 158 Serlo 141 Shannon river, Ireland 271 Sharvan, region in Azerbaijan 292 Sibylla, queen of Sicily 168, 172–173, 176, 179–180 Sica, wife of Roger of S. Severino 42 Sicardus, bishop of Cremona, historiographer 170, 176 Sicily, Italy 19, 21,23, 25, 41–42, 44–45, 49, 54, 58, 75, 80–81, 90–95, 98, 100, 118, 120, 127–129, 132–133, 135–141, 143, 146, 149–153, 155, 158–160, 163, 166, 171, 176, 179–181, 183, 185–188, 198, 232, 290 county 39, 46, 57–60, 62–63, 65–69, 72, 74, 76, 81–83, 86, 131, 152 Sicily, kingdom of 1–5, 8–10, 13–16, 18–20, 24–25, 31–33, 35, 45–47, 53, 57, 59, 64, 73, 85, 125–126, 147, 153–154, 161, 163–164, 169, 181, 189, 191, 219, 236 Sika, widow of Daddeus of Montefusco 50 Sikelgaita, wife of Robert Guiscard 144 Simon de Théville 40, 42 Siponto, Apulia, Italy, S. Leonard 40 Slavs 279 Solinus, grammarian 264 Sora, Lazio, Italy 53, 164 Spain, Spanish 26, 132, 160, S. Bartolomeo di Lipari, Sicily, Italy 67, 85 S. Giorgio di Triocala, Sicily, Italy 84, 95 S. Giovanni, Sicily, Italy 183 S. Salvatore di Patti, Sicily, Italy 85 S. Agata dei Goti 111, 115 S. Agata di Catania 67

304

Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage

S. Bartolomeo di Trigona 68 S. David’s, Pembrokeshire, Wales 274 S. Elia di Carbone 67, 76 S. Évroult abbey, Dép. Orne, France 220, 248–249 S. Filippo di Gerace 68 S. Giovanni Teriste, Stilo 68 S. Maria del Patir, monastery 64, 68, 70 S. Maria dell’Ammiraglio (Martorana) see under Palermo. S. Maria di Bagnara 67 S. Maria di Marsala 68 S. Maria di Matina, monastery 67 S. Maria di S. Eufemia 67 S. Maria di Turri 67 S. Nicola di Casole 32, 67 S. Nicola di Drosi 68 S. Pancrazio di Briatico 68 S. Severina, Calabria, Italy 65, 73 St-Claire-sur-Epte, Dép. Val-d’Oise, France, treaty (911) 232 St. Gallen, Switzerland 97 Stephen, bishop of Troia 105, 107–108, 118 Stephen of Blois, king of England 228 Stephen of Perche, chancellor 35–37 Stephen, notary 74 Stilo, region in Calabria, Italy 44, 68 Suffolk, England 219 Suzdal, Vladimirskaya Oblast, Russia 282 Sweden, Swedes 287 Synator Maleinos, judge 64 Syracuse, Sicily, Italy 139, 149, 198–199 Syria 232, 248, Tancred of Lecce, king of Sicily 31, 57, 73, 122, 161, 163–167, 170–172, 174, 177, 181 Taranto, Apulia, Italy 103, 122, 198, 200 principality 171–172, 176 Teano, Campania, Italy 50 Termini Imerese, Sicily, Italy 66

Terra d’Otranto, Apulia, Italy 58, 192 Terra di Bari, Apulia, Italy 192 Theodore Prodromos, poet 71 Théville, Dép. Manche, France 40 Thomas Brown, royal official 28, 35, 46 Tígernán Ua Ruairc, prince of Bréifne 275 Trani, Apulia, Italy 194–195, 197, 199, 200, 206 Trifels Castle, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany 31, 175, 180 Troia, Apulia, Italy 44, 103–106, 109–111, 116–119, 123, 194, 196–197, 199–200 bishopric 45, 105, 109–110, 116–119, 200–201 Troy 237 Turgisius, brother of Roger of S. Severino 44 Turks 286 Tyrrhenian Sea 159 Ukraine 282 Ulster, Ulaid (Ulaidh), province of Ireland 263, 276 Valva, Abruzzo, Italy county 44 bishopric 49 Venice, Veneto, Italy; Venetians 152, 159 Venosa, Basilicata, Italy 194, 197 bishopric 45 S. Trinità 66, 192 Vergil, poet 108 Vicari, Sicily, Italy , church S. Sofia 29 Vikings 3, 240–241, 280, 283 Volga Bulgharia, Volga Bulghars see under Bulghars. Wales 16–17, 232, 254, 257, 263, 274 Walter de Coutances, archbishop of Rouen 169

Index Waterford, county of Waterford, Ireland 265, 267 Weingarten, Baden-Württemberg, Germany 175 Welf dynasty 186 Wido, notary 85 William II, bishop of Troia 116, 119 William of Blois, abbot of Matina 37, 73 William I, the Conqueror, duke of Normandy, king of England 14, 16, 45, 229 William I, king of Sicily 35–36, 72–73, 83, 89, 159 William II, king of Sicily 31, 35, 70, 73, 83, 89 William III, king of Sicily 168, 172–174, 179–180 William I, Longsword, duke of Normandy 237, 245–246 William II, duke of Apulia 54 William III, count of the Principato 44

305

William of Bari, catepan 86 William de Mannia, lord of Novi Velia (son of Pandulf ) 50–51 William de Mannia, lord of Novi Velia 50–51 William Malconvenant, master justiciar 30 William of Échauffour 43 William Culchebret 60 William of Vercelli, hermit 100–101 William of Apulia, historiographer 43, 79, 99, 128–130, 133, 136–147, 189–191, 194–198, 201 William of Jumièges, historiographer 13, 99, 128, 204, 208 William of Malmesbury, historiographer 13, 42, 45, 208, 217, 227, 248–251 Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany 186 Zeno, Byzantine emperor 64 Zoe, wife of Roger Scannacavallus 60