The Normans in the Mediterranean [1 ed.] 9782503590578, 9782503590585

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The Normans in the Mediterranean

Medieval Identities: Socio-Cultural Spaces Volume 9 Series Editors Editorial Board under the auspices of the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Hull General Editor Lesley A. Coote, University of Hull Editorial Board Megan Cavell, University of Birmingham Catherine Emerson, National University of Ireland, Galway Ildar H. Garipzanov, Universitetet i Oslo Adrian P. Tudor, University of Hull Colin Veach, University of Hull Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.

The Normans in the Mediterranean

Edited by Emily A. Winkler Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

© 2021, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium. 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. D/2021/0095/11 ISBN 978-2-503-59057-8 eISBN 978-2-503-59058-5 DOI 10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.120849 ISSN 2565-8654 eISSN 2565-974X Printed in the EU on acid-free paper.

Table of Contents

Illustrations

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Acknowledgements

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Introduction Emily A. Winkler and Andrew Small11 Part I Motivations and Strategies 1. Norman Conquests: Nature, Nurture, Normanitas Matthew Bennett43 2. Marriage as a Strategy for Conquering Power: Norman Matrimonial Strategies in Lombard Southern Italy Aurélie Thomas67 3. The Changing Priorities in the Norman Incursions into the Iberian Peninsula’s Muslim–Christian Frontiers, c. 1018–c. 1191 Lucas Villegas-Aristizábal81 Part II The Implications of Conquest in Sicily and Southern Italy 4. Norman Change, Lords, and Rural Societies Sandro Carocci123 5. The Nobility of Norman Italy, c. 1085–1127 Graham A. Loud139 6. Shaping the Urban Landscape: The Normans as New Patrons in Salerno Maddalena Vaccaro163

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7. Palermo and the Norman Conquest of Sicily Theresa Jäckh187 8. Community and Conquest on Medieval Monte Iato, Sicily Nicole Mölk211 Part III Perceptions and Memories 9. Holy War in the Central Mediterranean: The Case of the Zirids and the Normans Matt King229 10. Hagiography and the Politics of Memory in the Norman Conquest of the Italian South Kalina Yamboliev249

Illustrations

Figure 2.1. The alliances of the Hauteville and Drengot families within the princely families of Salerno and Capua.74 Figure 6.1. Map of ecclesiastical foundations in Salerno before 1076.164 Figure 6.2. Map of ecclesiastical foundations in Salerno before 1076.164 Figure 6.3. Norman cities in Southern Italy and Sicily.165 Figure 6.4. Drawing of the follaro of Prince Gisulf II. 1052–1077.167 Figure 6.5. Fragments of the lost inscription from San Massimo celebrating Prince Guaiferius’s foundation. c. 865.168 Figure 6.6. Archivio di Stato di Salerno (ASSa), Fondo registro e bollo, b. 628, year 1862. Santa Maria de Domno deconsecrated and divided in spaces for private use.170 Figure 6.7. Santa Maria and San Matteo cathedral, Salerno. 1080–twelfth century.172 Figure 6.8. Norman residential building, the so-called Castel Terracena, Salerno. Eleventh to thirteenth century.174 Figure 6.9. San Benedetto, Salerno. Twelfth century.175 Figure 6.10. Santa Maria de Portanova, Salerno. Twelfth century.176 Figure 6.11. Archivio della Diocesi di Salerno (ADS), Ufficio tecnico, b. 14. Plans of Santa Maria de Portanova in 1962 during restoration.176 Figure 6.12. Santa Maria de Lama, Salerno. Twelfth century.178 Figure 6.13. Palazzo Pedace, former residence of Matteo D’Ajello. Second half of twelfth century.180 Figure 8.1. Monte Iato, view from the North and Location on Map.212 Figure 8.2. Ground plan and reconstruction of the single-room house with the find location of the denarius of King Conradin.219

Acknowledgements

The editors would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers of this book, Rosie Bonté at Brepols, Colin Veach and the editorial board of the series Medieval Identities: Socio-Cultural Spaces, Cath D’Alton for the maps, Maria Whelan for assistance with proofreading and copyediting, and Chris Lewis for library support during lockdown. In particular, we wish to thank Andrew Small, who assisted with the editing of this book in the first stages of the project. We are grateful for his reading of the chapters, his contribution to the Introduction, and his perspectives on Normans and conquest from his work on the eastern Roman Empire in the central Middle Ages. For supporting the research and writing of this book, we would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, the Haskins Society, the John Fell OUP Fund, the Khalili Research Centre for the Art and Material Culture of the Middle East, the Royal Historical Society, the Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities (TORCH) Oxford Medieval Studies Programme, the British Museum, St Edmund Hall and the John Cowdrey Fellowship, the University of Oxford and the Bodleian Libraries, the libraries of King’s College London, and the Historisches Seminar of Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. E. A. W. and L. F. 1 June 2020 Oxford and London

Emily A. Winkl er a nd Andr ew Sm a ll

Introduction The Normans and Conquest in the Mediterranean*

Who were the Normans in the medieval Mediterranean? What did they do there, and what did they make of the world they found there? What did the people of that world make of them? This book explores the human consequences of Norman migration and conquest in the Mediterranean. This introductory article is divided into three parts. First, we consider three things — Normans, conquest, and the Mediterranean — in light of their conceptual history. Here, we argue that conquest by the Normans in the south was not a conclusive event, but rather an ongoing and multi-faceted process, and we frame the case that the book as a whole makes for studying the impact of human agency on long-term change. Second, we narrate a timeline of key events in the Norman enterprises in the south for reference and background. This section includes a basic chronological narrative framed around southern Italy, and a sampling of the geographic dispersal of individual Normans’ careers. The point here is to counter-balance a regional grand narrative with personal, trans-regional micro-histories, and to illustrate that both were at play. Third, we present a thematic map of the book’s arguments, assess the implications of the collected chapters’ findings, and suggest avenues for future study and research.

Normans, Conquest, and the Mediterranean ‘Normans’ and ‘conquest’ go together like bread and butter. Normans in history are often remembered as conquerors, none more so than the William the Conqueror in England. Alongside the Norman conquest of England under William, Norman families

* The authors wish to thank Liam Fitzgerald, Matt Bennett, and Theresa Jäckh for their comments and suggestions. Dr Emily A. Winkler  •  is Principal Investigator of an AHRC-funded research project on medieval historical writing. She is a Research Fellow at St Edmund Hall and the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford. Andrew Small  •  is a DPhil candidate in History at the University of Oxford. The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. by Emily A. Winkler and Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small, MISCS 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 11–40 © FHG10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.121955

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also carved out new lordships, dukedoms, and eventually a kingdom in southern Italy and Sicily during the eleventh century. Bands of Norman knights were also involved in the Reconquista in Spain and carved out lordships in Anatolia during the collapse of Byzantine imperial rule in the region. These eleventh-century conquests begat further expansion. There were two unsuccessful invasions of the Balkans: Malta was captured in 1091 by Roger I of Sicily and his son Roger II briefly ruled over many coastal towns in Ifrīqiya, modern-day Tunisia. Tancred and Bohemond of the Hautevilles of southern Italy played major roles in the First Crusade and the establishment of the Crusader state of the Principality of Antioch. In some of these places long-standing polities were formed with a Norman ruler at their dynastic head, like England and Sicily; other occupations were more fleeting, like Norman North Africa and the lordships in Anatolia. All were formed by a process of conquest by military bands who called themselves, or who were called, Normans.1 Of the two words, ‘Norman’ and ‘conquest’, the former has received more analytical attention than the latter. There is strong historiographical tradition on the Normans: journals, conferences, and centres are dedicated to their study.2 Many works consider the genesis of a specifically ‘Norman’ identity, whether a Normanitas even existed and, if it did exist, what role, if any, this group identity played in their successes.3 David Douglas argued that the Normans were a unified and coherent group that spanned both the Mediterranean and the British Isles.4 This approach has been revisited and revised,5 not least because the idea of achievement might imply sanction or vindication of conquest — and hence, of oppression. However, there remains evidence that many felt a strong group consciousness of Norman-ness, albeit one that decayed and declined over time.6 ‘Conquest’ has two compounding features.7 First, conquest has strong military connotations; second, it implies a series of events that seems to invite narration rather than analysis. Conquest is the narrative field for the military capture of land, fortifications, and cities. Some studies have made a thematic and chronological division between ‘conquest’ chapters (which include military and diplomatic matters) and later chapters, about later times, concerning government and society.8 ‘Conquest’ can seem separate from and prior to activities of legitimization and state-building.



1 Van Houts, ‘The Norman Conquest through European Eyes’. 2 E.g. in the Anglophone world, the Haskins and Battle conferences; in the Italophone world, the Spoleto conferences. 3 For the debate on the Norman myth and Norman identity, see Davis, The Normans and Their Myth; Loud, ‘How “Norman” Was the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy?’, pp. 13–34; Albu, The Normans in Their Histories; Wolf, Making History; Webber, The Evolution of Norman Identity; but, for a recent corrective, see esp. Chadwick, ‘“Normanitas” Revisited’. 4 Douglas, The Norman Achievement; see also Le Patourel, The Norman Empire; but cf. a more recent approach to empire, Bates, The Normans and Empire. 5 Sartore, ‘Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Similarities’, pp. 184–203; Bates, D’Angelo, and van Houts, eds, People, Texts and Artefacts. 6 Loud, ‘Migration, Infiltration, Conquest and Identity’. 7 For difficulties of defining ‘conquest’, see Musca, ‘I Normanni in Inghilterra’, pp. 119–20. 8 Douglas, The Norman Achievement; Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard.

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Yet it is not clear that a sense of sequence — conquest followed by order — is the proper way to understand conquest. Graham Loud raised the question as to whether conquest was an appropriate word to describe the Norman takeover of southern Italy.9 Some have called conquest an outcome of Norman migration or exile into the Mediterranean and elsewhere.10 Recent studies have looked beyond conquest to investigate cultural transmission across the ‘Norman worlds’ with migration as a key theme;11 the Norman Edge projects have explored the idea of a Norman frontier, and the identities and relationships that changed with the Norman encounter.12 Intermarriage in the former Lombard principalities of southern Italy was common, and Joanna Drell has shown its significance for changes in culture and identity in the families that emerged from these new relationships.13 Loud has examined Norman migration or infiltration as a means of conquest, showing that it is hard to reconcile the numbers of Normans who actually moved from Normandy with their widespread success in establishing new polities.14 It is likely that only between 2000 and 2500 Normans came to southern Italy over the whole of the eleventh century, and that the numbers of new Norman migrants slowed after 1066.15 The small numbers of Normans involved necessarily meant that the whole-scale replacement of local elites, as in England, never occurred. One Norman’s migration and marriage into a local family was a local Lombard’s conquest and partial replacement. This book argues that there is value in viewing Norman conquests as enterprises both military and migratory. In order to turn conquest from a descriptive term into an analytical concept — one that is useful for investigating how political, cultural, and economic change happened in the eleventh- and twelfth-century Mediterranean — the partition wall between ‘conquest’ and ‘post-conquest’ needs to be fully torn down. Conquest was a process of change, not just a term for what happened. It includes cultural syncretism, new administrative practices, changing leaderships and loyalties, and material culture. These events, relationships, and structures should not be seen as what came after the Norman conquest of a region. Carl von Clausewitz, the nineteenth-century military and political theorist, considered these phenomena the continuation of conquest by other means.16 They were, as this book’s authors show, just as much the means as they were the ends. The means of conquest, whether military or otherwise, always interacted with ends or objectives, whether the resulting lordship, principality, or kingdom lasted for several generations, as

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Loud, ‘How “Norman” Was the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy?’, pp. 115–16. Johnson, ‘The Process of Norman Exile into Southern Italy’, pp. 29–38. Bates, D’Angelo, and van Houts, eds, People, Texts and Artefacts. Stringer and Jotischky, eds, Norman Expansion; Stringer and Jotischky, eds, The Normans and the ‘Norman Edge’. Drell, ‘Cultural Syncretism and Ethnic Identity’; Drell, Kinship and Conquest. Loud, ‘Migration, Infiltration, Conquest and Identity’. Von Falkenhausen, ‘I ceti dirigenti prenormanni’, p. 327. Von Clausewitz, On War, p. 252.

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did the kingdom of Sicily, or whether it survived, like the lordships in Anatolia, for only a year or two. This book asks: by what means was conquest effected — and by whom? Across the Mediterranean, Normans used different methods, technologies, and resources that left their mark in the historical record. They introduced new technologies of conquest into the Mediterranean world, but they also adopted resources immediately to hand which they adapted for their own ends. For instance, Normans brought styles of horseriding and cavalry warfare which were widely admired and then adopted. The Byzantine writer and princess Anna Komnene describes her brother-in-law’s riding style as like a Norman’s: the comparison is clearly meant to flatter.17 The Normans also built small, private fortifications in southern Italy which replaced the larger public fortifications built by the Byzantines in the first half of the eleventh century.18 On the other hand, Normans quickly incorporated Mediterranean technologies into their military capabilities, perhaps most spectacularly in the area of naval warfare: here they quickly acquired a significant edge, thanks to which they captured Bari in 1071 and Malta in 1091.19 Normans reused local resources for the purpose of conquests. We see this in the widespread use of architectural spolia in Norman building projects. Less tangible evidence — intermarriages with local elites, exploitation of economic resources, and repurposing of Byzantine imperial titles — should be seen in similar terms. Some local elites allied themselves with the Normans and took part in this restructuring. Others resisted. The character of the southern Italian lordships, as Sandro Carocci has shown, were shaped by underlying continuities of the micro-regions in which they were established, highlighting the importance of Normans’ repurposing local resources for conquest.20 This interweaving of the old and the new created something which left a profound mark on the memories of both the conquerors and the conquered alike. Because the Mediterranean Sea was a central conduit by which the Normans who had moved south encountered other peoples, it is worth pausing to consider where, and how, the study of Normans and conquest in this region might profitably interact with Mediterranean history. A glance at a map of the Mediterranean world in the year 1000 compared with one in 1150 reveals striking political upheavals. At the turn of the millennium, strong, often centralized and long-standing empires ruled almost every part of the Mediterranean coast: the Umayyad caliphate in Spain; the Fatimids in Egypt, North Africa, southern Italy, and parts of Sicily; and the Byzantine Empire in the Balkans, Anatolia, parts of Syria and Italy. By 1100, all of them had either disappeared or suffered a partial collapse followed by a dramatic restructuring. The Umayyad caliphate in Spain disappeared entirely;

17 Anna Komnene, Alexiad, trans. by Sewter, x. 3. 18 Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy, p. 76; Canosa, ‘Il titolo comitale’, pp. 61–64, 99–104; Whittow, ‘Rural Fortifications in Western Europe and Byzantium’, pp. 57–74. 19 Stanton, Norman Naval Operations. 20 Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy.

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the weakened Fatimids were restricted to Egypt and Byzantium lost considerable territories in Italy, Anatolia, and Syria that were never to return.21 In their place new polities were created, often founded by outsiders from the Mediterranean world. The Almoravids emerged from the Sahara Desert and ruled a territory from Spain through Morocco to Ghana in west Africa.22 The Christian Reconquista began in the rest of the Iberian Peninsula. In the eastern Mediterranean, the Turkish Seljuk Empire in Anatolia and the Levant appeared and, at the end of the eleventh century, the First Crusade brought Normans to Syria and Palestine.23 Finally the Normans conquered southern Italy and Sicily, conquests which were consolidated under Roger II as the kingdom of Sicily in 1137.24 These events involved short-, medium-, and long-term changes in Mediterranean life as dynasties, groups, and peoples formed new relationships throughout the processes of conquest. A pan-Mediterranean history of these imperial collapses and the emergence of new polities has yet to be written. Historiography for each empire’s ‘decline’ tends to focus on internal factors, especially in Byzantine studies. The sole, partial exception is perhaps Ronnie Ellenblum’s The Collapse of the Eastern Mediterranean: Climate Change and the Decline of the East, 950–1072, although this offers an overly deterministic, single-factor, and sweeping account. The present study of the Normans in the Mediterranean suggests that there is ample scope for future researchers to write such a history. The Normans were present all around the Mediterranean. Study of the Normans in this sea-zone and the lands that border it can provide macro- and micro- histories of conquest, an examination of the technologies and methods of conquest, and an understanding of how contemporaries revised and transmitted memories of conquest. In the nineteenth century, historians such as Henri Pirenne and Fernand Braudel famously framed Mediterranean history as an area of historical enquiry. These writers, like historians Peregrine Horden and Nicholas Purcell who followed, have tended to emphasize long-term, deep underlying structures.25 This is, in part, an unsurprising feature of economic history, social scientific thought, and Annales school philosophy; Braudel’s name has been taken as synonymous with longue durée. Braudel is properly credited with showing the value of the study of systems as an approach to history. His core questions centred on long-term historical trends, and he found anthropological and geological forces to be ultimately more influential than the individual deeds. However, he did not exclude individual influence and agency from his analysis. Braudel first drafted his The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II whilst a prisoner of war in Germany

21 For the Umayyads, see Barton, ‘Spain in the Eleventh Century’, pp. 154–90; for the Fatimids, see Brett, The Fatimid Empire; for Byzantium, see Whittow, ‘The Second Fall’; Kaldellis, Streams of Gold. 22 Messier, The Almoravids. 23 Tyerman, God’s War; Reilly, The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain. 24 Hayes, Roger II; Houben, Roger II of Sicily; Winkler, Fitzgerald, and Small, eds, Designing Norman Sicily. 25 Pirenne, Mohammed and Charlemagne; Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World; Horden and Purcell, The Corrupting Sea.

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in 1940–1942. In his concluding thoughts to ‘Part II: Collective Destinies and General Trends’ on ‘Conjecture and History’, he offered the suggestion that in any economic recession, the dormant assets of the wealthy ‘might produce a brilliant civilization lasting years or even decades’.26 Is this conjecture a dispassionate analysis and economic parable? Or does it hint at an unstated opinion that, in times of great need, like times of war, those with means — or economic agency — are able and obliged to act? Whether or not we read Braudel’s work in relation to his experience of wartime and post-war Europe in the twentieth century, Braudel was very much alert to the actions and reactions of early modern people in the Mediterranean. A good example is his chapter on the vagaries of travel and communication in the Mediterranean. This chapter — ‘Distance, the First Enemy’ (vol. 2, Chapter I.1) — frames human activity not as a passive happening in an inexorable chronology, but as a network of ongoing interactions with the geophysical world.27 This chapter is orientated towards human experience as much as it is towards type and trend. Here we encounter the hopes of individuals making new deals and the frustrations of foiled trade; surprise at the speed of news surpassing expectation; desolation at delay. We can imagine ourselves into this world. More recently, Horden and Purcell have proposed an underlying economic ‘connectivity’ between ecological niches situated around the Mediterranean. Consequently, the history of events (histoire événementielle), including conquests, are of value primarily for revealing underlying or long-term patterns and processes. This concept of connectivity risks creating a Mediterranean history that buzzes with activity but never fundamentally changes. Perhaps because they sought to stand in direct contradiction to Braudel, their book bears the imprint of Braudel’s thoughts. If there is room for human agency in the short term, there is very little space, in either Braudel’s work or Horden and Purcell’s, for human actions to change deeper, underlying structures over a longer period of time. We are rather more sympathetic to David Abulafia’s argument that there is a history to be written about the connection of humans with the Mediterranean Sea, a view that emphasizes the agency of individual people over the short, medium, and long term.28 This volume shows how part of that human story played out across parts of the Mediterranean. To consider conquest as a process — one that does not end with a decisive battle — is to effect a link, latent in Braudel’s book, between the two layers of historical time, the longue durée and the histoire événementielle. Actions and decisions made by Normans and non-Normans, by elites and non-elites, both effected and constituted conquest and changed underlying political, anthropological, and even environmental structures of the Mediterranean world.

26 Braudel, The Mediterranean, ii, 487–88. 27 Braudel, The Mediterranean, ii, 5–39. 28 Abulafia, The Great Sea.

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Historical Narratives Beginnings in Italy

The military activity of the Norman conquests can, crudely, be split into two phases.29 In the first phase, running from the mid eleventh to early twelfth century, the Normans established lordships in Antioch and Italy. In the latter, most famously, Roger II established the kingdom of Sicily in 1130. A second phase occurred after the establishment of these polities, such as the Normans at Tortosa during the Second Crusade and the invasion of North Africa.30 The first groups of Normans began travelling as pilgrims, living as settlers, and fighting as mercenaries in the Mediterranean from the beginning of the eleventh century. They did so in a general context of strengthening relationships between the Mediterranean world and northern Latin Christendom. The earliest record of Norman activity in the Mediterranean is in the History of the Normans by Amatus of Montecassino, a southern Italian monk of the famed Benedictine monastery of Montecassino, in the 1080s.31 Four hundred Norman pilgrims were passing through Salerno on the way back to Normandy after visiting the Holy Land around the year 1000. While the Normans rested in the city, raiders from Islamic Sicily arrived and the small group of Normans fought them off despite the raiders’ greater numbers. The local Lombard ruler rewarded the Normans who settled and then encouraged others back home in Normandy to join them because of the potential riches at hand.32 This origin story, whether historical or not, sets out three key themes of early Norman activity in the Mediterranean. First, there existed inherent tensions between the motives of faith, martial prowess, and mercenary activity on the part of local rulers. Second, the small numbers of Normans relative to the general population contributed to a sense that they were able to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds. Third, there existed many motivations to move from Normandy to the Mediterranean, always amplified by familial and personal networks of support. From the 1010s, rulers in southern Italy were employing small bands of Normans to help sort out their various disputes.33 The rulers of the small city-based polities of Campania, Lombard and non-Lombard alike, employed them and paid them in silks, linens, and gold.34 One well-attested example of locals’ employment use of Normans 29 For a full narrative of these events, see Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard. 30 See King and Villegas-Aristizábal, this volume. 31 It is preserved in a fourteenth-century medieval French text. For a consideration of its transmission from the original Latin, see Kujawiński, ‘Alla ricerca del contesto del volgarizzamento della Historia Normannorum di Amato di Montecassino’. 32 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, i. 17–19. Hereafter Amatus, Ystoire. 33 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, i. 156–61; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Pontieri, i. 6. Hereafter William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis. 34 For the debate on the historicity of the incident: in favour, Hoffmann, ‘Die Anfänge der Normannen in Süditalien’ Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 60–66; but cf. for the argument that the story is a legendary construct, Joranson, ‘The Inception of the Career of the Normans in Italy-Legend and History’, pp. 353–96; France, ‘The Occasion of the Coming of the Normans to Southern Italy’;

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is that of Melus of Bari, and the actions he took during his revolt against the catepan, the Byzantine viceroy in Italy, in 1017.35 This revolt was put down by imperial troops within a year, but Normans continued to serve local notables in the region. In 1030, Sergius IV of Naples decided to pay Rainulf Drengot not in the usual textiles or coin but instead to invest him as count of Aversa, a small fort with some land, as reward for services rendered, creating the first Norman lordship in the Mediterranean.36 The small-scale conflicts between families and polities provided plenty of employment opportunities for Normans in southern Italy. However, the use of foreign troops by Mediterranean polities was not unusual. The Byzantine Empire, the Fatimids, and the Umayyads in Spain all employed large corps of soldiers recruited from outside their territorial borders, partly because they may have been seen as more effective or more loyal. The Varangian Guard of Byzantium, composed at this time of many Rus / Scandinavian recruits, is perhaps the most famous example of this. The initial employment of Normans in southern Italy was a small-scale example of a much larger Mediterranean phenomenon. Amatus of Montecassino, William of Apulia, and Geoffrey Malaterra, our main historical sources for this period, all draw a straight line between these early activities and the later conquests post-1050 in southern Italy.37 However, we must be careful not to fall into a teleological trap. These sources were all written with the benefit of hindsight, after the initial military phase of the conquest was over, by 1071, in southern Italy. They were also all written, for various reasons, with the intent of explaining why the Normans won. The narratives they present naturally shape events to fit this linear narrative.38 A different argument for the Norman ascendancy comes from another angle: the slow decay and decline of the Byzantine Empire and the Lombard principalities in southern Italy. Although decline might seem to create the opportunity for opportunistic invaders, the Byzantine Empire in particular was actually strengthening its position on the peninsula. If the Tancredis, Don Calogeros, and Salinas of Giuseppi Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard had lived in the eleventh century, they would undoubtedly have been loyal Byzantines, with heads unturned by any northern adventurers. Paradoxically this strengthening could have helped to cause the Norman conquests in southern Italy. The Turn in the 1040s

The strength of the Byzantine Empire can be traced to the actions of the empire from the 1010s. In northern Apulia, a string of new fortress-towns were constructed

Taviani-Carozzi, ‘Le mythe de la conquête normande en Italie’, pp. 57–89. 35 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, i; Amatus, Ystoire, i. 20–24. 36 Amatus, Ystoire, i. 42–45. 37 See esp. Kujawiński, ‘La venuta dei Normanni come tema della storiografia medievale meridionale’. 38 For the debate on the historiography see, Albu, The Normans in Their Histories; Wolf, Making History; Brown, ‘The Political Use of the Past in Norman Sicily’, pp. 191–210; Sivo, ‘Lingua e cultura nella Puglia dell’età Normanna’, pp. 265–90; Johnson, ‘Origin Myths and the Construction of Medieval Identities’, pp. 153–64.

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to solidify Byzantine control of the interior.39 Even today the region of these towns is known as the Capitinata, after the catepan, the chief Byzantine official in Italy. Strong commercial and diplomatic relationships existed between Byzantium and Amalfi on the Campanian coast.40 The Lombard princes of Capua, Benevento, and Salerno all recognized, to varying degrees, the suzerainty of the Byzantine Empire.41 When, in 1022, Henry II the Ottonian emperor invaded in order to assert his authority in southern Italy he captured no Byzantine towns and received a polite welcome from the influential abbey of Montecassino, as well as from some of the Lombard princes but little more.42 Soon after he departed, the Lombard princes returned to a loosely held Byzantine suzerainty. The most visible presence of Byzantium’s waxing strength in Italy was the mobilization of the large, multinational invasion force that was launched against Islamic Sicily in 1038. The army included Rus troops and the Varangian guard, including a young Harald Hardrada, later king of Norway. Contingents were despatched from the Anatolics, Thrace, the Armeniakon, Hellas, Macedonia, and the Opsikion themata, all across the empire.43 These forces joined local levies from Byzantine Apulia and Calabria, alongside auxiliaries from the Lombard principalities in Campania.44 The Lombard princes sent units of Normans as their contribution but they also joined other Normans freshly recruited by the Byzantines for the campaign. The invasion of 1038 is the first known example of Byzantium recruiting large numbers of ‘Frankish’ mercenaries, many of whom came from Normandy.45 Amongst those freshly recruited were members of the important Hauteville family who would come to dominate southern Italy. The Byzantine invasion of Sicily initially went very well; however, it fell apart due to conflicts within imperial leadership and tensions between units of the army itself.46 Part of this breakdown was a mutiny of Normans and local units, upset with their treatment, which then fed into to a complex multi-sided civil war breaking out throughout Byzantine Italy. This involved Guaimar IV of Salerno, Argyrus, the son of Melus who had grown up in Constantinople, George Maniakes, a Byzantine general who eventually led his own push against Constantine IX Monomachos, and units of Normans.47 All of these actors had divergent interests and goals that made them shift alliances, which often led to betrayals between the different parties. The actual prominence of the Normans during the initial phase between c. 1039–1042 is hard to discern fully. 39 Von Falkenhausen, ‘Between Two Empires’, pp. 135–59; Oldfield, ‘Rural Settlement and Economic Development’, pp. 327–45. 40 Skinner, Medieval Amalfi; Guérin, ‘Forgotten Routes?’, pp. 87–91. 41 Taviani-Carozzi, La principauté lombarde de Salerne. 42 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 6; Loud, ‘The German Emperors and Southern Italy’, pp. 583–605. 43 John Skylitzes, Ioannis Scylitzae, ed. by Thurm, xix. 6–20; Shepard, ‘A Suspected Source of Scylitzes’. 44 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 8; William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, i. 189–206; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 7; John Skylitzes, Ioannis Scylitzae, ed. by Thurm, xxi. 3. 45 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 6–7. 46 John Skylitzes, Ioannis Scylitzae, ed. by Thurm, xxi. 3. 47 See Annales Barenses and Annals of Lupus Protospatharius, ed, by Pertz, esp. pp. 54, 58; Anonymi Barensis Chronicon, RIS v. 149–50; Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 8–29; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 8–13.

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The actions of Guaimar in Campania and Argyrus in Apulia, who counted Normans amongst their followers, were not substantially different from past revolts. These revolts were not necessarily anti-Byzantine Lombard ethnic revolts. Both Guaimar and Argyrus were part of a Byzantine imperial system in Italy in their separate ways, one as a Lombard prince and the other as a local notable in imperial service. Many members of the local elites actively participated as officials and soldiers of the Byzantine empire, and the empire itself was willing to adapt its administrative, economic, and religious policies and practices to local circumstances.48 Political violence in southern Italy was evidence neither of secessionist movements nor of political distress, but of attempts by members of the local elites to leverage their position within the existing system, often by using imperial assets, like army units, such as the Normans. For instance, when Argyrus received an offer of support from Constantine IX Monomachos, he happily accepted it and returned to imperial service, first as a governor in Paphlagonia before returning to Italy as a doux (duke) and catepan.49 His father, Melus, had attempted something similar earlier but had failed. The key difference between the civil war of 1038 compared to previous revolts was its greater size and scale. The number of ‘imperial assets’, or the army units that could be repurposed, was much larger because of the failed Sicilian invasion. Crucially, large numbers of Normans were involved. In 1041, as part of this upheaval, Ardouin, a Milanese commander of a Norman contingent, seized control of Melfi.50 The seizure of Melfi was done in alliance with Guaimar IV. Then in 1043, the Normans within this coalition seized control, expelled Ardouin, and agreed amongst themselves to divide the interior of Apulia into twelve counties amongst their leaders.51 This was a decisive, fundamental change because for the first time, bands of Normans were forcibly reshaping the political landscape, and placing themselves at the top of the hierarchy. Making Fortunes and Families

Key to the nature of the Norman conquests in southern Italy was that there was no single overarching strategy nor one ‘Norman’ leader. Instead, the Normans were a collection of loosely affiliated autonomous bands, led by individuals from a small number of interconnected families hailing from Normandy. The most important of these families were the Hautevilles and the Drengots. The first expeditions into Calabria took place from 1044, whilst lordships were established in and around the Capitinata, Gargano, and Benevento in 1045–1047.52 The military phase of conquest was slow, piecemeal, and interspersed with frequent bouts of fighting between different Norman bands. For instance, in Apulia and the Basilicata several Norman

48 Von Falkenhausen, ‘Between Two Empires’. 49 Annales Barenses, ed. by Pertz; Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 28. 50 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 16–18. 51 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 31. 52 Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy, p. 71.

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leaders were able to carve out their lordships independently of the Hautevilles and the Drengots. Examples include Geoffrey of Conversano, Robert of Montescaglioso, and Peter of Troia who often clashed violently with the ambitions of Robert Guiscard, as in the repeated revolts against Guiscard in 1067–1068, 1072–1073, 1079–1080, and 1082–1083.53 A key moment of unity transcended individual ambition in 1053 at the Battle of Civitate, when the combined forces of Robert Guiscard, Richard Drengot, and Humphrey de Hauteville defeated a papal-Lombard-Byzantine-Ottonian alliance.54 The Normans captured Pope Leo IX, and the battle marks the last co-ordinated and concerted effort to stop the Normans by local and outside powers.55 In the aftermath of the Battle of Civitate, the Norman rolling-up of southern Italy continued. The conquest of Calabria was completed by Guiscard and his brother Roger (Roger I) by 1059, the invasion of Sicily began in 1060, Palermo and Mazara fell in 1072, and by 1092 the whole island had submitted to Roger.56 Meanwhile, on the mainland, Richard Drengot, through intermarriage and force, became prince of Capua in 1058.57 Pope Nicholas II signed a treaty of alliance between Robert Guiscard and Richard Drengot in 1059. In return for their oaths of fealty and support, he recognized them as legitimate rulers in Apulia, Calabria, Capua, and Sicily.58 The Byzantine port cities of Apulia were gradually besieged and conquered during the 1060s. By 1071–1073, with the surrender of Bari, Brindisi, and Trani, all of Apulia was controlled by Norman lordships. In 1076, Salerno fell to the control of Robert Guiscard whose second wife, Sichelgaita, was a member of the local ruling family.59 Only Naples (which remained independent until 1137) and a pocket centred around Benevento, under the protection of the papacy, remained beyond the orbit of Norman power. These Normans worked initially by plundering and ransacking an area surrounding a fortress seized by a band of Norman soldiers.60 This was an arbitrary and harsh form of power, little different from roving banditry. The goal was to stockpile food, weapons, and plunder before moving on to the next place. Robert Guiscard’s initial rise to power in Calabria during the 1040s is a case in point. Guiscard was sent by his elder brother William Iron-Arm to carve out his own lordship,61 so he gathered a small band of troops and headed off. Many of these were Normans, but Amatus of Montecassino and Geoffrey Malaterra are both quite clear that his band included others who had deserted from Byzantine service, including Slavs.62 Guiscard established

53 Amatus, Ystoire, iv–viii. 54 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ii. 82–266; Amatus, Ystoire, iii. 39–41. 55 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 14. 56 Amatus, Ystoire, v. 10–25; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii–iv. 57 Amatus, Ystoire, iv. 13. 58 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ii. 384–86. 59 Amatus, Ystoire, iv. 18–23; William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ii. 430–31; Skinner, ‘“Halt! Be Men!”’. 60 Loré, Monasteri, principi, aristocrazie, p. 58; Amatus, ‘liquel se achatarent de pain et de vin’, Ystoire, iii. 9–10; ‘latrocinio armigererorum suorum’, Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 25. 61 Amatus, Ystoire, iii. 7–10. 62 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 16.

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himself on a 320-foot hill called Scribla in northern Calabria.63 From there, through a mixture of kidnapping and raids he was able to extort food, textiles, and coins from local inhabitants which he then re-distributed to his followers. Hostages were taken to ensure the loyalty of local support and were forced to accompany Guiscard as he moved across Italy.64 We should not imagine that the political side of these dealings involved only men, for these hostages included women: among those taken by Guiscard, for example, was the daughter of Argyritzos, lord of Bari, in 1071.65 As Guiscard became more successful, he attracted more supporters. Other family members, like Roger, joined him and he had to find fresh resources to maintain their support. This in turn created an ambition for further conquests, like the invasion of Sicily once Calabria had been fully subjugated in 1059, or the great invasion of the Balkans in 1081.66 In addition to land, Guiscard acquired vast sums of moveable wealth in coins and valuable textiles that he was able to bequeath upon his death to local ecclesiastical institutions, including Montecassino.67 Normans recycled local resources — economic, political, and military — to fuel their conquests, which shows how each micro-region within southern Italy has its own distinctive history of conquest. Even intermarriage between Normans and local elites, as Aurélie Thomas demonstrates, varied within micro-regions, as was the case in Campania.68 If we frame success from the would-be conqueror’s perspective, Robert Guiscard was perhaps the most impressively successful Norman in being able to build conquest on conquest; but his method was a common one, and not inherently Norman in character. Later, from the 1070s, more stable lordships were established as the profits of plunder from military campaigns began to diminish. The Normans were no longer roving but stationary bandits.69 Those Normans who now dominated a territorial space had to further diversify their strategies and tactics, and they looked to new methods and technologies beyond the military to solidify their control and to profit from that control. This was ‘conquest by other means’. However, fighting, plunder, and violence did not go away. The same pattern of repurposing local resources remained an important modus operandi, meaning that there was considerable variation in the trajectories, outcomes, and even objectives of conquest because the materials were different. We see this in comparing the means of conquest in Apulia with that in Sicily or Calabria. Conquest was contingent, and local circumstance as well as individual action shaped what would become radical political, social, and economic transitions in southern Italy.

63 Flambard-Hericher, ‘Un instrument de la conquête et du pouvoir’; Whittow, ‘Rural Fortifications in Western Europe and Byzantium’; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i.12, i.16. 64 Amatus, Ystoire, iii. 10; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i.17, i.21; on medieval hostageship, see Bennett and Weikert, eds, Medieval Hostageship. 65 Kosto, Varieties and Logics of Medieval Hostageship, pp. 78 and 85–86. 66 Von Falkenhausen, ‘I ceti dirigenti prenormanni’, p. 369. 67 Loud, ‘Coinage, Wealth and Plunder’. 68 Thomas, this volume. 69 Olson, ‘Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development’.

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Normans beyond Italy

This historical introduction, so far, has followed the creation of the first Norman lordships in southern Italy. The southern Italian lordships are essential for the wider history of the Normans in the Mediterranean in three key ways. First, these initial conquests prompted further conquests of neighbouring regions, like Malta, Sicily, and invasion of the Balkans by Guiscard and his son Bohemond in 1081. Second, many of the Normans who ventured further across the Mediterranean began, and often ended, their careers in southern Italy. Third, these lordships lasted; and their effect in shaping future kingdoms and empires is measurable in archive, architecture, and the art of chronicling history. It is a key region, and the one explored in the greatest depth by this book’s authors. But regional history is by no means the only way to tell the story of the Normans in the Mediterranean. This next endeavour thus takes a different cross-section of Norman history. Turning from the broad chronology events as seen from a place, southern Italy, we consider history through the perspective of individual Normans who travelled between places. What follows is a potted prosopography that samples some of these interconnecting careers. It is an approach that shows how, by eschewing an exclusive focus on Norman Mediterranean regionalism, we can highlight some of the book’s wider historical themes: among them, contingency, the agency of both Normans and non-Normans, the importance of relationships, and a lack of linearity. William of Montreuil and Robert Crespin

We begin with the lives of two Normans involved with the Iberian Peninsula in the 1060s. In 1064, the city of Barbastro in northern Aragon was besieged and captured by a Franco-Aragonese army. Although the city was recaptured nine months later, the campaign has a prominent place in the creation of a crusading ideology before 1095.70 Prominent and large contingents of this force came directly from Normandy and also Norman Italy. Two of the leaders were William of Montreuil and Robert Crespin.71 William of Montreuil had travelled from Normandy to Italy some time before 1056. When he arrived, he became a follower of Richard Drengot who had become prince of Capua in 1058. William was adopted by Richard, and he married Richard’s daughter. He built lordships over Marsia, Aquino, and Richard gave him the city of Gaeta. Once established, however, he repudiated his wife and alliance with Richard and forged a new alliance with the papacy, other Normans, and local Lombards against his adopted father. At some point, he left with papal blessing for Spain and was involved in the capture of the city of Girona in 1063. He then joined the army, possibly as a representative of the papacy, that took Barbastro before

70 Ferreiro, ‘The Siege of Barbastro, 1064–65’. 71 Amatus, Ystoire, i. 5–8.

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returning to Italy and his lordships there. He donated two churches to the Abbey of Montecassino before passing away in Rome around 1070.72 Robert Crespin, William’s fellow Norman on the Barbastro campaign, took another cross-Mediterranean route. He and his men were recruited for service in the Byzantine army during their campaigns against the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia and Armenia.73 Dissatisfied with his pay and recognition, in 1069 Crispin mutinied and seized a castle called ‘Maurokastron’ (the Black Castle) in the Armeniakon thema from where he began to raid and plunder the surrounding countryside.74 This was in a very similar manner to how the first Norman lordships in Italy were created. However, unlike in Italy, Crispin was reconciled to the Byzantine Empire, pardoned by Emperor Romanes IV Diogenes, and died as a guest in the Great Palace of Constantinople in around 1072.75 After his death, command of Crispin’s unit was transferred to Roussel of Bailleul. Conquest and creation of a lordship, combined with service to local rulers, were not mutually exclusive career pathways. Normans could, and did, switch between the two depending on the situation. They did not necessarily believe themselves restricted by place or promise. These biographies in miniature offer a reminder, too, that conquest was not always the first event in a sequence, nor was it incompatible with other strategies for self-protection and self-promotion among the Normans in the Mediterranean. Roussel of Bailleul

The Norman Roussel had been present at Roger I’s victory at the Cerami river in 1063 during the early stages of the conquest of Sicily.76 By all accounts a self-confident and aggressive commander, he was recruited for Byzantine service and inherited Crispin’s troops, at that point numbering around 2500 men.77 In the chaotic aftermath of the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 between the Byzantines and the Seljuks, Roussel created a lordship over a large territory centred on Amasea in northern Anatolia.78 He took over and repurposed parts of the Byzantine state in the region, including castles, troops, and administrative machinery and he provided security for the local population. Roussel was not the only person in the aftermath of Manzikert to take the opportunity to create self-sustaining principalities. Philaretus, a Byzantine official and military governor in Marash, used his connections with Armenian immigrants to Cilicia to gain control of several cities there and eventually both Edessa and

72 Amatus, Ystoire, iv. 25, 27; vi. 1–12, 24. 73 Nikephoros Bryennios, Histoire, ed. by Gautier, i. 24. 74 Michael Attaleiates, The History, trans. by Kaldellis and Krallis, xviii. 2–5. 75 Michael Attaleiates, The History, trans. by Kaldellis and Krallis, xxi. 5, 8. 76 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 33. 77 Nikephoros Bryennios, Histoire, ed. by Gautier, ii. 4. 78 Michael Attaleiaties, The History, trans. by Kaldellis and Krallis, xxiii. 1–13, xxv. 1–2; Nikephoros Bryennios, Histoire, ed. by Gautier, ii. 14–15, ii. 17–20.

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Antioch.79 What is striking in Roussel’s case is that he appears to have had some degree of local support. When a young Alexios Komnenos (the future emperor Alexios I Komnenos) was sent to crush Roussel’s new lordship, he encountered considerable local resistance. He had to resort to a series of tricks and counter-bluffs, including using Turkish soldiers in the region, in order to capture Roussel. Local people rioted, and some even tried to break in and free Roussel from Alexios’s captivity, which suggests that Roussel had local Byzantine support. In response, Alexios appeared to publicly blind Roussel in front of the people of Amasea to quell any hopes that he would return — but the blinding drama was an elaborate charade.80 Roussel played along, sight intact, and served Alexios and the empire, before another double-cross gone wrong resulted in his death.81 The actions of both Roussel and Robert Crespin show how thoroughly Normans had become embedded in the social and political systems and culture of the eastern Roman Empire. They were not regarded as Byzantine, but they were no longer seen as political outsiders.82 The Normans created their own polities, but they did so in the same manner as some of their Byzantine counterparts. Bohemond of Taranto

No Norman illustrates the ambiguous position of a Norman in the Mediterranean more than the life and legacy of Bohemond of Taranto. In her Alexiad, Anna Komnene used Roussel de Bailleul as a literary foil for Alexios I Komnenos, her father and the hero of her history. Alexios’s true foil was Bohemond of Taranto, the son of Robert Guiscard. Arguably one of the most important themes running through the Alexiad is how Alexios outwitted and defeated Bohemond, portrayed as the emperor’s wiliest, strongest, most resilient opponent: he who tried and failed ‘playing the Cretan with the Cretan’.83 Bohemond was born sometime between 1050 and 1058 in southern Italy, the son of Robert Guiscard and his first wife, a Norman woman named Alberada. He was born Mark, but nicknamed Bohemond, after a legendary giant, on account of his stature.84 Bohemond accompanied his father during his invasion of the Byzantine Empire in the Balkans, and they defeated Alexios I Komnenos in battle at Dyrrachium (1081) before invading Macedonia and Thessaly. Byzantine inducements encouraged defections from Guiscard and Bohemond’s army, a Venetian fleet recaptured Dyrrachium, forcing a retreat back to southern Italy. They attempted invasion again in 1084–1085, but the invasion was abortive because of an epidemic and the succession crisis caused

79 Yarnley, ‘Philaretos: Armenian Bandit or Byzantine General’. 80 Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, trans by Sewter, i. 3; Michael Attaleiates, The History, trans. by Kaldellis and Krallis, xxvi. 3–4; Nikephoros Bryennios, Histoire, ed. by Gautier, ii. 24. 81 Nikephoros Bryennios, Histoire, ed. by Gautier, ii.28, iii. 26; Michael Attaleiates, The History, trans. by Kaldellis and Krallis, xxxi. 11–12; xxxii. 14–16. 82 Shepard, ‘The Uses of Franks in Eleventh-Century Byzantium’. 83 Anna Komnene, Alexiad, trans by Sewter, x. 2; Shepard, ‘When Greek Meets Greek’. 84 Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. by Chibnall, xi. 12.

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by Robert Guiscard’s death in 1085.85 Robert’s possessions were eventually split in 1090 between Bohemond and Roger Borsa, Guiscard’s eldest son from his second marriage to Sichelgaita. A further outbreak of violence occurred after Bohemond formed an alliance with his uncle Roger I of Sicily, and he eventually controlled most of the land south of Melfi in Apulia.86 In 1097, Bohemond took the cross and joined the First Crusade with his nephew Tancred. He marched with his forces towards Constantinople, on the same roads he had taken during the invasions of the 1080s. When Bohemond arrived, he took an oath of loyalty to Alexios and received gifts and subsidies from the emperor.87 Bohemond became Alexios’s man within the First Crusade leadership and in return was possibly promised a title and lands in the east for his service.88 Bohemond used his relationship with Alexios to leverage his position within the leadership council beyond what his size of contingent would have warranted. In this, he was aided his brother Guy, who was currently serving in the Byzantine army and held the title of sebastos, and by his half-sister, Olympias / Helena, who had grown up in Constantinople as the ward of Alexios.89 Bohemond was a known almost in a familial capacity, and although not entirely trusted, formed an integral part of the emperor’s plans for the First Crusade. The relationship between Alexios and Bohemond broke down during the siege and capture of Antioch and eventually Bohemond set himself up as an independent ruler of the city, the nascent Principality of Antioch. A three-way conflict then ensued between the Byzantines, Bohemond, and the Seljuk Turk emirs in the region. Bohemond was captured by the Danishmends at Melitene in 1103, after which he was ransomed and fought and lost another battle at Harran in 1104.90 Bohemond then began a recruitment campaign in Europe to rebuild his forces and secure his rule over Antioch against the Seljuks and the Byzantines. He married Constance, the daughter of Philip I of France, and gathered a large army.91 Bohemond attacked Dyrrachium once more and besieged the city in 1107–1108. However, Alexios was able to blockade the Normans in their camp and force their surrender. With his brother Guy, the former Byzantine soldier, by his side, Bohemond signed the Treaty of Devol (1108), whereby he was to become a sworn vassal of Alexios and receive the title of sebastos, and would retain Antioch in return for ceding other lands to the emperor.92 Tancred, Bohemond’s nephew and regent in Antioch, refused to

85 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, v. 285–336. 86 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, iii. 41–42, iv. 4, iv. 10, iv. 17, iv. 20, iv. 24; Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 256–57. 87 Anna Komnene, Alexiad, trans by Sewter, x. 10–11. 88 Shepard, ‘When Greek Meets Greek’, p. 186. 89 Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. by Chibnall, vii. 5; Von Falkenhausen, ‘Olympias, eine normannische Prinzessin in Konstantinopel’. 90 Mayer, ‘The Latin East’, p. 648. 91 Suger, The Deeds of Louis the Fat, ed. by Cusimano and Moorhead, ix. 43–46. 92 Mayer, ‘The Latin East’, pp. 644–49.

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accept the treaty and Bohemond retired to Apulia where he died and was buried at Canosa in 1111.93 Bohemond’s principality of Antioch survived until it was conquered by the Mamluks of Egypt in 1268. For much of the twelfth century, the princes of Antioch were close allies, occasionally vassals, of the Byzantine Empire.94 By contrast, all of the lordships created by Crispin, Bailleul, and William of Montreuil in Spain and Anatolia were short-lived. Each trajectory differed, and only time told which were the true conquests, and which proved abortive attempts. Yet even in these handful of examples we have seen the deliberate re-use of local resources to attempt conquest, trans-Mediterranean travel over the course of a life, and moving between freelance operations to serving local rulers — and back again. This book is, in part, an attempt to gather evidence from key areas of interaction for the Normans in the Mediterranean, from different historiographical disciplines and to bring them into conversation with each other.

The Book: A Map of Theme and Argument Because this book examines conquest as a series of related processes, events, and relationships, it is structured around approaches to three questions about three distinct phases of conquest. First, intentions and means: what were the motivations and strategies of the Normans as travellers, invaders, and conquerors — and of the people they encountered along the way? Second, effects and implications: what short-, medium- and long-term impact did Norman conquest and settlement have on Mediterranean society? Third, perceptions and memories: how did different people perceive and remember the process of conquest from different vantage points in space and time? I. Triangulating Conquest: Comparing Motivations and Strategies

In this section, authors use different approaches to analyse Norman conquests: a large-scale thematic reading of Norman mentalities and the core themes of scholarship on the Normans through a first-hand introduction to the sources (Matthew Bennett); micro-studies of specific interpersonal relationships formed through conquest (Thomas); and comparison of Norman activities in eastern and western regions of Iberia and at different times, as well as between Iberia and other parts of Europe (Lucas Villegas-Aristizábal). The contrasts explored here offer opportunities to compare the effectiveness and relevance of understanding the Norman activities in the Mediterranean by taking a Eurasian perspective, a pan-Mediterranean approach,

93 For the unusual ‘Oriental’ features of Bohemond’s mauseoleum in Canoa, see Gadolin, ‘Prince Bohemund’s Death and Apotheosis’. 94 Murray, ‘How Norman was the Principality of Antioch?’; Buck, The Principality of Antioch; Mayer, ‘The Latin East’, p. 651.

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or a more focussed, ground-up stance which examines conquest as a product of new family networks. A key finding of Part I is that initiative, even in the process of what is clearly a military conquest in retrospect, did not always lie with the Normans (see the above discussion of agency). The pope proved an extremely powerful and influential agent in Iberia.95 Where contemporary chroniclers wrote of fortune and divine Providence as drivers, or the restless spirit of the Hautevilles,96 we might speak of luck and circumstance. Events as far away as England and Ireland in the north-west, and the successes and failures of the Crusades in the East, had repercussions for the Normans in the Mediterranean. In the years after the death of William I of England, when William Rufus ruled England and Robert Curthose the duchy of Normandy, Norman nobles with prospects and possessions in England found themselves harassed by conflicting obligations to lands and lords in two realms.97 The civil conflict over the throne in the second quarter of the twelfth century between William’s grandchildren, Stephen and the Empress Matilda, may have been the tipping point of these ongoing troubles, enough to encourage Norman nobles to seek their fortunes abroad.98 The Salernitan dynasty, more so than the Capuan, proved itself to be remarkably stable in structure, in that its rulers upheld their strict rules of inheritance and managed to fold the Normans into their dynastic plans — and, as Thomas argues, they may have gained and retained strength precisely from being able to do so.99 Control lay in clarity. For the Capuans, where succession was anyone’s game, the foreigner was viewed with mistrust; but this dynasty did not ultimately survive the Norman incursion. Thomas’s argument encourages us to re-think the story of just on whose terms the Normans really got a foothold in southern Italy. In considering conquest as a process, the question of its ‘end’, or even its desired end, needs another look. Marriage, for example, might be a way of acting strategically to secure peace, land, settlement, political gain, and future prospects, and these, as Thomas observes, are often the terms in which it has been historically discussed.100 Yet the Norman Rotrou III of Perche acted equally strategically: he gave away the lands he had acquired in Iberia as a dowry payment in order to achieve the end of marriage, a union between Marguerite de l’Aigle and Garcia Ramirez, future king of Navarre.101 Which is the real Norman achievement:102 land tenure or a tenable relationship? It depends, not least, on how we define achievement; and on whether we choose to measure goals, motivations and strategies in terms of immediate, middle- or long-term objectives.

95 Villegas-Aristizábal, this volume, pp. 88–89. 96 E.g. Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, iv. 16. 97 Carpenter, The Struggle for Mastery, chapter 5. 98 Villegas-Aristizábal, this volume, pp. 100–01. 99 Thomas, this volume. 100 Thomas, this volume. 101 On the marriage, see Villegas-Aristizábal, pp. 96–97. 102 Cf. Douglas, The Norman Achievement.

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II. Human Geography in Sicily and Southern Italy: The Implications of Conquest, Urban and Rural

If the motivations and strategies that drove the process of conquest were not always those of the conquerors, it follows that the effects and implications of conquest are not wholly explicable in terms of the conquerors (or, indeed, in terms of the most visible record and events of conquest recorded in narrative sources). In this regard, the chapters in Part II follow from those in Part I. Human experience — from the undeniable predatory element of conquest to the creative solutions to changing circumstances — is a key theme here. How, and to what extent, did conquest affect families, social structures, and the spaces in which they lived and worked? This section takes the region of southern Italy and Sicily as a case study for comparative studies of life after, and with, Norman conquest. Chapters in this section examine how we can trace processes of conquest in changing human geographies and landscapes — administrative, social, and territorial. These chapters consider how administrative practices developed and changed over time in relation to local models, the significance of the Norman presence in urban and rural settings, how coastal and inland conquest models differed, the many reasons for complex social change over time, and the movements of peoples, ideas, and individuals. A conquest involves processes with vastly different durations in time, and which occur in ways that affect human experience on both large and small scales. The studies in this section frame their enquiries on different scales, ranging from one that examines a wide region across half a century, to another that assesses a single settlement across more than three centuries. The importance of localities and small regional differences emerge in chapters that take both wide and narrow geographic perspectives; these approaches reflect a more recent turn from seeing the Norman enterprise primarily as a monolithic, almost self-conscious enterprise.103 We travel from rural hinterlands of the Apennine Peninsula to the streets of Salerno, and from a mountaintop settlement on Iato to Palermo, which had long been a node of the Mediterranean Sea. Here, we can see the implications of Norman conquest in snapshots of daily life, in its new routines and sudden changes, in its normal customs and unexpected events: where the local people went to pray; where aristocrats wanted to move into ‘new builds’ in a still-vibrant city; how mountain dwellers managed to build with lower-quality building materials; the moment when and the place where the Pisans broke the chain across the harbour of Palermo and made off with six ships. Thus, to frame this section as a whole, Carocci asks the essential question: ‘What was really happening at a local level?’ What was the experience of power really like? Rejecting the traditional story of the Norman conquest of southern Italy as a story of transition between systems, he shows that relationships in rural Norman southern Italy involved different kinds of owing and obligation. Noting key differences between theory and practice, he shows that these relationships were not exclusively clientele 103 See nn. 3 and 4, above.

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lordship structures. Whereas traditional studies of lordship concentrate on power, strength, and coercion, Carocci incisively studies the ‘pervasive nature’ of lordship: its felt presence in the countryside. Having reserves — and being known to have reserves — mattered, as did living in a village and knowing your surroundings, your neighbours and the animals well over years of accumulated experience.104 The importance of this point is difficult to overstate, in particular because it can tend to be invisible in the narrative sources. In narrative sources, like chronicles of conquest, we normally only encounter assets when something catastrophic is happening to them: they’re being stolen, attacked, given away, accumulated. But assets were also lived with, learned, and discussed. The quantitative data Carocci presents shows a balance of relationships involving judgment, clients, and debt; relationships in which knowledge — the kind you get from experience — gave you, if not ‘power’ in theory, then ‘pervasiveness’ in practice. In rural southern Italy, micro-lords and villeins learned their way around each other and the new seigneurial economy; and Carocci’s article strongly encourages us to rethink traditional debates about the nature of lordship in the central Middle Ages.105 As well as forgotten daily interactions, the chapters in this section restore forgotten decades to the historical register. We learn of continuing importance of Palermo as the capital of Sicily throughout the 1060s, a period often neglected or assumed irrelevant because it was an era of political turmoil and relatively few sources. Here, an urban council may have existed, and a Norman–Pisan alliance tried to conquer Muslim Palermo. We encounter the 1120s, the decade before Roger II’s coronation — Palermo’s ‘Roaring Twenties’ (our term) — a period when Palermo was already becoming Roger II’s administrative centre as he sought to gain reputation and honour.106 Theresa Jäckh highlights the continuing importance of Palermo as the capital of Sicily throughout the time of the Norman conquest.107 As part of realizing their ambition to make Palermo the centre of the realm, the Normans not only restored buildings, but also revived pre-existing offices and thus careers or occupations of people who had come before them. We discover the neglected period of 1085–1127, between two eras: one spanning what are commonly seen as the events of the Hauteville family’s Norman conquest of southern Italy, and one ranging over the creation of a Norman kingdom in the south.108 Graham Loud’s article places southern Italy into the picture of Europe generated by Thomas Bisson’s model of crisis and lordship. In doing so, Loud revises the narrative of the succession of counts in Norman Italy to shed light on nobles in a neglected period, wrongly considered ‘anarchic’. The aristocracy was complex, and it included Normans, indigenous people (among them Lombards from former princely families), survivors from the eastern Roman world, and immigrants from outside Normandy. 104 Carocci, this volume. 105 For the lordship debates, cf. Bisson, Tormented Voices; Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century; Bisson, ed., Cultures of Power; Reuter and Wickham, ‘The “Feudal Revolution”’. 106 Jäckh, this volume. 107 Jäckh, this volume, pp. 200–03; on the Zirids, see also King, this volume. 108 Loud, this volume.

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By considering charters and forgeries not as true or false documents, but as offering a spectrum of evidence for the nobility, Loud enables the real aristocrats of Norman Italy to emerge from the historical record. This study removes some of the sense of inevitability or teleology that can accompany scholarship on conquest (particularly, as Loud notes, in scholarship written over a century ago): some families died out, and the makeup of the nobility varied, of course, by region.109 These chapters offer a clarion call for further work on what, the Norman narrative sources would imply, was a less glamorous period for Norman achievement. Indeed, these chapters offer a useful corrective about what an historical event in a conquest actually is. Were we to draw up a chronology of conquest today, framed in true medieval annalistic fashion, what dates would we use? Based on the findings of the authors of this section, we might rather conclude that the date of a battle or a siege, or even a date range (all too often implying an ‘era’) framed around coronations, victories, and surrenders, is not the best way to show the reality of the experience of the conquest. There is ample evidence suggesting that the conquerors retained and valued elements of pre-existing cultures, and that cultures survived without the sanction of conquerors. For example, Robert Guiscard modelled his patronage for churches in Salerno on Lombard practices, both in the use of ancient Roman spolia and in the style of inscriptions he used; and restored and re-used Lombard places of Christian worship.110 Although Jäckh and Nicole Mölk reject the idea of the new Norman kingdom of Sicily as a self-consciously multi-cultural paradise, it may have been Palermo’s very historic importance as an Islamic capital that the Norman leadership sought to adapt — as rapidly as possible — and to claim both as part of their history and as part of contemporary practice.111 A classical Roman past connected with the Hauteville family, like the classical Roman past that was imagined in origin myths and conquest stories in central and northern Europe,112 is conspicuously absent from the eleventh-century works of William of Apulia, Amatus of Montecassino, and Geoffrey Malaterra, for all that William and Geoffrey drew on classical rhetoric and exempla in writing their accounts of Norman and eastern Roman deeds.113 This was not only because the eleventh-century Hautevilles had no real claim on, or interest in fabricating, royal origins. Their business was conquest, and building reality into a new imagination, rather than the other way around. And by the twelfth-century Roger II, at least, had a royal future. In Palermo, Roger did not need to translate an empire: he was already living in one, and it did not need to be falsely remembered as a Roman or Christian one. Exciting archaeological discoveries show, in the small city of Jāṭū on the great strategic mountaintop of Monte Iato, that Muslim culture survived both Norman 109 110 111 112 113

Loud, this volume. Vaccaro, this volume, pp. 169–79. Jäckh, this volume, pp. 197–203. See Reynolds, ‘Medieval origines gentium’. See e.g. Lucas-Avenel, ‘Les sallustianismes de Geoffroi Malaterra’; Brown, ‘The Gesta Roberti Wiscardi, a Byzantine history?’.

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conquest and founding of a Norman kingdom in (1130), and that what perhaps became a neighbourly mountaintop community of Muslim and Christian Siculo-Norman people survived the Swabian conquest of Sicily and their dynasty’s rule (1194–1266). These finds show, perhaps most importantly, that life — albeit a life in which the people were driven to struggling, recycling and making do in living and building — persisted into the thirteenth century, despite chronicles that stated the settlement had been eradicated.114 Sometimes, chronicles that equated conquest with victory sought to cast conquest as a completed event — characterized by total mastery and total subjection of those deemed, at the moment, to be the enemy — rather than, as we do, a process. III. Comparing Perceptions and Memories of Conquest

It should be evident that we are already well into what is the explicit theme of the final section of the book. The two chapters in this section address historiography and hagiography directly, examining how history-writing both records conquest and was at times the technology by which conquest was executed or developed. Perspectives include those of the conquerors, the conquered, and their descendants.115 The perceptions and memories explored here are not just those of foreign encounter. Over time, and with experience, ideas changed — sometimes growing closer together than farther apart — and political ambitions for memory changed. The Normans saw, or chose to present, themselves as restorers of the Christian faith in Palermo.116 Where Norman rulers saw themselves as consolidating political and economic power, the Zirids came to see the Normans as just one arm of a ‘Frankish’ crusading effort to conquer a different faith.117 The implications of conquest perceptions here are massive, as Matt King shows, in that the Zirids’ reading of the Normans’ motives actually came to reflect how they self-identified in their own chronicles: Muslim neighbours in other local places had now become allies by association, who shared the same threat. Those who selected and recorded memories of conquests, too, had both power and obligations. In the Vita of St Bartholomew, it is possible to discern a hagiographer — probably Filigato of Cerami — who was attempting to balance the coincidence of political and religious motivations of Norman, Latin tradition, and Italo-Greek tradition. Kalina Yamboliev argues that Filigato made a ‘declaration of compatibility’ between the two, a point which would have been very much in the Normans’ interest by the early twelfth century. With the benefit of hindsight showing that the Normans were here to stay, the hagiographer could stress the involvement 114 Mölk, this volume. 115 On the early historiography of the Norman conquests of southern Italy, see e.g. Böhm, ‘Nomen gentis Normannorum’; Bouet, ‘La conquête de l’Italie du Sud et de la Sicile’; Capitani, ‘Specific Motivations and Continuing Themes in the Norman Chronicles of Southern Italy’; Johnson, ‘Normandy and Norman Identity’. 116 Jäckh, this volume. 117 King, this volume; see also Chevedden, ‘The Islamic View and the Christian View of the Crusades’.

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of rulers like Roger II in monastic establishments. In an Italo-Greek tradition that valued local saints and local memory, Norman commentators could write themselves back into these local stories. One is reminded of the Normans’ strategies in adapting Lombard city planning and architecture in Maddalena Vaccaro’s chapter (Part II). Hagiographers had to look out for their own interests as well, and in writing, one could exert power both subtle and substantial. Where Carocci delineated a model of pervasive lordship, here we encounter evidence for the creation of a memory of pervasive patronage. *** The idea of conquest that emerges here is, unsurprisingly, not exclusively military; shifting kinship and alliance is part of the story as well. Yet although we do see evidence a Norman ‘diaspora’,118 this was not the same kind of ‘diaspora’ as that of the Vikings.119 Conquest was, in many cases, an overt and unashamed objective. Geoffrey Malaterra cites divine favour, and eventually composes odes to the heirs and the future, but overall his tone is not one of obsequiously legitimizing. It is pride tending towards bragging. Look, he says; these men even captured the pope, and the pope gave them the land they already had, and he was grateful to them.120 The Normans were not the only conquerors in the Mediterranean (across the sweep of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries we encounter in that role, to name a few, Swabians, crusaders, local factions, the pope); nor were they always successful. These too are key threads of the story of ‘Norman’ and ‘conquest’ in the Mediterranean. It is a truism that we can, and should, learn from failures. But the truism normally means that we should learn from what happened as well as from the attempt. For historians interested in understanding the past on its own terms, there is also a great deal to learn from failures before they happened: that is, about what people wanted to happen or thought might happen, but did not.121 Thomas makes this point forcefully in considering marriages, engagements, and even broken-off engagements as ‘unions’ and ‘strategies’.122 They were real relationships, even if they did not last; and they offer a glimpse the attitudes of the Normans and the local elite who faced the prospect of forging a future with new people. Through the study of what might have happened, goals and strategies emerge more clearly, as does the potentially revisionist nature of memory. The authors of this book seek to avoid the teleological slippage of assuming that because something happened, things that happened before necessarily caused it to happen. What emerges is a past world of possibility, and what we think is a useful research point: that one way of exploring Norman opportunism is to look at unrealized opportunities — which

118 Villegas-Aristizábal, this volume; for a discussion of the Normans’ reasons for leaving Normandy, see Loud, ‘How “Norman” Was the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy?’. 119 Jesch, The Viking Diaspora; Wickham, Medieval Europe; Bennett, this volume. 120 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 14; see above on the Battle of Civitate of 1053, pp. 21. 121 Cf. McTague, Things that Didn’t Happen. 122 Thomas, this volume, pp. 67–69.

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is what most opportunities become. As Bennett shows, the Normans were good at creating them, although they were by no means the only ones who did. There is another crucial point to remember. Conquest was gritty and real. Siege warfare brought illness and the slow, relentless onslaught of starvation, which drove the desperate to sell their children into slavery.123 A Muslim man in Sicily, Geoffrey Malaterra relates, killed his sister rather than risk her sexual enslavement to the Normans.124 Hundreds of Normans, ill-trained in naval warfare, rushed to the side of a ship with the intention of fighting, but the weight of their armour capsized the ship, and none fitted out for battle survived.125 These are not meant to be representative examples. No example is representative of any one person’s experience of conquest. But we must not forget that not all lived to see what the effects of conquest were, let alone how they might think or write about these events in years to come. On any side of a given conflict, only some lived to remember, and to remember again.

Works Cited Primary Sources Amatus of Montecassino, The History of the Normans, trans. by Prescott N. Dunbar, revised with introduction and notes by Graham A. Loud (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2004) —, Ystoire de li Normant, ed. by Michèle Guéret-Laferté, CFMA 166 (Paris: Librarie Honoré Champion, 2011) Anna Komnene, The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, trans. by E. R. A. Sewter (London: Penguin, 1969) Annales Barenses, ed. by G. H. Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores V (Hanover: Hahn, 1844) Annals of Lupus Protospatarius, ed. by G. H. Pertz, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores V (Hanover: Hahn, 1844) Anonymi Barensis Chronicon, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, ed. by Lodovico Antonio Muratori, vol. 5, new edn (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1954), pp. 147–56 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis: Rogerii Calabriae et Sicliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi Ducis fratris eius, 3 vols, ed. by E. Pontieri (Bologna: N. Zanichelli, 1925–1928) John Skylitzes, Ioannis Scylitzae Synopsis historiarum, ed. by Hans Thurm (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1973) —, A Synopsis of Byzantine History, 811–1057, trans. by John Wortley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)

123 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 27. 124 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 11. 125 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 43; cf. iv. 2; see also Bennett, ‘Norman Naval Activity in the Mediterranean’.

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Loré, Vito, Monasteri, principi, aristocrazie: la Trinità di Cava nei secoli XI e XII (Spoleto: CISAM, 2008) Loud, Graham A., The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow: Longman, 2000) —, ‘Coinage, Wealth and Plunder in the Age of Robert Guiscard’, The English Historical Review, 114 (1999), 815–43 —, ‘The German Emperors and Southern Italy during the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries’, in Quei maledetti normanni. Studi offerti a Errico Cuozzo per i suoi settant’anni da colleghi, allievi, amici, ed. by Jean-Marie Martin and Rosanna Alaggio (Naples: Centro Europeo di Studi Normanni, 2016), pp. 583–605 —, ‘How “Norman” Was the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy?’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 25 (1981), 13–34 —, ‘Migration, Infiltration, Conquest and Identity: The Normans of Southern Italy, c. 1000–1130’, in Le migrazioni nell’Alto Medioevo: Spoleto, 5–11 aprile 2018, Settimane di studio della Fondazione Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo (Spoleto: CISAM, 2019), pp. 339–60 Lucas-Avenel, Marie-Agnès, ‘Les sallustianismes de Geoffroi Malaterra’, in L’historiographie médiévale normande et ses sources antiques: Actes du colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle, Scriptorial d’Avranches (8–10 octobre 2009), ed. by Pierre Bauduin and Marie-Agnès Lucas-Avenel (Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2014), pp. 277–30 Mayer, Hans, ‘The Latin East, 1098–1205’, in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 4: c. 1024–c. 1198, ed. by David Luscombe and Jonathan Riley-Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 644–74 McTague, John, Things that Didn’t Happen: Writing, Politics and the Counterhistorical, 1678–1743 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2019) Messier, Ronald A., The Almoravids and the Meanings of Jihad (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2010) Musca, Giosuè, ‘I Normanni in Inghilterra e i Normanni in Italia meridionale’, in Ruggero il Gran Conte e l’inizio dello stato normanno: relazioni e comunicazioni nelle seconde Giornate normanno-sveve (Bari, 19–21 maggio 1975), ed. by G. Musca, Centro di Studi Normanno-Svevi (Rome: Università degli Studi di Bari, 1977), pp. 113–37 Murray, Alan V., ‘How Norman was the Principality of Antioch? Prolegomena to a Study of the Origins of the Nobility of a Crusader State’, in Family Trees and the Roots of Politics: The Prosopography of Britain and France from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century, ed. by K. S. B. Keats-Rohan (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1997), pp. 349–59 Oldfield, Paul, ‘Rural Settlement and Economic Development in Southern Italy: Troia and its contado, c. 1020–c. 1230’, Journal of Medieval History, 31 (2005), 327–45 Olson, Mancur, ‘Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development’, The American Political Science Review, 87 (1993), 567–73 Pirenne, Henri, Mohammed and Charlemagne (London: Allen & Unwin, 1968) Reilly, Bernard F., The Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain, 1031–1157, History of Spain (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992) Reuter, Timothy, and Chris Wickham, ‘The “Feudal Revolution”’, Past & Present, 155 (1997), 177–208

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Reynolds, Susan, ‘Medieval origines gentium and the Community of the Realm’, History, 68 (1983), 375–90 Sartore, Melissa, ‘Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Similarities in the Norman Influence, Contact and “Conquests” of Sicily, Southern Italy and England’, Al-Masāq, 25 (2013), 184–203 Shepard, Jonathan, ‘A Suspected Source of Scylitzes’ Synopsis Historion: The Great Catacalon Cecaumenus’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 16 (1992), 171–81 —, ‘The Uses of Franks in Eleventh-Century Byzantium’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 15 (1993), 275–305 —, ‘When Greek Meets Greek: Alexius Comnenus and Bohemond in 1097–98’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 12 (1988), 185–277 Sivo, Vito, ‘Lingua e cultura nella Puglia dell’età Normanna’, in Bitonto e La Puglia tra tardoantico e regno normanno: atti del convegno (Bitonto 15–17 Ottobre 1998), ed. by Silvio Custode Fioriello (Bari: Edipuglia, 1999), pp. 265–90 Skinner, Patricia, ‘“Halt! Be Men!”: Sikelgaita of Salerno, Gender and the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy’, Gender & History, 12 (2000), 622–41 —, Medieval Amalfi and its Diaspora, 800–1250 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) Stanton, Charles D., Norman Naval Operations in the Mediterranean, Warfare in History (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2011) Stringer, Keith J., and Andrew Jotischky, eds, Norman Expansion: Connections, Continuities and Contrasts (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013) —, eds, The Normans and the ‘Norman Edge’: Peoples, Polities and Identities on the Frontiers of Medieval Europe (London: Routledge, 2019) Taviani-Carozzi, Huguette, ‘Le mythe de la conquête normande en Italie’, in Cavalieri alla conquista del Sud: studi sull’Italia normanna in memoria di Léon Robert Ménager, ed. by Errico Cuozzo and Jean-Marie Martin, Fonti e studi (Centro europeo di studi normanni) (Rome: Laterza, 1998), pp. 57–89 —, La principauté lombarde de Salerne (ixe–xie siècle): pouvoir et société en Italie lombarde méridionale, Collection de l’École française de Rome, 152 (Rome: École française de Rome, 1991) Tyerman, Christopher, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (London: Allen Lane, 2006) Webber, Nick, The Evolution of Norman Identity, 911–1154 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2005) Whittow, Mark, ‘Rural Fortifications in Western Europe and Byzantium, Tenth to Twelfth Century’, Byzantanische Forschungen, 21 (1995), 57–74 —, ‘The Second Fall: The Place of the Eleventh Century in Roman History’, in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century: Being in Between, ed. by Marc Lauxtermann and Mark Whittow (London: Routledge, 2017), pp. 109–26 Wickham, Chris, Medieval Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016) Winkler, Emily A., Liam Fitzgerald, and Andrew Small, eds, Designing Norman Sicily: Material Culture and Society (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2020) Wolf, Kenneth Baxter, Making History: The Normans and Their Historians in EleventhCentury Italy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995)

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Yarnley, C. J., ‘Philaretos: Armenian Bandit or Byzantine General’, Révue des Études armeniennes, 9 (1972), 331–53

Part I

Motivations and Strategies

Matthew Bennett

1. Norman Conquests: Nature, Nurture, Normanitas

The Normans’ renown for military conquest has long been celebrated, not least because their own chroniclers so assiduously cultivated it. The creation of Norman states around the Mediterranean in the period c. 1050 – c. 1110 was both dramatic and unexpected. Were they the results of Norman military effectiveness? How important was a sense of ethnic solidarity in achieving these successes? How much came down to the impact of leadership and charismatic personalities? How much to a fortuitous exploitation events? Or was, perhaps, the habit of conquest something that could be learned and then applied to a variety of different circumstances and with different military tools to hand? Were the Normans so very different from other French aristocrats and their communities who were seeking new territories and better opportunities far from their birthplaces? This is especially relevant in regard to the First Crusade; a much broader movement of conquest and settlement. The historian needs to tread a careful path between myth and reality in analysing the significance of military events in the formation of medieval polities with — at least initially — a strong Norman imprint. How long did such a sense of identity last? Indeed, is it still useful to think about Normanitas in the context of the military conquests associated with that ideal?

Mentalité Proceres Anglie, clarissimi Normannigene, meminisse enim uestri uos nominis et generis preliaturos decet: perpendite, qui et contra quos et ubi bellum geratis. Vobis enim nemo impune restitit. Audax Francia uos experta delicuit. Ferax Anglia uobis capta succubuit. Diues Apulia uos sortita refloruit. Great nobles of England, sons of Normandy, when you are about to join battle you should remember your name and your lineage, and consider who you Dr Matthew Bennett  •  specializes in medieval warfare: chivalry, hostageship, the crusades and the Norman conquests, having published three books, three edited volumes and some thirty academic articles and chapters. He also edits the Warfare in History series for Boydell & Brewer (since 1995). The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. by Emily A. Winkler and Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small, MISCS 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 43–65 © FHG10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.121956

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are, where you are and against whom you wage war. For no one resists you with impunity. Brave France tried but gave up; fierce England lay conquered before you; rich Apulia flourished anew under your rule, renowned Jerusalem and noble Antioch both submitted to you.1 Cur enim de victoria desperemus, cum victoria generi nostro quasi in feudum data sit ab Altissimo? Nonne proavi nostri maximam Galliae portionem cum paucis invasere militibus, et ab ea cum gente etiam ipsum Galliae nomen eraserunt. Quotiens ab eis Francorum est fusus exercitus; quotiens a Cenomanensibus, Andegavensibus, Aquitanensibus? […] Quis Apuliam Siciliam, Calabriam, nisi vester Normannus edomuit? Why should we despair of victory when victory has been given to our race by the Most High as if it were in fee? For did not our ancestors invade the greater part of Gaul with a small force and erase the very name from the country and the people? How often has an army of Franks melted before them? How often have a few of them won victory from hordes of Manceaux, Angevins or Aquitanians? […] Who conquered Apulia, Sicily, Calabria but your Norman?2 An important starting point for considering the role of the Normans in the Mediterranean conquests is whether they had a particular aptitude for conquest. In part, this seems to be answered by their evident achievements in territorial gain — stretching from the British Isles to Syria in the Levant. Yet, for an English-speaking audience in particular, it is too easy to prioritize them above other groups from Western Europe. For France and Germany did not exist, except as the inheritors of the traditions of the western and eastern branches of the old Carolingian Empire. Within the territories of these former states lay a great many polities of a ducal and comital scale, each with their vassalic mouvances, and often in conflict with one another. Even the ‘Norman Conquest’ of England itself was achieved by more than just Duke William’s vassals; in fact, Bretons, Boulognois, Lotharingians, Flemings, and others, even from Italy, were part of his heterogeneous host. The great armed pilgrimage which began in 1096 cast its net even wider, especially in southern France and Italy (again) leading to the creation of states in what became the Latin East, from numerous distinct dynasties. For reasons both contingent and dynastic, the rulers of the Crusader States were variously derived from Lorraine, Boulogne, Anjou, Poitou, and Champagne; but never Normandy (although there is a tradition that Robert Curthose was offered the throne of Jerusalem and turned it down).3 The idea of Normans as being freebooters in the style of their Viking ancestors is also exaggerated. Indeed, an important reason for the presence of Norman adventurers in southern



1 Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. by Greenway, x. 8, pp. 714–15, on the Battle of the Standard, 1138. 2 Ailred of Rievaulx, ‘Relatio de Standardo’ ed. by Richard Howlett, iii, 185–86, also on the Battle of the Standard. 3 The tradition, predictably Anglo-Norman, appears in William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum, ed. by Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom, i, 389.

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Italy in the period prior to 1066 was that Duke William’s stern and reforming rule led to them being exiled after causing trouble in his duchy and was connected to his penchant for the Peace and Truce of God movement expressed through Church councils and his secular law-making. There used to be consensus for Norman exceptionalism, as in R. Allen Brown: The positive reasons for that triumph must lie in Normandy, and in the hearts and minds of that ebullient society spurred on by the élan of a conscious élite … By the end of the eleventh century there was kind of Norman commonwealth of states and settlements […] stretching from the marches of Wales to Antioch; and the Normans were coming to regard themselves as a Chosen People holding victory as a fief from God. The sum of all this, and the secret, is ‘Normanitas’, the spirit and the ethos of the Normans, which is the ultimate explanation of their deeds.4 He derived this term from R. H. C. Davis, whose elegant little essay ‘The Normans and their Myth’ (1976) set a hare running that we are still trying to catch today. Already, in 1981, Graham Loud, who has become the greatest English historian of Norman Italy, was critical of what he considered to be an oversimplified view.5 Perhaps it is inevitable that the chroniclers of a particular group’s success will celebrate the victors in enthusiastic terms; indeed that was a convention amongst the writers of history in that era. This does not make their observations of events necessarily unreliable, even if they also conform to a triumphalist narrative. Perhaps the question should be: did the perpetrators of the conquests believe themselves to be fulfilling a divinely ordained mission? It would not seem an inappropriate conclusion that they did, both as a form of self-justification and as part of a conventional expectation that their truth would triumph in a biblical sense. If God gave victory then those who were victorious were surely beloved of God for their martial virtues.

Recent Historiography The debate about the nature of the Norman expansion is still thriving in the first decades of the twenty-first century. Indeed, a volume of collected essays with that name was published by two scholars from the University of Lancaster: Keith Stringer and Andrew Jotischky.6 The pair then went on to run a project called ‘The Norman Edge’ investigating the borders of Norman territories and how they were created (the findings of which were not yet published at the time of writing). Also, there is strong strand of investigation of the Norman world based at the University of Caen, in Normandy itself. In 2011, just a couple of years before Norman Expansion was published, the celebrated study centre at Cérisy-la-Forêt (near Avranches in the south-west of the former duchy) ran a conference considering the nature of ‘Norman

4 Brown, The Normans and Norman Conquest, pp. xvi–xvii. 5 Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy?’, pp. 13–34. 6 See: Stringer and Jotischky, Norman Expansion.

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Worlds’.7 The products of this wide-ranging assessment were later published under the direction of the most distinguished ‘Normanists’ of the era: David Bates and Pierre Bauduin (although not until 2016). At this point, it might be helpful bring to attention to the conclusions of several of the papers in the latter publication, which relate to themes to be drawn out in this chapter. First, Ewan Johnson and Andrew Jotischky provide an examination of the relations between the Normans of southern Italy and Sicily with the newly established Crusader States. They raise the topic of normannitas (French spelling) citing its use in Ralph of Caen’s Gesta Tancredi, whilst also pointing out that the author chooses the neologism ‘Guiscardian’ to describe his heroes Bohemond and Tancred as belonging to an identifiably southern (méridionale) clan, although it had its roots in Normandy a generation earlier. Also the work of Thomas Asbridge on the ‘Norman’ Principality of Antioch demonstrates that in the first two decades of the twelfth century the largest fiefs were held by Norman families from southern Italy, such as Guy Fresnel, who held Harim in 1111.8 Indeed, according to another contributor to that volume, Rosa Canosa, the diaspora created a range of groups who were ‘Normans in a different way’.9 In an interesting chapter on leadership, a topic which I consider below, Luigi Russo, considers that the Norman conquests in the South ‘were the result of uncoordinated initiatives’; but that both Guiscard and Bohemond used their influence to ‘raise a large number of adherents’ to support their military endeavours.10 This might be called: ‘the power of their name’, in terms of their projected authority. Russo is even prepared to view this impact as the ‘progressive — and sometimes irrepressible — expansion of the knights from the north’.11 In their conclusion, the editors debate the rareness of the use of the name ‘Norman’ in the historiographical sources of twelfth century Norman Italy, and even then usually qualified, with such terms as ‘transalpines’ being preferred.12 Meanwhile, Rosa Canosa points to distinctions between Normans and the native Lombards at law, as an important ethnic marker, and Hugh Thomas draws upon the idea of an ‘imagined community’ to demonstrate how such divisions were viewed at the time.13 According to Nick Webber this should be considered an ‘ethnie’, rather than a national identity.14

7 Bates and Bauduin, ed., Penser les mondes normands médiévaux. 8 Jotischky and Johnson, ‘Les normands de l’Italie méridionale’, pp. 175, 171; see also Asbridge, The Creation of the Principality. 9 Canosa, ‘Discours ethniques et pratiques du pouvoir des Normands d’Italie’. 10 Russo, ‘L’expansion normande contre Byzance (xie-xiie siècles)’, esp. pp. 160–62. 11 Russo in Bates and Bauduin, Penser les mondes normands médiévaux, ‘Résumés françaises et anglais’, p. 557. 12 Bates and Bauduin, Penser les mondes normands médiévaux, ‘Pour conclure: singularité et diversité des mondes normands’, p. 511. 13 On stereotyping, see Canosa, ‘Discours ethniques et pratiques du pouvoir des Normands d’Italie’, pp. 353–54; Thomas, ‘La Normandie, l’Anjou et l’Angleterre’, pp. 357–70. 14 Webber, The Evolution of Norman Identity: ‘(ethnie) a community bound together by belief in common descent and actual common interests’, p. 4.

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Dynastic Ambition When seeking to identify an ideology of conquest it is important to understand the ethos of the immigrant Norman families and especially the Hautevilles. A family of no importance back home in the duchy they rose to dominate southern Italy and Sicily for a century (c. 1050 – c. 1150) establishing a royal dynasty in the process. In part this was due to the good fortune of the fertility of Tancred and his two wives, who between them produced a dozen children. Half of the sons provided expeditionary leadership, with Robert Guiscard and Roger ‘Great Count’ leading the way. The daughter, Fressenda, played an equally important role through her marriage to Richard fitz Asclettin, by 1050 count of Aversa and later Prince of Capua (1058), in the west of the peninsula. Robert created a new principality comprising Apulia, Calabria, and Salerno (consolidated by his marriage to Sichelgaita, daughter of Guaimar, the Lombard ruler) in the east; while Roger took charge of Sicily following its conquest in the three decades after 1060. This combination of military activity and marriage alliances served to legitimize the Norman takeover in the context of the political structure of the region. Their relationship with the papacy provided the support of a higher authority; initially an enemy, after the victory over Leo IX at Civitate in 1053, Guiscard was able to dictate to Rome leading to his recognition by Alexander II as Duke of Apulia in 1059. The receipt of a papal banner demonstrated just how important he had become at an international level, for only a few years later his father’s old overlord, Duke William II of Normandy, sought exactly the same status symbol to legitimize his invasion of England, in support of his claim to the throne there. Guiscard’s own ambitions swelled to such a degree that he attempted to conquer the Byzantine Empire, from 1081 until his death in 1085; as later did his son Bohemond (in the half-decade prior to his death in 1111) who married Constance, a daughter of King Philip II of France, thereby establishing his own credentials as worthy of royal status. In the following generation, Bohemond’s nephew, Roger II, actually did achieve that elevation (reigned 1130–1154). This was an incredible rise in just a century, due as much to alliance-building and the shrewd acquisition of legitimizing relationships as to force majeure.

Main Sources The sources which will play the largest part in this chapter may be considered as ‘first generation’ responses to the Norman conquests. The longest and most detailed is the Latin chronicle by Geoffrey Malaterra, The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of his Brother Duke Robert Guiscard.15 The reason that the younger

15 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Pontieri; trans. in text is from the online version by Graham Loud: . Book and chapter numbers are consistent in Pontieri and in the translations by Loud (online) and Wolf (print). Hereafter Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis.

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brother has precedence in the title is because it was he who commissioned the work, written in the 1090s and also explains the focus on Sicily. The Deeds of Robert Guiscard (although it covers more than that topic), a poem in Latin hexameters, was composed by William of Apulia, probably a courtier of Guiscard’s son, Roger ‘Borsa’ and was composed between 1096 and 1099.16 The first record was made by a monk of Montecassino named Amatus and covers the period from the arrival of the Normans up to 1078. Originally composed in Latin, The History of the Normans by Amatus of Montecassino, no longer survives in that language, but rather as an early fourteenth-century translation into the French of that era. It also bears the marks of abbreviation and interpretation (not always very accurately done).17 So, ironically, the earliest source is also the latest and furthest from the times which the author describes. As a result, most modern historians are inclined to give the text more credence than it is on many occasions worthy of, in my opinion. The fourth main source is the Alexiad of Anna Komnene, daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, the main opponent of Guiscard and his son Bohemond in their attempts to win lands and titles in his territories (1081–1111).18 The structure of this chapter will be thematic rather than chronological since its topic is the creation of myth as much as historical analysis of the Norman conquests in the Mediterranean region. Most of the material to be considered is derived from the three main ‘Latin’ sources (in the sense of their religious affiliation to the Roman pope), with the Greek work acting as a kind of ‘control’ for the ‘Norman’ sources. What is interesting, however, is how much the Alexiad ‘buys into’ the Norman Myth in such a way as to help propagate it to a modern audience.

Poverty The topos of knightly poverty is used to legitimate Norman ambition. Robert Guiscard’s first possessions in Calabria lay around the castle of Scribla, an unhealthy spot, so he shifted to the nearby castrum of St Marco, which he captured and fortified, but: quid victus introduceret non inveniret — abstraxerant enim circummanentes ad proxima castra quaeque habebant, ne ab ipsis diriperentur — quodam vespere dapifer, qui omni domui suae praeerat, requisivit ab ipso quid in crastinum comesturi erant ipse et milites sui: dicens se neque victum, sed neque victi

16 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti Wiscardi, ed. by Mathieu, with Latin and French translation on facing pages. Online version: . Hereafter William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti. 17 Amatus of Montecassino, Ystoire de li Normant, ed. by Guéret-Laferté; Amatus of Montecassino, The History of the Normans, trans. by Dunbar, revised by Loud. Trans. in text: online version: . Hereafter Amatus, Ystoire. 18 Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, trans. Sewter (Penguin Classics, 1969). As the present author does not read Greek, all quotations from this edition and not the original Greek. Hereafter Anna Komnene, The Alexiad.

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pretium ad emendum habere; et si pretium haberet, nusquam, ubi cum pace adiri posset, invenire posse. he was unable to obtain supplies for it, for those who dwelt nearby had taken their property to the nearest castra, to prevent it being taken by his men. One evening the steward who oversaw the affairs of the household asked [Robert] what he and his knights were going to eat the next day; saying that he had neither food nor the money to buy food and, even if he had the money, he knew of no place where he could go in safety.19 He turned to his Slavic mercenaries for advice on where to obtain plunder and led a night raid dressed in the poorest clothes so as to be undiscovered in case he was taken prisoner. The night-raid was successfully concluded, but the Calabrians set out in pursuit. His own men could not find him and feared him captured until he revealed himself, shouting ‘Guiscard’ as his war-cry. ‘Sicque, triumphalibus spoliis captis, de peditibus suis equites fecit […] Sic castrum praeda et redemptione captivorum ditans, Calabros crebris incursionibus plurimum lacessivit.’ (With the booty so triumphantly won, he made his foot-soldiers knights [equites] […] Thus the castrum was enriched both with the booty and with the prisoners’ ransoms, and he launched frequent and very damaging raids against the Calabrians.)20 This robber baron behaviour was justified as such noble people should not be poor, a topos also to be found in the chansons de geste, such as the Charroi de Nimes of a couple of generations later.21 The status accrued by such outright robbery is further emphasized by the arrival of his brother: Rogerius cum sexaginta militibus fidis sibi servitum vadit, ubi quidem plurimum penuriarum passus est, sed latrocinio armigerorum suorum in multis sustentabatur […] Habebat siquidem armigerum quendam, Blettinam nomine, coram quo nil tuebatur, ad quod furandum intendebat. Hic ipse penuriosus adhuc iuvenis, postmodum ditissimus futurus comes, cum esset cupiens quosdam equos, quos apud Melfam in cuiusdam domo viderat, ad hoc persuasit, ut, secum vadens, nocturno furto exstractos, abduceret. Roger went to serve him with sixty knights faithful to himself; as a result he was reduced to such penury that he was largely sustained by the robberies committed by his squires […] Indeed, he had a certain squire [armiger] called Blettin, in whose presence nothing was concealed, whom he told what to steal. During his poverty-stricken youth, the man who was later to be such a wealthy count [Roger] coveted some horses which he had seen in someone’s house in Amalfi. He persuaded Blettin to come with him and steal them away at night.22

19 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 16 (1054). 20 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 16. 21 See Le Charroi de Nimes, ed. by de Poerck, van Deyck, and Zwaenepoel, ll. 636–57. 22 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 25 (1056–1057).

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The other famous occasion where the Normans’ poverty made them dangerous and ultimately conquerors, was in the lead-up to the crucial battle of Civitate in the summer of 1053. This took place in mid-June, preceding the harvest. William of Apulia speaks of how the Franks [Francigeni] were forced to roast green grain, while the cities around supported the Imperial-Papal army: ‘Triduo quia panis egentes / Anna petunt, cuncti magis ut moriantur honeste / Bellando cupiunt, quam corpora tanta virorum / Opprimat esuries inhonestae funere mortis.’ (Deprived of bread for three days before they took up arms, they were all resolute that they would die fighting gloriously sooner than leave so many men to die ignobly of starvation.)23 The concept of poverty was both an imagined state, and — at times — a bitter reality. It could be used to justify conquest, and those successes encouraged other adventurers to seize the opportunities offered in the South. Greed and Plunder Est quippe gens astutissima, iniuriarum 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 iugo iustitiae prematur, effrenatissima est. Laboris, inediae et algoris, ubi fortuna expetit, patiens; venationi et accipitrum exercitio inserviens; equorum caeterorumque militiae instrumentorum et vestium luxuria delectatur. For 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 the cultivation of eloquence. To such an extent that one listens even to their young boys as though they were trained speakers. Unless they are held in thrall by the yoke of justice, they are the 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.24

23 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ii. 115–21 and 138–41. 24 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 3 (912).

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So writes Malaterra in his background to the Norman invasion of the South. He goes on to celebrate the family of Tancred d’Hauteville, the father of so many of the conquerors who: Dei adiutorio et sua strenuitate, gradatim altioris honoris culmen scandentium. with the help of God and their own dynamism (strenuitas), raised themselves step-by-step to the highest of ranks.25 coeperunt militaribus disciplinis adhaerere, equorum et armorum studia frequentare, discentes seipsos tueri et hostem impugnare. They began to imbibe military skills, to practise the use of horses and weapons, learning how to guard themselves and strike down their enemies.26 Filiis denique Tancredi naturaliter hic mos insitus erat: ut semper dominationis avidi, prout illis vires suppetebant, neminem terras vel possessiones habentes ex proximo sibi absque aemulatione habere paterentur, quin vel ab ipsis confestim subiecti deservirentur, vel certe ipsi omnia in sua virtute potirentur. For the natural and customary inclination of the sons of Tancred was always to be greedy for rule, to the very utmost of their powers. They were unable to put up with anybody holding lands or possessions without being envious and immediately seizing these by force and rendering them subject their authority.27 Geoffrey seems to accept that Norman greed and desire for plunder is the very essence of Normanitas. Nor is he alone in this opinion. According to William of Apulia, at the time of their first arrival, the mercenary Normans preferred to attach themselves to the most powerful Lombard lords, who paid the best rates and provided the best quarters. Only that kind of deal won their loyalty.28 Amatus, following a victory over the Greeks in 1041, celebrates the plunder seized: Li vaillant et puissant Normant de diverses richeses sont fait riches: des vestimens de diverses colourz, de aornemens, de paveillons, de vaisselle d’or et d’argent, de chevaux et d’armes preciouses. Et especialement lurent fait ricche, quar l’usance de li Grex et, quant il vont en bataille, de porter toute masserie, necessaire avec eux. The valiant and strong Normans became very wealthy by acquiring clothing of various colours, ornaments, tents, vessels of gold and silver, horses and valuable arms, for it was the custom of the Greeks to carry all their impedimenta with them when they went into battle.29

25 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 3 (1038–1039). 26 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 4 (1038–1039). 27 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 38 (1066–1068). 28 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, i. 118–25. 29 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 24.

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He also records the 20,000 dinar tribute offered by the emir of Palermo to Duke Robert, in 1063, along with: ‘paille copertez à ovre d’Espaigne, dras de lin, vaisseaux d’or et d’argent, et mulle adornez de frein royal, et selles appareilliez de or’ (silks covered with Spanish work, linen cloths, silver and gold vessels, mules wearing royal bridles and saddles decorated with gold).30 Although, in Christian territories, Duke Robert was prepared to pay reparations to the population, for the damage done by pillaging.31 Norman lords also had obligations to their knightly followers: ‘Et promist lo Prince à li chevalier que, se lor chevauz moroient, de rendre meillor’ (The prince [Richard of Capua] promised the knights that if their horses were killed he would give them better ones); this system known as restor in later sources.32 There was also the need to pay mercenaries as garrison troops (stipendarii) at Petralia, in 1061.33 War was a business; Malaterra noting that the Norman soldiery were always keen to turn a profit.34 This came as no surprise to Anna Komnene, who cites her father’s distrust of the First Crusaders, fearing: ‘their greed for money, for example, which always led them, it seemed, to break their agreements without scruple for any chance reason’.35 The Old French word gagne (gain, plunder) epitomizes the drive of warriors both to assert themselves and to see the rewards for their bravery; a strong component of Normanitas.

Despising Enemies and the ‘Other’ There were two forms of regulating authority in the Italian Peninsula in the eleventh century. First, the German Emperor, who could usually only influence events when present with an army, and second the papacy, which also depended to a great extent on imperial support. When the Normans arrived, Italy was split into two zones of Lombard rulers: the northern and the southern. Their sources have no hesitation in describing them as tyrants — in other words rulers without legitimacy. This enabled the incomers to represent themselves as a more suitable and responsible people to establish lordships after the manner of northern France — that is, castellanies. Our sources create a stereotype of Lombards as unworthy of the territories which they held. Geoffrey Malaterra opens his work with just such an assertion: Longobardorum vero gens invidissima, et semper quemcumque probum suspectum habens, ipsos apud eundem principem, inimico dente rodente, occulto detrahebant […] ut gens tantae astutiae tantaeque strenuitatis, addentes etiam

30 Amatus, Ystoire, v. 24. 31 Amatus, Ystoire, vii. 18. 32 Amatus, Ystoire, viii. 25. 33 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 20 (1061–1062). 34 ‘in tali gente assolet aviditate ea’, Geoffrey Malaterra, iii. 11 (1075); compare Loud: ‘the greed ingrained in their people’. 35 Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, x. 5.

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ex sui cordis malitia tantae perfidiae, ut, principe exhaeredato, ipsi, sua calliditate, haereditate principis potirentur. The race of the Lombards is indeed a most untrustworthy one; always treating any honest man with suspicion. They secretly criticized those [Normans] in the prince’s entourage […] suggesting that a people who combined such astuteness and valour (strenuitas) might by their cunning drive the prince [of Salerno] out and seize his hereditary property.36 Similarly, in 1058, at a time when Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger were in dispute: Calabrenses denique, genus semper perfidissimum, cum viderent, fratribus inter se dissidentibus, sese a nemine visitari, coeperunt iugum Normannorum a se excutere et servitium, quod iuraverant, vel tributum minime persolvere. The Calabrians are always a most untrustworthy people. When they saw that brothers were at loggerheads with each other and neither of them therefore would visit their land, they began to throw off the Norman yoke, and refused to pay the tribute and service which they had sworn to give.37 Towards the end of his work, Amatus provides a series of anecdotes along similar lines about the wickedness of those who are not Normans.38 The final lines are condemnatory of a particular count, Berard of Marsia, a tyrant who deceived his brother, a bishop, eventually seizing his castello, burning it with 240 men inside, and then, whilst granting safe conduct to two survivors, having their heads cut off. ‘Et pource que cest homme non gardoit foi a Li parent siens, né ne timoit Dieu, fu donné la victoire à li Normant.’ (And because this man neither kept faith with his relatives nor feared God, victory was given to the Normans.)39 This then is his moral justification for the entire Norman conquests. However, it was enabled by the cowardliness and military incompetence of the Lombards, epitomized by their inability to keep order at the Battle of Civitate, in 1053.40 Greeks are similarly castigated: ‘Graeci vero, semper genus perfidissimum’ (The Greeks are indeed the most treacherous of people) says Malaterra, describing an episode in Sicily when they attacked the helpless families of the Norman mercenaries.41 Amatus cites their betrayal of Roussel de Bailleul to the Turks in Asia Minor (c. 1073) and compares it to their trickery at Troy: ‘Li Grex ont plus sovent vainchut par malice et par traison que par vaillantize.’ (The Greeks have more frequently conquered through malice and treason than through valour.)42 Indeed according to William

36 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 6 (1040). 37 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 28 (1058–1059). 38 Amatus, Ystoire, vii. 39 Amatus, Ystoire, vii. 40 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ii. 193–95. 41 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 29 (1062). 42 Amatus, Ystoire, i.

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of Apulia, they prefer retreat to brave resistance43 and are: ‘Femineis […] genus ignavum sit, quod comes ebrietatis / Crapula dissolvat’ (effeminate […] a people indolent, dissolute and lost in debauchery).44 He also rages against the Greek general who refused to give his Norman mercenaries the booty due to them in Sicily, instead passing it on to his own cowardly troops.45 All this invective is intended, of course, to prove how much more noble and deserving are the Normans in contrast to their enemies. Interestingly, Anna, who accuses the Latins of arrogance (although her own countrymen were hardly innocent of hubris themselves) cites the example of a knight attending Count Baldwin of Boulogne when the crusaders arrived in Constantinople. Whilst in audience with the Emperor Alexios, he seated himself on the throne. Reproved by his own lord, the man went on to tell Alexios on leaving that: ‘I am a pure Frank […] and of noble birth. One thing I know: at a cross-roads in the country where I was born there is an ancient shrine; to this anyone who wishes to engage in single-combat goes prepared to fight […] but there was never one who dared [oppose me]’.46 Anna readily concedes that the Franks were ‘indomitable’ in the charge, although often lacking subtlety in warfare.47 In a very real sense they liked living up to their own stereotype — which was actually a useful psychological weapon when confronting their enemies in battle.

The Normans at War Anna’s assessment of the military qualities of the Franks is of crucial importance in the reception of their standing today. We have seen that those who considered themselves Normans celebrated their strenuitas, a form of violent energy which made them irresistible in battle. It was their mounted charge which particularly terrified their opponents. How they mocked the Germans fighting in support of Pope Leo at the Battle of Civitate: Guarnerus Teutonicorum Albertusque duces non adduxere Suevos Plus septingentos. Haec gens animosa feroces Fert animos, sed equos adeo non ducere cauta. Ictibus illorum, quam lancea, plus valet ensis Nam nec equus docte manibus giratur eorum, Nec validos ictus dat lancea, praeminet ensis. Sunt etenim longi specialiter et peracuti

William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, i. 76–78. William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, i. 225–27. William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, i. 206–12. Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, x. 10. This kind of disrespectful behaviour towards the haughty Greeks becomes a topos in popular literary works such as the chansons de geste. See Bennett, ‘Poetry as History?’, 21–39, esp. 24. 47 Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, xi. 6. 43 44 45 46

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Illorum gladii; percussum a vertice corpus Scindere saepe solent, et firmo stant pede, postquam Deponuntur equis. Potius certando perire, Quam dare terga volunt. magis hoc sunt marte timendi, Quam dum sunt equites: tanta est audacia gentis. Garnier and Albert led no more than 700 Swabians, brave men, high-spirited, but incapable of managing their horses. They fight better with sword than with the lance, because they do not know how to handle their horses properly nor can they deliver powerful blows with the lance. Their swords are especially long and sharp; they can cut a man in half from the head down. Dismounted, they stand firmly on their own two feet and prefer to die sword in hand than turn in flight. They fight much better on foot than horseback, whilst being the bravest of men. In this regard, they fought exactly like the dismounted Anglo-Danish huscarls against William the Conquerors knights at Hastings in 1066.48 The Normans celebrated their own expertise with the lance at every opportunity. Fighting at Cerami in Sicily (1063), Roussel de Bailleul is described by Geoffrey Malaterra delivering the classic lance attack. He faces a Muslim champion: Arcadium de Palerna, suam aciem, nostris exprobando, promptissime antecedentem, et splendenti clamucio, quo pro lorica utebatur, armatum, certamine inito, fortissimo congressu hastili robore deiectum, caeteris metum incutiens, interfecit. Erat enim inter suos militia praeclarissimus, cui etiam in armis neminem resistere posse putabant; et clamucium, quo indutus erat, nullis armis poterat violari, nisi ab imo in superius impingendo inter duo ferrea, quae per iuncturas cum catenata sunt, ingenio potius quam viribus inviceretur. Arcadius of Palermo, who, fully-armed and clad in magnificent mailed hauberk, was riding gallantly in front of his troops to challenge our men. The count charged furiously down upon him, overthrew him with his lance and killed him, thereby terrifying the rest of his men. Amongst his own men Arcadius’ military prowess was quite outstanding and they believed that nobody could resist him in battle nor that any weapon could penetrate the hauberk in which he was clad, unless perhaps a sneaky thrust could slide between two iron plates which were linked together over the joints — thus overcoming him by cunning rather than strength.49

48 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ii. 151–63; cf. Wace, Roman de Rou, ed. by Holden: ‘Engleis ne saveient joster / ne cheval a armes porter, / haches e gisarmes porter, / od tels armes se combateient’, p. 282, ll. 8603–06. 49 Geoffrery Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 33 (1063). The name Arcadius is imaginary but its construction matches the names of enemies found in the chansons de geste where Ar-, Mal-, or Mar-, meant a Saracen. Wolf, in his translation of De rebus gestis, p. 110 and i, 7, p. 56 n. 21, believes that it derives from Arabic kaid, a military commander or governor.

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This epic blow is of the same kind as is frequently celebrated in the Chanson de Roland and other chansons de geste, where it is described as pleine sa hanste, meaning to skewer an opponent and throw him off his horse a lance’s length behind the tail.50 It is also portrayed in the tympanum of the west front of many churches in Norman Italy and back in France. Amatus records a similar feat delivered en masse by the Normans against the Greeks and their allies near Monte Serico (Apulia) in 1041.51 Anna Komnene’s assessment of the knightly charge has become legendary: ‘A mounted Frank is irresistible; he would bore his way through the walls of Babylon.’52 Her further insights into the tactics of the Normans (and other westerners) were due to her husband, Nikephoros Bryennios, a noted general (and probable contributor to her work): ‘The truth is that the Franks, among other characteristics, combine an independent spirit and rashness, not to mention an absolute refusal to cultivate a disciplined art of war; when fighting is imminent, inspired by passion they are irresistible […] charging into the midst of the enemy’s line with overwhelming abandon.’53 However, other comments in the Alexiad, show that the Byzantines, and especially her own father, understood how to beat them in battle: and that was to deprive them of their impetus, and — better yet — their horses. Her Babylon quote concludes: ‘but when he dismounts he becomes anyone’s plaything’, while the second continues: ‘provided that the opposition everywhere gives ground; but if their foes chance to lay ambushes with soldier-like skill and if they meet them in a systematic manner, all their boldness vanishes.’54 Anna goes on to explain how Alexios, when fighting Bohemond in 1084, devised plans to disrupt the Norman mounted charge with spear-bearing carts and to disable their horses with caltrops. However, his wily opponent merely redeployed his cavalry to avoid these obstacles, and, in so doing, rather gave the lie to the stereotype of Frankish impetuosity.55 For, although the Normans did indeed terrify their enemies with their lance attacks, individual commanders were capable of great subtlety in warfare; Bohemond first amongst them. There were also examples of using feigned flight to draw out an enemy and then turn on him, such as Count Roger did at Messina in 1060.56 Nor was warfare just about battles, of course; the larger part of it revolved around sieges and the devastation of the surrounding countryside to prevent town and fortresses from being resupplied. This required the kind of stickability that

50 Ross, ‘Pleine sa hanste’, pp. 1–10; Bennett, ‘First Crusaders’ Images of Muslims’, pp. 101–22, esp. 114, for the phrase’s use in both Latin and Old French. 51 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 26, trans. p. 74, where ‘drechoient la hanste contre li Grezois’ is translated as ‘threw their lances against the Greeks’. However, if the verb drechoier becomes the modern French ‘dresser’ then it should be understood as: ‘the Normans levelled their lances against the Greeks’ in order to overthrow them. 52 Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, xiii. 8. 53 Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, xi. 6. 54 Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, xiii. 8. 55 Anna Komnene, The Alexiad, v. 4. 56 Geofrrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 1 (1060–1061).

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calls into question the rash and impetuous stereotype beloved of the Byzantines. Most sieges were in the form of a blockade, and, in the case of the larger Italian cities, could take years to achieve. Such operations required close attention to logistics and all the skills of siege warfare, including mining and the building of stone-throwing weapons and siege towers. The first technique was always the construction of siege castles, though, designed to prevent supplies from getting in and sorties from getting out of a besieged place. For example, Geoffrey Malaterra describes Guiscard’s relentless pursuit of his rebellious nephew Abelard following the capture of Salerno in 1076: inde, quietis impatiens, nulloque labore, ubi aliqua spes cuiuslibet lucri designabatur, deficiens, apud Sanctam Severinam, ubi fratrem se praevenire invitaverat, nepotem Abagelardum obsessum vadit. Fratremque, quem ad hoc invitaverat, ab uno latere urbem obsedisse inveniens, ab altero latere ipse consedit. Abagelardus autem, diatim urbe digrediens, nostros ad certamen provocando, dum alternatim fortiter saepeque congreditur, multa militiae congruentia perpetrata sunt. Porro dux, videns se minus in urbem proficere, consilio cum suis habito, tria castella firmavit: unum Hugoni Falloc, alterum Rainaldo de Simula ad urbem infestandam delegavit, tertium autem Herberto, fratri Hugonis, et Custinobardo, fratri dicti Rainaldi. Unable to bear inactivity, Guiscard neglected no task when there was hope of some advantage, and he went to besiege his nephew at Santa Severina, where he had sent his brother (Roger) on before him. Finding that his brother had on his instructions besieged the city from one side, he established himself on the other. Abelard made daily sorties from the city, challenging our men to battle and, with fierce and frequent fighting between each side many warlike exploits took place. Seeing that he was not accomplishing much against the city, the duke discussed the matter with his men and established three [siege] castles [castella]: he entrusted one to Hugh Falloc, another to Rainald de Simula and the third to Herbert, Hugh’s brother, and to Custinobardus, brother of Rainald.57 It is interesting that Geoffrey provides vassals’ names at this point as it gives a rare insight into the nature of the Norman military community. The coastal position of many of the places that the Normans wished to take meant that the operations required a naval blockade. Now, contrary to expectations perhaps, given the Normans’ Viking ancestry, an understanding of sea warfare did not come naturally to them, but needed to be learned. Fleets had to be created and manned from among the maritime communities of southern Italy, who were, for the most part, Greek. The siege of Bari, lasting from September 1068 to mid-April 1071, epitomized the huge resources and determination which Guiscard was prepared to put into such an adventure. His fleet was twice defeated by Greek relief forces, his

57 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, iii. 5 (1073–1074).

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siege machines were destroyed and he only just escaped assassination at one point; but all the effort was worth it: Gens Normannorum navalis nescia belli Hactenus, ut victrix rediit, spem principis auget. Sentit enim Danaos non tantum civibus urbis Praesidii ratibus vexisse, quod obsidionem Impediat; multum simul et novitate triumphi Aequorei gaudet, securius unde subire Iam cum Normannis navalia proelia sperat. The Normans, previously ignorant of naval warfare acquired confidence in their prince when he returned triumphant. He saw that the Greek fleet had been unable to bring to the inhabitants of the city in order to raise the siege. He rejoiced mightily at the same time in the novelty of this victory at sea.58 The fleet that he had constructed, together with ships captured, combined in the next year with his brother Roger’s navy to attack and take Palermo, the Muslim capital of Sicily. The operations included the defeat in a sea battle of a relief force sent from Africa. The Norman ships then broke the chain across the harbour, rendering the conquest of the city much more certain. The possession of fleets enabled the Normans greatly to extend their strategic reach and to consolidate their hold upon their conquests.

Ethos and Ideology As we have seen, the ethos of military virtue — strenuitas — is central to understanding Normanitas. Crucial to success in war is leadership and the sources comment extensively on the characteristics of those who led the conquests. Count Roger of Sicily is described by Malaterra: ‘leoninam in omni ferocitatem, quam tamen prudentia regebat et fortuna favens comitabatur.’ (He was as fierce as a lion in battle, but was also ruled by prudence and was [thus] granted fortune’s favour).59 This phrase exactly matches the Old French ‘preux et sage’ to be found in the Chanson de Roland and other epics representing the model Christian hero: Neque enim, aliqua delectatione se retrahente, hostibus absens fieri patiebatur: quippe quem egestas, labor, minae hostis, imminens iugis decertatio, vigiliae, vel aura asperior ab incoepto non deterrebant. Sed potius, quanto asperitatibus quatiebatur, eo ardentiori constantia, ipsa humano more animo suo innata dominationis cupidine, vincere, quam vinci nitebatur. Indeed, neither want, hard work, enemy threats, the prospect of battle at any moment, the need to be on one’s guard nor bad weather discouraged him from 58 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, iii. 132–37. See Bennett, ‘Norman Naval Activity in the Mediterranean’. 59 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 43 (1071).

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his task. The greater the difficulties which faced him, the more his resolution hardened. This resolve was, as is the way with men, fixed in his heart by desire for rule, and he strove to conquer rather than be conquered.60 These leadership qualities are exemplified by an anecdote about how he recovered the morale of his knights when they were ambushed by Muslims during a raid: Nostri autem, qui praecedebant, ad locum usque pervenientes, illis ex improviso exsurgentibus, virilis audaciae, qua hactenus assueti erant, obliti, enerviter agentes, cum fuga, potius quam armis, mortis periculum declinare cupiunt. Montem quendam, quem ex omni parte praecipitium cingebat, solo et arto aditu patente, pro auxilio expetentes, ascendunt. Hostes vero, parte armigerum, qui praedam minabant, perempta, ipsam etiam praedam excutiunt. Comes autem, qui subsequebatur, tumultum audiens, dum citius advolat, quae acciderant cognoscens, maxima indignatione et ira repletus, ut secum de hostibus ultionem expetant, suos immensis clamoribus a monte, quem conscenderant, incassum revocare nititur, donec ipsemet, Turonem ascendens et suos quemque nomine vocans, ne se in posterum fuisse excusarent, talibus verbis alloqui aggressus est: ‘Ita ne’, inquit, ‘o fortissimi, hactenus viribus exhausti estis, ut, absque recordatione alicuius militaris laudis, in profundum putribundae defectionis submersi, ulterius respirare nequeatis. Recordamini antecessorum, sed et gentis nostrae, nostraeque hactenus habitae strenuitatis preconizatae, devitantes notas futuri vituperii. Recordamini quot millia hostium apud Ceramum pauciores, quam nunc debellatores exstinxistis. Fortuna tunc vobis arridens ab eodem, quo et nunc adhuc regitur. Resumite pristinas vires: victoria post fugam fortiter agentibus laudis reparatio est.’ our men, forgetting the manly bravery which they had in the past usually displayed, acted in a craven manner, hoping to escape their deadly plight by flight rather than fighting back. They climbed up a mountain which was surrounded on all sides by precipitous drops, braving the narrow and lonely path which led to safety. The enemy meanwhile killed some of the knights who were guarding the booty and carried it off. The count, who was following behind, heard the uproar and flew to the scene. When he found out what had happened he was highly indignant and filled with rage. He did his best, yelling at the top of his voice, to summon his men back from the mountain which they had climbed, so they might join him in exacting revenge on the enemy, but in vain. Finally, he himself climbed up Monte Turone and addressed his men individually, each by his own name, to prevent them from making excuses at a later date. He attacked them in the following words: ‘O, you most brave men’, he said, ‘have you so exhausted your strength that having failed to accomplish any noteworthy feat of arms and sunk to the depths by deserting in the most rotten manner, you cannot now pull yourself together! Let us

60 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, iii. 7 (1075).

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remember your ancestors, and the courage [strenuitas] which our race once used to have and [indeed] for which it was renowned, and avoid the scorn of those in the future. Remember how many thousand enemies you defeated at Cerami with fewer men than are here now. Fortune favoured you then, it will act in the same way here and now as it did formerly. Get back to your former valour — by acting bravely and [gaining] the victory after your flight your reputation will be restored.’61 Roger was able to generate a response from his frightened followers due to the many examples of his own personal bravery, dutifully recorded by Malaterra and others: Nam Rogerius, ne, alios ad militiam arrigens, ipse refugere diceretur, in omni congressu sese sociis praeponens, quendam fortissimum et enormi corpore virum, exercitui Normannorum multis contumeliis exprobrantem, quem omnes quasi gigantem exhorrebant, impetu factu, hastili robore deiciens, interfecit. Roger was indeed at the forefront of his men in every engagement lest it be said that he spurred on others to fight while hanging back himself. He attacked a very brave man of enormous size who was reviling the Norman army with many insults and of whom everyone was terrified as though by a giant, overthrew him with his strong lance and killed him.62 His strength and resolution were further demonstrated on another occasion when he was nearly captured by the enemy after his horse was killed beneath him: Quadam itaque die, certamine inito, comes, equo insidens, ut suis succurrat, sese hostibus medium dedit. Hostes vero, eo cognito, versus eum fortiori impetu transientes, equum eius spiculis confodiunt; ipsum cum equo, humi deiectum, manibus corripiunt, quasi taurum ad victimam reluctantem, usque ad sibi tutiorem locum nituntur pertrahere puniendum. Porro comes, in tanto discrimine positus, pristinarum virium non immemor, ensem, quo accinctus erat, exercens in modum falcis virens pratum resecantis, circumquaque impiger vibrando ducens, pluribus interemptis, sola dextra et Dei adiutorio liberatur […] Hostes reliqui sese in suam munitionem recipiunt; ipse, equo amisso, sellam, ne quasi timidus accelerare videretur, asportans, versus suos pedes regreditur. Battle was joined one day and, to assist his men the count rode his horse into the midst of his enemies. The latter recognized him, attacked him fiercely and transfixed his horse with their spears; both he and the horse fell to the ground. They seized him with their hands, trying to drag him to a safer place where they could wreak the vengeance on him, like a bull being dragged to 61 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 35 (1064). My italics. But, compare Wolf ’s interpretation (p. 113 of his translation) that the knights were organized in two wedges is a mistranslation of cuneus, which should be understood merely as a unit. Loud’s online translation calls them ‘two covering forces in case of enemy attack on them either from the front, or in particular from the rear’ which makes more sense. 62 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, i. 34 (1059).

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be a reluctant sacrificial victim. In this perilous situation the count, mindful of the strength he once had, wielded the sword which he carried at his belt as though he was cutting a grassy meadow with a scythe, swinging it vigorously around him. He killed a number of men and was saved by the help of God and his own right arm […] The remaining enemy retreated to their fortress. He himself did not wish to be seen hurrying away as if afraid so, with his horse dead, he walked back towards his men carrying his saddle.63 It was these kinds and heroic and humble acts which made men want to follow such a great knight and so serve his purposes. It is easy to understand Normanitas amongst the followers of Robert and Roger as an expression of potent masculinity. Nor is it surprising that they were driven by a desire for booty, lands, and glory as they established themselves as the rulers of new territories. What is interesting, however, is how these secular aspirations are dominant in the vocabulary of conquest. This is perhaps especially surprising when the Latin chronicles were written by monks and ecclesiasts; theirs is a very pragmatic expression of conquest seen through the eyes of ambitious chevaliers. Geoffrey Malaterra, in his first two books, hardly mentions a religious impulse, although in the latter two, Christian language and ideology does begin to make itself more felt. The only key exception is his celebration of the victory of Cerami (1063) over the Muslims, when conventional expressions of gratitude are deployed: patenter cognoscere possumus, Deum nostris fautorem fuisse. Nam humanae vires, tam magnum quid, tamque nostris temporibus inauditum, nec praesumere quidem, nedum perficere potuissent. Si autem prophetam admirantes requirimus dicentem: Quomodo persequebatur unus mille? we can see clearly see that God was the protector of our side. For human agency would not have been able to accomplish so great a feat and one unheard of in our time or even dare to try. If, however, we are amazed at this we should consider the words of the prophet: ‘How may one man defeat a thousand?’ [Deuteronomy, xxx, 11.30]’64

Celebration Indeed, some of the Normans greatest victories were over the popes Leo IX and Gregory VII, applauded by ecclesiastical historians as reformers, yet just seen as other political players by the Norman leaders. The papacy was certainly useful to legitimizing Norman violence and conquest, of course. In 1059, Nicholas III invested Robert Guiscard as duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, signalled by handing him a papal banner (a ceremony which was to be imitated by William, Duke of Normandy

63 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 30 (1062). 64 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ii. 33 (1063).

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and Pope Alexander III a few years later). Also, in what turned out to be in the very last year of his life (1084, d. July 1085) Guiscard celebrated a famous double victory: Sic, uno tempore victi Sunt terrae domini duo, rex Alemannicus iste, Imperii rector Romani maximus ille. Alter ad arma ruens armis superatur, at alter Nominis auditi sola formidine cessit. So, at the same time, were defeated to the two masters of the earth, the King of Germany (Henry IV) and the ruler of the Roman [Byzantine] Empire (Alexios I). The one, rushing to arms, was defeated by arms; the other ceded at the very sound of his [Robert’s] name.65 Guiscard’s self-assessment at this juncture, according to Amatus, is that he had been proved worthy of his conquests and that he now humbly submitted to the pope in gratitude (even though he clearly had the upper hand): ‘Je ai traite ceste terre de la puissance de li Grex o grant effusion de sanc et grant nécessité et poureté de fame et misère; la mosleste di li Normant moult de foiz m’a cerchié de persécuter; et comprendre la superbe de li Sarrazin, fame et moult tribulation sousténi delà de la mer […] et maintenant Dieu tout puissant m’a glorifié en ceste victoire et a subjecté la terre, laquelle estoit prémute par crudèle puissance, et m’ont fait maior que nul de ma gent; et pour ce me covient estre subject à Dieu pour la grâce que je l’ai vainchue, et de lui recognoiz-je la terre laquelle vouz dites que vouz me voulez donner […] Et li message de l’empéreor se merveillèrent de tant sapience, et virent la richesce et la grant puissance, et cerchèrent les chasteux et les cités et lo mobile. Et puiz distrent: “Cestui est le plus grant seignor del monde.”’ ‘I have taken this land from the control of the Greeks at the expense of great bloodshed, suffering, poverty, hunger and misery. The enmity of the Normans has tried many times to harm and constrain me. I have endured hunger and great tribulations because of the pride of the Saracens across the sea […] Now that Almighty God has glorified me with victory, subjugated the land which was oppressed by a cruel power and made me greater than any of my men, it is fitting that I should subject myself to God for the grace that I obtained from Him […] The emperor’s messengers marvelled at such wisdom, and they saw his wealth and great power, and they inspected his castles, cities and chattels. Then they said: “This is the greatest lord in the world.”’66 In conclusion, it is probably fair to say that it is possible to understand the ‘Norman’ experience in the South in a number of ways, depending upon the source and the context. It is in the nature of myths to create a sense of community, identity and

65 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, iv. 566–70. 66 Amatus, Ystoire, vii. 27.

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a shared past; indeed that is what they are for. There is no doubt that, in the final analysis, that Normanitas is a myth; but it was one that was developed to make sense of a genuine conquest against the odds.

Works Cited (and Further Reading) Primary Sources Ailred of Rievaulx, ‘Relatio de Standardo’, ed. by R. Howlett, Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I, 4 vols, Rolls Series (London: Longman, 1886), iii, 181–99 Amatus of Montecassino, The History of the Normans, trans. by Prescott N. Dunbar, revised by Graham A. Loud (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2004); available at: —, Ystoire de li Normant, ed. by Michèle Guéret-Laferté, CFMA 166 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2011) Anna Komnene, The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, trans. by E. R. A. Sewter (Longon: Penguin, 1969) Le Charroi de Nimes, ed. by de G. Poerck, R. van Deyck, and R. Zwaenepoel, Textes et Traitement Automatique, 2 vols (St.-Aquilin-de Pacy: Maflier, 1970) Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis: Rogerii Calabriae et Sicliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi Ducis fratris eius, 3 vols, ed. by E. Pontieri (Bologna: N. Zanichelli, 1925–1928); The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of his Brother Duke Robert Guiscard, trans. by Kenneth Baxter Wolf (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005); trans. by Graham A. Loud: Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum: The History of the English People, ed. by Diana Greenway, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) William of Apulia, [Gesta Roberti Wiscardi] La geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. by Marguerite Mathieu (Palermo: Istituto siciliano di studi bizantini e neoellenici, 1961) Latin and French translation facing pages. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. and trans. by R. A. B. Mynors, Rodney M. Thomson, and Michael Winterbottom, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998–1999) Wace, The Roman de Rou, ed. by A. J. Holden, trans. by Glyn S. Burgess (St Helier: société jersiase, 2002) Secondary Studies Albu, Emily, The Normans in their Histories: Propaganda, Myth, and Subversion (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2001) —, ‘Probing the Passions of a Norman on Crusade: The Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 27 (2005), 1–15

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Arnoux, Mathieu, ‘Before the Gesta Normannorum and Beyond Dudo: Some Evidence on Early Norman Historiography’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 22 (2000), 29–48 Asbridge, Thomas, The Creation of the Principality of Antioch 1098–1130 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2000) Bates, David, and Pierre Bauduin, eds, Penser les mondes normands médiévaux: Actes du colloque international de Caen et Cerisy (29 septembre-2 octobre 2011) (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2016) —, ‘Pour conclure: singularité et diversité des mondes normands’, in Penser les mondes normands médiévaux: Actes du colloque international de Caen et Cerisy (29 septembre-2 octobre 2011), ed. by David Bates and Pierre Bauduin (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2016), pp. 503–15 Bennett, Matthew, ‘Poetry as History? The Roman de Rou of Wace as a Source for the Norman Conquest’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 5 (1982), 21–39 —, ‘First Crusaders’ Images of Muslims: The Influence of Vernacular Poetry?’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, 22.2 (1986), 101–22 —, ‘Norman Naval Activity in the Mediterranean, c. 1060–1108’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 15 (1993), 41–58 —, ‘The Normans in the Mediterranean’, in A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, ed. by Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth M. C. van Houts (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2003), pp. 87–102 Brown, R. A., The Normans and Norman Conquest (London: Thames & Hudson, 1969) Canosa, Rosa, ‘Discours ethniques et pratiques du pouvoir des Normands d’Italie: sources narratives et documentaires (xie-xiie siècles)’, in Penser les mondes normands médiévaux: Actes du colloque international de Caen et Cerisy (29 septembre-2 octobre 2011), ed. by David Bates and Pierre Bauduin (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2016), pp. 341–56 D’Angelo, Edoardo, Storiografi e cronologi latini del Mezzogiorno normannosvevo, Nuovo Medioevo, 69 (Naples: Liguori, 2003) France, John, ‘The Normans and Crusading’, in The Normans and Their Adversaries at War: Essays in Memory of C. Warren Hollister, ed. by Richard P. Abels and Bernard S. Bachrach (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2001), pp. 87–102 Hagger, Mark, ‘Kinship and Identity in Eleventh-Century Normandy: The Case of Hugh de Grandmesnil, c. 1040–1098’, Journal of Medieval History, 32 (2006), 212–30 Hodgson, Natasha, ‘Reinventing Normans as Crusaders? Ralph of Caen’s Gesta Tancredi’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 30 (2008), 117–32 Jotischky, Andrew, and Ewan Johnson, ‘Les normands de l’Italie méridionale et les États croisés au douzième siècle’, in Penser les mondes normands médiévaux: Actes du colloque international de Caen et Cerisy (29 septembre-2 octobre 2011), ed. by David Bates and Pierre Bauduin (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2016), pp. 163–76 Jotischky, Andrew, and Keith J. Stringer, eds, The Normans and the ‘Norman Edge’: Peoples, Polities and Identities on the Frontiers of Medieval Europe (London: Routledge, 2019) Loud, Graham A., ‘How “Norman” Was the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy?’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 25 (1981), 13–34

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Ní Chléirigh, Léan, ‘Gesta Normannorum? Normans in the Latin Chronicles of the First Crusade’, Norman Expansion: Connections, Continuities, and Contrasts, ed. by Kenneth J. Stringer and Andrew Jotischky (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 207–26 Ross, D. J. A., ‘Pleine sa hanste’, Medium Aevum, 20 (1951), 1–10 Russo, Luigi, ‘L’expansion normande contre Byzance (xie-xiie siècles). Réflexions sur une question toujours ouverte’, Penser les mondes normands médiévaux: Actes du colloque international de Caen et Cerisy (29 septembre-2 octobre 2011), ed. by David Bates and Pierre Bauduin (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2016), pp. 147–61 —, ‘Il viaggio di Boemondo d’Altavilla nella storiografia normanna’, Archivio storico italiano, 603 (2005), 3–42 Shopkow, Leah, History and Community: Norman Historical Writing in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997) Stringer, Kenneth. J., and Andrew Jotischky, eds, Norman Expansion: Connections, Continuities, and Contrasts (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013) Thomas, Hugh, ‘La Normandie, l’Anjou et l’Angleterre dans l’œuvre de Raoul de Dicet’, Penser les mondes normands médiévaux: Actes du colloque international de Caen et Cerisy (29 septembre-2 octobre 2011), ed. by David Bates and Pierre Bauduin (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2016), pp. 357–70 Webber, Nick, The Evolution of Norman Identity, 911–1154 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2005)

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2. Marriage as a Strategy for Conquering Power: Norman Matrimonial Strategies in Lombard Southern Italy

Introduction The Normans’ strategies of marriage in southern Italy are not a new theme.1 The renewal of interest in both Mezzogiorno history and family history has given birth, over the last twenty years of academic research, to various studies on the topic.2 These studies have mainly focussed on two aspects of the Norman matrimonial strategy: 1. The political functions of unions, most often a union between a Norman groom and a Lombard bride, the newcomers being mostly male. 2. The acculturation process between Norman newcomers and native elite. Such unions are not lacking in the primary sources. The most famous of them are the two marriages of Robert Guiscard, first to a Norman bride, Alberada, then to the princess Sichelgaita of Salerno. However, even before marriage to Alberada, Guiscard had previously sought another union with a daughter of Pandulf IV of



1 This is a revised version of a paper presented in Oxford at the conference ‘Normans in the South’ in July 2017. I would like to thank the organizer of this conference for the opportunity to present and discuss my research. 2 Graham Loud and Johanna Drell have made particular contributions in this area. See Loud, ‘Continuity and Change in Norman Italy; Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard; Drell, ‘Cultural Syncretism and Ethnic Identity’; Drell, Kinship & Conquest; Drell, ‘The Aristocratic Family’. Most recently see also the works of Thierry Stasser, Où sont les femmes?; Heygate, ‘Marriage Strategies among the Normans of Southern Italy’; and my own work, Thomas, Jeux lombards, revised and published version of a doctoral thesis defended at the University of Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne in 2012. Dr Aurélie Thomas  •  is library curator at Sorbonne University and associate researcher at LAMOP (Laboratoire de médiévistique occidentale de Paris), Université Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne. She specializes in southern Italian history, from the eighth to the twelfth centuries: political history, elites, marriage and family ties in the Lombard world and early Norman world. The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. by Emily A. Winkler and Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small, MISCS 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 67–80 © FHG10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.121957

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Capua, eventually failing to obtain the Capuan princess’s hand.3 Guiscard’s three unions — I count among them his aborted betrothal with a Capuan princess — summarize better than any other examples the various possibilities available to the new conquerors in terms of both unions and related strategies. Like Guiscard did, a Norman newcomer in Apulia could either marry a Norman bride and strengthen his force by gaining the support of her Norman kinsmen, or marry a local bride of good parentage and gain wealth in both land and money. Guiscard’s three unions, whether attempted or successful, also enlighten us about the various attitudes of the local elite towards the newcomers regarding matrimonial alliance. The Lombard princes could either give their daughters’ or sisters’ hands to Normans grooms in order to gain the support of their new Normans kinsmen in their struggle for leadership over the Lombard principalities, or refuse to enter into kinship with the Normans so as to preserve their legacy from the newcomers. We shall see that within the context of the Lombard southern principalities, the Beneventan, Capuan, and Salernitan elites made very different choices in terms of relationships with the Normans, and that the choices they initially made could vary over time. My purpose is to demonstrate how the Norman conquerors adapted their matrimonial strategies to the very specific political and familial context of the Lombard principalities of the eleventh century. The significance of intermarriages, considered both as a conquest strategy for the Normans and as a key factor in their assimilation into southern Italian elites, has been well studied.4 When considering those intermarriages, scholars distinguish between ‘Normans’ and ‘Lombards’, using the same terminology in the sources used by the medieval people to define their ethnic origin. ‘Lombard’ refers to an identity based on shared memory, customs, and law; an identity whose perpetuation and emphasis in the southern Lombard principalities have also been widely studied.5 Nevertheless, both politically and in terms of family structure, the southern ‘Lombards’ were not a homogeneous ‘nation’ (natio). The divisio of the ancient Beneventan duchy in the year 849 had given birth to two very different and distinct principalities: Capua-Benevento on the one hand, and Salerno on the other (for convenience, I shall consider together both principalities of Benevento and Capua).6 Capua-Benevento and Salerno shared the same ‘Lombard’ identities but harboured very different political organizations and family structures.7 In Capua-Benevento, all rulers and pretenders to power belonged to the large dynastic family founded by Landulf the Old, gastald of Capua, in the first half of the ninth century.8 In Capua as in Benevento, all males belonging to the princely Landulfid

3 On Guiscard’s marriages, see below. 4 Drell, Kinship and Conquest, pp. 46–52; Loud, ‘Continuity and Change’, pp. 324–29; Thomas, Jeux lombards, pp. 391–97 and 443–45. 5 See especially the work of Pohl, ‘Telling the Difference’; Pohl, Werkstätte der Erinnerung; Pohl, ‘Le identità etniche nei ducati di Spoleto e Benevento’. See also Delogu, Mito di una città meridionale 6 On the creation of the southern Lombard principalities see Kreutz, Before the Normans. 7 Taviani-Carozzi, La principauté lombarde de Salerne; Thomas, Jeux lombards, pp. 265–69. 8 See Cilento, Italia meridionale longobarda.

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kinship (including brothers-in-law) held jointly the right to rule. In Salerno, on the contrary, the right to rule was the privilege of the oldest male heir. The rules for the matrimonial game (to use a metaphor from Bourdieu9) were therefore very distinct in Salerno and in Capua-Benevento. This important distinction, both political and familial, between the two ruling families of Longobardia minor was manifest in their very different attitudes towards the Normans who sought to enter the local matrimonial game. It is obvious in the sources: when we list all the intermarriages existing between ‘Lombards’ and ‘Normans’, we find many Salernitan women, but very few Beneventan or Capuan. Here, I primarily consider brides belonging to the princely stock of eligible women for marriage, who are most apparent in the sources.

The Benevento-Capuan Matrimonial Market: A Closed Market to the Normans Let us examine further the opportunities available to the Normans in the BeneventoCapuan matrimonial market. Norman mercenaries had been employed since the beginning of the eleventh century, first by the princes of Benevento and Capua, and later by the princes of Salerno.10 In the years that followed the failed revolt of Melus, the growing disputes over leadership in the Lombard principalities offered employment opportunities for the Norman mercenaries. But it was Duke Sergius of Napoli who gave the Normans their first opportunity for settlement when he recovered in 1030 his duchy from Pandulf IV of Capua.11 In order to form an alliance against the prince of Capua, Duke Sergius offered to the Norman Rainulf Drengot his sister, previously married to the Duke of Gaeta, and with her the recently fortified stronghold of Aversa together with ‘a very rich part of Terra di Lavoro […] so that he [Rainulf] might receive much tribute therefrom’.12 Unfortunately for Sergius, the alliance did not last. Soon after their marriage, Rainulf ’s Neapolitan wife passed away, her death bringing the alliance to an end. Pandulf IV seized the opportunity, as Amatus of Montecassino narrated: ʽPandulf wanted to give one of

9 Bourdieu, ʻLa terre et les stratégies matrimoniales’, p. 250. 10 On the use of the Normans as mercenaries in southern Italy see the classic work of Chalandon, Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile; see also Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 60–80; Hoffmann, ʽDie Anfänge des Normannen in Unteritalien’; Von Falkenhausen, ʽI ceti dirigenti prenormanni al tempo della costituzione degli stati normanni nell’Italia meridionale e in Sicilia’, pp. 321–77. 11 Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, p. 74. 12 ‘une part ricchissime de Terre de Labor […] que lui feïst tribut’), Amatus of Montecassino, Storia dei Normanni di Amato di Montecassino volgarizzata in antico francese, ed. by De Bartholomaeis (translated into English in Amatus, The History of the Normans, trans. by Dunbar and Loud), i. 42. Hereafter Amatus, Ystoire.

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his kinswomen to Rainulf as a wife; and this they resolved [to do]. After this, the count [Rainulf of Aversa] married the patrician of Amalfi’s daughter, who was Prince Pandulf ’s niece, as the patrician’s wife was Pandulf ’s sister’.13 Pandulf ’s niece and Rainulf ’s new wife was the daughter of Sergius IV of Amalfi and Maria of Capua.14 Despite her Capuan mother, this first ‘Capuan’ bride does not appear very ‘Capuan’, but very much Amalfitan, for she was a kinswoman of Pandulf kinswomen only through his sister. Why did Pandulf choose a sister’s daughter instead of a daughter of his own? It was not for lack of girls of eligible age. Pandulf had at least three other daughters, two of them who married Aquino’s brothers, Atenulf and Lando, around the same time.15 One of them might easily have been reserved for the sake of Norman alliance with Rainulf. But by choosing a sister’s daughter, Pandulf IV put all the weight of the alliance on Amalfi. Pandulf ’s niece had only a very weak possible claim to power in Capua; however, according to the Greek law and custom, she was a full heiress in Amalfi.16 The Amalfitan choice is also interesting on another account: regardless of the familial connection with the Capuan princely family, the city of Amalfi belonged traditionally in the orbit of Salerno, his longstanding ally.17 In 1034, in his attempt for hegemony over southern Italy, Pandulf did help his sister Maria usurp Amalfi’s duchy from her husband Sergius IV and her stepson John III. But her position and that of her son, the new Duke Manso, had always been very fragile, and after less than three months as duchess of Amalfi she had to flee with her son Manso to Naples.18 So short was Maria’s time in control of Amalfi in 1034, that the marriage between Rainulf and her daughter probably took place after her husband and stepson had regained power. It seems Rainulf had very little to gain from this union with Pandulf ’s niece, whereas Pandulf had very much to gain: an ally against Naples and Amalfi (and through Amalfi possibly against Salerno, even if at that time the antagonism between Pandulf of Capua and Guaimar of Salerno was not declared). The second mention of a marriage between a Landulfid bride and a Norman groom involves Robert Guiscard himself. We have already mentioned his betrothal to a daughter a Pandulf IV, related by Amatus: Guaimar established his power with all his counts while Pandulf attracted Robert to him and paid all his expenses and gave him a strong and well-equipped castle.

13 ‘il [Pandulf] lui voloit donner une parente soë pour moillier. Et ensi determinerent. Le Conte prist por moillier la fille de lo Patricie de Umalfe, laquelle estoit niece de lo prince Pandulfe, quar la moillier de lo Patricie estoit seror à lo Prince’, Amatus, Ystoire, i. 44–45. 14 Stasser, Où sont les femmes, p. 496; Skinner, Family Power in Southern Italy, p. 55. 15 Stasser, Où sont les femmes, p. 373. 16 Thomas, Jeux lombards, p. 493. 17 On this traditional alliance see Taviani-Carozzi, La principauté lombarde de Salerne, ii, 825–35 and Loré, ‘L’aristocrazia salernitana nell’xi secolo’, pp. 61–102. 18 Schwarz, Amalfi im frühen Mittelalter, pp. 47–48.

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Then he promised on oath to give him his daughter as a wife. On the day set aside for the fulfilment of this oath Robert came for the woman and castle that he had been promised, but Pandulf refused him.19 Robert Guiscard was a latecomer in southern Italy, compared to his elder brothers, William, Drogo, and Humphrey.20 When he arrived in Italy, shortly after the death of William Iron-Arm in the late 1040s, his brother Drogo held a strong position with the Prince of Salerno.21 But the new Norman count did not exactly offer a warm welcome to his younger half-brother, Robert. Therefore Guiscard had to seek service with other lords, but according to Amatus, without much gain.22 The promise of land, secured by marriage, was obviously what attracted Guiscard in his following of Pandulf, who had just been restored as prince of Capua by the Emperor in 1047.23 Entering the service of the newly restored Prince of Capua seemed at this point a good opportunity for Guiscard, offering him prospects of wealth and settlement, in a way reminiscent of Rainulf ’s settlement in Aversa two decades earlier. In this regard, what Guiscard expected from Pandulf does not appear outrageous, especially considering the opportunities offered to his brothers by Guaimar of Salerno in the same period. Money and land secured through marriage with a Lombard bride were the payments expected when entering a Lombard lord’s retinue. But Guiscard failed to obtain them from Prince Pandulf. As we can see in these examples, for a Norman groom to obtain the hand of a princely Capuan bride was nearly impossible. One might argue that this strategy of strict containment of the Normans was personal to Pandulf IV of Capua. What we know of the Beneventan side of the Landulfid family does not contradict my earlier claim: namely that a Landulfid bride, Beneventan or Capuan, was a commodity restricted from the Normans. De facto, we do not know of any intermarriage occurring between a Norman and a princely Beneventan bride, neither in the chronicles of the conquest nor in the other sources, despite the fact that many Norman knights sought service with the princes of Benevento against the Byzantines. Amatus records that many Normans served in Puglia in the early 1040s under the command of Atenulf, younger brother of the Prince of Benevento: Against them [the Greeks] the valiant and victorious Norman knights assembled with great courage and bravery. In order to give the inhabitants of this land unwavering courage, they made Atenulf their leader as he was a good stalwart

19 ‘Guaymere fist la force soë o tout ses contes. Et Pandulfe tyra a soi Robert et lui fist les despens. Et lui donna lo fort chastel appareillié, et li promist par jurement de donner lui la fille pour mollier. Et vint lo jour determiné. Robert cercha la promission e requist lo chastel qui lui estoit promis; mès Pandulfe lui noïa’, Amatus, Ystoire, iii. 6. 20 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 8; Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, p. 105. 21 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 46. 22 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 46. 23 Amatus, Ystoire, iii. 4; Die Chronik von Montecassino, hereafter, CMC, ii. 78.

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man and was the prince of Benevento’s brother. This man they willingly served as vassals and they honoured him as their lord.24 In Atenulf ’s service, the Normans gained abundant loot from the Greeks,25 but no land. Shortly after their decisive victory at Montepeloso in 1041, the alliance between the Beneventan princes and their Norman mercenaries ended, according to Amatus, because of disputes over booty.26 Whatever the alleged cause for the rupture of the Norman alliance with the princes of Benevento, thenceforth the Norman milites started to look for a new patron, Argyrus son of Melus27 and, soon after, Guaimar IV of Salerno. Most probably the Beneventan alliance ended because Beneventan patronage offered no real prospect of settlement for the Normans. We can say for certain that maintaining this alliance would have meant two commitments for the Beneventans: first, to accept the Normans’ definitive settlement on lands they still claimed over the Byzantines; second, that to accept the Normans as true partners, meaning as potential ‘brothers’ within the boundaries of marriage. Neither the princes of Benevento nor their Capuan cousins were willing to take the bait. Still, some Normans did enter the Capuan and Beneventan nobility by marriage but on a much smaller scale compared to Salerno, and also much later, when the Landulfid dynasty had proved beyond doubt that it had no chance of restoring its power in Benevento or in Capua. We know, thanks to the Cassinese sources, of only two marriages involving a member of the Benevento-Capuan nobility and a Norman newcomer. A nephew of Robert Guiscard, Rodulf de Moulins, married a daughter of Roffrid of Guardia called Alferada.28 We do not know the exact date of this union, only that the Battle of Civitate in 1053 is a terminus post quem, since William of Apulia mentioned the presence on the battlefield, for the Italian party, of ‘Roffrid, brother-in-law of Rodulf de Moulins, who holds the castrum of Guardia and many other places, the names of which I do not know’.29 Amatus also related that the son of Atenulf of Aquino, duke of Gaeta,30 was promised to the daughter of Richard of Capua, but he died before the marriage could take place.31 After Capua fell into the hands of the Richard of Aversa in 1058, Atenulf of Aquino did seek a rapprochement with the new ruler of the area, the union between his son and the daughter of Richard being the key to the alliance. Richard of Capua’s attitude after the death of his daughter’s fiancé, asking for the payment of the Morgengabe (when

24 ‘et à ce qu’ils donassent ferme cuer à li colone de celle terre, lo Prince de Bonivent, home bon et vaillant, liquel estoit frere Adinulfe, firent lor duc; à loquel servoient comment servicial et lo honoroient comment seignor’, Amatus, Ystoire, ii, 23. 25 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 23. 26 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 27. 27 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 28–29; William of Apulia, La geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. by Mathieu (hereafter William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti), i. 414–21. 28 Stasser, Où sont les femmes, p. 95; Ad Historiam Abbatiae Cassinensis Accessiones, ed. by Gattola, ii, 207. 29 ‘Molinensisque Rodulfi / Rofredus soccer / huius castrum Gardia nomen / Et plures alii, quorum non nomina novi’. William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ii. 168–70. 30 Atenulf became duke of Gaeta in 1045: Chalandon, Histoire, i, 146–47. 31 Amatus, Ystoire, iv. 12.

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Atenulf quite reasonably refused to pay for it) and setting siege to Aquino, shows clearly the predatory character of this marriage within the ranks of the local nobility.32 As we can see in these examples, Norman marriage within the ranks of the Benevento-Capuan nobility clearly remained an exception. The failing of the alliance between the Aquino family and the new princely lineage after 1059 confirms rather than negates this claim. We can then assume that the princely Benevento-Capuan attitude toward the newcomers was not exclusive to the ruling family, for it set the trend for the Beneventan and Capuan nobility.

The Normans’ Best Match: A Princely Salernitan Bride Now that we have examined the Capuan and Beneventan attitudes towards the Norman newcomers regarding matrimonial alliance, we shall now consider the Salernitan attitude. I shall not dwell on the princely Salernitan alliances with the Normans, since they have been widely studied.33 They are worth a mention in order to consider them in relation to the similar lack of Capuan and Beneventan intermarriages. I shall first try to answer the following question: was the Landulfid attitude towards the Norman newcomers really so different from the Salernitan one? Both employed the newcomers as mercenaries, at a high cost, in their domestic and foreign warfare. Despite Amatus’ claims, neither Atenulf of Benevento nor Pandulf of Capua must have had a very different attitude from Guaimar in this matter — that is, at least, as long as they had enough money for the military service they required; and Guaimar’s large dominion and even larger wealth was quickly obvious in this matter. As previously noted, the Norman newcomers had first taken service with the Beneventan and Capuan princes in the early 1020s and 1030s. They were employed especially in Capuan fights against Montecassino and in the Beneventan struggles to recover the long-lost Apulian territories from the Greeks. However, until the 1040s, the Normans posed no real challenge to Lombard domination over the Beneventan or the Capuan territories. The situation evolved quickly and by the early 1050s, important parts of both Benevento and Capua were in Norman hands.34 In the same way as what happened in Benevento and Capua, but ten to twenty years later, the Normans were first used as mercenary forces in Salerno before becoming a real threat for the Salernitan Prince. The true difference between Capua-Benevento and Salerno lies in their policies towards the Normans on the matrimonial level. Whereas the princes of Capua and Benevento never accepted the Normans as eligible consortes for their daughters and sisters, Guaimar of Salerno agreed, without any apparent reluctance, to offer his kinswomen as brides for the newcomers. Our most eloquent witness is, as usual,

32 Amatus, Ystoire, iv. 12–14. The Morgengabe was to be given to the bride on the morning following the marriage. 33 Loud, Continuity and Change; Drell, Kinship and Conquest. 34 Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, p. 102.

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Figure 2.1. The alliances of the Hauteville and Drengot families within the princely families of Salerno and Capua. Figure by A. Thomas.

Amatus of Montecassino, who recalls the entry of the Normans knights into Guaimar’s retinue after the election of the de Hauteville brother, William Iron-Arm, as their leader in 1042:35 ʻThe prince received them as sons and gave them lavish gifts. […] he gave the new Count William a wife, Guida, the daughter of his brother. […] From that hour Guaimar invited him to share both the land that had been acquired and the land which would be acquired’.36 The Cassinese chronicler draws here a striking fatherly image of the prince of Salerno, in all ways opposite to his portrayal of the princes of Capua and Benevento as faithless and avaricious. William Iron-Arm’s union with Guida was the first of a very long list of intermarriages involving women from the princely Salernitan family and Norman conquerors. I shall note them briefly (see Fig. 2.1).37 After William Iron-Arm died in 1046, Drogo de Hauteville married Gaitelgrima, one of Guaimar’s daughters, thus succeeding to his late brother, William Iron-Arm, both politically and within the princely kin.38 Twice widowed, his wife Gaitelgrima each time remarried a Norman knight, first Robert Drengot and later Affredus of Sarno.39 As we have seen, Robert Guiscard married another daughter of Guaimar, Sichelgaita in 1058.40 Eventually, the last daughter of Guaimar, also named Gaitelgrima, married in succession Richard of Capua in the early 1070s, then after his death, his son Jordan. Much later, widowed again, she married the Norman Count Hugh of Faida.41 We could also include in this list all of Guaimar’s kinswomen, nieces, and granddaughters who married into the Hauteville family, like 35 Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 96–98. 36 ‘et lo Prince les rechut autresi coment filz, et lor donna grandissime domps. Et […] dona à Guillerme, novel conte, la fille de son frere […] et l’envita à partir la terre, tant de celle aquestée quant de celle qu’il devoit acquester’, Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 29; Stasser, Où sont les femmes, p. 421. 37 All the alliances occurring between a Salernitan princely kinswoman and a Norman are recorded in Stasser, Où sont les femmes. 38 Amatus, Ystoire, ii. 35. 39 Stasser, Où sont les femmes, p. 407. 40 Stasser, Où sont les femmes, p. 409. 41 Stasser, Où sont les femmes, p. 415.

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Maria the daughter of Guido who married another de Hauteville brother, William of the Principate, also in 1058.42 Guaimar’s kinswomen were indeed very coveted brides, especially his daughters: if widowed they never remained a widow for long and they did play a key role in legitimizing their husband’s claims and possessions. The chroniclers of the Norman conquest did not overlook this fundamental role played by Lombard marriages. Amatus of Montecassino does not say otherwise when he tries to justify Norman rule over Apulia in his famous passage: ‘This land of God was given to the Normans due to the perversity of those who held it and through the ties of kinship which they made with them’.43 He obviously alludes here to Robert Guiscard, whose union with Sichelgaita of Salerno is mentioned in all the narratives of the Normans’ expansion in southern Italy, and which was fundamental in his final takeover of Salerno in 1077.44 The daughters, nieces, and granddaughters of Guaimar IV of Salerno all married within the Norman ranks. Their unions created a network of local connections able to support their husbands’ multiple and conflicting claims in Apulia. The Salernitan princely brides were assets to use for their husbands, a majority of men linked to the Hauteville lineage through kinship or alliance.45 In this game for domination and power, Robert Guiscard proved to be the best player. As proof of the supremacy of the Salernitan matches among the Normans knights, we may observe that the Drengot of Aversa, who took a Lombard wife, never sought marriage within the princely Capuan kin, as might have been expected. Robert Drengot, younger brother of Richard of Aversa, married Drogo de Hauteville’s widow, at the beginning of the 1050s.46 Even if at that time Pandulf IV was in dire straits and Richard of Aversa was virtually the sole master of the principality,47 the Capuan prince still owed the legitimacy of his belonging to the ruling Landulfid kinship, whereas Guaimar IV of Salerno had no more claim on the Capuan principality, having been deprived of his authority over it in 1047.48 The first Norman prince of Capua, Richard of Aversa, widower of Fressenda de Hauteville, remarried another Salernitan princess, Gaitelgrima, shortly before his death, in the early 1070s. His marriage with the Salernitan princess meant a rapprochement with Prince Gisulf, in the context of the first Norman insurrections against Guiscard’s

42 Stasser, Où sont les femmes, p. 421. The most recent work examining in detail all the marriage alliances of Normans within the princely kinsgroup of Salerno and summarizing the existing historiography and sources is Stasser, Où sont les femmes, pp. 407–54. 43 ‘Quar ceste terre de Dieu est donnée a li Normant, quar la perversité de ceus qui la tenoient et pour la parenteze qu’il avoient faite avec eaux’, Amatus, Ystoire, iii. 38. 44 Skinner, ‘“Halt! Be Men!”’, 622–41; Amatus, Ystoire, iv. 18; ‘Coniugio ducto tam magnae nobilitatis/ Augeri coepit Roberti nobile nomen / Et gens quae quondam servire coacta solebat / Obserquio solvit iam debita iuris aviti’, William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ii. 428–31. 45 Four Hauteville brothers (William Iron-Arm, Drogo, Robert Guiscard, William of the Principate) and their nephew by their sister Fressenda, Jordan of Capua, married a daughter or a niece of Guaimar of Salerno. 46 Stasser, Où sont les femmes, pp. 407–08. 47 Chalandon, Histoire, i, 144–46. In 1052, Richard of Aversa did confirm some Cassinese possessions located in the neighbourhood of the city of Capua. 48 Chalandon, Histoire, i, 255 and 297.

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power, strongly supported by the Norman Prince of Capua.49 That his son and heir, Jordan, married Richard’s own widow in 1078, against all ecclesiastical custom and law, may be seen as the pursuit of the same anti-Guiscard policy,50 although it is a testament to the enduring value of a princely Salernitan kinship, even after the fall of its last reigning prince in 1077. A Capuan match would logically have appeared as a better way to legitimize — after the fact — the Drengots’ dominion over the newly conquered principality of Capua. Let us recall that the Norman princes’ authority over Capua was still contested at the end of the eleventh century. Still, on Jordan I’s death in 1090, his Salernitan wife Gaitelgrima and his heir had to leave Capua in a hurry, expelled by an anti-Norman insurrection — proof that the Drengots’ dominium in Capua, bereft of the Landulfid legacy, had not yet been fully achieved, more than thirty years after the fall of the last Lombard prince.51 Within the Lombard territories, marriage with a Norman bride (or with a Norman knight for a Norman woman),52 remained an exception, a second choice to a Lombard bride or groom, who would have all the assets of wealth and legitimacy that came with belonging to a ‘noble parentage’ (noble de parent),53 a powerful and firmly settled kin. Guiscard’s first marriage with the Norman Alberada, after he failed to obtain the hand of a Capuan princess, is one example of this strategy of marriage within the Norman group. His union with the aunt of Gerard of Buonalbergo gained him a brother-in-law who was also a brother-in-arms, and whose forces strengthened his military force for the conquest of Calabria. Gerald’s offer of an alliance, as reported by Amatus, synthesized the interest of a marriage within the Norman group of conquerors: ‘Take my aunt, sister of my father, for your wife, and I shall become your knight. I will go with you to conquer Calabria and I will bring two hundred knights with me’.54 This marriage also marked the beginning of Guiscard’s rise to power in southern Italy. Nevertheless he did not hesitate to divorce his Norman wife, on the grounds of a very convenient consanguinity, in order to allow him a much more interesting match within the princely family of Guaimar of Salerno in 1058.55 Although Guiscard repudiated Alberada, Gerard of Buonalbergo always remained

49 Amatus, Ystoire, iv. 15. 50 Stasser, Où sont les femmes, p. 415. Jordan of Capua received in 1078 a letter from pope Gregory VII rebuking him for marrying his father’s widow: ‘Ecce enim dudum novercam tuam et dominam contra ius et fas de ecclesia trahere invitam et reclamantem eamque nubere nolentem nuptiis trader violentissime presumpsisti’, Registrum Gregorii VII, vi. 37, pp. 453–54. 51 ‘Capuani autem ubi mortem principis agnoverunt, contra Richardum supradicti Iordani principis filium eiusque matrem conspirantes Capuani civitatis munitiones capiunt Normannosque omnes urbe depellunt’, CMC, iv. 10. 52 Even if less common, those unions existed. The daughter of Richard of Capua was first betrothed to a son of Atenulf of Aquino. 53 Amatus, Ystoire, iv. 18, speaking of Sichelgaita. 54 ‘Pren ma tante soror de mon pere pour moillier, et je serai ton chevalier; et vendrai avuec toi pour aquester Calabre, et avuec moi .IJ.C. chevaliers’, Amatus, Ystoire, iii. 11. 55 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ii. 420–23.

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a loyal and faithful companion of Guiscard. He too eventually benefited from his kinsman’s princely connections. We have another example of this strategy of union within the Norman group, with the case of William of Montreuil. He was another Norman adventurer who began his career in Italy after 1050.56 He may have taken part in the Battle of Civitate, even though William of Apulia does not mention his name among the Norman chiefs, since he must have had the opportunity to prove his military prowess to his future father-in-law Richard of Aversa, before 1060 and his marriage to Richard’s daughter. Amatus’s narration of his engagement to the daughter of the new prince of Capua is very enlightening about the situation in Campania: When Prince Richard of Capua came to marry off his daughter, he demonstrated that the station and nobility of the ancient princes were as nothing in comparison with what he had accomplished. He humbled utterly the avarice of rich men and preferred to take pleasure in forming a real man rather than with the vain, arrogant men who inhabit the country. He had an exceptional knight […] He made this man his adopted son and wanted him to be his son-in-law […] As a dowry, he gave him the counties of Aquino and Marsia, as well as the rich county of Campagna. He made him Duke of Gaeta’.57 We know of Montecassino’s distaste for the former Capuan prince, Pandulf IV, and of Montecassino’s excellent relationships with the new Norman prince of Capua. Nevertheless, this refusal from Richard of Capua of a Landulfid alliance is quite eloquent, especially since we know that Richard’s daughter had previously been engaged to the son of Atenulf of Aquino, duke of Gaeta, not a Landulfid but still a prominent member of the local nobility. In Campania, at the beginning of the 1060s, the Landulfids as former ruling family of Capua were considered a source of neither power nor legitimization for the Normans new rulers. When William of Montreuil turned against his father-in-law in 1062, trying to secure a local alliance in the Capuan principality, he sought the hand of the duchess of Gaeta, the widow of Atenulf of Aquino.58 Ironically, the son of the duke and duchess of Gaeta had once been promised to Richard of Capua’s daughter, the very same woman William of Montreuil tried to repudiate in order to remarry the widowed duchess of Gaeta.59 Even an alliance in the 1060s within the local nobility, here the powerful family of the Counts of Aquino remained preferable to a marriage arrangement with the Normans.

56 Ménager, ‘Les fondations monastiques de Robert Guiscard’, p. 16; Stasser, Où sont les femmes, p. 477. 57 ‘Cestui prince Richart, quant il vint à marier la fille, il mostra que noient fu la hautesce de li antique prince né la gentillece, à comparation de ce que cestui faisoit. Et toute anichilloit lo avarice de li riche home. Et plus se delittoit de faire parenteze avec home que avec la vane arrogance de ceuz qui habitoient en la contrée. Il avoit un singuler chevalier […] Cestui fist son fill adoptive et cestui voust pour gendre […] Et lui donna en dote la conté d’Aquin, et la conté de Marse, et la conté de la riche Campaingne. Et lo fist duc de Gaiete’, Amatus, Ystoire, iv. 27. 58 William of Montreuil was furious with his father in law for refusing to give him Gaeta, as promised, after the conquest of the duchy in 1062. Chalandon, Histoire, i, 145–46. 59 Amatus, Ystoire, vi. 1.

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Conclusion We have tried to demonstrate here that the Normans’ opportunities for marriage within the ranks of the Lombard princely families owed a great deal to the cultural and familial background of those families. In Benevento and Capua, the rule of equal inheritance for brothers prevented the ruling Landulfid lineage from accepting marriages with Norman knights, who would thus have become possible competitors in the struggle for power. Furthermore, the large number of dynastic pretenders to power in Capua and Benevento also diluted the attraction of the Capuan ruling dynasty from the Normans’ perspective, making the Landulfid brides a less attractive match compared to their Salernitan cousins. In Salerno, on the contrary, Normans were welcome to marry into the princely family, sons and brothers-in-law having, in theory at least, absolutely no claim to power. The strict rules of inheritance in Salerno may, paradoxically, have enhanced the attraction of Salernitan unions, for the legitimacy of the ruling lineage, Guaimar’s own bloodline, remained unchallenged. In the end, the willingness or refusal to accept the Norman newcomers proved to be the key for the survival of native dynasties under the Norman rule. While the Salernitan princely kinship endured, mostly, but not only, through his daughters, the most ancient ruling family of Longobardia minor, the Landulfid, disappeared entirely.

Works Cited Primary Sources Amatus of Montecassino, The History of the Normans, ed. by Prescott Dunbar and Graham Loud (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2004) —, Storia dei Normanni di Amato di Montecassino volgarizzata in antico francese, ed. by Vincenzo De Bartholomaeis (Rome: Tipografia del Senato, 1935) Die Chronik von Montecassino, ed. by Hartmut Hoffmann, MGH Scriptores in folio, 5 (Hanover: MGH, 1980) Ad Historiam Abbatiae Cassinensis Accessiones, ed. by Erasmo Gattola, 2 vols (Venice: Sebastian Collet, 1733) Registrum Gregorii VII, ed. by Erich Caspar, MGH epistolae selectae, II.2 (Hanover: MGH, 1923) William of Apulia, [Gesta Roberti Wiscardi] geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. by Marguerite Mathieu (Palermo: Istituto siciliano di studi bizantini e neoellenici, 1961) Secondary Studies Bourdieu, Pierre, ʻLa terre et les stratégies matrimoniales’, in Le sens pratique, ed. by Pierre Bourdieu (Paris: Les éditions de Minuit, 1980), pp. 249–70 Chalandon, Ferdinand, Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile, 2 vols (Paris: Picard, 1907)

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Cilento, Nicola, Italia meridionale longobarda (Milan: Ricciardi, 1966) —, Le origini della signoria capuana nella Longobardia minore (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il medioevo, 1966) Delogu, Paolo, Mito di una città meridionale (Salerno secoli VIII–XI) (Naples: Liguori, 1977) Drell, Johanna H., ‘Cultural Syncretism and Ethnic Identity: The Norman “Conquest” of Southern Italy and Sicily’, Journal of Medieval History, 25 (1999), 187–202 —, Kinship & Conquest: Family Strategies in the Principality of Salerno during the Norman Period, 1077–1194 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002) —, ‘The Aristocratic Family’, in The Society of Norman Italy, ed. by Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 97–113 Falkenhausen, Vera von, ʽI 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 medievale, ed. by G. Rossetti (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1977), pp. 321–77 Heygate, Catherine, ‘Marriage Strategies among the Normans of Southern Italy in the Eleventh Century’, in Norman Expansion: Connections, Continuities and Contrasts, ed. by Keith J. Stringer and Andrew Jotischky (New York: Routledge, 2016), pp. 165–86 Hoffmann, Hartmut, ʽDie Anfänge der Normannen in Unteritalien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 49 (1969), 95–144 Kreutz, Barbara, Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992) Loré, Vito, ‘L’aristocrazia salernitana nell’XI secolo’, in Salerno nel XII secolo istituzioni, società, cultura, ed. by Paolo Delogu and Paolo Peduto (Salerno: Centro Studi Salernitani, 2004), pp. 61–102 Loud, Graham, A., The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow: Longman, 2000) —, ‘Continuity and Change in Norman Italy: The Campania during the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, Journal of Medieval History, 22 (1996), 313–43 Ménager, Léon Robert, ‘Les fondations monastiques de Robert Guiscard, duc de Pouille et de Calabre’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienschen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 39 (1959), 1–116 Pohl, Walter, ‘Le identità etniche nei ducati di Spoleto e Benevento’, in I Longobardi dei ducati di Spoleto e di Benvento. Atti del XVI Congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo; Spoleto, 20–23 ottobre 2002, Benevento, 24–27 ottobre 2002 (Spoleto: Fondazione centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 2003), pp. 79–103 —, ‘Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic Identity’, in Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300–800, ed. by Walter Pohl (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 17–69 —, Werkstätte der Erinnerung Montecassino und die Gestaltungder langobardischen Vergangenheit (Vienna: Oldenbourg, 2001) Schwarz, Ulrich, Amalfi im frühen Mittelalter (9.-11. Jahrhundert): Untersuchungen zur Amalfitaner Überlieferung (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1978), pp. 47–48 Skinner, Patricia, Family Power in Southern Italy: The Duchy of Gaeta and its Neighbours, 850–1139 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) —, ‘“Halt! Be Men!”: Sikelgaita of Salerno, Gender and the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy’, Gender and History, 12 (2000), 622–41

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Stasser, Thierry, Où sont les femmes? Prosopographie des femmes des familles princières et ducales en Italie méridionale depuis la chute du royaume lombard (774) jusqu’à l’installation des Normands (env. 1100) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) Taviani-Carozzi, Huguette, La principauté lombarde de Salerne: ixe-xie siècle: pouvoir et société en Italie lombarde méridionale (Rome: Presse de l’École française de Rome, 1991) Thomas, Aurélie, Jeux lombards. Alliances, parenté et politique en Italie méridionale lombarde de la fin du viiie siècle à la conquête normande (Rome: Presse de l’École française de Rome, 2016)

Lucas Vi ll egas- A ristizába l

3. The Changing Priorities in the Norman Incursions into the Iberian Peninsula’s Muslim–Christian Frontiers, c. 1018–c. 1191

The two periods of Norman involvement in the medieval Iberian wars between Muslims and Christians took place on opposite sides of the region (east and west). From the late eleventh century to the first half of the twelfth century, the participation occurred on the Levantine side, and it had its own unique characteristics that culminated in the donation of the principality of Tarragona to the Norman knight, Robert Burdet (r. 1129–c. 1157) and the Anglo-Norman settlements in the city of Tortosa (1148).1 In the second half of the twelfth century, the majority of Norman participation in the conflict gravitated towards the Portuguese frontier. Apart from this regional difference, the Normans’ participation in these two territories was also distinct in its impact and development. While the Normans who took part in the early, eastern phase seem to have been interested in conquest and settlement, those involved in the second, western phase tended to prefer sacking and moving on. For example, after the Norman conquests in the Ebro Valley from 1123 to 1148, a number of low- and high-ranking Norman contingents who profited from land decided to stay in the new frontier’s towns and farmsteads.2 Robert Burdet, as noted, was even granted the city of Tarragona as a papal fief with a high level of autonomy in 1129.3 In contrast, on the western side of the peninsula, after their ill-fated first attempt to conquer Lisbon in 1142, the majority of Norman contingents preferred to continue with their sea journeys towards the Holy Land after capturing coastal cities (Faro, Silves,

1 Virgili Colet, ‘Angli cum multis aliis alienigenis’; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Anglo-Norman Intervention’, pp. 63–129. 2 Deforneaux, Les français en Espagne, pp. 145–200; Laliena Corbera, Larga stipendia et optima praedia; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Spiritual and Material Rewards’; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Cruzados normandos en la frontera’. 3 McCrank, ‘Norman Crusaders in the Catalan Reconquest’; Benito Ruano, ‘El principado de Tarragona’; Jordà Fernández, ‘Terminologia jurídica i dret comú’.

Lucas Villegas-Aristizábal MA PhD  •  is an Assistant Professor of Medieval History at Queen’s University: BISC. He specializes in northern European participation in the Iberian Reconquista between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. by Emily A. Winkler and Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small, MISCS 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 81–119 © FHG10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.121958

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and Alcacer do Sal).4 The only exception to this seems to have been the conquest of Lisbon in October 1147, after which it appears that some Normans settled down.5 The purpose of this chapter is to explore these two phases of Norman involvement in the peninsular wars against the Muslim inhabitants. Why did the Normans depart from their homeland in the first place? How did the Normans’ incursions into the Italian peninsula help to explain their involvement in Iberia? Was the rising antagonism between the Normans and their local Christian Iberian allies an important factor in their change in strategy? Finally, how did the changing political circumstances in Iberia and in the Anglo-Norman realms conspire to transform the nature of Norman involvement in the peninsula?

The Normans’ Diaspora The origins of the Norman exodus from the duchy towards the faraway regions of the Mediterranean is an area that has been discussed by multiple historians. A series of developments in the duchy in the late tenth century may have had an impact on the gradual push of certain groups to look for fortune outside the Norman territory and its traditional sphere of influence, as Robert Bartlett has noted.6 During the first quarter of the eleventh century, the cultural and commercial connection between the duchy and its Scandinavian brethren started to disappear with the steady conversion of the latter into Christianity.7 In the tenth century, the relatively close cooperation between the pagan Vikings and their Norman kinsmen might have allowed those looking for fortune outside their homeland to embark on one of the many expeditions that stopped on the Norman coast to trade.8 Conversely, with the disappearance of this relationship, those opportunities started to dwindle. Furthermore, the military service obligations imposed by the dukes upon their vassals forced them to arrange to preserve the unity of their fief after their passing. By maintaining the size of the fief, the vassal was more likely to provide the fixed number of knights required when obliged by their lord. Thus, this led them to adopt the relatively innovative Frankish concept of primogeniture. This, in turn, started to create a growing number of landless knights.9 At first, these dispossessed nobles were able to seek an occupation either in the local church or in the retinues of their



4 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Revisión de las crónicas’; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Revisiting the Anglo-Norman Crusaders’ Failed Attempt’; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘The Portuguese Led Military Campaign’; VillegasAristizábal, ‘A Frisian Perspective on Crusading’. 5 De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed. by Phillips, pp. 78–79; Phillips, ‘St Bernard of Clairvaux’; Forey, ‘The Conquest of Lisbon and the Second Crusade’; Branco, ‘A conquista de Lisboa’; Bennett, ‘Military Aspects of the Conquest of Lisbon’; Edgington, ‘The Capture of Lisbon’. 6 Bartlett, The Making of Europe, pp. 24–31; Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest?’, p. 16. 7 Potts, ‘Normandy, 911–1144’, p. 28. 8 Van Houts, ‘Gesta normannorum ducum’; Ridel, ‘Les préparatifs nautiques de la Conquête’, pp. 187–90. 9 Bates, Normandy Before 1066, pp. 241–45; Norwich, The Normans in Sicily, p. 8; France, The Crusades, p. 27.

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brothers or kinsmen. Intrafamilial conflict was common, and these miles, as they are usually referred to in the sources, managed through war or feuds to gain lands as a reward for their services.10 This was particularly so during the period of 1035–1041, when the duchy suffered from a series of internal feuds and a weakening of ducal authority during the minority of William the Bastard.11 Nonetheless, as the number of these miles increased with new generations, opportunities to serve someone in Normandy declined; these situations encouraged the knights to roam the countryside looking for employment as soldiers with other landlords. As in other parts of France, this created a level of instability. As had happened with their Norse ancestors, those who lost in these feuds were often not killed but instead allowed to depart from the duchy.12 Under such circumstances, these groups of warriors were forced to find occupation outside Normandy. Their ultimate goal, as in their homeland, was to gain land as their elder siblings had managed to do through inheritance.

The Italian Connection: Piety or Avarice? To understand the reasons behind the rising Norman interest in Iberia, one might look comparatively at the motives behind their attraction to southern Italy in the early decades of the eleventh century. The Norman incursion into Italy, relatively better documented, could provide some clues as to the Normans’ original intentions upon their arrival in Iberia where the relevant texts are scarcer. William of Apulia ascribed the Normans’ arrival in southern Italy to a coincidental influx of people journeying there as pilgrims.13 As Nicholas Webber has pointed out, although there are different variants of the story in Amatus of Montecassino and other narrative sources, the Normans were noted as being distinct from other groups such as the Franks.14 Additionally, both William of Apulia and Geoffrey Malaterra claimed that the Normans were invited by locals to fight for them. However, as Webber and Graham Loud have suggested, these narrative sources are problematic for the early Norman arrivals in Italy because they were written more than half a century after the events they describe and because of their seemingly contradictory elements.15 Additionally, more contemporary narratives such as those of Adémar of Chabannes and Ralph Glaber, as Loud has discussed, were written at a great distance away in France.16 The Norman involvement in Italy, similar to that of their Viking forbears in Byzantium, has been attributed to their role as mercenaries. The idea revolves around the references in the narrative sources to them being contracted to aid the locals as soldiers in their military squabbles. Conversely, the reason why 10 Crouch, The Normans, pp. 42–47. 11 Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest?’, p. 16. 12 Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest?’, p. 18. 13 William of Apulia, The Deeds of Robert Guiscard, trans. by Loud, p. 3. 14 Webber, The Evolution of Norman Identity, p. 61. 15 Webber, The Evolution of Norman Identity, p. 62. 16 Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 60–61.

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Normans decided to look for fortune in such faraway regions cannot be ascribed purely to the single factor of their desire for land. During the second half of the eleventh century, chroniclers attributed their arrival to the Normans’ piety as pilgrims. Although this could be merely the creation of these later clerical works, it is undeniable that in the early eleventh century, Normandy was influenced by the growing movement of pilgrimage. To some of the warring nobility, the Normans’ seemingly sinful lifestyle could have caused some anguish, especially when confronted with the Christian beliefs preached by the reforming priests in their local church.17 Pilgrimage, therefore, provided guilt-filled warriors with a way out of their spiritual concerns.18 Contemporary charters of donations to religious houses usually asked for prayers for the salvation of their soul. This suggests a preoccupation with their own afterlife and those of loved ones.19 This is evident in several donations to religious institutions both in Normandy and in the lands that they acquired elsewhere, such as southern Italy.20 The Norman clergy had been influenced by the growing reform movement that proclaimed the need for humility among the warring castes in view of the necessity to ultimately join a monastic life.21 Pilgrimage provided them with an alternative that was far more appealing.22 Additionally, it offered both younger and older members of the Norman nobility an opportunity to depart and explore the world, as some contemporary critics of the idea of pilgrimage claimed they did.23 Despite Webber’s cautious scepticism that the Normans arrived in Italy purely for spiritual reasons, the fact that Italy possessed a great number of Christian shrines cannot be ignored.24 Rome, as the resting place of the body of St Peter, first of the Apostles, had a well-known attraction for thousands of pilgrims from across western Christendom.25 Furthermore, the monastery of Montecassino, as the original foundation of St Benedict, also had some importance. Likewise, the geographical position of the Italian peninsula in the middle of the Mediterranean meant that many passed through it on the way further east to the Holy Land.26 On the other hand, the endemic, low-level use of political violence in southern Italy where the Lombard principalities competed for supremacy with the Byzantine Empire, Muslim Sicily, the Holy Roman Empire, and the papacy made this particular area ripe with opportunities for mercenary armies of Normans and other groups who might have ventured there originally as pilgrims.27 In the end, the combination of 17 Harper-Bill, ‘The Piety of the Anglo-Norman Knightly Class’, pp. 65–71. 18 Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome, pp. 2–5. 19 Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest?’, pp. 18–19. 20 Loud, ‘The Abbey of Cava’, pp. 148–55. 21 MacGregor, ‘The Ministry of Gerold d’Avranches’, pp. 236–37. 22 Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest?’, p. 19. 23 Bouet, ‘1000–1100: La Conquête’, pp. 12–13; France, The Crusades, p. 27; Birch, ‘Jacques de Vitry and the Ideology of Pilgrimage’, p. 85. 24 Webber, The Evolution of Norman Identity, p. 62. 25 Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome, p. 23. 26 Loud, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest?’, pp. 18–19. 27 Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, p. 66.

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these two seemingly contradictory reasons must have played a part in the Normans’ decision to travel south on pilgrimage and in exploration of new avenues for military engagement.

The Iberian Peninsula in the Eleventh Century Similar to southern Italy, Iberia in the early eleventh century was fractured by the disintegrating Umayyad Caliphate, which provided soldiers of fortune with opportunities for employment.28 With the declining authority of the caliphs and the power vacuum left after the passing of the formidable hājib al-Manṣūr (r. 978–1002), the different regional governors, or taifas, exploited the situation to assert their independence.29 The eleventh-century instability, therefore, provided a fertile ground for newly established leaders to take the initiative and become independent emirs.30 The disappearance of a local, unifying Sunni authority and the remoteness and waning power of the Abbasids in Baghdad allowed these groups to be, for all intents and purposes, completely free and autonomous. However, their command over their subjects similarly suffered from their lack of legitimacy in ruling under traditional ideas of connection to the prophet’s lineage. For many, their position as governors originated from their appointment by the Umayyads, and without any other form of legitimation, their claims to rule became weak after the disappearance of the Caliphate.31 These forced them to consider war with each other as a way to legitimize their hold on power. Furthermore, after three centuries of Muslim rule, the Iberian Peninsula remained a deeply divided society along ethnic and religious lines. Arabs, Mozarabs, Sephardic Jews, Muslim Berbers, and Iberian Muslims cooperated and struggled with each other at different times. The sectarian division that existed between Sunni and Shias of different affiliations was also present in the peninsula. Under these circumstances, mercenary armies were a more trustworthy force than their local militias to use against political enemies both outside and inside their domains.32 It is during this period that Catalan, Castilian, Basque, and Leonese soldiers of fortune, and sometimes kings and counts, were paid handsomely for their services in support of one of these local Muslim leaders. The most famous of these, because of his successful career at the end of the century, was El Cid, but he was not alone.33 Although there is no surviving evidence that any Norman seized this chance, the instability of al-Andalus provided those interested in attacking these territories with a tempting opportunity. King Sancho III (r. 994–1035) of Pamplona, taking advantage of the weakness of the Umayyad regime, decided to concentrate his efforts 28 Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal, pp. 115–19. 29 Sénac and Laliena Corbera, 1064, Barbastro, pp. 21–23. 30 Sénac, ‘Al-Mansûr et la reconquête’, pp. 37–50. 31 González Jiménez, ‘Frontier and Settlement in Castile’, pp. 52–53. 32 Albarrán Iruela, La cruz y la media luna, pp. 29–31. 33 Chevedden, ‘Pope Urban II and the Ideology’, pp. 22–31.

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on consolidating his control over the Christian-dominated areas of the peninsula. However, the only region of Christian Iberia that he did not try to capture was the leftover Carolingian-founded counties of Catalonia, perhaps as a result of the continued pretence claim by the Capetians over these regions and more likely by the lack of a contiguous border with those counties. Conversely, the restless Catalonian nobility was eager to take advantage of any particular weakness in al-Andalus.34 Local ruling families, as noted in earlier works, were happy to provide soldiers to the belligerent Muslim factions in the south. Counts Ramon Borrell of Barcelona (r. 992–1017) and Ermengol I of Urgel (r. 992–1010) expanded their territories and sold their services to the different taifas in the Andalusi civil wars.35 In 1018, in the aftermath of one of these incursions, the county of Barcelona, under the leadership of its regent, Countess Ermesinde, was eager to find a suitable foreign ally to continue the policy of expansion started by her deceased husband, Ramon Borrell. A Norman adventurer by the name of Roger of Tosny seems, under these circumstances, to have played a role for her in this quest, as will be explored later.36

The Trail of St James In the early eleventh century, as in Italy, the Iberian Peninsula saw the increasing rise of the pilgrimage movement. The fame of the Galician shrine of Santiago of Compostela started to attract attention from across the Pyrenees.37 The Iberian monarchs, such as Sancho III of Pamplona and his successors, Fernando I of Castile-Leon (r. 1056–1065) and Alfonso VI of Castile-Leon (r. 1071–1109) realizing the importance of the trail as a source for trade, were keen to encourage its popularity by fixing bridges, roads, and hostels along the way. Meanwhile, the reforming monastery of Cluny began gaining donations in the lands along the route connecting the monastery with the devotional aspect of the emerging cult. Some have suggested that Cluny was the driving force behind the sacralization of the Iberian conflict in Iberia.38 Yet there is little evidence that the Burgundian monastery was responsible for the gradual shift of the Iberian struggle from a war of political restoration towards a Holy War in the eleventh century.39 Additionally, it was not until the late eleventh century that Cluny was granted lands in Normandy. As a result, it is unlikely that the order was directly involved in propagating the idea that the war against the Muslims in Iberia had any direct religious significance.

34 Corredera Gutiérrez, ‘Los condes soberanos de Urgel’, 33–34; Barton, Victory’s Shadow, p. 23. 35 Barton, Victory’s Shadow, p. 24. 36 Udina i Martorell, ‘Los condes catalanes: Prosopografía’, pp. 341–42; see section ‘The First Phase of the Norman incursion into Iberia’, below. 37 Birch, Pilgrimage to Rome, pp. 10, 45; Storrs, ‘Jacobean Pilgrims to St James of Compostella’, p. 36; Tate, Pilgrimages to Saint James of Compostella, p. 8. 38 Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain, pp. 56–58; Constable, Cluny from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries, pp. 186–87. 39 Iogna-Prat, Order and Exclusion, pp. 323–24.

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Cluny did manage to profit from the continuing expansion of Christian power in the peninsula through a vassalage arrangement of the kingdom of Castile-Leon towards the order during the reigns of Fernando I and Alfonso VI. This arrangement provided large quantities of gold to the monastery from the protection racket (Parias) imposed by these kings on their Andalusi neighbours.40 Furthermore, the Cluniac Benedictine order’s acquisition of a large number of daughter houses on the trail to the shrine gave it an incentive to promote the idea of pilgrimage to Santiago in France.41 It is therefore likely that it was through their connection with the apostolic shrine of Compostela that the Cluniac order was indirectly responsible for transmitting the idea that Iberia was a worthy place for the Normans to conquer. The splendour of their churches and monasteries would have allowed the Norman pilgrims to imagine the wealth of the Iberian emirates that could pay for such opulence.

The First Phase of the Norman Incursion into Iberia It was around 1018–1020 when the first Norman participant appears in the historical record. His name, as noted earlier, was Roger of Tosny, and, like his compatriots in southern Italy, he came to Iberia with a retinue of followers. As the first representative of the first phase of Norman intervention in the Iberian wars between Christians and Muslims, he seems to have come to acquire lands. Unfortunately, there is only limited evidence of his arrival in the county of Barcelona at the end of the second decade of the eleventh century. There are three narrative sources: the chronicle of Ademar of Chabannes from southern France,42 the Chronique de St Pierre le Vif from Sens,43 and the Norman Gesta normannorum ducum.44 The first two, as suggested, are from neither Iberia nor Normandy and therefore are disconnected from the events narrated here, while the last is brief in scope on the theme discussed here.45 It seems that Roger’s dispute with Duke Richard II (r. 996–1026) led him to depart for Iberia in hopes of gaining lands not only for himself but also for his followers, who included a bastard brother.46 While in the service of Countess Ermesinde of Barcelona, according to the sources, Roger managed to secure his position by marrying Stephania, one of the countess’s daughters. This is similar to the strategy

40 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Norman and Anglo-Norman Intervention’, p. 106; Bishko, ‘Fernando I y los orígenes de la alianza’, pp. 31–51. 41 Werckmeister, ‘Cluny III and the Pilgrimage to Santiago’, 103–12; Martin, ‘Recasting the Concept of the “Pilgrimage Church”’, p. 169. 42 Ademar of Chabannes, Chronicon, ed. by Bourgain, Landes, and Pon, p. 174; English translated extracts in: Ademar of Chabannes, ‘Chronicle’, ed. by van Houts, p. 270. 43 Chronique de Saint-Pierre-le-Vif de Sens, ed. by Bautier and Gilles, p. 112; English translated extract in: Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Roger of Tosny’, p. 8. 44 Gesta normannorum ducum, ed. by van Houts, ii, 94–95. 45 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Roger of Tosny’, pp. 5–16. 46 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Roger of Tosny’, p. 9.

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of political consolidation followed by Robert Guiscard upon his arrival in southern Italy, as discussed by Aurélie Thomas in her chapter.47 Although Roger’s attempt to forge a dominion in Iberia did not pay off in the long run as he had probably hoped, his interventions created a precedent that was well-remembered in Normandy a century after the event through Orderic Vitalis’s re-editing of the Gesta normannorum ducum.48 Iberia, like Italy, would continue to attract Normans in the following decades, especially as the reformed papacy started to grant this conflict the trappings of Holy War in the second half of the eleventh century. This happened despite the fact that the local Iberian Christian rulers were less than enthusiastic about imbuing their wars with that status. To the Iberian kings in the eleventh century, their conflict with the Muslims was, in essence, a political dispute for control of territory.49 The idea that the Iberian wars were part of a sacred conflict of destruction or forced conversion took longer to be fully accepted in the peninsula than in the eastern Mediterranean even after the success of the First Crusade to the Holy Land. A similar situation but from the Muslim perspective is discussed by Matt King in his chapter on Holy War in the central Mediterranean, where the Norman campaigns in North Africa against the Zirids were perceived as part of a concerted Christian offensive against the Islamic world.50

The Conquest of Barbastro In 1064, Pope Alexander II (r. 1061–1073) wrote a letter granting those who would go to Iberia a remission of penance coinciding with the well-known expedition of Burgundians, Gascons, Navarrese, Aragonese, Catalans, and Normans against the Andalusi city of Barbastro.51 This well-discussed letter, it has been suggested, shows the continued interest of the reform popes in extending their theological justification for war against the Muslims that they had used to encourage the Norman invasion of 47 Ademar of Chabannes, Chronicon, ed. by Bourgain, Landes, and Pon, p. 174; Chronique de Saint-Pierrele-Vif de Sens, ed. by Bautier and Gilles, p. 112; see Thomas, this volume. 48 Gesta normannorum ducum, ed. by van Houts, ii, 94–95. 49 Wilson, ‘Enigma of the De Expunatione’, p. 4. 50 See chapter by Matt King, this volume. 51 ‘Clero Vulturnensi, eos, qui in Ispaniam proficisci destinarunt, paterna karitate hortamur ut que divinitus adminiti cogitaverunt ad effectum perducere, summa cum sollicitudine procurent; qui iuxta qualitatem peccaminum suorum unusquisque suo episcopo vel spirituali patri confiteatur, eisque, ne diabolus accusare de inpenitentia possit, modus penitentiae imponatur. Nos vero auctoritate sanctorum apostolorum Petri et Pauli et penitentiam eis levamus et remissionem peccatorum facimus, oratione, prosequentes.’ British Library, London, United Kingdom, Add. MS 8873, fols 48r-v (‘To the Vulturnese clergy, with fatherly love we exhort those who are intending to journey to Spain, that they take the greatest care to achieve those aims which, with divine admonishment, they have decided to accomplish. May each of them confess, according to the quality of his sins, to his bishop or spiritual father and, lest the Devil be able to accuse them of impenitence, may a measure of penance be conferred upon them. We, however, by the authority of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, lift the penance from them and grant a remission of sins; our prayers go with them’), English translation in: Bull, Knightly Piety, p. 73.

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Sicily.52 However, as noted by Alberto Ferreiro, Marcus Bull, and others, the letter’s connection with the planned expedition that took place against Barbastro is far from certain.53 The letter does not make any specific allusion to war or Barbastro in particular. It does, however, show that the papacy viewed the Iberian Peninsula as a legitimate area for the remission of confessed sins.54 The argument for Barbastro being a Crusade before the so-called ‘First Crusade (1095–1099)’ revolves also around the Arab Chronicle of Ibn Hayyad’s reference to the ‘Chief of the cavalry of Rome’ and its significance.55 This was seen by, for example, Reinhart Dozy, José Goñi Gaztambide, and Paul E. Chevedden as a clear indication of Alexander II’s commitment to the campaign against Barbastro.56 The question of whether the operation of Barbastro qualifies as a legitimate ‘Crusade’ in the eyes of our contemporary historiography is not directly relevant to the limited scope of this chapter.57 The importance, however, for the discussion here is that Barbastro proved to be an attractive venture for the Normans regardless of its status. There are at least two Normans whom the sources suggest were present in the short-lived conquest of the frontier city. They are Robert Crispin and Walter Giffard.58 Of the two, Robert Crispin is the one for whom we have the most information. As with the lives of many of Robert’s compatriots who found fortune on the battlefields of southern Italy, Amatus of Montecassino provides us with most of the details about Robert’s involvement in Iberia.59 Amatus, in his desire to praise the Normans, attributed the whole venture’s success to Robert’s skilful leadership.60 Furthermore, Amatus alludes to a supposed plan to take other Iberian cities after Robert managed to recruit more soldiers in Normandy.61 Apart from these Christian 52 Chevedden, ‘Pope Urban II and the Ideology’, pp. 7–53. 53 Ferreiro, ‘The Siege of Barbastro’, 144; Bull, Knightly Piety, pp. 74–76. 54 Laliena Corbera, ‘Guerra santa y reconquista’, pp. 413–24. 55 Al-Bakri, ‘al Himyari, al-Rawd al-mi’tar’, pp. 70–71. 56 Dozy, Recherches sur l’histoire et la littérature de l’Espagne, p. 356; Goñi Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de Cruzada, pp. 50–52; Chevedden, ‘The Islamic Interpretation of the Crusade’, pp. 134–35. 57 To look into the debate on the status of Barbastro as a ‘Crusade’, see: Dozy, Recherches sur l’histoire et la littérature de l’Espagne, pp. 355–57; Boissonade, ‘Cluny, la papauté et la première grande croisade internationale’; Deforneaux, Les français en Espagne, pp. 125–38; Erdmann, The Origins of the Idea, pp. 288–89; Goñi-Gaztambide, Historia de la bula de cruzada en España, pp. 43–51; Delaruelle, ‘The Crusading Idea’, pp. 209–10; Cantarino, ‘The Spanish Reconquest’, pp. 88–89; Ferreiro, ‘The Siege of Barbastro’; Riley-Smith, The First Crusade, pp. 29, 56; Bull, Knightly Piety, pp. 74–76; VillegasAristizábal, ‘Norman and Anglo-Norman Participation’, pp. 90–100; Chevedden, ‘Canon 2 of the Council of Clermont’, pp. 277–86; Chevedden, ‘The Islamic Interpretation of the Crusade’, pp. 134–35; Chevedden, ‘A Crusade from the First’, pp. 193–94; García Fitz and Novoa Portella, Cruzados en la Reconquista, pp. 55–63; Sénac and Laliena Corbera, 1064, Barbastro, pp. 80–106. 58 Archer, ‘Giffard of Barbastre’. 59 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Delarc, pp. 11–13; Amatus, Storia di Normanni, ed. by De Bartholomaeis, pp. 14–15; Amatus, The History of the Normans, trans. by Dunbar, pp. 46–47. 60 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Delarc, pp. 12–13. 61 ‘Et a ceste choze faire fu eslit un qui se clamoit Robert Crespin […] Et tout l’ost voust que Robert Crispin la feist garder, a ce que en lo secont an retornast o tel exercit ou plus grant, pour prendre des autres cités d’Espaingne.’ Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Delarc, pp. 12–13 (‘Robert Crispin was the one elected to do this […] The entire army desired that Robert Crispin secure it so that in the following

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texts, we also have the Arab chronicles of al-Bakri and Ibn Hayân, which corroborate the participation of the Normans, making a clear distinction between them and the Franks.62 Thus, a Norman contingent was as well invested as other groups were in the capture of this city. According to Amatus, Robert stayed in Barbastro after its conquest and until it was lost to the Andalusi.63 Notwithstanding the fact that, as has been noted before, this could be a fanciful creation, it is not totally implausible, since Amatus himself was aware that the city was retaken by the Andalusi within a year of its capture by the Christians.64 By 1066, Robert was already in Italy looking for other opportunities there, so it is conceivable that he was Amatus’ informant. Robert’s involvement in Iberia was a precursor for later twelfth-century Norman participation in the peninsula. He was a younger, landless member of the Crispin clan in Normandy and, as such, was perhaps more disposed to try his luck in Iberia.65 However, in his case, it was a very short-lived venture that did not provide him with a long-lasting dominion, forcing him to go to Italy in the aftermath in order to fulfil his desire for territorial holdings. Another Norman who might have led a contingent at the siege of Barbastro was Walter Giffard, the standard-bearer at the Battle of Hastings (14 October 1066).66 The only sources that place him at Barbastro are the mid twelfth-century Norman epics: Roman de Rou by Wace and Estoire des Engleis by Geffrei Gaimar.67 Wace’s work, despite its temporal dislocation, has been considered relatively reliable by Matthew Bennett and Elisabeth van Houts in terms of the names of the participants in the Battle of Hastings and other details that are absent in other sources.68 Meanwhile, Geffrei, writing in Lincolnshire according to Ian Short in his latest edition of the text, can be a fairly reliable source for the period of the conquest despite his work’s temporal and geographical displacement.69 Thomas Archer, using these two sources, concluded that Walter was present, assuming that a certain Giffard

year he might return with the same army or a larger one and take other Spanish cities’), English translation in: Amatus, The History of the Normans, trans. by Dunbar, p. 46; García Fitz and Novoa Portella, Cruzados en la Reconquista, p. 63. 62 Al-Bakri, ‘al Himyari, al-Rawd al-mi’tar’, pp. 70–71; Sénac and Laliena Corbera, 1064, Barbastro, p. 100. 63 ‘Et perdue la cité une part furent occis, etu ne part furent occis en prison, et une part foyrent et furent delivré.’ Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Delarc, p. 13; Amatus, Storia di Normanni, ed. by De Bartholomaeis, p. 15 (‘The city was lost. Some [of the Christians] were killed, others were imprisoned, and yet others fled to safety’), English translation in: Amatus, The History of the Normans, trans. by Dunbar, p. 47. 64 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Delarc, p. 13; Amatus, Storia di normanni, ed. by De Bartholomaeis, p. 15; Amatus, The History of the Normans, trans. by Dunbar, p. 47; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Norman and AngloNorman Participation’, p. 88. 65 Milo Crispin, ‘On the Origins of the Crispin Family’, pp. 84–85. 66 Archer, ‘Giffard of Barbastre’, pp. 303–04. 67 Wace, Roman de Rou, ed. by Holden, p. 175; Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis, trans. by Short, pp. 328–29. 68 Bennett, ‘Poetry as History?’, 38–39; van Houts, ‘Wace as Historian’, pp. 31–32. 69 Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis, trans. by Short, pp. ix–xiv.

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the Poitevin mentioned by Geffrei was the same person.70 This assumption has been maintained in the historiography because, as noted by Wace, Walter Giffard had recently been to Iberia since he had brought back a Spanish horse, gifted by an Iberian monarch. Accordingly, Duke William used it as his steed at the Battle of Hastings.71 Therefore, it is likely that this Norman, Giffard, was involved in Barbastro in 1064 during his journey to Iberia and acquired the horse from Sancho Ramirez of Aragon (r. 1063–1094) as Derek Lomax suggested.72 Lomax’s logic was based on the fact that Sancho Ramirez started a tradition of making alliances with northern Frankish nobles by marring Felicia, the youngest daughter of the Burgundian Count Eblous II of Roucy c. 1173.73 However, Thomas Barton has noted that there is no evidence that the Aragonese monarch took part in the episode, while Count Ermengol III of Urgel played a leading role.74 It could be possible that the Iberian king alluded to as having sent the horse was Ermengol, and the reference to him as king was an error. Conversely, since Walter visited the shrine of Santiago on his journey, this suggests that his motivations for his participation in Iberia were not wholly material in nature. Also, since Santiago of Compostela was located in the kingdom of Leon, it is possible that the horse was a gift from King Fernando I of Leon (r. 1037–1065) instead. Furthermore, Walter, like Robert, may have intended to acquire lands in Iberia since he followed his liege lord to England the subsequent year and was rewarded with the barony of Long Crendon for his contribution to the Battle of Hastings.75 Additionally, Geffrei calls him ‘le Poitevin’, indicating that he could have also been involved in military campaigns in Poitou and implying a successful career as a soldier for hire in other parts of France. Therefore, it seems that these early Norman incursions into Iberia had at least a partially materialistic element that included the acquisition of territory and booty. This was a tradition that would continue to be a strong motivating factor in the Norman incursions in this region in the following decades.

70 Archer, ‘Giffard of Barbastre’, pp. 303–04; ‘Maint gentil hom i adubat: od sul Giffard le Peitevin, ki de Barbastre ert, son cosin, abubat il trente vallez.’ Wace, Roman de Rou, ed. by Holden, p. 175, n. 263; ‘Together with [Walter] Giffard the Poitevin, of Barbastro fame and a kinsman of his, he knighted no fewer than thirty young squires’. Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis, trans. by Short, pp. 328–29. 71 ‘[Guillaume] Son boen cheval fist demander; ne poeit l’en meillor trover, d’Espagne li out enveié, uns reis par mult grant amistié, arme ne presse ne dotast, se sis sires l’esporonast; Guater Giffart l’out amené, qui a Saint Jame aveit esté.’ Wace, Roman de Rou, ed. by Holden, ii, 164–65, lines 7535–42 (‘He [William the Conqueror] asked for his good horse: no one could find one better. A king had sent it to him from Spain as mark of great friendship; if its lord spurred it, it would fear no weapon or throng of men. Walter Giffard who had been to Santiago de Compostela had brought it’), English translation in: Wace, Roman de Rou, trans. by Burgess, p. 175. 72 Lomax, ‘The First English Pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela’, p. 166. 73 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Pope Gregory VII and Count Eblous’, p. 122. 74 Barton, Victory’s Shadow, p. 32. 75 National Archives, Kew: Long Crendon, Buckinghamshire. Ref. E 31/2/1/5673 Great Domesday Book, fol. 147r; Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, ed. by Chibnall, ii, 74–75; Wace, Roman de Rou, ed. by Holden, p. 175.

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The Conquest of England and the First Crusade to the Levant A year after the Christian loss of Barbastro (1065), Duke William of Normandy invaded England in late September 1066, with a large army of his vassals as well as many dispossessed knights from his domains and elsewhere.76 The Norman Conquest of England gave ample opportunities for hundreds of landless miles to be rewarded with a lordship for their services without having to venture far from their homeland to the Mediterranean.77 As a result, many of them followed the Norman duke in his gamble to obtain the English crown after the passing of Edward the Confessor. The Anglo-Saxon defeat at the Battle of Hastings sealed the fate of England as a land where a Norman, regardless of his standing in Normandy, could find a fief to call his own as seen by the large number of Norman names that appeared in Domesday Book.78 However, with the gradual papal sacralization of the Iberian conflict begun by Alexander II and pursued by his successor, Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073–1085), the Iberian wars against the Muslims continued to attract the interest of knights from across the Pyrenees.79 In 1073, just a few weeks after his elevation to the see of Rome, Gregory VII sent a letter to his legate in France instructing him on the papal views on a planned military expedition to capture Muslim-controlled lands on the Iberian Peninsula. Gregory was eager to show his selected commander, the Burgundian Count Eblous II of Roucy, that apart from the sacred remunerations that they would receive in the coming undertaking, he expected them to gain lands

76 Barlow, The Norman Conquest and Beyond, pp. 159–60. 77 Green, ‘The Aristocracy of Conquered England’, p. 214. 78 Green, ‘The Aristocracy of Conquered England’, p. 204. 79 In the kingdoms of Leon and Castile, after the writing of the Chronicle of Alfonso III of Leon (r. 866–910), the idea that the Astur-Leonese royal lineage was directly descendant from the last Visigoth monarchs had been exposed. With this foundation myth being perpetuated by successive narrative texts, the kings of Leon and later of Castile-Leon had established an ideological justification for their manifest destiny to recapture the Muslim-controlled lands of al-Andalus. Maravall, El concepto de España, pp. 263–341; Linehan, History and the Historians, pp. 82–83, 95–127. This concept of reconquest (‘Reconquista’), as developed by these clerical chronicle authors, was most likely connected to the Christian theological justifications for a ‘just war’ first introduced by St Augustine of Hippo in his De civitate Dei. Russell, The Just War, pp. 16–23; Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, trans. by Bettenson and O’Meara, p. 32. However, the view that the Iberian series of conflicts between Christians and Muslims were part of a concerted effort of political restoration of the Visigoth regime or at least of Christian political supremacy is an area of great debate in contemporary Iberian historiography. Furthermore, the idea that these wars qualify as part of the crusading movement is also a subject of some controversy among historians of the field. García-Guijarro, ‘Los orígenes’; Housley, Contesting the Crusades, pp. 1–23; O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, pp. 1–22. Additionally, the use of the term ‘Reconquista’ itself to describe these wars is also an area of great debate because of the word’s nationalistic overtones in contemporary Spanish politics. García Fitz, ‘La Reconquista’; García-Sanjuan, ‘Rejecting al-Andalus’, pp. 127–45. As a result, this chapter has avoided the term ‘Reconquista’ altogether in referring to the wars between Iberian Christians and Muslims in the Middle Ages.

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under his papal jurisdiction and not under that of the Iberian rulers.80 His claims of papal overlordship over Hispania81 were probably based on the papal–Norman arrangement in the treaty of Melfi (1059), where Pope Nicholas II (r. 1059–1061) recognized Robert Guiscard as Count of Sicily in return for his homage even before the invasion of the island, as well as an innovative interpretation of the donation of Constantine.82 In addition to the sacralization of the project, Gregory was well aware that the lure of land, even as a papal fief, would be an attractive proposition for these northern Frankish knights.83 Notwithstanding the intent, this undertaking did produce a long-term effect on the later enterprises into Iberia from Normandy, Anglo-Norman England, and Norman Italy. The further development of the idea that the wars against the Muslims in the peninsula were worthy and divinely inspired would have a lasting consequence for Norman involvement there for the following century or so.84 While the Iberian Christians seem to have heard the announcement about the impending campaign to rescue Jerusalem, Pope Urban II had assured them through an epistle that fighting the Almoravids at home would receive the same spiritual rewards as the eastern venture. Furthermore, he gave the Count of Barcelona religious and penitential incentives to restore the abandoned see of Tarragona located near Tortosa, a strongly fortified Andalusi city.85 The merger of pilgrimage with Holy War made the undertakings in Iberia far more attractive than the previous offers of material rewards.86 However, it would not be until the pontificate of Gelasius II (r. 1118–1119) during the second decade of the twelfth century that the Iberian wars would receive full equivalency with the Levantine Crusades for the trans-Pyrenean contingents.87 It is important to note that for Iberian rulers as well as their nobility, the wars against the Muslim-controlled south still only gradually grew in religious significance. These wars had been ongoing over many generations. Nonetheless, their confessional preoccupations with the afterlife were not dissimilar to the rest of Latin Christendom, and the promises of the remission of sins progressively had some allure. As Matthew Bennett discusses, in their collective imagination, the Normans had long been attracted to the concept

80 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Pope Gregory VII and Count Eblous’, pp. 125–27; García Fitz and Novoa Portella, Cruzados en la Reconquista, pp. 64–65; Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea, pp. 155–56. 81 Hispania is the medieval Latin term for the Iberian Peninsula, sometimes including Septimania in southern France. It derives from the name for the Roman provinces that occupied that area and the Visigothic Kingdom that ruled it after the Romans and before the Arab conquest in 711. O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, pp. 17–21. 82 Robinson, The Papacy, p. 309; Chevedden, ‘Canon 2 of the Council of Clermont’, p. 277. 83 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Pope Gregory VII and Count Eblous’, pp. 127–29. 84 Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform, p. 221; Lacarra de Miguel, Vida de Alfonso el batallador, pp. 15–17; Barber, The Two Cities, p. 346; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Pope Gregory VII and Count Eblous’, p. 129. 85 ‘Urban’s Letter to the Counts of Besalú, Empurias, Roussilon, and Cerdeña and their Followers’, pp. 45–46. 86 O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, pp. 1–22; Housley, Contesting the Crusades, pp. 90–91. 87 Purkis, Crusading Spirituality, p. 133; Johannes Dominicus Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum, 21, col. 217.

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of waging war in God’s name in the far reaches of the Mediterranean from Sicily to Iberia and now to the Holy Land at the end of the eleventh century.88 In the case of the First Crusade, Normans from both Normandy and southern Italy seem to have followed the crusading call of Urban II with great enthusiasm. From Duke Robert of Normandy to Bohemond of Taranto and his nephew Tancred, the number of Normans who ventured east during the campaign that ended up capturing Jerusalem in 1099 was substantial and important. Their material conquests were tangible enough to demonstrate to their successors the dual value of a crusade as an enterprise for both spiritual and material enrichment. Bohemond had managed to capture the city of Antioch while his landless nephew, Tancred, acquired part of Galilee.89 Furthermore, the expedition culminated in the capture of Jerusalem, an event that was seen as religiously significant in most contemporary sources. Therefore, the idea that the Iberian frontier could have equivalent sacred and material rewards but at a fraction of the distance, and consequently cost, must have been an attractive proposition.90

The Continuation of Conquest and the Seeds of Change As noted earlier, the crusade that took Jerusalem had an important galvanizing effect on Norman involvement in the Iberian Peninsula, as it seems to have fully established the idea that wars there could provide them with both territorial acquisitions and remission of sins. However, from the point of view of the Iberian rulers, the equivalence of their border conflicts with their Muslim neighbours with the crusades in the Levant had a significant effect in attracting soldiers for their campaigns of conquest. This was especially so after the 1080s, when the Almoravids, a new North African sect, started to reunite al-Andalus and threaten the military supremacy established by the Christian realms of the peninsula with the Castilian defeat at the Battle of Sagrajas (1086).91 Soon after the fall of Jerusalem, the Iberian clergy attempted to draw the attention of the Anglo-Normans. A letter was sent by Bishop Diego Gelmirez of Santiago of Compostela (r. 1100–1140) to Archbishop Anslem of Canterbury (r. 1093–1109), requesting soldiers to fight against the Muslims. Despite Anslem’s reticence, the letter shows how the Iberians were already aware of the usefulness of the Normans as possible participants in their planned military enterprises.92 The Aragonese under the leadership of King Alfonso I (r. 1104–1134) were the first to successfully

88 See chapter by Matthew Bennett, this volume. 89 Asbridge, The Creation of the Principality, pp. 34–41; Buck, The Principality of Antioch, pp. 1–3, 68–69; Kostick, The Social Structure, pp. 196–97. 90 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘The Portuguese Led Military Campaign’, p. 58. 91 Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain, pp. 70–71. 92 ‘Dolet quod Angli milites contra saracenos in eius auxilium mittere non possint, cum ipsum regnum anglorum bellis commoveatur.’ S. Anselmi Cantuariensis archiepiscopi opera Omnia, ed. by Schmitt, 6, doc. 263.

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use the papal designation of ‘Crusade’ to attract trans-Pyrenean crusaders for their campaigns in the Ebro Valley. Alfonso managed to appeal to a few veterans of the First Crusade, such as the Midi Frank, Viscount Gaston de Bearn (r. 1090–1131) and, later, the Norman Count Rotrou III of Perche (r. 1099–1144).93 According to the Anglo-Norman chronicler Orderic Vitalis, soon after his return from the Holy Land, Rotrou of Perche himself embarked on a military expedition to Iberia c. 1105.94 As I have argued in previous works, there is no other source that corroborates this information, but the episode does provide an interesting counterpoint to the enthusiasm assumed in the northerners’ help for the Christians of the peninsula. According to Orderic’s account, the Normans under the command of Rotrou of Perche (Alfonso’s cousin) had ventured into Iberia to fight against the Muslims but had been betrayed by their coreligionists and were forced to return home without their promised recompense.95 The passage highlights one of the problems sometimes faced by the Iberian rulers with regard to their allies’ eagerness to fight the Andalusi. To the Iberian monarchs, the war against their Muslim neighbours was far from constant. In many cases, their Christian neighbours were at times perceived as a more pressing threat, so alliances were forged across the religious divide, similar to the situation in the Latin East.96 Therefore, the arrival of a group of Normans eager to attack the Muslims sometimes created awkward situations where the local Christians were keen to dissuade them from war with the Andalusi, disturbing the current balance of power and cross-religious alliances.97 This produced a conflict of interests between the local Iberian Christian rulers and their northern allies, including the Normans, which was probably considered treasonous by those motivated by the Holy War aspect of campaigning in Iberia, similar to the views shown in the chronicles of the Levantine crusades regarding the Byzantines.98 This strain, caused by diverging priorities, was one part of the problematic relationship that started to appear between the frontier Iberian Christians and their Norman allies.

The Normans in the Ebro Whether or not the first incursion of the Normans after the First Crusade happened as Orderic mentioned, by the early years of the third decade of the twelfth century, a significant number of Normans began to appear in the documentary evidence in the Ebro Valley. Alfonso I’s conquests of Zaragoza (1118) and Tudela (1119) opened the door for many Normans to become entangled in Iberia, as previous works have

93 Laliena Corbera, ‘Larga stipendia et optima prædia’, pp. 151–55. 94 Laliena Corbera, ‘Larga stipendia et optima prædia’, p. 161; Nelson, ‘Rotrou of Perche and the Aragonese Reconquest’, pp. 113–33; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Spiritual and Material Rewards’, pp. 358–59. 95 Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, ed. by Chibnall, vi, 396–97. 96 Friedman, ‘Peacemaking in an Age of War’, p. 98. 97 García Fitz and Novoa Portella, Cruzados en la Reconquista, p. 57. 98 Neocleous, ‘Byzantine-Muslim Conspiracies’, 255–74; Brand, ‘The Byzantines and Saladin, 1185–1192’, p. 167.

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demonstrated.99 Additionally, Pope Callixtus II’s (r. 1119–1124) clarification at the First Lateran Council that participants in the Iberian theatre would receive the same indulgences offered to those going to the Holy Land must have helped to encourage further involvement in the former region’s wars.100 Alfonso I was equally eager to persuade the Normans and other crusading forces from across the Pyrenees to settle down in new frontier towns such as Zaragoza, Tudela, Uncastillo, and Corella, as seen from the number of grants he gave.101 Perhaps the Normans’ reputation as fearless warriors, already established by their involvement in the previous century and their exploits in southern Italy and the Holy Land, inspired this Iberian monarch to convince them to stay after their military engagements. The most well-documented of these Normans are Rotrou himself, who was granted the lordship of Tudela, and his lieutenants, Robert Burdet and Walter Guidvilla who were granted fiefdoms under the Aragonese monarch. Rotrou of Perche came to the service of his cousin, Alfonso I of Aragon, around the early months of 1123, if not earlier, perhaps inspired by his family connections and tradition as well as by his crusading piety.102 Rotrou and Alfonso were descendants through their mothers from the House of Roucy, and Eblous II of Roucy was their uncle.103 Family history and Rotrou’s past as a crusader during the First Crusade to the Levant might have played a role in his decision to atone for his perceived sins in the aftermath of his wife’s passing in the White Ship tragedy.104 His late wife had been one of the illegitimate daughters of Henry I of England (r. 1100–1135). Based on this, it has been suggested that Rotrou might have found it convenient to absent himself from the dynastic tensions that were aroused as a consequence of the death of his wife and his brother-in-law, William Adelin, the sole legitimate direct male heir to the Norman kingdom of England.105 Whatever his personal reasons to go to the aid of his cousin, he was certainly well rewarded for his efforts with lands and the lordship over the city of Tudela. This was so despite the fact that the city had been captured from the Almoravids by the time of his arrival. Notwithstanding his acquisition of rich dominions on the Ebro, it seems that Rotrou himself did not plan to maintain those possessions in the long run. Instead, he decided to use them as a dowry payment for the marriage of his niece, Marguerite de l’Aigle, with the future king of Navarre, Garcia Ramirez (r. 1134–1150).106 As Aurélie Thomas discusses in 99 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Spiritual and Material Rewards’, 363–71; ‘Cruzados normandos en la frontera del Ebro’, pp. 28–34. 100 Johannes Dominicus Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum, 21, col. 21; Purkis, Crusading Spirituality, pp. 73–76. 101 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Spiritual and Material Rewards’, pp. 369–71. 102 Paul, To Follow in Their Footsteps, pp. 21–54. 103 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Pope Gregory VII and Count Eblous’, 136; Kjær, ‘Conquests, Family Traditions and the First Crusade’, pp. 554–63. 104 The ‘White Ship tragedy’ is the name given to the shipwreck in which William Adelin drowned on the 25 November 1120. He was the only legitimate male heir of Henry I of England. The drowning of the English prince and most of the rest of the passengers and crew on board left Henry without a male successor, sparking a succession crisis in the last years of his reign. 105 Thompson, Power and Border Lordship, p. 71. 106 Thompson, Power and Border Lordship, p. 78.

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her chapter, the Normans used marriage strategies to strengthen their hold on newly acquired territories; however, in Rotrou’s case, by the end of Alfonso I’s life, Rotrou seems to have been more interested in maintaining his family’s traditional alliance with the Navarro-Aragonese royal family than consolidating his hold on the land.107 Additionally, it is evident that some of his Norman followers who went with him to Iberia decided to settle and gain land as fiefs from the Aragonese monarch directly.108 Perhaps influenced by both the promise of benedictions and material rewards, they were attracted by the idea of attaining a more substantial patrimony in the frontier than what was available at home. In a way, the acquisition of estates in the Iberian theatre continued the tradition established by the Normans in their earlier incursions into the region in the previous century as explored above in this chapter.

Grant: The Principality of Tarragona Of Rotrou’s followers, the most successful by far was Robert Burdet, who, in 1129, managed to gain a semi-independent principality in Tarragona. Popes had been trying to encourage the Catalan counts to restore the archiepiscopal city of Tarragona to Christian control since the later decades of the eleventh century, as has been previously discussed in this chapter, but without much success. In the early decades of the twelfth century, Bishop Gufre of Vic had tried to repopulate the region with limited success.109 When the Bishop of Barcelona, Oleguer of Bonetruga (r. 1118–1137), was elected Archbishop of Tarragona and Count Ramon Berenguer III of Barcelona (r. 1086–1131) granted him dominion over the city, he decided to physically restore his archiepiscopal see.110 However, unable to do it himself, he travelled north, looking for crusade-inspired participants to organize the defence of the city from possible Almoravid aggression. Oleguer took part in the councils of Toulouse (1118) and Reims (1119), where he probably encouraged his fellow prelates to send crusaders to help him restore his archiepiscopal see.111 It was not until 1129 that Oleguer donated to Robert the city and its surrounding countryside as a fiefdom of the church. This was similar to the arrangement that had existed in Robert’s home village of Cullei in Normandy, where its secular overlord had donated it in perpetuity to the Abbey of Saint-Évroul where Orderic was based.112 Robert Burdet, perhaps thanks to his valour and loyalty, had been installed as the castellan of the Castle of Tudela by Rotrou and Alfonso. Robert’s background

107 See chapter by Thomas, this volume. 108 O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p. 35. 109 Barton, Victory’s Shadow, pp. 36–37; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Spiritual and Material Rewards’, p. 363. 110 McCrank, ‘Seeing History Differently’, p. 167. 111 McCrank, ‘Norman Crusaders in the Catalan Reconquest’, 71; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Norman and Anglo-Norman Participation’, p. 117; García Fitz and Novoa Portella, Cruzados en la Reconquista, p. 76. 112 Chevedden, ‘A Crusade from the First’, 208–10; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Spiritual and Material Rewards’, p. 359.

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as a minor knight in Normandy seems to fit the pattern of the Normans who had gone to Italy in the previous century looking for lands to conquer, and in this way, he was continuing the tradition of the Normans as settlers in the Iberian theatre. He proved to be reliable enough in staying put while his Norman and Aragonese overlords ventured out in potentially profitable raids into Andalusi territory. Rotrou launched a foray into Valencia in the winter of 1124/25, whilst the following spring, Alfonso led an incursion deep into Granada.113 In both cases, according to the documentation available, Robert stayed behind, defending the city against possible counterattacks.114 It is perhaps for these reasons that Robert was promoted by the Tarragonese prelate to his position of prince, which he held until the end of his life in the mid-1150s. According to Orderic, Robert visited Rome to pledge his allegiance to Pope Honorius II (r. 1124–1130) and then returned to Normandy to recruit more men to help him defend his new domain with possible promises of fiefs to settle.115 Unfortunately, the heyday of Robert’s rule between 1130 and 1147 is not well documented, so it is difficult to know how many Normans came to his aid. However, it is noticeable that by the second half of the 1140s, the newly elected Archbishop of Tarragona, Bernard Tort (r. 1146–1163), believed that the situation in the city was safe enough to move his residence from Barcelona to the seat of his archdiocese.116 It is, therefore, possible to assume that Robert’s role as protector of the city and its surrounding countryside was far more successful than the previous attempts. On the other hand, Bernard Tort’s move could have been intended to curtail Robert’s power. The new archbishop, as a loyal servant of the count of Barcelona, probably did not see the independence of this Norman on his doorstep as something that was to be perpetuated.117 The territorial expansion of Barcelona with Count Ramon Berenguer IV’s (r. 1131–1162) marriage alliance with Petronilla of Aragon (1137) and his successful crusade-inspired campaigns of Tortosa (1148) and Lleida (1149) made the position of the principality politically and strategically inconvenient.118 The continued efforts to restrict the Norman prince’s powers ultimately led to open conflict between the archbishop and his vassal. In the end, the lack of further Norman reinforcements, coupled with the powerful alliance between the count of Barcelona and the local church, meant that the opportunity for an independent Norman principality in Iberia would not be realized as had been the case in southern Italy in the previous century.

113 García Fitz and Novoa Portella, Cruzados en la Reconquista, pp. 78–79; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Spiritual and Material Rewards’, p. 370. 114 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Spiritual and Material Rewards’, p. 369. 115 Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, ed. by Chibnall, vi, 402–03; Blanch, Arxiepiscopologi, pp. 82–83; Jordà Fernández, ‘Terminologia jurídica i dret comú’, pp. 355–57. 116 McCrank, ‘Norman Crusaders in the Catalan Reconquest’, p. 73; Benito Ruano, ‘El principado de Tarragona’, p. 110. 117 Benito Ruano, ‘El principado de Tarragona’, p. 113; McCrank, ‘Norman Crusaders in the Catalan Reconquest’, p. 78. 118 McCrank, ‘Norman Crusaders in the Catalan Reconquest’, p. 74.

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The Failed Attempt at Lisbon With the success of the Crusade of 1099 in capturing Jerusalem and creating a fragile set of Latin Christian realms in the Mediterranean Levant, the Normans were given a new avenue for spiritual and material enrichment in the East that attracted enough attention from would-be crusaders. However, the land route across Europe in order to reach these faraway places proved to be not only costly but dangerous, especially for the poorer knights and merchant castes that did not possess the wealth necessary to finance these ventures. Therefore, with this in mind, the sea route started to be perceived as a cheaper and quicker alternative despite its hazards. On the western side of the Iberian Peninsula, the first Portuguese monarch, Afonso I Henriques (r. 1139–1185), realized the usefulness of having Norman contingents. Consequently, in 1142 when a group of them appeared on his coast while he was preparing a campaign against the Muslim-controlled city of Lisbon, he encouraged them to join him with promises of easy plunder and perhaps land.119 The presence of a fleet of Anglo-Normans to support Afonso, led by William Viel and his brother Ralph, is briefly alluded to in the Anglo-Norman text De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, an account that focuses on the final Christian conquest of Lisbon of 1147.120 The story of the Normans’ failed first attempt to capture Lisbon is also described in slightly more detail in the Portuguese annals known as the Historia gothorum.121 This text, as has been noted before by Bautista and David, only exists as an early seventeenth-century printed edition, but its use of Latin suggests that it dates back to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century.122 This collection of narrative texts, despite their brevity, does show the Norman participants’ rising interest in the Portuguese frontier. The dispute that arose as a result of the inability of the Christian forces to capture Lisbon in 1142 started to produce a level of distrust between the Normans and their Lusitanian allies, which parallels similar situations that had developed on the Ebro frontier. It seems that for King Afonso I Henriques of Portugal, this first campaign against Lisbon was nothing more than a raid to test the defences of the port city, but for the Normans, it was an opportunity to acquire plunder to finance their journey to the Latin East and perhaps land. This difference in priorities would lead to problems, as will be shown in the later examples of Norman interventions in the peninsula and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, as discussed in other chapters in this book. In this particular case, the failure to take the inner city of Lisbon left them wanting and disillusioned about the Portuguese resolve. According to the De expugnatione, they felt betrayed by the Portuguese monarch’s lack of interest in attempting to assault the city walls.123 On the other hand, Afonso, like his Aragonese counterpart, 119 Edgington, ‘The Capture of Lisbon’, pp. 259–60. 120 De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed. by Phillips, pp. 100–03; Martins, 1147 – A conquista de Lisboa, pp. 174–75. 121 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Revisiting the Anglo-Norman’, pp. 9–10. 122 David, Études Historiques sur la Galice et le Portugal, pp. 257–59; Bautista, ‘Breve historiografía’, p. 17; Serrão, A historiografia portuguesa, i, 14–15. 123 Bull, Eyewitness and Crusade, p. 151.

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had realized the usefulness of northern crusaders as a source of military manpower in his future enterprises. Based on this, he prepared to take the city with the aid of these northerners when the Second Crusade was proclaimed three years later.124 For instance, Afonso was able to soften the defensive perimeter of Lisbon over the following five years by capturing the city of Santarem rather than by attacking the city of Lisbon directly from the start.125 For the Normans and their Anglo-Norman kinsmen, the failure and distrust that this episode produced had lasting consequences on their ability to cooperate with their Iberian coreligionists. This animosity towards Afonso Henriques was evident when a fraction of the crusading fleet of 1147 at first refused to help him take Lisbon on account of their earlier experience.126

Conquest: The Second Crusade Despite the failure of the 1142 Lisbon campaign and the curbing of Norman autonomy in Tarragona in 1146 with the appointment of Bernard Tort as Archbishop, the best example of Norman and Anglo-Norman participation in the Iberian frontier occurred between 1147 and 1148 as part of the Second Crusade’s fleet’s arrival on the coasts of the Iberian Peninsula. The crusade had been called in reaction to the fall of the Levantine city of Edessa to the forces of Imad al-Din Zengi, the Turkish atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo, and the Normans and Anglo-Normans who took part in the expedition were unaware of the increasing deterioration of the vassalage arrangements between Bernard Tort and Robert Burdet. The Normans and Anglo-Normans who enlisted in the Second Crusade proclaimed by Pope Eugenius III (r. 1145–1153) and preached successfully by Bernard of Clairvaux took the cross for multiple reasons.127 From the evidence provided by narrative sources such as the German letters and the De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, it seems that they did so out of a genuine desire for salvation through divine retribution against the Muslims.128 Additionally, in the specific case of the Normans from Normandy and England, the political situation at home might have contributed to their desire to travel abroad. England and Normandy had been involved in a period of intermittent warfare, known as the ‘Anarchy’ of King Stephen’s reign (r. 1135–1154), over who should be the successor to Henry I. Although it was not as disruptive as the contemporary ecclesiastical chronicles imply, the ‘Anarchy’ did, to a certain degree, upset the economy and wealth of the lower ranks of the nobility in the south of England.129 For these reasons, it has been suggested that city merchants and low-ranking knights

124 Wilson, ‘Dispatches from the Western Frontier’, p. 210. 125 Martins, 1147 – A conquista de Lisboa, pp. 166, 174–75. 126 De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed. by Phillips, pp. 100–03. 127 Bull, Eyewitness and Crusade, p. 160; Phillips, The Second Crusade, pp. 37–60. 128 Edgington, ‘The Lisbon Letter’, pp. 335–36; De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed. by Phillips, pp. 182–83. 129 King, ‘The Anarchy of King Stephen’s Reign’, pp. 133–55; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. by Greenway, pp. 724–39; Gesta Stephani, ed. by Potter and Davis, pp. 112–37; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum, ed. by Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom, i, 569–71;

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were more enthusiastic to depart on the crusade in order to avoid being dragged further into the factional conflict.130 Whether they planned to participate in the Iberian campaign organized to coincide with their passage is an area of debate in the historiography and is far from clear, as Susan Edgington has pointed out.131 However, it seems that to many of these Norman and Anglo-Norman crusaders, the prospect of conquest seems to have been sufficiently enticing to make the Iberian theatre an attractive opportunity. Furthermore, the Portuguese and the Catalans seem to have realized that spiritual rewards alone were not enough to mobilize people to take the cross and invest their time and effort in a conflict that had nothing to do with them and was less well known than the war in the Levant.132 Therefore, the Iberian leaders used the eloquence of the Bishop of Porto and the Anglo-Norman papal emissary, Nicholas Breakspear, to proclaim the idea that the Iberian wars against the Muslims were fully sanctioned crusades.133 They promised the northern crusaders spiritual rewards by convincing them of the value of their struggle to liberate Lisbon (1147) and Tortosa (1148) from their Muslim foes.134 Moreover, by 1148, the prospect of acquiring lands in the frontier seemed to still be tangible enough to encourage a substantial number of Anglo-Norman crusaders to settle down in the newly conquered cities.135 The combination of both factors was critical therefore to their participation in the Iberian theatre, as well as perhaps a sense of imitation of their predecessors as Pope Eugenius III had encouraged in his famous Bull proclaiming the Second Crusade.136 The Normans’ actions during the Second Crusade in the peninsula proved to be very fruitful in the acquisition of lands. In both Lisbon and Tortosa, an unspecified number of Normans settled in the aftermath of the conquests.137 These Normans, however, under both the Portuguese and Barcelonese overlords were not granted their lands under any extraordinary vassalage arrangement, such as the one Robert Burdet had achieved a few decades earlier. Their rewards were in line with others from other places who were also encouraged to settle in the newly captured cities in the new frontier and had been exempted from some taxes in order to set up

Appleby, The Troubled Reign of King Stephen, pp. 97–102; Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen, pp. 133–43; Matthew, King Stephen, pp. 83–110; White, ‘The Myth of the Anarchy’, pp. 323–37; Green, Forging the Kingdom, pp. 110–11. 130 King, ‘The Anarchy of King Stephen’s Reign’; Matthew, King Stephen, pp. 106–11; Martins, 1147 – A conquista de Lisboa, pp. 174–75; Green, Forging the Kingdom, pp. 110–11. 131 Phillips, ‘St Bernard of Clairvaux’, pp. 496–97; Forey, ‘The Conquest of Lisbon and the Second Crusade’, 12–13; Edgington, ‘The Capture of Lisbon’, pp. 270–72; Philips, The Second Crusade, pp. 136–42. 132 De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed. by Phillips, pp. 78–79, 98–99. 133 Smith, ‘The Abbot-Crusader’, pp. 32–33. 134 De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed. by Phillips, pp. 78–79; Jaspert, ‘Capta est Dertosa’, p. 92; VillegasAristizábal, ‘Anglo-Norman Intervention’, p. 70; Bennett, ‘Military Aspects of the Conquest of Lisbon’, pp. 71–73. 135 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Anglo-Norman Intervention’, pp. 81–129. 136 Paul, To Follow in Their Footsteps, pp. 26–28, 222–23. 137 Branco, ‘A conquista de Lisboa’, pp. 217–18; Martins, 1147 – A conquista de Lisboa, pp. 264–65.

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their residences. For Tortosa, there is plentiful evidence in over 190 documents in local archives for the settlement of Anglo-Normans.138 Unfortunately, no such documentation survives for Lisbon.139 After the capture of Lisbon, its newly elected Bishop, Gerald of Hastings (r. 1147–1166), returned to England to recruit more settlers for the Portuguese frontier.140 It is unknown how many Anglo-Norman immigrants he convinced to go to Lisbon, but according to the documentary evidence, those who settled down in Tortosa managed for the first decade to attract a number of their compatriots.141 So it is possible that a similar situation ensued in Lisbon. Both Lisbon and Tortosa continued to be part of the borderlands of Christendom until the early years of the thirteenth century. This made them far from secure, especially after al-Andalus had been revitalized in its ability to counter the Christian expansion with the rising power of the Almohads in 1147.142 The Anglo-Normans who settled in Tortosa seemed to have thrived, but in the long run, they did not form individual communities and were assimilated into the local Christian society.143 As was the case in England, Italy, and Antioch, over time, a distinctive Norman identity eroded in favour of local identities.144 One can speculate that in Lisbon, a similar pattern developed in the following period.

Decline of Interest in the Iberian Theatre The Second Crusade’s Iberian campaigns seem to have been the last substantial arrival of Normans as settlers to Iberia. From then on, the participation of the Normans and other trans-Pyrenean crusaders changed from settling to sacking.145 This transformation can be attributed to a series of factors. First, there were the circumstances of the participants back in England and Normandy. In the case of the Normans and Anglo-Normans, the political situation at home had a major role to play in whether a particular individual would be inclined to take part in any foreign venture. Second, Iberia started to be seen as a stopover on the sea passage from northern Europe to the Levant rather than as an active theatre in its own right.146 Finally, the political situation in Iberia had an impact on the planning of military campaigns in that region.

138 Martins, 1147 – A conquista de Lisboa, pp. 264–65; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Anglo-Norman Intervention’, pp. 90–129; Virgili Colet, ‘Angli cum multis aliis alienigenis’, pp. 297–300. 139 Branco, ‘A conquista de Lisboa’, p. 218. 140 Symeonis Monachi, Opera omnia, ii, 324. 141 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Anglo-Norman Intervention’, pp. 79–80. 142 The Almohads were a Berber Sunni sect that originated in the Atlas Mountains. They managed to overthrow Almoravid rule in Morocco by 1147. With the Christian successes in Iberia during the Second Crusade they managed to gain the upper hand in al-Andalus over the declining Almoravids soon after the crusading forces left. Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain, p. 95; Kennedy, Muslim Spain and Portugal, pp. 196–99. 143 Virgili Colet, ‘Angli cum multis aliis alienigenis’, p. 312. 144 Bates, The Normans and Empire, pp. 182–85. 145 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Norman and Anglo-Norman Intervention’, pp. 115–17. 146 Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, pp. 86–89.

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In the aftermath of the Second Crusade, these factors were no longer in place to permit any further intervention from Norman crusaders in the peninsula. First, in 1154, Henry II (r. 1154–1189) came to the English throne and began to restore the power of the monarchy at the expense of the empowered baronage.147 This created some dissatisfaction among the upper levels of the nobility that, if other circumstances had allowed, might have encouraged them to go to Iberia or the Holy Land. Henry II’s reign made the lower ranks of the nobility less inclined to depart upon foreign adventures, as had been the case in the 1140s, and for those landless knights looking for lands to conquer, the 1169 Norman incursion into Ireland opened up a new theatre for opportunities much closer to home.148 Moreover, despite Henry II’s attempt to bring Ireland under his control in 1171, he left these lands more or less free from direct regal control for the foreseeable future.149 Therefore, unlike England or Iberia, Norman adventurers could claim their own domain without having to deal with any direct vassalage arrangement to a local monarch. The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland must have been a significant catalyst for the Normans’ reduced interest in Iberian lands in the second half of the twelfth century. The Second Crusade, in spite of its successes in Iberia, was an unmitigated disaster in the Latin East, and more importantly, it was perceived as such by its contemporaries.150 The failure of the crusaders to even attempt to retake Edessa and their fiasco in the siege of Damascus were seen as proof of God’s displeasure with the crusading armies. Recriminations were placed on both the crusaders’ impiety and on the local Frankish settlers of the Latin East.151 The whole affair led to a disenchantment with crusading as a large-scale enterprise. Ultimately, this led to a period of decline in the crusading movement in the second half of the twelfth century when very few crusaders travelled to the Latin East to fight. Pilgrimage and small-scale private crusades continued unimpeded, but the large fleets of crusaders travelling east no longer sailed as they once had.152 Meanwhile, the internal disputes between the English and the French made the situation less propitious for a full-scale expedition to the east. It was only with the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin after his victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187 that the crusading movement was revitalized.153 Finally, the situation in Iberia in the second half of the twelfth century was also less favourable for war against the Muslims. Despite the triumphs of the Second Crusade, Christian expansion came to a halt. This was partially the result of a series of minorities, regencies, and dynastic conflicts that distracted the attention of the Christian realms in the following three decades. Upon the death of Emperor Alfonso VII (r. 1109–1157) of Castile-Leon in 1157, his empire was divided between

147 Warren, Henry II, pp. 4–204; Barber, Henry Plantagenet, pp. 81–123; Davies, The First English Empire, pp. 4–30. 148 Veach, ‘Relentlessly Striving for More’, pp. 22–23. 149 Warren, Henry II, pp. 192–94. 150 Constable, Crusaders and Crusading, pp. 289–92. 151 Siberry, Criticism of Crusading, p. 77. 152 Phillips, The Second Crusade, pp. 277–78. 153 Phillips, The Life and Legend, pp. 249–50.

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his sons King Fernando II of Leon (r. 1157–1188) and King Sancho III of Castile (r. 1157–1158).154 This produced intermittent border and dynastic disputes between the two rulers and their descendants. Similarly, with the death of Ramon Berenguer IV in 1162, the County of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon passed to his five-yearold son, Alfonso II of Aragon (r. 1162–1196).155 Afonso Henriques I of Portugal took advantage of the quarrels between his Christian neighbours and rivals to consolidate his previous conquests. Instead of enlarging them into Almohad lands, he attempted to expand into the territories of his Christian neighbour, the kingdom of Leon.156 On the Islamic side of the peninsula, the failure of the Almoravid regime to stop the territorial expansion achieved by the Christians on the peninsula during the Second Crusade left a major dent in their prestige in the eyes of the Andalusi population. In the second half of the twelfth century, the Almohads, a newly risen North African Berber-led Sunni Muslim sect, took advantage of this to overthrow the Almoravid-controlled areas of al-Andalus and their taifa successors.157 With their newly reformed religious zeal, the Almohads replaced the old regime and started to unify the fractured Muslim society. They also began to push back at the divided Christian realms.158 In 1157, they recaptured Almeria, which had been one of the conquests of the Second Crusade, from the Castilians. In the following years, they consolidated their hold on Islamic Iberia while the Christian realms were involved in disputes with each other. Under these circumstances, despite the lukewarm interest of Henry II of England and Louis VII of France (r. 1137–1180) in launching a venture in 1159 into the peninsula against the Almohads in the aftermath of the fall of Almeria, the situation there was less than propitious for encouraging fresh Norman involvement.159

The Change of Priorities in the Norman Involvement The crusade launched by Pope Clement III (r. 1188–1191) after Saladin’s conquest of Jerusalem would represent the last large-scale participation of Normans in Iberia. It also epitomized the total shift in the Norman priorities with regards to their involvement there from settlers to raiders. As discussed earlier, Afonso I of Portugal had developed a complicated relationship with his northern European allies that had hindered his cooperation with them.160 The main problem that 154 ‘Chronica latina regum Castellæ’, ed. by Brea, Estévez Sola, and Carande Herrero, p. 41; The Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, trans. by O’Callaghan, p. 15; O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, pp. 235–36. 155 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, p. 236. 156 Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, Historia de los hechos de España, pp. 292–93; Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. by Stubbs, ii, 333–34. 157 Philips, The Second Crusade, pp. 249–50; O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, pp. 236–39. 158 O’Callaghan, A History of Medieval Spain, pp. 239–43. 159 Mansilla, La documentación pontificia hasta Inocencio III, doc. 103; Smith, ‘The Abbot-Crusader’, pp. 30–32. 160 De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed. by Phillips, pp. 163–65, 172–73, 176–77; O’Callaghan, Reconquest and Crusade, p. 50.

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Iberian rulers had faced since the eleventh century in their use of northerners was a different approach to the conflict that still endured against Muslims in general. To the rulers of Iberia, despite the gradual sacralization of their wars by the local clergy and the papacy, their priorities remained secular in nature. The Muslim population, notwithstanding their religious differences, was a source of income for them.161 If a city was conquered, the Muslim inhabitants, with their economic power base, could provide their new Christian masters with tax revenue and labour in the countryside or, in some cases, ransom money.162 However, for the northern Europeans such as the Normans from the duchy and England, the gradual rise of the fervour for Holy War in the eleventh century had made the Muslims into an enemy that did not deserve forgiveness or quarter. For the northern Europeans, as is clear in the chronicles of the First Crusade and later sources, the war against the Muslims was framed as a divine punishment perpetrated by the crusaders as retribution for the Muslims’ perceived transgressions.163 With this mindset, the total destruction, enslavement or, in later centuries, conversion of Muslims seem to have been the only acceptable outcomes. To the Iberian rulers of Aragon-Catalonia and Portugal, in the second half of the twelfth century, the arrival of the Normans and other crusaders represented a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they were highly trained and skilled and could provide valuable manpower for their relatively small realms to take on the cities of al-Andalus. On the other hand, the idea of total Holy War against the Muslims and their enlarged numbers in comparison to earlier ventures made them even more challenging to control than before.164 The naval nature of these later expeditions meant that the crusaders did not arrive all at once but in multiple phases at different ports, making it difficult to coordinate operations or to control their predatory desires. Therefore, the Iberian rulers attempted to ward off their northern allies from killing everyone with offers of financial recompense.

The Third Crusade in Iberia During the Iberian campaigns of the Third Crusade, the Normans came in three main waves, interacting with the Portuguese in different ways. The first phase arrived on the peninsula in the summer of 1189, passed through the city of Lisbon and decided to capture a fortified position in Alvor and the Andalusi city of Silves.165 The most complete source for this campaign is the Rhenish narrative known as the Narratio de itinere navali.166 For information on the Anglo-Norman involvement, there are also Roger of Howden’s Chronica, the Gesta regis Henrici and Ralph of Diceto’s Ystoria, 161 162 163 164 165 166

Wilson, ‘Dispatches from the Western Frontier’, pp. 226–27. De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, ed. by Phillips, pp. 78–79. Throop, ‘Vengeance and the Crusades’, pp. 37–38. Wilson, ‘Dispatches from the Western Frontier’, pp. 226–27. Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Revisión de las crónicas’, pp. 157–70. David, ‘Narratio de itinere’, p. 617; ‘An Account of the Seaborne Journey’, trans. by Loud.

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which provide further details about the siege and conquest of the city.167 It seems that, as with the Second Crusade, the lower-ranking Norman nobles and merchant castes decided to launch their expeditions to come to the aid of the weakened Latin kingdom of Jerusalem without waiting for their kings to start their own crusade. According to all these narratives, the Portuguese monarch, Sancho I (r. 1185–1211), like his father and predecessor, seems to have taken the arrival of this fleet of crusaders as an opportunity to raid these outposts in the south.168 The Portuguese, as the other political entities in the peninsula across the religious divide, perceived raiding of the countryside as a lucrative way to gain movable wealth such as livestock while debilitating their opponents’ economic power. Under these circumstances, the Portuguese, when militarily or otherwise involved, viewed this type of raiding as an opportunistic endeavour that required fewer resources and less planning than an outright conquest. The Normans of the Third Crusade, according to Ralph of Diceto, were more interested in goods, such as precious metals, textiles, grains, and slaves that they could easily load on to their ships, than in the permanent settlement of the city after its conquest.169 It seems that to these groups of crusaders, the capture of a large Andalusi port city was an attractive prospect for funding their travels eastward through the acquisition of items that could be traded on the remainder of their journey. Therefore, the Narratio de itinere suggests that tensions developed between the crusaders and their Portuguese allies from the outset. It began with the crusaders’ slaughter of the entire population of Alvor in the prelude to the siege of Silves.170 It seems that Sancho, having more realistic expectations, tried to dissuade the crusaders from taking such a well-fortified city. Silves, if captured, Sancho believed, would be difficult to defend, especially if its walls were undermined by a crusader assault. The multi-national forces, as shown, expecting to gain enough loot to finance the rest of the voyage east, were not persuaded and carried on until the conclusion of the campaign. As was the case with the siege of Lisbon forty-two years earlier, despite repeated attempts by the Portuguese to deter the crusading forces from slaughtering large numbers of citizens, the Portuguese were unable to put a stop to the destruction.171 According to the Narratio de itinere, the crusaders and their Portuguese allies managed to maintain their unity in purpose until the final conquest of the city. However, after its capture, it was over the division of the spoils that the crusaders and the Portuguese had their last clash. It seems that the Portuguese, in their desire to keep the city permanently under their control, disagreed with the crusaders’ short-term objectives.172 It is noticeable that the surviving Portuguese narrative sources do not mention the capture of Silves with the assistance of a

167 168 169 170 171 172

Ralph of Diceto, Opera historica, ed. by Stubbs, ii, 65–66; Gesta regis Henrici secondi, ii, 89–90, 115–21. David, ‘Narratio de itinere’, p. 617. Ralph of Diceto, Opera historica, ed. by Stubbs, ii, 65–66. ‘Narratio de itinere’, pp. 617–19; Forey, ‘The Papacy and the Comutation’, p. 50. Ibn Khaldoun, Histoire des Berbères, pp. 212–13; El Anónimo de Madrid y Copenhague, p. 114. Lay, ‘Miracles, Martyrs, and the Cult’, pp. 22–29.

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foreign force, confirming the continued antagonism of the Portuguese towards their fellow Christians.173 However, in spite of the suggestion that the majority of the fleet left, it is noted by both the Narratio de itinere and Ralph of Diceto that a Flemish cleric was appointed bishop of the city. The narratives claim that a number of Flemish stayed with the new bishop in the newly conquered but heavily damaged city.174 Neither source confirms whether any Normans or Anglo-Normans remained, but it is not implausible. A year later, according to Roger of Howden, the situation of the city was still precarious. As a result, when another small group of Anglo-Norman crusaders from London arrived at Silves on their way to the siege of Acre, they were convinced by the small garrison to stay. They were encouraged to aid the locals in improving the defences of the city against an expected Almohad counterattack with promises of monetary remuneration but not land.175 The Portuguese at Silves, though in need of more soldiers to defend the newly acquired and difficult-to-protect outpost, did not seem to have been as eager to accept new settlers as they had once been. Perhaps the adverse experiences explored in this chapter were to blame. However, it is also likely that the situation in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem must have seemed so desperate to the Anglo-Norman crusaders that they felt it necessary to continue on their way to Acre as soon as possible.176 The Almohad Caliph, Abü Yüsuf Ya’qüb al-Mansur (r. 1184–1199), instead of trying to retake Silves in July 1190 as the Portuguese expected, attacked the Templar fortress of Torres Novas deep in the Portuguese kingdom. Fortunately for Sancho I, a force of nine ships that was part of the crusading fleet of Richard I of England (r. 1189–1199) arrived at Lisbon as the caliph’s army captured the fortress.177 According to Roger of Howden’s account, Sancho appealed to the Anglo-Norman crusaders’ beliefs on the sacred nature of the Iberian wars and their obligation to defend the Christian lands against Muslim aggression like his predecessor had done.178 This appeal to the idea of protecting Christian lands from the enemies of the Church seems to have remained a feature of the crusading ideology of the Anglo-Normans despite their changing priorities in the peninsular conflict at the end of the twelfth century. The Anglo-Normans helped Sancho I increase his defences at Santarem,

173 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Revisión de las crónicas’, p. 158. 174 Ralph of Diceto, Opera historica, ed. by Stubbs, ii, 66; ‘Narratio de itinere’, p. 633. 175 ‘Cives autem Silviæ, timentes, adventum imperatoris de Marroc, non permiserunt juvenes illos Lundonienses ab eis recedere, sed et navem illorum fregerunt et de asseribus illius fecerunt civitatis propugnacula, promittentes et omnimodam securitatem facientes, quod rex Portigalensis bene solveret illis moram quam fecerant, et damnum quod habebant de amissione navis sure. Et ita factum est; rex namque Portigal ensis navem pro nave dedit, et expensas pro expensis solvit.’ Gesta regis Henrici secondi, ii, 117–18. 176 Jotischky, Crusading and Crusader States, pp. 120–22; 157–58; Phillips, The Life and Legend, pp. 221–31. 177 Phillips, The Life and Legend, p. 118; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Revisión de las crónicas’, p. 164. 178 ‘Quingenti igitur viri bene armati, et ex omnibus qui in navibus venerant praelecti, fortiores et animosiores, elegerunt magis mori in bello pro nomine Jesu Christi, quam videre mala gentis su.e, et exerminium, et relictis navibus et sociis suis, perrexerunt ascendentes per fluvium Thagi usque ad Sanctam Herenam.’ Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. by Stubbs, iii, 44.

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the next target of the caliph’s onslaught. However, their presence alone, according to the Anglo-Norman source, was enough to dissuade the caliph from attacking the city. Anglo-Norman crusaders continued to view the wars with the Muslims in the peninsula as a legitimate theatre for crusading long into the thirteenth century as later narrative sources show. This all occurred despite the actions of the Portuguese monarch against the third wave of crusaders of the Third Crusade who had attacked Jewish and Muslim minorities in Lisbon.179 However, after the failure of the Third Crusade to recapture Jerusalem, the crusader movement in the Anglo-Norman domains seems to have gone on a hiatus, which was also in part due to the political and territorial disputes with France during the remaining reign of Richard I and the entire reign of King John (r. 1199–1216).180

The Aftermath Despite the apparent success of the Third Crusade in Iberia, after the crusader forces left the Portuguese coast, the Almohads took the opportunity to counterattack, and by 1191, they had recaptured Alvor, Silves, and Alcacer do Sal, pushing the frontier north.181 Furthermore, by 1195, Caliph Abü Yüsuf had defeated the Castilian monarch, Alfonso VIII (r. 1158–1214), in the Battle of Alarcos on 18 July, making the Iberian frontier appear to be in danger of collapsing from across the Pyrenees. For a time, this led to a brief interruption in the disputes between Richard I of England and Philip Augustus II of France (r. 1180–1223), which, in the end, failed to materialize into any crusading venture into Iberia from Normandy or England.182 On the other hand, the Almohads’ own political problems in their northern African domains stopped them from taking advantage of their victories against the Christian rulers in the peninsula, and as a result, they signed ten-year truces with most of them.183 The Iberian monarchs, under the leadership of Alfonso VIII of Castile bolstered by the crusading call proclaimed by Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216), would, on 16 July 1212, defeat the last credible Almohad threat at the famous Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.184 The battle coincided with a period of instability in the Anglo-Norman realms in the aftermath of King John’s loss of Normandy in 1204, and the English monarch was involved in a dispute with the papacy between 1205 and 1213 that left England under interdict (1209–1213).185 There are some indications from an unlikely Frisian source that suggest that some Anglo-Normans might have been present at the battle

179 Mathew Paris, Chronica majora, v, 231–32 180 Gillingham, Richard I, pp. 283–320; Warren, King John, pp. 54–93. 181 García Sanjuán, ‘La noción del Fath en las fuentes árabes’, p. 49. 182 Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. by Stubbs, iii, 302; Lomax, The Reconquest, p. 120. 183 Branco, D. Sancho I, pp. 153–54; García Fitz, Las Navas, p. 129. 184 Ayala Martínez, ‘Alfonso VIII, cruzada y cristiandad’, 102–08; García Fitz, ‘El impacto de un acontecimiento extraordinario’, pp. 33–34. 185 Church, King John, pp. 154–73; Warren, King John, pp. 154–73.

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or in the early parts of the campaign.186 However, if they did take part by this time, the only goal that they could have hoped to achieve apart from the spiritual rewards was to despoil the areas they crossed. It is possible that some Anglo-Norman contingents joined the fleet of Frisian and Rhenish crusaders that helped conquer Alcacer do Sal during the Fifth Crusade when the crusading fleet stopped at Dartmouth.187 If this was so, they must, like the other northern participants, have used their involvement as an opportunity to both gain further indulgences and plunder the Andalusi city to replenish their resources for their journey further east.188

Conclusion As has been explored, Norman and Anglo-Norman participation in the Iberian wars between Christians and Muslims evolved with time and as circumstances changed. In the early eleventh century, as was the case in Italy, the Normans were attracted by the opportunities for land in that theatre. The intrinsic violence in this frontier and the potential for conquest seem to have been great. This situation was maintained as long as the smaller realms of the peninsula such as Aragon, Barcelona and, later, Portugal lacked the necessary manpower to expand their territorial possessions. The condition continued from the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate to the middle of the twelfth century. Furthermore, the social environment in Normandy and later in England from the eleventh to the early twelfth century encouraged some members of the warring aristocracy to look for lands outside their region. It was the rising interest in Holy War that revitalized the attention of the Normans and their Anglo-Norman kinsmen in fighting on the Iberian Christian–Muslim frontier. The Norman incursion into the British Isles after the conquest of England provided fresh opportunities for those looking to create their own fiefs and lordships. Wales, Scotland, and Ireland provided plenty of chances for ambitious landless knights to increase their fortunes.189 However, opportunities in the Levant and Iberia came with attached spiritual rewards. The ‘First Crusade’ resulted in a set of territories that were precarious enough to constantly need help, which also kept other theatres of the war against the Muslims relevant in the minds of the Normans. The sacralization of the Iberian wars by the papacy and the fact that Iberia was closer to Normandy 186 ‘Unde propter indulgentias a domno Innocention papa factas de duobus regnis Franciæ et Angliæ multitudo máxima convenit congregata apud Toletum.’ Emo van Bloemhof, Kroniek van het klooster Bloemhof te Wittewierum’, ed. by Jansen and Janse, pp. 42–44; Gómez, ‘The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa’, pp. 146–52. 187 Roger of Wendover, Flores historiarum, ed. by Hewlett, ii, 226; Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘A Frisian Perspective on Crusading: Appendix’, 120–21. 188 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘The Portuguese Led Military Campaign’, pp. 65–67; ‘A Frisian Perspective on Crusading’, pp. 95–102. 189 Walker, ‘The Norman Settlement in Wales’; Veach, ‘Relentlessly Striving for More’, 18–23; Veach, ‘The Geraldines’, pp. 69–92; Davies, The First English Empire, pp. 54–112; Ritchie, The Normans in Scotland, pp. 1–226; Barrow, The Anglo-Norman Era in Scottish History, pp. 1–60; Stringer, ‘Aspects of the Norman Diaspora’.

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meant that the Iberian wars seemed to be an attractive alternative to crusading in the Levant. Iberia allowed those with fewer resources to gain the rewards promised but at a fraction of the cost.190 The Iberian Peninsula was also an important waypoint on the sea journey to the Holy Land. As such, it provided less well-off crusaders from the Anglo-Norman domains and elsewhere with an opportunity to obtain further indulgences and resources in order to fulfil their vows to reach the Latin East. From the Iberian perspective, these crusaders offered not only military might but also potential settlers. This trend continued unimpeded until the middle of the twelfth century, when the number of crusaders increased drastically as the crusading forces on the sea route to the Levant became more popular. However, the equation of the Iberian frontier with the Holy Land caused tensions between the crusaders and local rulers because of their diverging priorities. The Second Crusade, with its large number of crusader-settlers in Lisbon and Tortosa, seemed to have been the catalyst of this change. The crusaders’ slaughter of the Muslim population conflicted with the Iberian rulers’ policy of using the Muslims as a source of income. In the case of Tarragona, however, the idea of a semi-independent buffer state seems to have lost its appeal after the count of Barcelona managed to expand his territories with the acquisition of Aragon through marriage and his campaigns of conquest over Tortosa and Lleida. Similarly, as the changing political situation in the Anglo-Norman domains evolved, it coincided with the reticence of Iberian rulers to grant lands under the magnanimous terms they had once done. Consequently, the Normans and other trans-Pyrenean crusaders began shifting their goals away from settling and towards gaining movable wealth to finance the remaining part of their journey to the east. Under these new circumstances, crusader fleets stopped in Iberia to raid and pillage. From there, they continued on their way east, and did so in even greater numbers after the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin and the failure of the Third Crusade to recapture the city. Therefore, the delicate condition of the Latin states of the Levant and the consolidation of the Christian realms of the peninsula coincided, especially by the late twelfth century, to discourage the involvement of the Normans as settlers in Iberia. The increasing decline of the Levantine realms after the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 made that theatre more desperate for aid from the west. Simultaneously, the Iberian political entities, despite some setbacks, looked less hopeless in the eyes of the Normans and other northern participants. Conversely, the Iberian rulers as they managed to expand their territories and increase their populations in the twelfth century gradually decreased their interest in encouraging the settlement of non-Iberian Christians in their realms. As a result of these factors, the Normans transformed their priorities from a desire for conquest towards a yearning for plunder. The Iberian Peninsula, at the western end of the Mediterranean, would always be a focal point of the Normans’ incursions into the wider basin, especially as they started to travel by sea. The existence of a Christian–Muslim conflict in this area that predated the advent of the Levantine Crusades, as this chapter has shown, began 190 Villegas-Aristizábal, ‘Spiritual and Material Rewards’, p. 355.

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to attract the Normans’ attention from the early period of their exodus, coinciding with their involvement in southern Italy. With the emergence of the Frankish-ruled realms in the Mediterranean Levant, the Iberian frontier started to be perceived as an obligatory stage in the Norman crusaders’ journey to the east. From the Islamic perspective, the Iberian conflict seems to have been considered to be part of a Christian-coordinated offensive against the Muslim world.191

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191 See chapter by Matt King, this volume.

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Bautista, Francisco, ‘Breve historiografía: Listas regias y anales en la península ibérica’, Talia dixit, 4 (2009), 113–90 Benito Ruano, Eloy, ‘El principado de Tarragona’, in Miscellània Ramon d’Abadal/Estudis universitaris catalans (Barcelona: Curial, 1994), pp. 107–19 Bennett, Matthew, ‘Military Aspects of the Conquest of Lisbon, 1147’, in The Second Crusade, Scope and Consequence, ed. by Jonathan Phillips and Martin Hoch (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), pp. 71–89 —, ‘Poetry as History? The Roman de Rou of Wace as a Source for the Norman Conquest’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 5 (1982), 21–39 Birch, Debra J., ‘Jacques de Vitry and the Ideology of Pilgrimage’, in Pilgrimage Explored, ed. by Jennie Stopford (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1999), pp. 79–94 —, Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages: Community and Change (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1998) Bishko, Charles J., ‘Fernando I y los orígenes de la alianza castellanoleonesa con Cluny’, Cuadernos de historia de España, 47 (1968), 31–135 Blanch, Joseph, Arxiepiscopologi de la santa església metropolitana i primada de Tarragona (Tarragona: Diputació provincial de Tarragona, 1985) Boissonade, Pierre, ‘Cluny, la papauté et la première grande croisade internationale contre les sarrasins d’Espagne – Barbastro’, Revue des questions historiques, 21 (1932), 257–301 Bouet, Pierre, ‘1000–1100: la conquête’, in Les Normands en Méditerranée aux xie et xiie, ed. by Pierre Bouet and François Neveux (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 1994), pp. 11–23 Branco, Maria João, ‘A conquista de Lisboa revisitada’, Arqueologia medieval, 7 (2001), 217–34 —, D. Sancho I o filho do fundador (Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 2010) Brand, Charles M., ‘The Byzantines and Saladin, 1185–1192: Opponents of the Third Crusade’, Speculum, 37.2 (April, 1962), 167–81 Buck, Andrew, The Principality of Antioch and Its Frontier in the Twelfth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2017) Bull, Marcus, Eyewitness and Crusade Narrative (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2018) —, Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the First Crusade: The Limousin and Gascony c. 970–c. 1130 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) Cantarino, Vicente, ‘The Spanish Reconquest: A Cluniac Holy War Against Islam?’, in Islam and the Medieval West, ed. by Khalil I. Semaan (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980), pp. 82–109 Chevedden, Paul E., ‘Canon 2 of the Council of Clermont (1095) and the Crusade Indulgence’, Annuarium historiae conciliorum, 37.2 (2005), 253–332 —, ‘A Crusade from the First: The Norman Conquest of Islamic Sicily, 1060–1091’, AlMasāq, 22.2 (2010), 191–225 —, ‘The Islamic Interpretation of the Crusade: A New (Old) Paradigm for Understanding the Crusades’, Der Islam, 83 (2006), 90–136 —, ‘Pope Urban II and the Ideology of the Crusades’, in The Crusader World, ed. by Adrian J. Boas (London: Routledge, 2015), pp. 7–53 Church, Stephen, King John: England, Magna Carta, and the Making of a Tyrant (London: Macmillan, 2015)

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Constable, Giles, Cluny from the Tenth to the Twelfth Centuries (Farnham: Ashgate, 2000) —, Crusaders and Crusading in the Twelfth Century (Farnham: Ashgate, 2008) Corredera Gutiérrez, Eduardo, ‘Los condes soberanos de Urgel y los premonstratenses’, Analecta sacra tarraconensia: Revista de ciències historicoeclesiàstiques, 36.2 (1963), 33–102 Cowdrey, H. E. J., The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970) Crouch, David, The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (London: Hambledon and London, 2002) —, The Reign of King Stephen, 1135–1154 (Harlow: Longman, 2000) David, Pierre, Études historiques sur la Galice et le Portugal (Lisbon: Livraria Portugália, 1947) Davies, R. R., The First English Empire: Power and Identity in the British Isles 1093–1343 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) Defourneaux, Marcelin, Les français en Espagne aux xie et xiie siècles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1949) Delaruelle, Étienne, ‘The Crusading Idea in the Cluniac Literature of the Eleventh Century’, in Cluniac Monasticism in the Central Middle Ages, ed. by Noreen Hunt (London: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 191–216 Edgington, Susan, ‘The Capture of Lisbon: Premeditated or Opportunistic?’, in The Second Crusade: Holy War on the Periphery of Latin Christendom, ed. by Jason T. Roche and Janus Møller Jansen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), pp. 257–72 —, ‘The Lisbon Letter of the Second Crusade’, Historical Research, 69 (1996), 328–39 Erdmann, Carl, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, trans. by Marshall W. Baldwin and Walter Goffart (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997) Ferreiro, Alberto, ‘The Siege of Barbastro, 1064–5: A Reassessment’, Journal of Medieval History, 9 (1983), 129–44 Forey, Alan, ‘The Conquest of Lisbon and the Second Crusade’, Portuguese Studies, 20 (2004), 1–13 —, ‘The Papacy and the Commutation of Crusading Vows from One Area of Conflict to Another (1095–c. 1300)’, Traditio, 73 (2018), 43–82 France, John, The Crusades and the Expansion of Catholic Christendom, 1000–1714 (London: Routledge, 2005) Friedman, Yvonne, ‘Peacemaking in an Age of War: When Were Cross-Religious Alliances in the Latin East Considered Treason?’, in The World of the Crusades, ed. by Adrian J. Boas (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 98–110 García Fitz, Francisco, ‘La Reconquista: Un estado de la cuestión’, Clio & Crimen, 6 (2009), 142–215 —, Las Navas de Tolosa (Madrid: Ariel, 2012) —, ‘La batalla de la Navas de Tolosa: El impacto de un acontecimiento extraordinario’, in Las Navas de Tolosa 1212-2012: Miradas cruzadas, ed. by Patrice Cressier, Vicente Salvatierra Cuenca ( Jaén: Editorial Universal de Jaén, 2014), pp. 11–36. García Fitz, Francisco, and Feliciano Novoa Portella, Cruzados en la Reconquista (Madrid: Marcial Pons, 2014) García-Guijarro, Ramos, and Luís Beltrán, ‘Los orígenes del movimiento cruzado’, in As ordens militares e as ordens de cavalaria na construção do mundo ocidental: actas do IV encontro sobre ordens militares (Palmela, 30 de Janeiro a 2 de Fevereiro de 2002), 4 (Lisbon, 2005), pp. 87–107

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García-Sanjuán, Alejandro, ‘La noción del Fath en las fuentes árabes’, in Orígenes y desarrollo de la guerra santa en la península ibérica, ed. by Carlos de Ayala Martínez, Patrick Henriet, and J. Santiago Palacios Ontalva (Madrid: Rustica, 2016), pp. 31–50 —, ‘Rejecting al-Andalus, Exalting the Reconquista: Historical Memory in Contemporary Spain’, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 10. 1 (2018), 127–45 Gillingham, John, Richard I (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999) Gómez, Miguel Dolan, ‘The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa: The Culture and Practice of Crusading in Medieval Iberia’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Tennessee, 2011) González Jiménez, Manuel, ‘Frontier and Settlement in Castile (1085–1350)’, in Medieval Frontier Societies, ed. by Robert Barlett and Angus Mackay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 49–74 Goñi Gaztambide, José, Historia de la bula de Cruzada en España (Vitoria: Seminario de Vitoria, 1958) Green, Judith A., ‘The Aristocracy of Conquered England’, in 1066 in Perspective, ed. by David Bates (London: Royal Armouries, 2018), pp. 204–14 —, Forging the Kingdom: Power in English Society, 973–1189 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) Harper-Bill, Christopher, ‘The Piety of the Anglo-Norman Knightly Class’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 2 (1979), 63–77 Housley, Norman, Contesting the Crusades (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006) Houts, Elisabeth M. C. van, ‘The Gesta Normannorum Ducum: A History Without an End’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 3 (1980), 106–18 —, ‘Wace as Historian’, in Family Trees and the Roots of Politics: The Prosopography of Britain and France from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century, ed. by Katherine S. B. Keats-Rohan (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1997), pp. 104–32 Iogna-Prat, Dominique, Order and Exclusion: Cluny and Christendom Face Heresy, Judaism, and Islam (1000–1150), trans. by Graham R. Edwards (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002) Jaspert, Nikolas, ‘Capta est Dertosa clavis christianorum:Tortosa and the Crusades’, in The Second Crusade: Scope and Consequences, ed. by Jonathan Phillips and Martin Hoch (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), pp. 90–100 Jordà Fernández, Antoni, ‘Terminologia jurídica i dret comú: a propòsit de Robert Bordet, “Prínceps” de Tarragona (s. XII)’, in El temps sota control: Homenatge a E. Xavier Ricomà Vendrell (Tarragona: Diputació de Tarragona, 1997), pp. 355–62 Jotischky, Andrew, Crusading and the Crusader States (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004) Kennedy, Hugh, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus (London: Routledge, 1996) King, Edmund, ‘The Anarchy of King Stephen’s Reign’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 34 (1984), 133–53 Kjær, Lars, ‘Conquests, Family Traditions and the First Crusade’, Journal of Medieval History, 45 (2019), 553–79 Kostick, Conor, The Social Structure of the First Crusade (Leiden: Brill, 2008) Lacarra de Miguel, José María, Vida de Alfonso el batallador (Zaragoza: Guara, 1971)

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Laliena Corbera, Carlos, ‘Guerra santa y reconquista en la reciente historiografía angloamericana sobre la península ibérica’, Imago Temporis: Medium Aevum, 9 (2015), 413–24 —, ‘Larga stipendia et optima praedia: Les nobles francos en Aragon au service d’Alphonse le Batailleur’, Annales du Midi, 229 (2000), 149–69 Lay, Stephen, ‘Miracles, Martyrs and the Cult of Henry the Crusader in Lisbon’, Portuguese Studies, 24 (2008), 7–31 Linehan, Peter, History and the Historians of Medieval Spain (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993) Lomax, Derek W., ‘The First English Pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela’, in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. H. C. Davis, ed. by Henry Mayr-Harting and Robert Ian Moore (London: Bloomsbury, 1985), pp. 165–75 —, The Reconquest of Spain (London, Longman, 1978) Loud, Graham A., ‘The Abbey of Cava, Its Property and Benefactors in the Norman Era’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 9 (1985), 143–77 —, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow: Longman, 2000) —, ‘How “Norman” was the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy?’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 25 (1981), 13–34 MacGregor, James B. ‘The Ministry of Gerold d’Avranches: Warrior-Saints and Knightly Piety on the Eve of the First Crusade’, Journal of Medieval History, 29.3 (2003), 219–37 Maravall, José Antonio, El concepto de España en la edad media (Madrid: Instituto de estudios políticos, 1964) Martin, Theresa, ‘Recasting the Concept of the “Pilgrimage Church”: The Case of San Isidoro de León’, La crónica, 32.2 (2008), 165–89 Martins, Miguel G., 1147 – A conquista de Lisboa na rota da Segunda Cruzada (Lisbon: A esfera dos livros, 2017) Matthew, Donald, King Stephen (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2002) McCrank, Lawrence J., ‘Norman Crusaders in the Catalan Reconquest: Robert Burdet and the Principality of Tarragona’, Journal of Medieval History, 7 (1981), 67–82 —, ‘Seeing History Differently: Toledo vs. Tarragona in the Reconstruction of the Hispanic Church’, Bolletí Arqueològic, 36–37 (2014–2015), 147–98 Nelson, Lynn, ‘Rotrou of Perche and the Aragonese Reconquest’, Traditio, 26 (1970), 113–33 Neocleous, Savvas, ‘Byzantine-Muslim Conspiracies Against the Crusades: History and Myth’, Journal of Medieval History, 36.3 (2010), 253–74 Norwich, John J., The Normans in Sicily: The Normans in the South 1016–1130 and the Kingdom in the Sun 1130–1194 (London: Penguin, 1967) O’Callaghan, Joseph F., A History of Medieval Spain (Ithaca: Coranell University Press, 1983) —, Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2003) Paul, Nicholas L., To Follow in Their Footsteps: The Crusades and Family Memory in the High Middle Ages (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2012) Phillips, Jonathan, ‘St Bernard of Clairvaux, the Low Countries and the Lisbon Letter of the Second Crusade’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 48.3 (1997), 485–97

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—, The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin (London: Bodley Head, 2019) —, The Second Crusade: Expanding the Frontiers of Christendom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007) Potts, Cassandra, ‘Normandy, 911–1144’, in A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, ed. by Christopher Harper-Bill and Elisabeth M. C. van Houts (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2003), pp. 19–42 Purkis, William J., Crusading Spirituality in the Holy Land and Iberia c. 1095–c. 1187 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2008) Ridel, Élisabeth, ‘Les préparatifs nautiques de la Conquête: Un héritage Viking? Los mots ont la parole’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 39 (2016), 183–202 Riley-Smith, Jonathan, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London: Continuum, 1986) —, What Were the Crusades? (London: Palgrave, 1977) Ritchie, R. L., The Normans in Scotland (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1954) Robinson, Ian Stuart, The Papacy 1073–1198 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) Russell, Frederick H., The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975) Sénac, Philippe, ‘Al-Mansûr et la reconquête’, in Guerre, pouvoirs et idéologies dans l’Espagne chrétienne aux alentours de l’an mil, ed. by Thomas Deswarte and Philippe Sénac (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 37–50 Sénac, Philippe, and Carlos Laliena Corbera, 1064, Barbastro: Guerre sainte et djihâd en Espagne (Paris: Gallimard, 2018) Serrão, Joaquim Veríssimo, A historiografia portuguesa, 3 vols (Lisbon: Editorial Verbo, 1971) Siberry, Elizabeth, Criticism of Crusading 1095–1274 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985) Smith, Damian J., ‘The Abbot-Crusader Nicholas Breakspear in Catalonia’, in Adrian IV the English Pope, ed. by Brenda Bolton and Anne Duggan (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 29–40 Storrs, Constance M., ‘Jacobean Pilgrims to St James of Compostela’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of London, 1964) Stringer, Keith J., ‘Aspects of the Norman Diaspora in Northern England and Southern Scotland’, in Norman Expansion: Connections, Continuities and Contrasts, ed. by Keith J. Stringer and Andrew Jotischky (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 9–48 Tate, Robert Brian, Pilgrimages to Saint James of Compostela from the British Isles During the Middle Ages (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1990) Thompson, Kathleen, Power and Border Lordship in Medieval France: The County of Perche (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2002) Throop, Susanna A., ‘Vengeance and the Crusades’, Crusades, 5 (2006), 21–38 Udina i Martorell, Frederic, ‘Los Condes Catalanes: Prosopografía’, in Historia de España Menéndez Pidal: La Reconquista y el proceso de diferenciación política 1035–1217, 9, ed. by Miguel A. Ladero Quesada (Madrid: Espasa, 1998), pp. 333–64 Veach, Colin, ‘The Geraldines and the Conquest of Ireland’, in The Geraldines and Medieval Ireland: The Making of a Myth, ed. by Seán Duffy and Peter Crooks (Dublin: Four Courts, 2016), pp. 69–92

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—, ‘Relentlessly Striving for More: Hugh de Lacy in Ireland’, History Ireland, 15.2 (2007), 18–23 Villegas-Aristizábal, Lucas, ‘Anglo-Norman Intervention in the Conquest and Settlement of Tortosa, 1148–1180’, Crusades, 8 (2009), 63–129 —, ‘Cruzados normandos en la frontera del Ebro y el caso de Tarragona’, in La repoblació del Camp de Tarragona – Estat de la qüestió (Tarragona, Silva Editorial, 2018), pp. 13–40 —, ‘A Frisian Perspective on Crusading in Iberia as Part of the Sea Journey to the Holy Land’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 3rd Series, 15 (2021), 67–149 —, ‘Norman and Anglo-Norman Intervention in the Iberian Wars of Reconquest before and after the First Crusade’, in Crusading and Pilgrimage in the Norman World, ed. by Kathryn Hurlock and Paul Oldfield (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2015), pp. 103–24 —, ‘Norman and Anglo-Norman Participation in the Iberian Reconquista’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Nottingham, 2007) —, ‘Pope Gregory VII and Count Eblous II of Roucy’s Proto-Crusade in Iberia c. 1073’, Medieval History Journal, 21.1 (2018), 117–40 —, ‘Revisión de las crónicas de Ralph de Diceto y de la Gesta regis Ricardi sobre la participación de la flota angevina durante la Tercera Cruzada en Portugal’, Studia historica: Historia medieval, 27 (2009), 153–70 —, ‘Revisiting the Anglo-Norman Crusaders’ Failed Attempt to Conquer Lisbon c. 1142’, Portuguese Studies, 29.1 (2013), 7–20 —, ‘Roger of Tosny’s Adventures in the County of Barcelona’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, 52 (2008), 5–16. —, ‘Spiritual and Material Rewards in the Christian Muslim Frontier: Norman Crusader in the Valley of the Ebro in the First Half of the Twelfth Century’, Medievalismo, 27 (2017), 353–76 —, ‘Was the Portuguese Led Military Campaign against Alcácer do Sal in the Autumn of 1217 Part of the Fifth Crusade?’, Al-Masāq, 31.1 (2019), 50–67 Virgili Colet, Antoni, ‘Angli cum multis aliis alienigenis: Crusade Settlers in Tortosa (Second Half of the Twelfth Century)’, Journal of Medieval History, 35 (2009), 297–312 Walker, David, ‘The Norman Settlement in Wales’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 1 (1978), 131–43 Warren, W. L., Henry II (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000) —, King John (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997) Webber, Nick, The Evolution of Norman Identity, 911–1154 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2005) Werckmeister, Otto K., ‘Cluny III and the Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela’, Gesta, 27 (1988), 103–12 White, Graeme, ‘The Myth of the Anarchy’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 22 (2000), 323–37 Wilson, Jonathan, ‘Dispatches from the Western Frontier: Portugal and the Crusades’, in Entre Deu e o rei: O mondo de las ordenes militares, 1, ed. by Isabel Cristina Ferreira Fernandes (Palmela: Gabinete de Estudos sobre a Ordem de Santiago, 2018), pp. 209–44 —, ‘Enigma of the De Expugnatione Lyxbonensi’, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 9.1 (2017), 99–129

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Part II

The Implications of Conquest in Sicily and Southern Italy

Sandro Caro cc i

4. Norman Change, Lords, and Rural Societies

I would like to start with two poems: one relatively unknown, the other very well known. We only know about the first thanks to the chronicle of Richard of San Germano, written in 1230–1243. Richard tells a very odd story: in 1196 on the walls of the castle of Sant’Angelo in Theodice, the inhabitants of which had rebelled against the abbot of Montecassino, the rebels carved or painted an epigram of political satire in Latin hexameters. The poem attacks the rectores who manage the castle under the orders of Montecassino. One is described as being ‘the worst’ (pessimus), a second as a slave (servus) of the counts of Aquino, a third as being like Aegeas, the official who sentenced the Apostle Andrew to martyrdom. Far from venerating Saint Benedict, the poem says, these men went to war, carried out destructions and massacres, and promulgated orders (edicta) of all kinds.1 Of course, we should not take the chronicler’s tale at face value, since he undoubtedly elaborates the episode and adds a literary veneer; however, it is clear that Richard of San Germano and his readers think it credible to state that the notables leading the rebellious peasants are capable of devising complex political propaganda and displaying it in a symbolic place. Criticism of the type of lordship exercised by the officials of Montecassino is at the heart of this propaganda. It is accompanied by an ideal of peace and devotion, and by a call for a type of lordship that does not rely on the violent coercion of the rectores. The poem is a vindication of peaceful political models based on consensus rather than on seigneurial violence. The second poem is famous: Cielo d’Alcamo’s Rosa fresca aulentissima (Most Fragrant Fresh Rose) is one of the oldest Italian literary texts. It was composed in Sicily after 1231 and it describes an argument between an insistent suitor and a young lady who tries to resist him. At one point she says: ‘Take care, my relatives might



1 The revolt of 1196 is recounted, in addition to the clashes that troubled the entire area, by Ryccardi de Sancto Germano notarii Chronica, ed. by Carlo A. Garufi, pp. 17–18, that also provides a transcript of the hexameters allegedly displayed on the castle walls. Sandro Carocci  •  is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. He has published, among others, Baroni di Roma: Dominazioni signorili e lignaggi aristocratici nel Duecento e nel primo Trecento (ISIME, 1993), and Lordships of Southern Italy: Rural Societies, Aristocratic Powers and Monarchy in the 12th and 13th Centuries (Viella, 2018). The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. by Emily A. Winkler and Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small, MISCS 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 123–137 © FHG10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.121959

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come and catch you’. The suitor replies that, in that case, he would be in no danger because, in order to defend himself against the woman’s father, he would only have to invoke a defensa worth 2000 gold coins. Therefore, he concludes, ‘Long live Emperor Frederick II, and thanks be to God!’.2 Here, the poet is referring to Frederick II’s laws on the defensa.3 These stated that any inhabitant of the kingdom could defend himself against an aggressor by imposing a fine in the name of the Emperor. The defensa has fascinated historians of the state, who have seen it as the first attestation of the early modern idea of an omnipresent sovereign. They have debated the origins of the defensa, and it is thought that Frederick II built on laws that had previously existed under the Normans. Ernst Kantorowicz dedicated a well-known article to the topic, stressing that ‘through the defensa every individual subject was forced to submit to the jurisdiction of the crown directly’.4 For the Nobel prizewinner, Dario Fo, the defensa became the theme of a splendid satire play.5 However, as I will assert in my conclusion, I believe that the defensa can also reveal valuable information about the history of lordship in Norman Italy. I will return to these poems and to what they can tell us about the topic that forms the focus of this chapter: the effects of the Norman conquest on the rural worlds, where the vast majority of the population of southern Italy lived. My chapter will look at this question by considering two more general phenomena, namely: a) What is ‘regime change’ and what does it mean for the majority of the population? The historiography on the high Middle Ages — or more precisely the eleventh and twelfth centuries — has often tended to emphasize major changes. In the 1990s the journal Past & Present hosted a debate on ‘feudal revolution’ or, to use the French term, mutation féodale, in the eleventh century, about the chronology and the geography of exploitive lordship.6 The debate then petered out, but it did raise an important question: what changed in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in those areas of Europe where the exploitive lordship that the French call seigneurie banale became very common? It is an issue that continues to be discussed. In a book published by Oxford University Press, the Italian historian Alessio Fiore argues that in central and northern Italy between 1080 and 1130 there was a genuine ‘seigneurial transformation’.7 ‘Harsh’ castle lordships spread, which used violence to bolster power and exaction. There were changes in political and value systems. For example, violent and predatory names become more commonplace among nobles: names like Guastavillano (Ruin-a-villein), Manducalomini (Man-eater), or Malpresa (Harsh-hold). The names express an aristocratic culture where violence and hostility

2 This citation from Poeti del Duecento, ed. by Contini, i, 177–85 (with commentary, pp. 173–76). 3 Die Konstitutionen Friedrichs II. für das Königreich Sizilien, ed. by Stürner, pp. 165–72. 4 Kantorowicz, ‘Invocatio nominis imperatoris’, p. 11. 5 Fo, Teatro, ed. by Rame, pp. 217–24. 6 A reconstruction of the debate until the middle of 1990s is Carocci, ‘Signoria rurale e mutazione’; it should be integrated, for the latest phase of debate, with Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century, pp. 41–48; West, Reframing the Feudal Revolution, pp. 1–8. 7 Fiore, The Seigneurial Transformation.

n o r m an c h an g e , lo rd s, and ru ral so ci e t i e s

towards subordinates are the key identifying elements. Therefore, the main question here is: how does the Norman south fit into this broad narrative of change? And what methodological suggestions can it make, both for work on Norman Sicily and for research on lordship? b) The second general question concerns the method used to assess the real impact of lords on their subordinates. Here I think it is useful to introduce a little theoretical conceptualization, and to talk about what I call the ‘pervasive nature’ of lordship. The pervasiveness of a lordship is very different to its strength. A lord is a strong lord if he dominates a huge territory, exercises significant fiscal, judicial and military powers, and if he is one of the most influential nobles in the region. On the contrary, a pervasive lord is one who controls every aspect of rural life and the territory by being close at hand. In this sense, I would call a ‘pervasive’ lord one who exercises proximal power. Being a strong lord, with extensive political, judicial, and fiscal powers, can of course overlap with being a pervasive lord. But in order to be a pervasive lord, and to exert a profound influence on day-to-day peasant life, other factors are much more important: having ample reserves, asking for numerous labour services (corvées), imposing military services on subordinates, gaining the support of the local elite, imposing one’s own range of values, and lastly, more prosaically, having a permanent residence in the village and an intimate knowledge of the lands, the men, and their livestock.8 A friend who works in a multinational company once said to me: your concept of a lord who is powerful but not pervasive is exactly the same as a CEO who hasn’t the vaguest idea about what his employees really get up to. So the question I am asking here is this: were there pervasive lords in Norman southern Italy, and if so, who were they? *** The sources from the period of the Norman conquest (1040–1080) amply document the violence of the conquerors and the changes that they were introducing. The chroniclers tell of thefts, kidnaps, ransom, sacks; the notaries complain of the damage caused by ‘these cursed Normans’ (illi maledicti Normannis). The Norman leaders assert their possession of castles and lands by right of conquest, confiscate the patrimonies of nobles and churches, and impose protection taxes on landowners and peasants.9 However, what are perhaps the most revealing sources for these ongoing changes do not even mention the Normans. These are the three oldest seigneurial customs that survive, and a series of deeds regarding the donation of properties and personal submission. The consuetudines or customs in question are those granted by the lords to the inhabitants of Olevano sul Tusciano in 1057, Traetto in 1061, and Suio in 1079.10 All 8 For a definition of the categories of strength and pervasiveness, see Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy, pp. 24–25, 395–96. 9 Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, is now the reference text on the Norman conquest. 10 The charter of customs for Olevano has now been published by Di Muro, Terra, uomini e poteri signorili nella Chiesa salernitana (secc. XI–XIII), no. 1, pp. 147–48; the charters for Traetto and Suio, by Fabiani, La Terra di S. Benedetto, i. nos 1–2, pp. 421–24.

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are centres under ecclesiastical lords: the bishop of Salerno at Olevano, and the abbot of Montecassino in the other two cases. But Norman lordships were spreading into nearby territories and therefore all three customs are interesting because they offer a good indication of what the inhabitants feared the conquerors would do. The three customs highlight the residents’ fear of lords who violently usurp their subordinates’ possessions, carry out unlawful (iniusta) activities, introduce new burdens, and scorn the prerogatives of free men. For example, they prohibit the lord from intervening in marriage, from claiming the right to judge adulterous wives, from imprisoning inhabitants, and from imposing limits on the freedom to emigrate and sell property, as well as to give and to inherit possessions. All the customs reveal a concern that the lord might increase rents and labour service. At Traetto and Suio the lord promises not to confiscate goods and animals owned by inhabitants, and not to carry out unlawful actions of any kind. Moreover, it is clear that the local notables (knights, and all the other important people in towns) fear that the new political situation will limit their resources and hamper their space for manoeuvre. As a result, the abbot undertakes to guarantee traditional practices: to respect Lombard legislation currently in force; to exclusively appoint inhabitants to the positions of judge and vicecomes; and also to uphold a series of privileges for any of his subjects who are able to serve as knights. That this is a period of change is also revealed by a series of donations made between 1050 and 1080 by the inhabitants of the Cilento to monasteries and churches. Many small and medium-sized proprietors donated all of their possessions; the church and monastery then granted the properties back to the donor and took him ‘in dominio et defensione’, namely under their lordship. This kind of deed already existed before the Normans arrived but they multiplied following the upheavals of the conquest which prompted many inhabitants to formally give up their family properties and seek a lord and protector.11 During the same period a series of revealing changes take place. At the time of the conquest, castles acquire exceptional importance. Fortifications and fortresses already existed prior to the Normans, but they were usually marginal in political terms. Instead, after the Norman settlement, castles increased in number and became the hubs of both territorial organization and the new lordships.12 A whole series of other changes can be added. A radical revolution occurred in the world of politics and power. The Norman leaders took the place of various state bodies and their pre-eminent families. As Graham Loud has shown, there were cases of continuity among the nobility,13 but generally speaking, for the aristocracies, the great landowners and the political institutions, this was undoubtedly a time of major changes. The Norman conquest accentuated a trend that was already strong in the Lombard areas, namely the trend to identify social pre-eminence with an ability to 11 For example: Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, ed. by Morcaldi and others, ii. no. 221, a. 1072; vii. no. 1177, a. 1053; ix. nos 59 and 128, a. 1068; x. nos 23–26, 30, 48, 51 (all from 1074), and no. 115, a. 1079. See Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy, pp. 90–93. 12 A good overview is still that by Figliuolo, ‘Morfologia dell’insediamento nell’Italia meridionale in età normanna’. 13 Loud, ‘Continuity and Change in Norman Italy’.

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fight on horseback: even in southern Italy, social pre-eminence was militarized. Local elites often became knights, and they were joined by many French warriors: as the knights increased in number so did their privileges. Significant changes can also be seen in other fields. Corvées appear more often in the sources, sometimes reaching high levels (more than one hundred days a year). The charters of sale and donation of a man with his family become more frequent.14 Evidence like this has meant that often the Norman conquest of southern Italy has been interpreted as a classic case of transition from one system to another. It is thought that a territory won by force and violence must have undergone the most radical of changes. The Norman conquerors are said to have brought with them feudal structures, castles, the end of public justice, knights, mass confiscation from large and small landowners, the introduction of tight controls and heavy taxation on the rural world, and so on. A new seigneurial nobility, for the most part Norman in origin, is seen as having imposed a harsh dominion on the countryside, reducing most of the population to serfdom.15 I make this argument about the Norman change in very summary terms. Actually, there are few now who hold views as schematic as this. However, attention continues to focus on the extent of the changes that happened in the eleventh century. For my part, I agree with other scholars, who believe that this view is particularly inappropriate to understanding the rural societies of the Mezzogiorno.16 So this brings me to the central question: what should we put in place of this image of Norman change? How should we interpret the documents I discussed earlier? What was really happening at a local level, in the societies subject to the lordship of the Norman conquerors? To answer these questions, I will look at the twelfth century, for which we have much better documentary and legal sources. Only at the end will I come back to the Norman change of the eleventh century. The rest of my chapter is divided into five parts. It provides reflections that are based on, and attempt to develop, the research and conclusions I have presented in a book now published in an English translation.17

Clearing Up The first part is essentially a ‘clear-up’ operation, aimed at reformulating or ditching some traditional interpretations of Norman Italy. However, I do not want to go back over the arguments I have already made in my book, and therefore I will just mention the interpretations that are most inaccurate and misleading with regard to the central topic of my chapter. In this chapter, for example, it is not very important to establish

14 For all these developments, Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy, pp. 69–113. 15 Corrao, ‘Il servo’, pp. 61–78. 16 For example, Petralia, ‘La “signoria” nella Sicilia normanna’. 17 Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy.

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the exact nature of the Catalogus Baronum, or precisely what was a knight’s fee, or indeed to demonstrate that Roger II’s assize De nova militia is not a measure that imposed a hereditary closure on the knighthood, or that the feudal hierarchy became widespread much later, particularly after the reign of Roger II. All these are important issues, of course, and I have dealt with them at length in my book;18 but they are less relevant to the topic of this chapter, i.e. the question of what was happening on a local level. However, there are two revisions that I must dwell on a little longer. A first important revision concerns the juridical condition of peasants, the villani of southern Italy. As I said, southern Italian peasants have often been regarded as being deprived of their freedom. They have been given the same status as English villeins and the many non-free peasants who spread through central and northern Italy and France from 1150 onwards.19 Yet, an analysis of the obligations of the villein of southern Italy leads us to conclude, on the contrary, that he was a free man, who could emigrate and freely dispose of his possessions.20 He claimed a series of rights, typical of free men: in particular the right to appeal to the royal courts at all times, even against his own lord. Of course, the peasants were subject to heavy burdens and bound to other men by economic ties and obligations of personal dependence. But this is not indicative of their lack of freedom, because dependency was something that affected much of the population. Deeds of sale or donations of men and their household are not a sign of servile status. The object of these deeds were not the men, but rather the revenues and the services they owed on account of their personal subordination. This is the only explanation for what is otherwise incomprehensible: on occasions only half a man, or even a smaller fraction was sold or donated; at other times, donations, transfers and sales could also refer to high status persons. Even knights could be donated. This happened, for example, to the son of the knight Gentecoris, John of Camerota, who was himself a knight, and in 1146 he was donated to the abbot of Cava by the lord of Camerota.21 The second revision concerns the relationship between knights and rural society. In order to understand this relationship, first of all we need to reject the idea that knights were a distinct group, set apart from the rest of the population. Some scholars believe that the separation between knights and other inhabitants might have an ethnic basis, namely the Norman origins of many knights; for other scholars, the reasons are juridical and political, namely the fact that knights formed part of the feudal hierarchy and they were a group that was closed on hereditary grounds.22 As I said, in my book I try to show that these factors were not particularly significant: indeed, some — like the hereditary closure of the knighthood — have been invented

18 Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy, pp. 126–63, 231–37. 19 Corrao, ‘Il servo’, pp. 61–78; Loud, ‘L’attività economica dei monasteri nel principato di Salerno’, pp. 310–36. 20 Carocci, ‘Le libertà dei servi’, n. 37, 51–94. 21 Cava dei Tirreni, Badia della S. Trinità, Armarium Magnum G, no. 50. 22 Jamison, ‘Additional Work on the Catalogus baronum’, pp. 8–9; Cuozzo, “Quei maledetti Normanni”, pp. 53–62, which was until recently taken to be definitive (for example Drell, Kinship and Conquest, p. 50, in note).

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by historians; others, like the ethnic distinctions, only concern an initial phase and some regions; yet others, like the feudal bonds with great nobles were important only for a handful of knights. On the contrary, I emphasize that many elements and many sources prove that the knights were part of village society. For example, in concessions agreed by the lord, knights are almost always lumped together with other inhabitants. Many knights also played important civil roles, as judges, notaries, doctors. Together with the other boni homines, knights helped to administer justice, to choose judges and bailiffs, to draw up donations and other important deeds. Many knights owned patrimonies similar to those of other local notables. In short, so many aspects (many more than I have been able to mention here) point to the fact that knights formed the most visible, and generally the most important, part of the village elite. They were fully integrated in local societies, and indeed they often led them.

The Seigneurial Economy Having cleared these misleading interpretations out of the way, we can now turn to lordship. In the next pages I use ‘lordship’ usually to indicate the powers of command and exaction exercised by counts and other nobles who owned one or more villages, or castles or fortified villages, with their territories. I will call these nobles ‘village lords’ or ‘territorial lords’. As we will see, later I will deal with lordships and lords on a smaller scale, who only owned a handful of dependent peasants. In these cases, I will use expressions like ‘personal lordship’, ‘micro-lordship’, and ‘small-scale lord’. The second part of my chapter is about what I will call the ‘seigneurial economy’. The question of the seigneurial economy is one of those themes that clearly reveal differences of approach at a European level. It is a question that historians of English manors are very fond of, and they have carried out impressive quantitative analyses on the trends of revenues and harvests. Italian historians, on the other hand, avoid it like the plague. It has nothing to do with personal taste, of course, simply broad historiographical trends.23 In central-northern Italy lords exercised huge juridical and political powers, and therefore Italian historians tend to think that lordship has more to do with power and not the economy.24 However, this does not change the fact that studies of the economic facets of lordship can be particularly useful for understanding the nature and consequences of seigneurial power. Now, on this point, medieval southern Italy is not particularly rich in sources for quantitative history. But some detailed sources have survived. The most revealing concern three Sicilian villages of the north-eastern coast of Sicily: Santa Lucia del Mela, San Filippo, and Sinagra. For all three we have detailed records of their revenues: rents, taxes, judicial fines, mills, the value of labour services, yields from reserves,

23 On the impact of the national grand narratives of European historiographies on seigneurial studies: Carocci, ‘I signori’, pp. 148–68. 24 This tendency of Italian historians was first noted by Violante, ‘Introduzione. La signoria rurale’, p. 8.

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and others.25 Normally we have much simpler information, moreover with the added drawback of being very diverse. Some of the leases demand half or even two thirds of the harvest as rent; other contracts only request a tenth. Precisely this variability between leases has prompted historians of the Mezzogiorno to state that agricultural yields fluctuated between one tenth and over half of the harvest. Yet these conclusions are undermined by the fact that they are founded on documents concerning the relations between an individual owner and a single peasant. Moreover, I have the impression that these leases deal with unusual situations rather than normal ones. These contracts were often written down precisely because they differed from the more ordinary kind of concession, which were regulated by customs and oral agreements. Written contracts were drawn up when the land was to be significantly improved by planting vines and trees; or they dealt with particularly fertile lands; or simply they laid down unusual conditions that were much more favourable to the owner.26 Therefore, even if land contracts represent an enviably rich source of documents for the south, they do not offer a good guide. It is much better to base our research on sources that provide information regarding the whole of a lordship’s territories, and not on this or that individual field. The best sources of this kind are customs, inventories, and collections of court testimonies about seigneurial revenues. Apart from some customs documents, these are sources that date from the mid or late-twelfth century, or even from the reign of Frederick II. They paint a picture that is much more uniform, and much more interesting than the one we can get from leases. From Sicily to Abruzzo, and from Apulia to Calabria, in the vast majority of cases village lords requested very low rents. At most a tenth of crops of wheat and other types of grain. This is a much lower exaction than that common in central and northern Italy, and in many regions of Europe. Of course, rents were not the only revenue received by the village lord. I do not think it is possible to give a lot of detail here: all the data contained in the sources on corvées, revenues from justice, those from mills and ovens, taxes on trade, yields from pastures and the seigneurial demesne, and the extraordinary taxes that lords could levy in the form of ‘aid’ (adiutorium) to pay for exceptional costs (ransom, the marriage of daughters, the purchase of a new lordship, and a few others). I can just say that there is plenty of information, even if it is not always as precise as we would like it to be. And it paints a clear picture: the village lord managed to exact only a fraction of the wealth produced by his subordinates. In the case of the three most amply documented Sicilian villages (Santa Lucia del Mela, San Filippo, and Sinagra), for the first half of the thirteenth century, we can even make a stab at a quantitative estimate: the lord received barely a fifth of what the villages produced. For other lordships, the sources do not even allow such approximate estimates. But the overall picture is very similar: the overwhelming majority of village lords were

25 The documents are published in ‘Urkunden und Inquisitionen des 12. und 13. Jahrhundert aus Patti’, ed. by Girgensohn and Kamp, nos 7–8 on pp. 133–48; an analysis in Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy, pp. 413–21. 26 Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy, pp. 440–43.

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not in a position to demand a large share of what was produced from lands, craft, livestock, and commerce.27 Therefore, many resources lay outside the grasp of the territorial lords of Norman Italy. There were numerous and varied reasons for such a surprisingly low exaction. Here I just want to mention what I think is the main one. We must look for it by lowering our sights and examining the relationship between lords and rural communities.

Micro-Lords In the twelfth century a village lord was not a demanding lord. This brings me to my third part, which I will call ‘micro-lords’. The question is this: if a large portion of the wealth produced by the rural communities was not taken by the lord, where did it go? After 1230, following the institution of a general tax introduced by Frederick II, and later to an even greater extent under the Angevin kings, a large slice of this wealth ended in the state coffers. But in the twelfth century state taxes were still largely absent. Therefore this wealth remained within the rural societies that produced it. However, we would be wrong to imagine the southern Italian villages of the Norman era as a land of milk and honey, a realm of affluence and equality. Within each village there were strong social differentiations and a large number of notables. Even in small-sized villages the upper tiers of society appear richly articulated.28 This clear-cut social articulation was accompanied by relationships of authority and subjection. Indeed, we can state that the social inequalities among the inhabitants were both the product and the cause of these local power relations. This brings me to a theme that till now has escaped the attention of scholars: the relationships of micro-lordship. Until now I have used the terms ‘lord’ and ‘lordship’ in what might be called a classic sense: namely, to indicate lords and lordships that dominated a village. But the term dominus, lord, was in practice much more widely used. Many power relations existed that allowed one individual to command another, to receive goods and services from that individual, to control him, and to judge and punish him. These are clientele relations, but also something that is very different and much stronger. In addition to the village lords, in practice there were also numerous small-scale lords. Often we see that churches, knights, judges, and other notables from a village or town held a small group of peasants — sometimes even a single peasant — in public and official subordination. In monastic and noble lordships, below the level of seigneurial power a whole multitude of other dependencies animated village life. These were relationships of various kinds. They varied between clientele and personal lordship or, more precisely, micro-lordship. Sometimes it was primarily a landed relationship between a landowner and a peasant who cultivated his lands; at other times, it was an entirely political, client-style relationship. The burden of subjection

27 For a fuller discussion of the seigneurial exactions, Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy, pp. 393–489. 28 For social differerentiations and the topic of micro-lords, Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy, pp. 277–323, 491–518.

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varied greatly as well. Sometimes it only involved making gifts and payments; more often it was a subordination requiring oaths of loyalty, the performance of services, payments, the possibility of being beaten by the lords and being subject to their justice for minor crimes.29 These relationships included a multiplicity of ‘small-scale lords’ of all kinds: knights, village churches, notables, even affluent peasants. The most common type of micro-lordship was that of knights. It is also the only type of micro-lordship for which we have good quantitative information. We know the details of hundreds of knightly lordships: in theory, it was thought that a knight ought to dominate about thirty peasant families, but in practice the majority of knights were lords of only about ten peasants, frequently fewer. In the Mezzogiorno under the Normans, these clientele and micro-lordships are much better documented than in other parts of Europe, and they were probably also more commonplace. They were present not only in territories belonging to nobles and monasteries, but also in the royal demesne. They are documented by hundreds of sources. For example, a letter from Frederick II, dated 1223 but concerning micro-lordships that had existed under the Norman kings, sets out the rights exercised over peasants in the Sorrento peninsula by local micro-lords.30 These were the bishops and chapters of Sorrento and two other small dioceses nearby (Vico Equense and Massa Lubrense), five monasteries and many knights, whom the letter also refers to as the ‘nobles and good men of Sorrento’. Already under the Norman kings, the letter states, the dominium of these domini over their villani (these are the precise terms used) was sanctioned by oath of vassalage, control over peasants’ daughters who married and their sons who entered the clergy, and by various gifts. In economic terms, the key aspect of their dominion lay in the demand for more than 110 days’ labour a year, and in the obligation to transport the wine made by the lords to Amalfi. This is just one example out of many. It refers to micro-lords from small towns in an area that was unique for its commerce and the spread of vines and citrus fruits. In small villages and areas with more traditional forms of agriculture, the demands could be even heavier. For example, Rainone, a knight from Sorrento, owned some fifteen peasants in a completely different part of the region, at Maddaloni, and they gave him grain, barley, and wine, about a hundred corvées, hens, and a yearly cash rent of medium and in some cases high value (it ranged from 2 to 15 gold tarì).31 A little earlier I asked a question relating to economic matters: did the substantial portion of wealth that escaped the lord and the crown stay in the rural community? We can now give an affirmative answer, but we can also add that this wealth was concentrated in the hands of the local elite, the micro-lords. I think that the majority

29 For example, the consuetudines of Pontecorvo (1190) granted to micro-lords the possibility of commanding, judging and even, when necessary, caning (verberare) subordinates with impunity (La Terra di S. Benedetto, ed. by Fabiani, i, 427–30). 30 The letter is published in Historia diplomatica Friderici secundi, ed. by Huillard-Bréholles, ii.1, pp. 378–83. 31 Giorgi, ‘Confessione di vassallaggio’.

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of inhabitants derived no advantage from the minimal level of exaction imposed by village lords. Those that really benefitted were the upper echelons of rural society.

Pervasiveness We now come to the fourth part of my argument, pervasiveness. Did ‘pervasive lords’ exist in Norman Italy? Which lords were able to condition the everyday lives of peasants? To answer these questions we need to look well below the ranks of counts and village lords. In many cases, I think, it was precisely the micro-lords that could exercise this sort of influence. They encountered their fellow villagers every day; they granted them lands; they requested rents and often numerous labour services; they received oaths of loyalty and both public and symbolic gifts; they controlled the marriage of their offspring; they commanded, judged and if necessary caned them (as described in a document of 1190);32 certainly, they also protected them from overbearing neighbours, and they may even have helped them in the event of sickness. On the contrary, there is more uncertainty about whether territorial lords could exercise a pervasive lordship. Their power often appears to be external, as it were something that was superimposed on rural societies which conserved their own autonomous social, economic and political relations, distinct from the lordship. There are several reasons that prompt me to take this view. I have already illustrated three, namely the weakness of the seigneurial exaction, the formal freedom of villeins and the widespread presence of micro-lordships. To these we can add the weak or non-existent interventions by lords in production processes; the use of management practices that delegated almost the entire running of the lordship to local notables; the local character of justice and the legal importance of the assembly.33 Before turning to other elements, I would like to return to the two poems mentioned at the start. The first, the poem of the Latin hexameters painted on the walls of the rebel castle, tells us something that is amply already attested to in many documents of the twelfth century: namely, the capacity of rural communities to take political action. The inhabitants of southern Italian villages created associations, they taxed themselves in order to finance political initiatives, they travelled to the royal court to assert their rights, they negotiated with their lords, and when necessary they organized revolts. It is no coincidence that one of the most successful peasant rebellions that ever happened in Europe took place precisely in the kingdom of Sicily: this was the revolt by about ninety villages in Abruzzo that was organized over several decades, from 1220 to 1254. The rebels defeated their lords for good, in both military and political terms, and they founded a great free city, L’Aquila.34 These hexameters are therefore a surprising testimonial to something that we know well from other sources. And

32 See n. 29. 33 Carocci, Lordships of Southern Italy, pp. 359–91, 476–87. 34 On the revolt of L’Aquila, see Carocci, ‘Reframing Norman Italy’, pp. 172–73.

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they show that these rural communities were led by experts, knowledgeable men capable of devising complex political propaganda. We should not hesitate, at this point, to identify many of these rebel leaders as the micro-lords that I described earlier. The local clienteles answered to them. Among the reasons why the territorial lordships were as I said ‘external’, we should also include the fact that these relationships of clientele and micro-lordship damaged the power of lords precisely because they cemented the cohesiveness of rural communities. They bolstered the strength of local notables and their capacity for political action. Not only many economic resources but also political and perhaps even cultural resources escaped the control of the lords and instead became available to the hegemonic groups within rural communities. The other poem, Rosa fresca aulentissima, allows us to broach a topic that I have not yet mentioned: royal controls over the power of the lords. Cielo d’Alcamo is a poet and poets talk of women and their lovers. But the defensa, this ‘magic’ ability, as Kantorowicz writes, to appeal to the sovereign against any form of aggression, was obviously not intended for enterprising suitors. The laws of the Liber Augustalis describing the defensa make no reference to lovers but they do speak frequently of peasants who want to defend themselves from their own lord. Should the lord want to confiscate the peasant’s movables and livestock to obtain rent or a payment, he cannot do so if the peasant has invoked the defensa of the sovereign. Should the lord want to harm his subordinate, again the peasant can invoke the defensa.35 Can we really believe this? Was it really enough simply to invoke the king’s name for the suitor to protect himself from the father’s anger, for peasants to be protected against their lord’s demands and power? We would be naïve to think it was. Yet this strange institution of the defensa does not simply reflect the ideology of Frederick II’s sovereignty and that of his predecessors. It also reflects a royal power that made every effort to penetrate the lordships, to interfere in relations between the lord and his subordinate. Indeed, few things are as well documented as the efforts made by the Norman kings and by Frederick II to control the territorial lords and limit their powers. And so even the monarchy should be listed among the many reasons for the limited pervasiveness of the lordship exercised by counts and castle lords. Historians of the Norman kingdom have described the royal measures regarding noble marriage, inheritance, political loyalty.36 For my part, I would like to emphasize other elements: all the lords, including counts, had to leave to the king the administration of high justice for the inhabitants of their lordship; they had to allow their subordinates to appeal to the sovereign; on the other hand, the king prevented them from requesting unlawful incomes and taxes; he protected rural communities and local customs; he defended knights and other micro-lords from counts and other territorial lords who wanted to remove their powers and subordinates. Of all the kings in the twelfth century, the kings of Sicily were probably those most determined to intervene in the seigneurial powers of the nobility.

35 For the laws about defensa, see nn. 3–4. 36 The best analysis is Mineo, Nobiltà di stato.

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Conclusion: Norman Change The fifth and last part of this chapter is about the Norman change caused by the conquest. As we have seen, twelfth century sources talk of rural communities that are dynamic, well-off, clearly differentiated, made up of free men, active both politically and sometimes militarily, capable of opposing their own village lords. And this picture is clear even at the start of the century, before the monarchy. This rural dynamism does not sit well with the darker images of Norman change in the eleventh century. It is true that the violence, and even simply the fear of the Normans, prompted rural communities like Olevano, Traetto, and Suio to ask their lords to confirm their liberties and their obligations; in the same period some small and medium-sized proprietors placed themselves under the protection of churches and minor lords. But there is no trace of all those calamities that the historians who argue in favour of the ‘feudal revolution’ (see above) have attributed to seigneurial rapacity. The peasant population did not suffer mass confiscations, systemic expropriations, generalized efforts to subject them to servitude, massive increases in exactions, ruptures with local customs. Abuses, confiscations, arbitrary impositions and violence only moderately affected the internal structures of rural societies. So we need to gauge the extent of the change carefully. That there was a radical revolution is undeniable. But it concerned the world of politics and power: the history of the aristocracies, government structures, and state institutions. For most of the population, the impact of this political revolution was much less evident. Let us be clear that the influence of the conquest was anything but small. But it assumed forms that were very different from the radical break that we observe in the history of aristocracies and great landholdings. I would call the change caused by the Norman conquest a shock rather than a revolution. It resulted in the accentuation and general diffusion of complex phenomena that were already underway before the conquest. We can see it in trends like incastellamento, the militarization of local elites, the spread of corvées and seigneurial reserves, and much else. Even the micro-lordships among peasants and rural notables increased after the conquest. The donations that I mentioned at the start of this article, with which many inhabitants of the Cilento placed themselves under the dominion and protection of a church or local notable, attest to this phenomenon. In the violence of the conquest, the native knights who already possessed subordinate peasants were able to keep them subjected, and they benefited from the war to increase both their dependents and the services owed. They were then joined in vast numbers by the knights who arrived with the conquest, and then by the steady rise in new knights, both French and local. You might say: continuity and change progressed side by side. It is an opportune warning against simplistic interpretations of the ‘feudal revolution’.

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Works Cited Manuscripts, Archival Sources, & Other Unedited Material Cava dei Tirreni, Badia della S. Trinità, Armarium Magnum G, no. 50 Primary Sources Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, ed. by Michele Morcaldi and others, 12 vols (Naples: Badia di Cava, 1873–2015) Die Konstitutionen Friedrichs II. für das Königreich Sizilien, ed. by Wolfgang Stürner, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Constitutiones et acta publica imperatorum et regum, II, Supplementum (Hanover: Hahn 1996), pp. 165–72 Giorgi, Ignazio, ‘Confessione di vassallaggio fatta a Rainone da Sorrento dai suoi vassalli del territorio di Maddaloni’, Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano, 5 (1888), 89–99 Historia diplomatica Friderici secundi, sive constitutiones, privilegia, mandata, instrumenta quae supersunt istius imperatoris et filiorum eius, ed. by Jean Louis Alphonse HuillardBréholles, 7 vols (Paris: Henry Plon, 1852–1860) Poeti del Duecento, ed. by Gianfranco Contini, 2 vols (Milan: Ricciardi 1960) Ryccardi de Sancto Germano notarii, Chronica, ed. by Carlo A. Garufi, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 4 vols (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1937–1938) Terra, uomini e poteri signorili nella Chiesa salernitana (secc. XI–XIII), ed. by Alessandro Di Muro (Bari: Adda, 2012) La Terra di S. Benedetto. Studio storico-giuridico sull’Abbazia di Montecassino dall’VIII al XIII secolo, ed. by Luigi Fabiani (Montecassino: Abbazia di Montecassino, 1968) ‘Urkunden und Inquisitionen des 12. und 13. Jahrhundert aus Patti’, ed. by Dieter Girgensohn and Norbert Kamp, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 45 (1965), 1–240 Secondary Studies Bisson, Thomas N., The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship and the Origins of European Government (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2009) Carocci, Sandro, ‘Le libertà dei servi. Reinterpretare il villanaggio meridionale’, Storica, 13 (2007), 51–94 —, Lordships of Southern Italy: Rural Societies, Aristocratic Powers and Monarchy in the 12th and 13th centuries, trans. by Lucinda Byatt (Rome: Viella, 2018) —, ‘Reframing Norman Italy’, in Italy and Medieval Europe: Papers for Chris Wickham, ed. by Ross Balazaretti, Julia Barrow, and Patricia Skinner (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 171–81 —, ‘I signori: il dibattito concettuale’, in Señores, siervos, vasallos en la Alta Edad Media (Pamplona: Gobierno de Navarra, 2002), pp. 147–81 —, ‘Signoria rurale e mutazione’, Storica, 8 (1997), 49–91

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Corrao, Pietro, ‘Il servo’, in Condizione umana e ruoli sociali nel Mezzogiorno normannosvevo, Atti delle none Giornate normanno-sveve, Bari, 17–20 ottobre 1989, ed. by Giosuè Musca (Bari: Dedalo 1991), pp. 61–78 Cuozzo, Errico, “Quei maledetti Normanni”: Cavalieri e organizzazione militare nel Mezzogiorno normanno (Naples: Liguori 1989) Drell, Joanna H., Kinship and Conquest: Family Strategies in the Principality of Salerno during the Norman Period, 1077–1194 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002) Figliuolo, Bruni, ‘Morfologia dell’insediamento nell’Italia meridionale in età normanna’, Studi Storici, 32 (1991), pp. 25–68 Fiore, Alessio, The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130, trans. by Sergio Knipe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020) Fo, Dario, Teatro, ed. by Franca Rame (Turin: Einaudi, 2000) Jamison, Evelyn, ‘Additional Work on the Catalogus baronum’, Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, 83 (1971), 1–63 Kantorowicz, Ernst, ‘Invocatio nominis imperatoris: On vv. 21–25 of Cielo d’Alcamo’s Contrasto’, Bollettino del Centro di Studi Filologici e Linguistici Siciliani, 3 (1955), 1–16 Loud, Graham A., The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow: Longman, 2000) —, ‘L’attività economica dei monasteri nel principato di Salerno durante il XII secolo’, in Salerno nel XII secolo. Istituzioni, Società, Cultura, ed. by Paolo Delogu and Paolo Peduto (Salerno: Centro Studi Salernitani, 2004), 310–36 —, ‘Continuity and Change in Norman Italy: The Campania during the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, Journal of Medieval History, 22 (1996), 327–42 [repr. in Loud, Conquerors and Churchmen in Norman Italy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999)] Mineo, Ennio Igor, Nobiltà di stato: Famiglie e identità aristocratiche nel tardo medioevo: La Sicilia (Rome: Donzelli, 2001) Petralia, Giuseppe, ‘La “signoria” nella Sicilia normanna e sveva: verso nuovi scenari?’, in La signoria rurale in Italia rurale in Italia nel medioevo, Atti del II Convegno di studi, Pisa 6–7 November 1998, ed. by Maria Teresa Ceccarelli Lemut and Cinzio Violante (Pisa: Pacino, 2004), 217–54 Violante, Cinzio, ‘Introduzione. La signoria rurale nel contesto storico dei secoli X-XII’, in Strutture e trasformazioni della signoria rurale nei secoli X–XIII, ed. by Gerald Dilcher and Cinzio Violante (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1996), 7–56 West, Charles, Reframing the Feudal Revolution: Political and Social Transformation between Marne and Moselle, c. 800–c. 1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)

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5. The Nobility of Norman Italy, c. 1085–1127*

The period from the death of Robert Guiscard until the arrival of Count Roger II of Sicily on the mainland to claim the ducal title in 1127 might well be considered the forgotten era in the history of Norman Italy. In part, as with so much of medieval history, this is a matter of sources. Of the principal chroniclers of the Norman Conquest, only Geoffrey Malaterra continued his account after 1085, and his narrative up to 1098 is almost exclusively concerned with Calabria and Sicily. The creation of the kingdom and Roger’s takeover of the mainland generated renewed activity among contemporary historians — but in the intervening period our narrative sources are for the most part confined to relatively sparse annals, which are not necessarily easy to interpret. The one lengthy narrative account we have that continues throughout these years — the continuation to the Montecassino Chronicle of Leo of Ostia — displays the campanilismo common to monastic histories. Local society as perceived from Montecassino hardly reflects that of southern Italy as a whole. Similar criticism might be levied towards the much briefer and sketchier accounts of these years in the monastic chronicles of Casauria and Carpineto in the Abruzzi, both of which in any case date from the late twelfth century. While Falco of Benevento’s chronicle may commence at the start of the twelfth century, its account up to 1127 is very much confined to his native city and its immediate environs, and anyway for these years is little more than a set of extended annals, not all of which were necessarily written by Falco himself.1 If the relative paucity of contemporary sources enabling us to make sense of the events of these years is one reason for this neglect, the other is a matter of perception. This period seems still to be viewed as a (not very interesting) hiatus between the conquest and the state-building of Robert Guiscard and the conquest



* I would like to thank my former research students Drs Hervin Fernández y Aceves and Francesca Petrizzo for many stimulating conversations about the south Italian nobility, which have encouraged me to write this chapter. 1 Loud, ‘The Genesis and Context’, pp. 180–82, 189–90. Graham A. Loud  •  is now (since October 2019) Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the University of Leeds, where he taught for more than forty years. He is currently completing a monograph on The Social World of the Abbey of Cava, c. 1020–1300. The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. by Emily A. Winkler and Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small, MISCS 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 139–161 © FHG10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.121960

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and the (much more extensive) state-building of Roger II. More than a century ago Ferdinand Chalandon, in what was until surprisingly recently still the standard introduction to the history of Norman Italy, dismissed these years as ones of ‘anarchy’ and ‘decadence’, of guerres continuelles, qui avaient désolé l’Italie du Sud. Indeed, he concluded his chapter on this period by saying that it was only with the success of Roger II that ‘la puissance normande dont les progrès étaient arrêtés depuis 1085 reprit son développement’.2 Here the great French historian seems almost to have paraphrased Alexander of Telese’s propagandist claim that, but for the God-given arrival of Roger II from Sicily, southern Italy would have hurtled down the path to inevitable catastrophe.3 Chalandon was, of course, writing in an era when the consolidation of the nation state was at the forefront of historical analysis and was seen as a natural, if not inevitable development. We are not nearly so sure of that now. A hundred years on, historians view the evolution of medieval society very differently. If one were seeking to fit southern Italy after 1085 into an historical paradigm today, it might well be into that advanced by Thomas Bisson in The Crisis of the Twelfth Century (2009). Bisson suggested that a ‘prolonged structural crisis of power’ affected much of western Europe after c. 1050, in which power fragmented and local lordship, predicated on the exercise of military force and violence, predominated. Although Bisson did briefly discuss the assertion of centralized authority under Roger II — primarily in terms of the practices of financial administration and land registration on the island of Sicily — he entirely ignored this earlier period of southern Italian history, although it might seem almost to encapsulate his argument about the exercise of arbitrary power and violence by the nobility.4 If the sources are nowhere near as full or as eloquent as those of Catalonia and Anjou — the regions with which Bisson is most familiar — there are still some examples that could illustrate this theme alongside those that he quotes. Thus the Life of Abbot Peter of Cava describes the repeated attacks of Roger of S. Severino on the abbey’s lands and dependent peasants in Cilento, and how the offender was eventually forced, or shamed, into backing down in a confrontation with the abbot and his monks chanting the Psalms, which led to ‘that stony breast being softened from its ferocious hardness’.5 Not all south Italian nobles were so impressionable — the Casauria chronicle claimed that Count Richard of Manopello purchased jurisdiction over the abbey from a fellow Norman, and then sought to recoup his outlay from its property, addressing the abbot as follows: You should know that I have bought this abbey, which you rule […] for 1000 bizantei. I want you now to restore to me what seems to be your share of the aforesaid sum, [and] I don’t want you to make me angry with you by any little

2 Chalandon, Histoire de la domination, i, 325–26, cf. also pp. 298, 316, 320–21 for his repeated references to anarchy. 3 Alexander of Telese, Alexandri Telesini, ed. by Clementi and De Nava, i.1, pp. 6–7. 4 Bisson, The Crisis of the Twelfth Century, pp. 300, 343–45, on Roger II. 5 Vitae quatuor, ed. by Mattei-Cerasoli, p. 22.

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delay, so pay me what I have told you right now, for I can’t and won’t wait for you for a moment. When the abbot pleaded poverty, a volley of lurid threats followed, until the ‘tyrant’ (so the chronicler described him) was bought off by the surrender of most of the abbey’s animals — and, apparently, those belonging to its dependants also. Eventually — and of course this was the point of the story — the offender was struck down by St Clement, the abbey’s patron, as he feasted on meat from the stolen beasts.6 Had we the count’s side of what occurred it might, naturally, appear very different; but it seems to exemplify a society in which local strongmen exercised their will, with no external authority to check them. Neither story is dated, but both of these incidents seem to have taken place during the first decade of the twelfth century. A third example comes from an agreement in November 1120 between the abbey of St Sophia, Benevento, and William de Hauteville, a noble from the region of Troia who was a cousin of the duke of Apulia. This abrogated an earlier grant made by the abbey to William to defend and restore a village called Fabrica which ‘had been seized by its neighbours, plundered and utterly destroyed’. William had, however, been unable to do this, and indeed had not dared to do so through fear of those round about, and so now — under pressure from his brother Count Robert (II) of Loritello and in return for a small monetary payment — he returned the village to the abbey.7 These events had taken place in the territory of a town that was a centre of ducal rule, and which in the very same month that this charter was drawn up hosted a papal council, attended by the duke and many other south Italian nobles.8 Yet law and order in the region seems to have been conspicuous by its absence. Space does not allow this theme to be developed further, although our view of the alleged ‘anarchy’ in southern Italy after 1085 may be rather different if we think of it as part of a general process in contemporary Western Europe. I would anyway suggest that the extent of this ‘anarchy’ may be exaggerated, and certainly should be qualified — not least in that it was sporadic, and undoubtedly affected some regions, notably coastal Apulia, much more than, for example, the principality of Salerno. Nor should we necessarily assume, from the dismissive obituary notices about Dukes Roger Borsa and William contained within the chronicle attributed to Romuald of Salerno, that Guiscard’s son and grandson were quite such ineffectual rulers as Chalandon and others have concluded.9 Roger Borsa, in particular, arguably coped quite effectively in a difficult situation. The problems of law and order, and political stability, in southern Italy after 1085 might well be ascribed to the legacy of Robert Guiscard, who had repressed and out-manoeuvred his rivals, but by no means consolidated effective rule nor resolved the issue of how far nobles were willing to obey a duke who had acquired his dominion through conquest. Duke Robert had

6 Liber instrumentorum, ed. by Pratesi and Cherubini, Chronicon Casauriense, i, 1112–15 (quote 1112–13). 7 Benevento, Museo del Sannio, Fondo S. Sofia, x, no. 26: ‘casale ipsum a vicinis captum est et depredatum et usque ad solum destructum est’. 8 Romuald of Salerno, Chronicon, ed. by Garufi, p. 211. 9 Romuald of Salerno, Chronicon, ed. by Garufi, pp. 205–06, 214.

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after all faced four major rebellions, almost all the ringleaders of which were his fellow Normans, and some of them his own relatives.10 There is, however, another sense entirely in which we need to consider south Italian society after 1085, and it is to this aspect that most of this essay will be devoted. By 1085 the Norman take-over of the mainland Mezzogiorno was, apart perhaps from in the Abruzzi borderlands, largely completed. During the next six years the conquest of Sicily was also brought to a close. There was at this time still, seemingly, regular contact with Normandy and northern France, although the extent of such links declined from not long after 1100. There was still too a sense of Normanitas, something which appears to be much less marked after c. 1120.11 The years after Guiscard’s death would seem therefore an appropriate period to examine to assess the extent and impact of the conquest, and the nature of south Italian society c. 1100, and given our sources a top-down approach starting from the nobility seems inevitable. Historians of the Norman conquest of England have adopted a very similar starting point, often commencing from the compilation of Domesday Book in 1086/1087, although — insofar as this discussion concerns the aristocracy — they have tended to extend their analysis down to the Cartae Baronum of 1166.12 Such an extended time scale is less appropriate for the south. The Rogerian conquest led to much more extensive changes to the aristocracy than did the ‘anarchy’ of Stephen’s reign in England, not just in terms of personnel but also in structure. And whereas the Cartae Baronum recorded the old, pre-1135 and possibly considerably older, military assessments, the south Italian Catalogus Baronum of c. 1150 (much more imperfectly preserved than its English equivalent) appears to record not existing obligations and resources, but a set of new quotas imposed from above by the Crown. It is not, therefore, a source which greatly assists us for the period before 1130. Although both England and southern Italy had their Norman Conquests, the comparison — even if often made — may seem inappropriate. Analysis of the Norman Conquest of England, as has been said, almost inevitably begins with Domesday Book — and there is, of course, no south Italian Domesday Book. Given the fragmented nature of southern Italy before 1130, there never could have been. Whether the registers of royal lands and rights that ‘Falcandus’ implies were destroyed during the attempted coup at Palermo in 1161 might have provided some sort of near equivalent for the island of Sicily is a moot point.13 It seems more likely that these were relatively contemporary records rather than extensive survivals from the time of Roger I. At best they might have been similar to the existing written material which we now know lay behind the Domesday inquest, rather than to Domesday itself. Nor can similar material have ever existed on the mainland, except perhaps in Byzantine Calabria.

10 Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 234–46. 11 Loud, ‘Norman Traditions in Southern Italy’, pp. 37–38, 41–43. 12 Most obviously the classic analysis by Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, but also, for example, Green, The Aristocracy of Norman England. 13 Pseudo Ugo Falcando, ed. by D’Angelo, pp. 162–64.

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What we do have, and for some regions in abundance, are charters. There are admittedly relatively few from Sicily from the period 1085–1130, and even fewer from Calabria and southern, Graecaphone, Apulia. But there are quite a lot from central and northern Apulia, and Samnium, and a very large number indeed from the principalities of Capua and Salerno; and it is on this evidence that we must base our discussion. There are, for example, some 1150 charters from the years 1085–1130 still surviving in the Cava archive. While admittedly many of these concern small-scale transactions with minor local property owners, the separate section dedicated to the documents of high-status donors, the Armarii Magni, contains for this period some 190 documents, and this collection by itself is a major source for the nobility of the time. Admittedly, the study of these charters is not without its problems. They are, of course, overwhelmingly ecclesiastical in provenance. By far the greater proportion has been preserved in the archives or chartularies of a small number of major Benedictine monasteries, far fewer from the archives of cathedrals and other secular churches. In a few cases, the texts we have are not the originals but early modern copies of doubtful reliability: from Venosa, significant as the burial church of the Hauteville family, while some fifty donations are known from this period these are almost all transmitted only in brief summaries, made by seventeenth-century antiquaries.14 A surprising number of the charters we have remain unpublished — the Cava documents have been systematically edited only up to 1090, and the great Montecassino chartulary of the early 1130s, the Register of Peter the Deacon, was first fully published only in 2015.15 Above all there is the problem of forgery, which appears to have been endemic in southern Italy, especially in the thirteenth century, and which historians and palaeographers have been surprisingly slow properly to address. Thus of the twenty-one surviving charters issued in the name of Duke Roger Borsa for the abbey of Cava, four are undoubted forgeries, and two more highly suspect. At least four, and probably more, of the fifteen charters in the name of the counts of the Principato for the same institution, dated between 1107 and 1141, are also forged, as well as a further two from Salerno cathedral.16 At least twelve of the seventy-eight surviving documents written in the name of Roger I of Sicily are forged, several of these for the Carthusian house of S. Maria della Torre in Calabria, the documentation of which is a notable minefield.17 And while this is not directly relevant for our theme here, it is also salutary to remember that of the eighty-six surviving Latin charters of Roger II, no less than thirty-seven are forged or interpolated.18 Yet what does this mean? There is an unfortunate tendency among Italian palaeographers and editors to lump all suspect texts under the general heading of ‘forgery’ without considering the many gradations between genuine but interpolated texts and outright and retrospective invention, and to what extent ‘suspect’ documents may preserve original evidence. 14 Houben, Die Abtei, pp. 280–337, and for discussion of transmission, Houben, Die Abtei, pp. 111–19. 15 Peter the Deacon, Registrum Petri Diaconi, ed. by Chastang and others. 16 Loud, ‘The Medieval Archives of the Abbey of S. Trinità’, pp. 144–45. 17 Documenti latini e greci, ed. by Becker, pp. 12–13. 18 Brühl, Urkunden und Kanzlei, pp. 11–35, although more recent discoveries have slightly changed the figures given there.

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While it seems only fair to strike a note of caution, we should not dwell on these deficiencies, and certainly not ignore this storehouse of immensely valuable evidence, even though it must clearly be used with care. The charter evidence adds immeasurably to the gleanings that we may gather from the fragmentary narrative sources of the time. To give but one example, there is the case of Richard the Seneschal, some fifteen of whose charters issued between May 1081 and May 1118 survive, as well as one in the name of his wife in 1100. At least three, and possibly more of these documents are forgeries, and although Richard is listed in at least eight other documents in the 1080s and 1090s as a witness, almost all of these appear to be later forgeries.19 Nevertheless, even if we disregard those charters which are clearly later confections, there was a real Richard the Seneschal, whose documents reveal him to have been the son, probably illegitimate, of Count Drogo, Robert Guiscard’s elder brother. Given that he was still alive in 1118, he must have been only a very small child when his father was murdered in 1051. Shortly before 1081 (when he must already have been about thirty) the duke installed him in a lordship comprising the towns of Mottola and Castellaneta, to the north of Taranto. These had come into the duke’s hand when he had confiscated Taranto from one of the nobles who had rebelled against him in 1079–1080. While Taranto remained in the duke’s hands, Richard, we may suppose, was installed in a part of its territory as a ducal relative of proven loyalty.20 Since in several of his donations to various churches there was a clause specifying prayers for the soul of Robert Guiscard, and later too for those of Duke Roger and his brother Bohemond — and in December 1100 the bishop of Mottola made a donation with permission from Richard and Duke Roger — we may, I think, take it that he remained as an ally of the duke.21 That he possessed property in Salerno,22 as well as his lordship strategically situated on the Apulia / Basilicata border, doubtless encouraged this alliance, but he seems to have retained a strong sense of family feeling. His last charter, in 1118, asked for prayers for the safety of his nephew Bohemond II and the latter’s mother Constance of France.23 Richard the Seneschal was thus clearly a noble of considerable importance — yet there is no mention of him in any of the surviving narrative or annalistic sources. If we did possess a Domesday Book of Norman Italy what might this hypothetical text tell us about its nobility? The charters do not, of course, give us any statistics of the sort contained in Domesday, and given their patchy survival, our picture is 19 The one (incomplete) collection of his documents is in the lengthy appendix to Guerrieri, Il conte normanno, pp. 49–112, although several of the charters edited there are now available in better and more modern editions. For discussion, and an identification of the forgeries, Cuozzo, ‘La contea normanna’, pp. 7–46. 20 Jahn, Untersuchungen, pp. 120–21. 21 Guerrieri, Il conte normanno, pp. 67–69 no. 10, pp. 79–80 no. 15. Duke Roger also witnessed a donation of Richard to the abbey of Cava in 1098 (Guerrieri, Il conte normanno, pp. 67–69 no. 10) but this charter, at least in its present form, is suspect, Cuozzo, ‘La contea normanna’, p. 14. 22 Guerrieri, Il conte normanno, pp. 100–02 no. 24. Prayers for the dukes, Guerrieri, Il conte normanno, pp. 78–79 no. 12 (May 1100), pp. 81–83 no. 16 (1101), pp. 87–89 no. 19 (April 1108), pp. 92–93 no. 21 (April 1111), pp. 95–96 no. 23 (March 1113). 23 Holtzmann, ‘Papst-, Kaiser- und Normannurkunden aus Unteritalien’, pp. 56–58 no. 7.

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necessarily impressionistic. Yet it is still not without interest and considerable detail, and in some respects it is not entirely dissimilar to what Domesday Book tells us of Anglo-Norman England. There, almost half the land held by the 180 tenants-in-chief was in the hands of no more than twelve men, all closely connected with the king. In Norman Italy, a small number of powerful kin groups held a similarly dominant position. First and foremost, of course, were the Hautevilles. In addition to the duke of Apulia and the count of Sicily, and Bohemond’s extensive lordship in central Apulia after 1088, one should note the significance of several collateral branches of their kin, descended from one or other of Robert Guiscard’s siblings. In the principality of Salerno there were the counts of the Principato, descended from Guiscard’s younger brother William (d. 1080), who held a substantial lordship in the centre and east of the principality.24 In southern Apulia there was Guiscard’s nephew Count Geoffrey of Conversano (d. 1100), son of one of his sisters, who had retained most of his powerful lordship, despite his involvement in three of the four rebellions against his uncle’s rule. Geoffrey’s lordship comprised inter alia Conversano, Monopoli, and Noicattaro on the coast, Matera inland on the Murge ridge, and Satriano on the western border of the duchy. And in the early years of Duke Roger Borsa, Count Geoffrey extended his dominions southwards, gaining control of Brindisi and Nardo.25 Meanwhile Count Robert of Loritello (d. 1095), son of Guiscard’s elder half-brother Geoffrey, dominated the northern Capitanata, and had since the 1070s been extending his power into the southern Abruzzi; although it would appear that he later conceded his role in the latter region to his brother Drogo Tassio (‘the Badger’), whose descendants assumed the title of Counts of Loreto.26 Another brother of Robert of Loritello, Rodulf was established as Count of Catanzaro in Calabria from c. 1088; his relatives and descendants also held property in the Capitanata, near Troia.27 Two more ducal relatives held mainland lordships without possessing a comital title. Richard the Seneschal, son of Guiscard’s half-brother and predecessor Drogo, with his lordship on the Apulia / Basilicata frontier north of Taranto, has already been discussed. In addition, William de Grandmesnil, husband of Guiscard’s daughter Mabilia, who had taken part in both the duke’s expeditions against Byzantium, held a lordship in northern Calabria.28 The predominance of the Hautevilles was even more marked on the island of Sicily, much of which remained under the direct rule of Count Roger. But from c. 1090, when the territorial settlement of the island was arranged, the lay lords established there included three of the count’s sons — certainly one, and possibly all three, illegitimate — and two other barons married to the count’s daughters. Another, Roger de Barneville, was married to the count’s great-niece, daughter of 24 There is a brief discussion of this branch of the family by Cuozzo, Normanni: nobiltà e cavalleria, pp. 97–104, but the history of the county, which is relatively well-attested, would repay further investigation. 25 Jahn, Untersuchungen, pp. 234–63. 26 Feller, Les Abruzzes médiévales, pp. 728–33. 27 Jamison, ‘Note e Documenti’, pp. 1–20. 28 Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, ed. by Chibnall, iv, 17, 32, 168, 230.

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his nephew Serlo, who had been killed fighting the Muslims c. 1072. On the death in 1091 of the count’s son Jordan, who had been granted Syracuse, Noto, and Lentini, Roger I then gave his lordship to a nephew, Tancred, a younger son of Count William of the Principato.29 Neither of Count Roger’s other, possibly illegitimate, sons lived very long, but — probably during the regency of Countess Adelaide after 1101 — her brother Henry was granted a lordship in the south-east, centred around Butera. We would, however, be much more certain about the details of this were we not heavily dependent for our knowledge of Henry — subsequently, but probably only after 1128/1130 ‘Count Henry’ — on the treacherous documentation from the Sicilian dependencies of St Mary in Jehosophat, Jerusalem.30 Evelyn Jamison noted long ago how the south Italian contingent on the First Crusade was dominated by the Hauteville kin, and while this was in part a consequence of Bohemond’s role as its leader, it also reflected the dominant role that the extended ducal kin group played in southern Italy after 1085.31 Nevertheless, numerous and extensively endowed as they were, the Hautevilles were far from having a monopoly on power and wealth in southern Italy. Two other kin groups were almost as extended. The first was that of the princes of Capua, descended from Rainulf, the original Norman count established at Aversa in 1030, and his nephew Richard, who had captured Capua in 1058. The latter’s son Prince Jordan (d. 1090) was also a nephew of Robert Guiscard, as his mother Fressenda was the duke’ sister.32 Within the principality there were two other lordships held by collateral branches of the princely kin: the county established for, or perhaps by, Rainulf, Prince Jordan’s uncle, to whom he seems to have been close, with a caput at Caiazzo, upstream from Capua on the River Volturno;33 and another county based at Carinola, to the north-west of Capua, held in turn by two of Jordan’s younger brothers, and by the descendants of the second.34 Subsequently, before 1109, a further lordship was established at Nocera, on the southern border of the principality, for Jordan I’s youngest son, also Jordan, who eventually succeeded as prince in 1120.35 But in addition, another branch of the Capuan princely family, the sons of Prince Richard’s younger brother Robert, held a lordship that dominated the Gargano region, with the title of Counts of Monte Sant’Angelo. This was a survival from the original share-out of Apulia by the Norman

29 Tramontana, ‘Popolazione, distribuzione della terra e classi sociali nella Sicilia’; Becker, Graf Roger I, p. 77–86. For Roger I’s children, Houben, ‘Adelaide “del Vasto”’, pp 106–13. 30 Garufi, ‘Le donazioni’, pp. 206–29; Garufi, ‘Gli Aleramici e i Normanni’, i, 47–83; Becker, Graf Roger I, pp. 78–79. One should note that when he witnessed a charter of Roger II in 1116 he was described only as ‘Henricus avunculus comitis’, Rogerii II. Regis diplomata latina, ed. by Brühl, pp. 13–15 no. 5. 31 Jamison, ‘Some Notes on the Anonymi Gesta Francorum’. 32 William of Apulia said that Guiscard was Jordan’s patruus. William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, iii, ll. 637–39, p. 198, but Fressenda’s name only appears in princely charters — she was named after her, and Duke Robert’s, mother. Geoffrey Malaterra, Histoire du Grand Comte, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, i. 4, p. 141. 33 Loud, ‘The Norman Counts of Caiazzo’, pp. 199–217. 34 Hoffmann, ‘Die Anfänge’, pp. 105–09; Schütz, Catalogus Comitum, pp. 372–76. 35 First attested in Cava dei Tirreni, Badia di S. Trinità (henceforth Cava) Arm. Mag. E.8, 9 (May and October 1109) (Loud, ‘Calendar’, nos 115–16).

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leaders in 1042, when Count Rainulf (very much the senior man among them at that stage) had been assigned Monte Gargano. His collateral descendants had managed to retain their position in the Capitanata despite being involved in two of the revolts against Robert Guiscard, in the 1070s.36 The third major kin-group had, however, suffered significantly as a result of their opposition to Guiscard, although they remained important in northern Apulia after 1085. This family were the descendants of Walter and Peter, the sons of Amicus, who in the 1042 share-out has been assigned Civitate and Trani respectively — neither of which had at that stage actually been captured. Nonetheless, according to William of Apulia, Count Peter was in the mid-1040s wealthier than Count Drogo, his rival for leadership of the Apulian Normans. He and his brother, and their sons, had profited greatly in the conquest of Apulia, before falling foul of Duke Robert, who had confiscated several of the family’s lordships, notably Giovenazzo, Trani, and Taranto, most of which had been added to the ducal fisc, although the new lordship of Richard the Seneschal seems to have been carved out of the territory of Taranto. Nevertheless, in 1085 the ‘sons of Amicus’ kin group still retained three distinct counties: at Lesina to the north of the Gargano peninsula, at Molfetta on the Apulian coast north of Bari, and at Andria, inland from Trani and 25 km west of Molfetta.37 It is possible too that this extended kin spawned other comital dynasties, notably the counts of Canne, Civitate, and Manopello (in the Abruzzi) found after c. 1100, although in none of these cases can we be absolutely certain of the connection. We know, however, that Canne came into the possession of Count Godfrey of Molfetta after 1096;38 and Count Richard of Manopello, attested in 1098, was the son of a Count Peter, which was a lead name in the ‘sons of Amicus’ kin group — was he a son of Count Peter of Lesina?39 It would seem, therefore, that this proliferation of comital titles in northern Apulia resulted from the fragmentation of the holdings of this kin among its heirs, although one should stress that such an interpretation is hypothetical, and in this region the charter evidence for the counts after 1100 is very sketchy indeed. Two further comital lordships may date back to before the accession of Robert Guiscard. The latter’s first wife, Alberada, was a relative of a Gerald of Buonalbergo (d. 1086), the ancestor of the later Counts of Ariano, who dominated the Irpinia region to the east of Benevento. Indeed, if we are to believe Errico Cuozzo, Ariano may have been the earliest Norman lordship in southern Italy, even before Aversa.40 Be that

36 Jahn, Untersuchungen, pp. 322–50; Martin, La Pouille, pp. 722–25. 37 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, ii. 28–29, p. 132; Jahn, Untersuchungen, pp. 182–222; Martin, La Pouille, pp. 731–33. For the division of 1042, Amatus, Storia de’ normanni [Ystoire], ed. by De Bartholomaeis, ii. 30–31, pp. 95–96. 38 He was first clearly attested as lord of the city in January 1104, Le pergamene di Barletta, ed. by Nitti di Vito, pp. 48–49 no. 26; but the previous lord, Herman, had departed on the First Crusade and not returned. 39 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Archivio di S. Pietro, Pergamene, Caps. lxxii.53(i), fol. 27r; Feller, Les Abruzzes médiévales, p. 728. For the counts of Civitate, Martin, La Pouille, p. 720. 40 Cuozzo, ‘Intorno alla prima contea normanna’, pp. 171–93.

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as it may, Gerald had remained a close ally of Guiscard — according to Amatus it was he who had coined this famous nickname, and William of Apulia said that he was the duke’s fidissimus amator — even after Alberada’s repudiation. He and Robert of Loritello were entrusted as Roger Borsa’s mentors in governing Apulia in the duke’s absence in 1081.41 It is interesting that only one of the chroniclers’ occasional references to Gerard, an important, but as with so many others, ill-documented figure, accord him the title of count, that is assuming that he was the Count Gerard whom William of Apulia mentioned as one of the Norman leaders at the Battle of Civitate. However, he did describe himself as count in his two known charters, which survive only as copies in the St Sophia, Benevento, chartulary.42 Certainly, his son Herbert (d. 1100) and grandson Jordan (d. 1127) are well-attested as ‘Counts of Ariano’.43 The county of Boiano, in the mountainous plateau on the eastern border of the principality of Capua was first held by a Count Raoul (Radulfus), another whom William of Apulia listed among the Norman leaders at Civitate. Possibly this reference to him as ‘count of Boiano’ was retrospective, but before his death (c. 1092/1093) he had undoubtedly established the massive seigneury, encompassing several former Lombard counties, which from the time of Roger II became known as the county of Molise, after his family name.44 And for once we do know something about his origins, for this name was derived from Moulins-la-Marche (department Orne), and indeed William of Poitiers recounted how his father Guimund was dispossessed of the castle there by Duke William c. 1054.45 The family’s ruin in Normandy seems to have been total, and several of Raoul’s brothers also came to the south, one of them — Guimund like his father — established himself in the principality of Salerno and was excommunicated along with Count William of the Principato for attacking the property of Salerno cathedral in 1067. It may be too that a sister came to Italy, if Ménager was correct that the Adelicza who was married to Count Peter of Lesina was Guimund’s daughter.46 The county of Boiano passed down to Raoul’s son Hugh (d. after 1105) and grandson Simon (d. 1117).47 41 Amatus, Storia de’ normanni [Ystoire], ed. by De Bartholomaeis, iii. 11, p. 125; William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti ed. by Mathieu, iv, ll. 195–96, p. 214. 42 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti ed. by Mathieu, ii. 133, p. 138; Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae, ed. by Martin, ii, 715–18 ( January 1079), pp. 758–59 (which gives the date, 15 March, but not the year). He was also referred to as ‘count’ in a charter of Archbishop Roffred of Benevento confirming his donation of January 1079, which survives both in the chartulary and in the original, Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae, ed. by Martin, ii, 690–93. 43 Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae, ed. by Martin, ii, 718–28. 44 Peter the Deacon, Registrum Petri Diaconi, ed. by Chastang and others, iii, 1471–74 no. 535 (March 1092): ‘Ego Rodulfus cognomine de Molisio Dei gratia comes patriae Bovianensis’, while in January 1094 his son Count Hugh described himself and his brother as ‘Ugo dei gratia Bovianensis comes et Roggerius filii domni Rodulfi comitis’, Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae, ed. by Martin, ii, 729. 45 William of Poiters, Gesta Guillelmi, ed. by Davis and Chibnall, pp. 42–44. 46 Ménager, ‘Inventaire’, pp. 322–26. For the later history of the lordship of Moulins in Normandy, Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, ed. by Chibnall, iii, 132–33. See also Tabuteau, ‘The Family of Moulins-La-Marche’, pp. 29–65. 47 For the later history of this county, Jamison, ‘I conti di Molise’, i, 73–178, remains fundamental, though one should note that the last count of the Moulins family, Hugh II, died childless c. 1160.

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Other counts in Norman Italy were few. Count Richard, son of Count Anfredus, attested in two charters in 1081, when he was still a minor under the guardianship of his mother, was the ancestor of the later Counts of Sarno, on the border between the principalities of Capua and Salerno. Who Count Anfredus was is unknown, although he was clearly of some significance since his wife was a daughter of Guaimar IV of Salerno — and hence a sister, or half-sister of Duke Robert’s wife Sichelgaita. Compared, however, with the extensive lordships of other counts on the western side of the peninsula, as those of Boiano, Caiazzo, or the Principato, this family’s lordship seems to have been relatively exiguous, although it continued to exist until c. 1138.48 Two other identifications from the principality of Capua are much more problematic. Richard of l’Aigle identified himself in 1091 as ‘by the grace of God Count of the castellum of Pico’ (on the northern frontier of the principality, 20 km west of Montecassino), and in 1092 ‘Count Humphrey of Calvi’ (a small town with a bishop, 15 km north-west of Capua) made a donation to the nunnery of St Blaise, Aversa.49 Both of these had been the sites of former Lombard counties, and it is possible that these Normans (Richard came from a well-known family from the Perche) were claiming comital status by right of succession. Yet in December 1089 both Richard and Humphrey had witnessed a judgement of Prince Jordan I of Capua as simply ‘Richard of Aquila’ and ‘Humphrey of Calvi’.50 And although called ‘count’ in the charter of 1092, Humphrey noted therein that he was acting by permission of his lord Jonathan (of Carinola), ‘nobis data a Ionatha domino nostro licentia’, so he was hardly claiming any sort of independent or superior status. We know nothing else of this Humphrey, but Richard of l’Aigle is well-attested in subsequent years, and never again with a comital title.51 Since neither of the key documents survives in the original, one is inclined to suspect that these comital titles may be due to copyist’s error. There is, however, one clear case from the same region where we can see a Norman aristocrat adopting an existing title and position: the duchy of Gaeta, the ruler of which in 1085 was Rainald Ridel — a scion of a prominent family from the Pays de Caux — from which region the princes of Capua also derived. His father Geoffrey, who had been for a time a lieutenant of Roger of Sicily, had acquired Gaeta before 1072. The history of Gaeta in this period was, however, troubled. Rainald Ridel was expelled by a rebellion in 1092, and established himself at a new base at Pontecorvo, on the eastern edge of the ducatus. His son died without heir c. 1104, and Gaeta was ultimately taken over, first by Richard de l’Aigle, from 1107, and then from 1112 by Count Richard of Carinola, from the Capuan princely family. But the case of Gaeta

48 Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, ed. by Carlone, Morinelli, and Vitolo, xi, 42–44. no. 15, pp. 53–55 no. 19. Loud, ‘Continuity and Change’, pp. 327, 342. 49 Peter the Deacon, Registrum Petri Diaconi, ed. by Chastang and others, iii, 1497–98 no. 544. Codice diplomatico normanno di Aversa, ed. by Gallo, pp. 401–02 no. 54. 50 Codex diplomaticus Caietanus, ii, 142–43 no. 262 (Loud, ‘Calendar’, no. 40). 51 Peter the Deacon, Registrum Petri Diaconi, ed. by Chastang and others, iii, 1399–1401 no. 511 (a grant of Prince Richard II of Capua, January 1105), and Peter the Deacon, Registrum Petri Diaconi, ed. by Chastang and others, iii, 1688–89 no. 631 (an oath by Richard of Aigle himself to respect the lands of Montecassino, c. 1106–7).

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was clearly exceptional — this had after all been an independent duchy before the coming of the Normans.52 It would appear, therefore, that use of the comital title was relatively rare among the Norman nobility, seemingly confined to a small number of kin groups, all of them prominent, and possibly already deploying the title before the time of Robert Guiscard. Insofar as there was a proliferation of such a distinction, this would seem to have been confined to junior branches of the ducal and princely families, and the ‘sons of Amicus’ kin group. Even then, by no means all their descendants used such a title — neither Richard the Seneschal nor Jordan of Nocera had such a designation. Nor did William, the younger brother of Count Robert II of Loritello, who was (as we have seen) a prominent, and rather disruptive, figure in the Troia region in the 1120s.53 Several further and important qualifications need, however, to be made. First, these comital families were not the only holders of prominent seigneuries in late eleventh-century southern Italy. Thus, in the principality of Salerno, alongside the Counts of the Principato — the only territorial counts in the region — there were also the lords of Eboli, whose lands lay alongside those of the counts in the centre of the principality, and the numerous kin descended from a certain Turgisius the Norman who from 1081 onwards are attested as holding a series of lordships situated along the border of the principality between Salerno and Avellino, of which the most important, from which the family took its later name, was S. Severino. Roger, son of Turgisius (d. 1121/1125) also held land and rights in Cilento in the south of the principality. These lords appear to have been on a par with the counts of the Principato, exercising the same rights over their lordships as he did in his, styling themselves, as Roger of S. Severino did, dei gratia senior, and occasionally witnessing each others’ documents as equals. William I of the Principato married a niece of the penultimate Lombard Prince Guaimar IV, and Roger of S. Severino one of his granddaughters.54 Similarly, in southern Apulia and Lucania, Robert Guiscard had established several new lordships in the wake of the 1079–1080 rebellion against his rule. Alongside that of Richard the Seneschal were those of Humphrey of Montescaglioso and Aitard of Lecce, neither of whom had a comital title. (The only documents that ascribe such a title to the lords of Montescaglioso are later forgeries.) Both the descendants of Roger of S. Severino and those of Aitard of Lecce acquired comital titles late in the reign of Roger II, but they were in no senses handicapped by not possessing one earlier. Roger I of Sicily was, after all, willing to marry one of his daughters to a son of Humphrey of Montescaglioso.55

52 Loud, Church and Society, pp. 91–92; Skinner, Family Power, pp. 157–60. 53 Les chartes de Troia, ed. by Martin, pp. 168–71 no. 43 (November 1120), pp. 175–77 no. 46 (November 1123). Cf. also n. 7 above. 54 Portanova, ‘I sanseverino’, pp. 105–49, which should, however, be read alongside Galante, ‘Un esempio’, pp. 279–331, who considers a number of the charters from this family in the Cava archive to be suspect, and in some cases later forgeries. For the marriage of William of the Principato, Houben, Die Abtei Venosa, pp. 316–17 no. 82 (April 1103) and that of Roger, Cava, Arm. Mag. F.18 ( June 1121). 55 Jahn, Untersuchungen, pp. 288–317; Martin, La Pouille, pp. 717, 735–36, 741–42; Houben, ‘Adelaide “del Vasto”’, p. 109.

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Second, whereas, insofar as we can identify their origins, the most prominent figures in southern Italy at the end of the eleventh century were indeed Norman, by no means all the new nobility were. Probably the most important family in Lucania at this period was that of the Clermont or Chiaromonte, from Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, attested from 1074 until 1135, who were benefactors of the Greek monasteries of Carbone and St Maria in Kyrozosimi. Hugh of Clermont gave this latter house to Cava in 1088.56 However, the presence of these non-Norman Frenchmen is more marked at what we might call the secondary level, that is lords who were dependent only on the duke or prince — in English terms ‘tenants-in-chief ’, although that designation is hardly appropriate in Norman Italy — but who held relatively minor, or at least less extended, seigneuries, as well as among the vassals of greater lords. Two Bretons, for example, were notable in the ducal entourage. Briennus (Brian) the constable, who witnessed several charters of Duke Roger Borsa, was lord of S. Mango sul Calore, south-east of Benevento, and had taken a prominent part in Guiscard’s attack on Byzantium. His wife was a niece of Count Robert I of Loritello.57 Rainulf the Breton and his son Hoel (d. 1121) were also ducal constables, Rainulf seemingly alongside Brian, and lords of S. Agata di Puglia, 20 km east of Ariano and to the north-west of the ducal towns of Melfi and Venosa. They were related by marriage to the counts of the Principato.58 While many of the ‘barons of Aversa’ in the entourage of the princes of Capua after 1090 were, as one might expect, Normans whose surnames trace their origins back to identifiable places in the duchy, among them was a Breton, Ivo of Dol, attested from 1092 to 1121.59 And a family of baronial rank in the Val di Crati in northern Calabria in the mid-twelfth century came from Dinan, although we do not know how far back their presence there may go.60 Other families of some prominence include the Medania, from Mayenne in Anjou, two of whom, Robert and Geoffrey, were among the barons of the principality of Capua after 1098, although it is not clear how they may have been related one to another. Geoffrey was lord of Suessola and Acerra (north of Naples) c. 1114–1118.61 It is possible that he and Roger of S. Severino had both been married to the same woman — certainly in March 1125 their sons Robert and Henry were recorded as ‘uterine brothers’;62 whether this was Sica, the grand-daughter of Guaimar IV, recorded as Roger’s wife in 1121, or (as may be more likely) a former spouse is unknown. The Medania family flourished after 1130, and Robert became Count of Buonalbergo in Apulia shortly before his death c. 1150.63

56 Mattei-Cerasoli, ‘La Badia di Cava’, pp. 276–76 no. 1; Ménager, ‘Inventaire’, pp. 275–84. 57 Ménager, ‘Inventaire’, p. 373. 58 Martini, Feudalità e Monachismo, which contains a valuable appendix of charters. Another charter, of Count William II of the Principato in April 1101 called Hoel the count’s avunculus (maternal uncle), Houben, Die Abtei Venosa, pp. 313–15 no. 80. See also Ménager, ‘Inventaire’, pp. 375–76. 59 Ménager, ‘Inventaire’, p. 375; Loud, ‘Calendar’, nos 45, 49, 53, 58, 95, 124. He may also have been the Ivo economus listed in Loud, ‘Calendar’, nos 63, 88 and 93. 60 Ménager, ‘Inventaire’, p. 375. 61 Ménager, ‘Inventaire’, pp. 370–71. 62 Cava, Arm. Mag. F.36. 63 Cuozzo, Catalogus Baronum, Commentario, pp. 220–21.

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Other Angevins to profit in the south included the brothers Hugh and Matthew of Craon, attested on the island of Sicily from 1105. Matthew was in the entourage of Roger II in 1125–1126.64 Flemings seem to have been relatively few in southern Italy, but William the Fleming was Bohemond’s catepan in Bari in the mid-1090s, and effectively governor of the city while his lord was absent on the First Crusade.65 Third, if there were non-Norman Frenchmen who were part of the establishment in ‘Norman’ Italy — and a lot more could be attested at the vassal / sub-tenant level — so too were survivors from the indigenous aristocracy. This was particularly noticeable on the northern borders of the ‘Norman zone’, where we should notice a significant modification to the argument advanced earlier concerning comital titles. A number of Lombard families continued to use the titles they had possessed before the Normans’ arrival. These included the Counts of Aquino, on the northern frontier of the principality of Capua, and the former Counts of Teano, who had lost this town to the new Prince of Capua in 1062, but who re-established themselves at Presenzano, some 15 km to the north on the edge of the Montecassino lands by 1089. We should note that these last, while still calling themselves counts, were described, in charters of 1091 and 1097, as ‘inhabitants in’ Presenzano rather than lords thereof, so it may be that their alleged comital rank was simply a rather pathetic self-reminder of past glories. Certainly when one of them appeared in the entourage of Prince Jordan of Capua in 1089 it was as simple ‘Pandulf of Presenzano’.66 However, in 1115 his sons still possessed enough of a military following to seize one of the castella of Montecassino and to launch raids into the lands of St Benedict.67 The Counts of Aquino undoubtedly remained as considerable territorial lords, and as periodically troublesome neighbours for Montecassino. They were, for example, influential enough to lay charges against Abbot Oderisius II directly to the pope in 1125.68 It is hardly surprising that in the Abruzzi, which was penetrated, but never conquered, by the Normans, indigenous counts remained, most of them related in some way or other to the counts of Marsia who had dominated this region in the tenth century. Whether we should consider the Counts of Aprutium in the north of the area as in any way part of ‘Norman Italy’ is arguable, but the later counts of Marsia certainly looked to the south, not least as considerable benefactors of Montecassino, of which three scions of this family became abbots between 1087 and 1137.69 The most interesting of these cases is that of the Borell family, a powerful kin-group already established in the mountainous area further to the south between the Trigno and Sangro rivers by at the latest 1014. The leader of this family had adopted the title of count by 1070, and by 1098 his son could describe his late father as ‘Count of Sangro’,

64 Ménager, ‘Inventaire’, pp. 369–70. 65 Le pergamene di S. Nicola di Bari, ed. by Nitti di Vito, pp. 34–42, nos 18–20, 22. 66 Peter the Deacon, Registrum Petri Diaconi, ed. by Chastang and others, iii, 1511–12 no. 553, pp. 1515–16 no. 553. 67 Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, iv.57, p. 521. 68 Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, iv.85, 88, pp. 547–48. The only study of this family remains that of Scandone, ‘Roccasecca’, pp. 33–176, for this period see especially pp. 57–69. 69 Howe, Church Reform and Social Change, pp. 132–48.

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which remained as the generally-recognized designation through the twelfth century, although by then the Borells had already divided into two principal lines, the other being known as the ‘lords of Agnone’.70 While the debatable lands along the frontier might seem to offer the best chance for Lombard aristocrats to survive and flourish in the new era, there were in fact quite a few others who continued to play a role in the interstices of Norman Italy. Often this was as officials, both in the former Lombard principalities and in the lands of Roger I where Greek officers played the leading role in his administration in the 1090s. Odoaldus the chamberlain and Grimoald count of the palace were, for example, prominent figures at the court of the princes of Capua in the early twelfth century,71 while Hugh Mansellus, ducal chamberlain, and his brother-in-law Atenulf served Duke William as financial officers in the 1120s — and subsequently Roger II after 1139.72 Another Lombard official, Alferius the Seneschal, was one of the witnesses to Duke William’s deathbed testament in July 1127.73 Odoaldus the chamberlain appeared as a witness, and sometimes as intercessor, in princely charters from 1106 through to 1132, and in 1121 Jordan II gave him a grant of land at the request of two other princely fideles who by their names, Manso and Pandulf, were also Lombards.74 Another seemingly Lombard official of the princes, Cedrus, variously described as vicecomes and viceprinceps, became a monk at Montecassino in the early 1090s. The abbey chronicle preserved a lengthy list of his donations made over a period of about twenty years before his entry into religion, several large sums of cash, both in Byzantine nomismata and silver pennies, a golden cross, reliquary, and inkwell, this last encrusted with jewels, and two precious, and undoubtedly very valuable, textiles.75 The profits of office in the principality of Capua were clearly considerable. Other Lombards managed to continue as landowners and territorial lords, notably in the principality of Salerno. What is particularly interesting here is that these included members of the former princely family. Prince Gisulf and his brothers were banished after the capture of Salerno in 1076/1077 — the prince’s youngest brother John became a cleric and was made abbot of a hospice established on Monte Gargano by his maternal uncle Count Henry of Monte Sant’Angelo in 1098.76 But the descendants of their paternal uncles, Guaimar IV’s brothers, remained as landowners in the principality, holding lordships at Giffone (20 km south-east of Salerno) and 70 ‘Ego Berardus comes filius quondam bone memoriae Oderisii Sangretani comitis’, Peter the Deacon, Registrum Petri Diaconi, ed. by Chastang and others, iii, 1475–76 n. 536 (February 1098). For the later history of this family, Jamison, ‘The Significance of the Early Medieval Documents’, especially pp. 55–60. 71 Odoaldus: Loud, ‘Calendar’, nos 90, 102, 107–8, 113–14, 125, 128–9, 132, 137, 139, 141, 144–5; Grimoald: Loud, ‘Calendar’, no. 105. Grimoald, Regesto di S. Angelo in Formis, ed. Inguanez, pp. 50–55 no. 15 and 119–20 no. 41 (the latter, Loud ‘Calendar’, no. 105). 72 Cava, Arm. Mag. F.34 ( January 1125); Le più antiche, ed. by Bartolini, pp. 23–24 no. 8 (March 1139); Le pergamene dell’archivio diocesano Di Salerno, ed. by Giordano pp. 226–29 no. 108 (February 1144). 73 Cuozzo, Normanni: nobiltà e cavalleria, pp. 129–30. 74 Loud, ‘Calendar’, no. 128. 75 Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, ed. by Hoffman, iv.13, p. 482. 76 Le colonie cassinesi in Capitanata, ed. by Leccisotti, pp. 29–33 no. 1. Also, Peter the Deacon, Registrum Petri Diaconi, ed. by Chastang and others, iii, 1422–26 no. 520.

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Capaccio (in the south of the principality), into the twelfth century. The sister of Guaimar I of Giffone married Count William I of the Principato. The Giffone branch died out in the male line in 1114,77 but several members of the Capaccio line were still active in the reign of Roger II, and if the lordships were by then small, this was the consequence of division among heirs.78 One branch of the family, which had intermarried with a Norman family and adopted primogeniture, can be traced until the middle of the thirteenth century as lords of Novi Velia in Cilento.79 We know less about other such Lombard nobles attested in the principality, for example Landulf, the deceased dominus of Policastro, whose daughter was a nun at Salerno in 1136.80 How widespread the continued presence of Lombard landowners was throughout southern Italy has not, to my knowledge, been fully investigated (it would indeed make an excellent PhD topic). But the witness lists of baronial charters suggests that at the knightly level it was considerable. Errico Cuozzo has drawn attention to the continued presence of Lombard knights, and in one case a Greek, in the following of the Counts of the Principato.81 Similarly, in 1113 one of the brothers of Roger of S. Severino could address a charter to ‘all his fideles both Norman and Lombard’, and indeed among the witnesses was a man called Landulf.82 Admittedly this document is one the palaeographers have characterized as ‘suspect’, as a number of the early S. Severino charters allegedly are. But in one of those acknowledged to be genuine, in 1118, in which Roger of S. Severino donated some land to a Lombard, he received in return a launegilt in accordance with Lombard Law, which does not suggest that he was unsympathetic to the indigenous inhabitants.83 And to take a final example, from Apulia, in 1123 William de Hauteville, brother of the Count of Loritello, came to Troia to confirm a donation to the monastery of St Nicholas, and to be received into its confraternity. He was accompanied by four of his knights, two with French names (Unfredus and William) and two with Lombard ones (Ademarius and Alferius).84 We should remember that there were never very many French immigrants to Italy — Vera von Falkenhausen has suggested perhaps no more than 2000–2500 milites — a figure which is no more than intelligent guesswork, but by no means implausible.85 There were also regions where the Norman / French impact was

77 The will of Guaimar II of Giffone (March 1114) survives in a copy of January 1125, Cava, Arm. Mag. F.28. 78 Thus Abelard and Pandulf, sons of the late Gregory, lord of Capaccio, testified that their uncle Theodwin had made a deathbed donation to the abbey of Cava in January 1131, while in January 1139 they and their cousin Matthew gave land near Salerno and the peasant censiles living there to Abbot Simeon of Cava, and Gregory’s daughter, by then a widow, made a donation to the abbey in March 1150, Cava, Arm.Mag. G.5, Arca xxiv.41, xxvii.77. 79 Loud, ‘Continuity and Change’, pp. 325–26. 80 Nuove pergamene del monastero femminile, ed. by Galante, pp. 24–25 no. 11. 81 Cuozzo, Normanni: nobiltà e cavalleria, pp. 103–15, for the Greek, p. 109. 82 Cava, Arm. Mag. E. 26; summary and extracts in Ebner, Chiesa Baroni, i, 411. 83 Cava, Arm. Mag. F.8. 84 Les Chartes de Troia, ed. by Martin, pp. 175–77 no. 46. 85 Von Falkenhausen, ‘I ceti dirigenti’, p. 327.

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minimal, such as the duchy of Amalfi. So the continuance of Lombards — and in Calabria and the Salento Greeks — in the lower echelons of the power structure is hardly surprising. A last and most obvious point to make of any depiction of the nobility of Norman Italy is that over a period of more than forty years there were considerable changes, and our view of the higher aristocracy immediately after the death of Robert Guiscard is in a number of respects very different from that which pertained when Roger II arrived in Salerno to claim the duchy in August or September 1127. Some lordships had proved ephemeral, notably that carved out by Hugh Mamouzet in the Abruzzi in the 1080s — here military setbacks were compounded by a failure of heirs, as the Casauria chronicler, who hated this enemy of the abbey, gleefully recounted.86 Several of the families previously discussed had also died out: the former Dukes of Gaeta, the Ridels, c. 1104, as we have seen; the Counts of Monte Sant’Angelo in 1105; the Lombard lords of Giffone, at least in the male line, in 1114; and similarly the lords of Montescaglioso between 1119/1121, and the lords of Eboli in 1121.87 Richard the Seneschal died without heir c. 1118, his son having predeceased him. What happened to his lordship after his demise is by no means clear, the most likely successor would have been the young Bohemond II, or rather his mother and regent Constance, although it is also possible that some of his vassals became independent lords in their own right.88 But the extinction of the Counts of Monte Sant’Angelo allowed Duke Roger Borsa to take over all or most of their lands. Lucera, which was one of the centres of their lordship, was given to the duke’s illegitimate son William at some stage before 1115.89 Eboli was in the hands of the Counts of the Principato in the later 1120s,90 while Montescaglioso was taken over by Roger II of Sicily in 1124. The latter had already secured control of Calabria in return for military assistance to Duke William, and was then looking to advance his rule into the Basilicata.91 Moreover, in 1129/1130 Roger II confiscated the Calabrian lordship of Guiscard’s grandson Robert de Grandmesnil, who was forced into exile.92 In particular, the situation in coastal Apulia was in the 1120s radically different from that a generation earlier. The extensive lordship which Bohemond had gained from his brother in 1088/1090 had survived his absence on crusade seemingly unscathed, but not the minority of his son. While the latter retained Taranto, Bari had thrown off his mother’s rule and been taken over by a (Lombard) prince from

86 Liber Instrumentorum, ed. by Pratesi and Cherubini, i, 1102–04. 87 Annales Cavenses, ed. by delle Donne, p. 45. 88 Martin, La Pouille, pp. 740–41. 89 Romuald of Salerno, Chronicon, ed. by Garufi, p. 203; Cava, Arm. Mag. E.40 (April 1115), E.46 (March 1116); Martin, La Pouille, pp. 724–26. 90 Cuozzo, Normanni: nobiltà e cavalleria, pp. 102–03. 91 Rogerii II. Regis Diplomata Latina, ed. by Brühl, pp. 16–17 no. 6; Falco, Chronicon Beneventanum,  ed. by D’Angelo, p. 68. 92 Alexander of Telese, Alexandri Telesini, ed. by Clementi and De Nava, i.17, 20, pp. 16, 18.

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the city’s own urban patriciate — while other lands in the coastal region had been seized by the counts of Conversano, who had been aggressively expanding their lordship at the expense of Bohemond II from c. 1116 onwards. When he left southern Italy to take over the principality of Antioch in 1126 it is probable that the counts of Conversano made further gains.93 Nor was Bohemond II the only one to see his position diminish. Roger, lord of Terlizzi, might still call himself ‘son and heir of Count Godfrey’ in the 1120s, but he had apparently lost control of Molfetta (which the family had held for several generations), and he did not himself use a comital title.94 Meanwhile Count Jordan of Ariano had been expelled from the caput of his lordship by Duke William (with the help of Sicilian knights) in 1122, and may indeed have remained in ‘exile’ at Morcone (some 50 km north-west of Ariano) for some years thereafter.95 These later developments might indeed seem to confirm that southern Italy was in a state of ‘anarchy’ in the 1120s, although we should note that Duke William retained control of his core territories in central Apulia around Melfi and Venosa, and of the principality of Salerno, and had indeed also exerted his authority in the region around Benevento. But the extent and effectiveness of ducal rule clearly requires another and much fuller investigation (one which would be greatly facilitated by a full edition of the dukes’ charters after 1087). And the attentive reader will have noticed how tentative and indicative the discourse here has been. A really comprehensive study would require more careful reading, re-reading and interpretation of the sources, using both published and unpublished charters, and a much more intensive and extended analysis, than has been possible for this book. The forgotten decades of Norman Italy therefore still await their historian.

Works Cited Manuscripts, Archival Sources, & Other Unedited Material Benevento, Museo del Sannio, Fondo S. Sofia, vol. 10 no. 26 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Archivio di S. Pietro, Pergamene, Caps. Lxxii.53(i) [the chartulary of S. Salvatore, Maiella], fol. 27r Cava dei Tirreni, Badia di S. Trinità, Armarium Magnum, E. 8, E. 9, E. 26, E.40 E.46, F.8, F.18, F.36, F.34, F.28, G. 5, Arca xxiv.41, xxvii.77

93 Romuald of Salerno, Chronicon, ed. by Garufi p. 214; Martin, La Pouille, pp. 738, 743–46. 94 Le pergamene della cattedrale di Terlizzi, ed. by Carabellese, p. 58 no. 41 (February 1120), pp. 62–63 no. 45 (May 1129). 95 Falco, Chronicon Beneventanum,  ed. by D’Angelo, pp. 68–70. Count Jordan’s only surviving charter from these years was issued in May 1125 and concerned property at Morcone; Loud, ‘A Lombard Abbey’, 300 no. 3.

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Le pergamene dell’archivio diocesano di Salerno (891–1193), ed. by Anna Giordano (Battipaglia: Laveglia e Carlone, 2015) Le pergamene della cattedrale di Terlizzi (971–1300), ed. by Franceso Carabellese, Codice diplomatico barese, vol. 3 (Bari: Commissione provinciale di archeologia e storia patria, 1899) Le pergamene di Barletta, archivio capitolare (897–1285), ed. by Franceso Nitti di Vito, Codice diplomatico barese, vol. 8 (Bari: Commissione provinciale di archeologia e storia patria, 1914) Le pergamene di S. Nicola di Bari, periodo normanno (1075–1194), ed. by Francesco Nitti di Vito, Codice diplomatico barese, vol. 5 (Bari: Commissione provinciale di archaeologia e storia patria, 1902) Le più antiche carte dell’abbazia di San Modesto in Benevento (secoli VIII–XIII), ed. by Franco Bartolini, Regesta chartarum Italiae (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, 1950) Pseudo Ugo Falcando. De rebus circa regni Siciliae curiam gestis, ed. by Eduardo D’Angelo, Fonti per la storia dell’Italia medievale. Rerum italicarum scriptores (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 2014) Regesto di S. Angelo in Formis, ed. by Mauro Inguanez, Tabularium casinense (Montecassino: Badia di Montecassino, 1925) Rogerii II. Regis diplomata latina, ed. by Carl Richard Brühl, Codex diplomaticus regni Siciliae. Series prima, Diplomata regum et principum e gente Normannorum (Cologne: Böhlau, 1987) Romuald of Salerno, Romualdi Salernitani Chronicon, [A.m. 130 – A.C. 1187], ed. by Carlo Alberto Garufi, Chronicon, Rerum italicarum scriptores (Nuova edizione) (Città di Castello: S. Lapi, 1914) Vitae quatuor priorum abbatum Cavensium: Alferii, Leonis, Petri et Constabilis, ed. by Leone Mattei-Cerasoli, Rerum italicarum scriptores (Nuova edizione) (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1941) William of Apulia, [Gesta Roberti Wiscardi] La geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. by Marguerite Mathieu (Palermo: Istituto siciliano di studi bizantini e neoellenici, 1961) William of Poitiers, The Gesta Guillelmi of William of Poitiers, ed. by R. H. C. Davis and Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998) Secondary Studies Becker, Julia, Graf Roger I. von Sizilien: Wegbereiter des normannischen Königreichs, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 117 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2008) Bisson, Thomas N., The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009) Brühl, Carl Richard, Urkunden und Kanzlei König Rogers II. von Sizilien, Studien zu den normannisch-staufischen Herrscherurkunden Siziliens (Cologne: Böhlau, 1978) Chalandon, Ferdinand, Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile, 2 vols (Paris: Librairie A. Picard, 1907) Cuozzo, Errico, Catalogus Baronum. Commentario (Fonti per la storia d’Italia, Rome: istituto storico italiano per il medioevo, 1984).

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—, ‘La contea normanna di mottola e castellaneta’, Archivio storico per le province napoletane, 110 (1992), 7–46 —, ‘Intorno alla prima contea normanna nell’Italia meridionale’, in Cavalieri alla conquista del Sud: studi sull’Italia normanna in memoria di Léon Robert Ménager, ed. by Errico Cuozzo and Jean-Marie Martin, Fonti e studi (Ariano, Centro europeo di studi normanni) (Rome: Laterza, 1998), pp. 171–93 —, Normanni: nobiltà e cavalleria (Salerno: Gentile, 1995) Ebner, Pietro, Chiesa, baroni e popolo nel Cilento, Thesaurus ecclesiarum Italiae recentioris aevi. XII, Campania, 2 vols (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1982) Falkenhausen, Vera von, ‘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. by Gabriella Rossetti Pepe, Istituzioni e società nella storia d’Italia (Bologna: Il mulino, 1977), pp. 321–77 Feller, Laurent, Les Abruzzes médiévales: Territoire, économie et société en Italie centrale du ixe au xiie siècle, Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome (Rome: École française de Rome, 1998) Galante, Maria, ‘Un esempio di diplomatica signorile: i documenti dei Sanseverino’, in Civiltà del Mezzogiorno d’Italia: Libro, scrittura, documento in età normanno-sveva, ed. by Filippo D’Oria (Salerno: Carlone Editore, 1994), pp. 279–331 Garufi, Carlo Alberto, ‘Gli Aleramici e i Normanni in Sicilia e nelle Puglie. Documenti e Ricerche’, in Centenario della nascita di Michele Amari: Scritti di filologia e storia araba, di geografia, storia, diritto della Sicilia medievale. Studi bizantini egiudaici relativi all’Italia meridionale nel medio evo. Documenti sulle relazioni fra gli stati italiani ed il levante, 2 vols (Palermo: Stab. Tip. Virzì, 1910), pp. 47–83. —, ‘Le donazioni del conte Enrico di Paterno al monastero di S. Maria di Valle Giosafat’, Revue de l’Orient latin, 9 (1902), 206–29 Green, Judith A., The Aristocracy of Norman England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) Guerrieri, Giovanni, Il conte normanno Riccardo Siniscalco (1081–1115) e i monasteri benedettini cavensi in Terra d’Otranto (sec. XI–XIV) (Trani: Vecchi, 1899) Hoffmann, Hartmut, ‘Die Anfänge der Normannen in Süditalien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 49 (1969), 95–144 Holtzmann, Walter, ‘Papst-, Kaiser- und Normannurkunden aus Unteritalien’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 42/43 (1963), 56–103 Houben, Hubert, Die Abtei Venosa und das Mönchtum im normannisch-staufischen Süditalien, Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1995) —, ‘Adelaide “del Vasto” nella storia del regno normanno di Sicilia’, in Hubert Houben, Mezzogiorno normanno-svevo: monasteri e castelli, ebrei e musulmani (Naples: Liguori, 1996), pp. 81–113 Howe, John, Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-Century Italy: Dominic of Sora and His Patrons, Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997) Jahn, Wolfgang, Untersuchungen zur normannische Herrschaft in Süditalien (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang)

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Jamison, Evelyn M., ‘I conti di Molise e di Marsia nei secoli XII e XIII’, in Convegno storico abruzzese-molisano, 28–29 marzo 1931: Atti e memorie, ed. by N. de Archangelis (Casalbordino: De Arcangelis, 1933), pp. 73–178 —, ‘Note e documenti per la storia dei conti normanni di Catanzaro’, Archivio storico per la Calabria e la Lucania, 1 (1931), 1–20 —, ‘Some Notes on the Anonymi Gesta Francorum, with Special Reference to the Norman Contingent on the First Crusade’, in Studies in French Language and Mediæval Literature Presented to Professor Mildred K. Pope(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1939), pp. 183–208 —, ‘The Significance of the Early Medieval Documents from S. Maria della Noce and S. Salvatore di Castiglione’, in Studi in onore di Riccardo Filangieri, 3 vols (Naples: L’Arte tipografia, 1959), pp. 51–80 Loud, Graham A., The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest, Medieval World (Harlow: Longman, 2000) —, ‘A Calendar of the Diplomas of the Norman Princes of Capua’, Papers of the British School at Rome, 49 (1981), 99–143, reprinted in Loud, Conquerors and Churchmen —, Church and Society in the Norman Principality of Capua, 1058–1197, Oxford Historical Monographs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985) —, Conquerors and Churchmen in Norman Italy (Aldershot: Variorum 1999) —, ‘Continuity and Change in Norman Italy: The Campania during the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, Journal of Medieval History, 22 (1996), 313–43; repr. in Loud, Conquerors and Churchmen —, ‘The Genesis and Context of the Chronicle of Falco of Benevento’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 15 (1993), 177–98, also repr. in Loud, Montecassino and Benevento —, ‘A Lombard Abbey in a Norman World: St Sophia, Benevento, 1050–1200’, AngloNorman Studies, 19 (1997), 273–306; repr. in Loud, Montecassino and Benevento —, ‘The Medieval Archives of the Abbey of S. Trinità, Cava’, in People, Texts and Artefacts: Cultural Transmission in the Norman Worlds, ed. by David Bates, Edoardo D’Angelo, and Elisabeth M. C. van Houts, IHR Guides (London: Institute of Historical Research, 2018), pp. 127–52 —, Montecassino and Benevento in the Middle Ages: Essays in South Italian Church History (Aldershot: Variorum 2000) —, ‘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), ed. by Faustino Avagliano, Miscellanea cassinese, 44 (Montecassino, 1981), pp. 199–217; repr. in Loud, Montecassino and Benevento —, ‘Norman Traditions in Southern Italy’, in Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage: Exchange of Cultures in the ‘Norman’ Peripheries of Medieval Europe, ed. by Stefan Burkhardt and Thomas Foerster (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 35–56 Martin, Jean-Marie, La Pouille du vie au xiie siècle, Collection de l’École française de Rome, 179 (Rome: École française de Rome, 1993) Martini, M., Feudalità e Monachismo cavense in Puglia i terra di Capitanata (Sant’agata di Puglia) (Martina Franca: Casa editrice ‘Apulia’, 1915) Mattei-Cerasoli, Leone, ‘La Badia di Cava e i monasteri greci della Calabria Superiore’, Archivio storico per la Calabria e la Lucania, 8 (1931), 167–225

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Ménager, Léon-Robert, ‘Inventaire des familles normandes et franques émigrés en Italie méridionale et en Sicile (xie-xiie siècles)’, in Roberto il Guiscardo e il suo tempo: relazioni e comunicazioni nelle prime giornate normanno-sveve (Bari, maggio 1973), Fonti e studi del Corpus membranarum Italicarum (Rome: Il Centro di ricerca, 1975), pp. 259–390 Portanova, Gregorio, ‘I sanseverino delle origini al 1125’, Benedictina, 25 (1976), 105–49 Scandone, Francesco, ‘Roccasecca, patria di S. Tommaso d’Aquino’, Archivio storico di Terra di Lavoro, 1 (1956), 33–176 Schütz, Walter, Catalogus Comitum: Versuch einer Territorialgliederung Kampaniens unter der Normannen von 1000 bis 1140 von Benevent bis Salerno (Frankfurt-am-Main: Peter Lang, 1995) Skinner, Patricia, Family Power in Southern Italy: The Duchy of Gaeta and its Neighbours, 850–1139, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) Stenton, F. M., The First Century of English Feudalism, 1066–1166: Being the Ford Lectures Delivered in the University of Oxford in Hilary Term 1929 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932) Tabuteau, Emily Zack, ‘The Family of Moulins-La-Marche in the Eleventh Century’, Medieval Prosopography, 13 (1992), 29–65 Tramontana, Salvatore, ‘Popolazione, distribuzione della terra e classi sociali nella Sicilia di Ruggero il Granconte’, in Ruggero il gran conte e l’inizio dello stato normanno: relazioni e comunicazioni nelle seconde Giornate normanno-sveve (Bari, maggio 1975), Fonti e studi del Corpus membranarum Italicarum (Rome: Il Centro di ricerca, 1977), pp. 213–70

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6. Shaping the Urban Landscape: The Normans as New Patrons in Salerno

After the conquest by Robert Guiscard in 1076, Salerno went through a crucial transition from Lombard to Norman political control (Figs 6.1–6.2).1 This transformation lasted for several decades, through the middle of the twelfth century, when Palermo in 1130 became capital of the new Norman kingdom under Roger II (Fig. 6.3). In order to outline the active role of the Normans as new patrons within the city, I will consider the transformation of the urban landscape of Salerno during Middle Ages, focusing in particular on monumental and architectural changes, which have never been considered a crucial component of their cultural and political settlement. In the European and Mediterranean medieval landscape, the historical city centre of Salerno is well known above all for few important buildings: two of them were promoted by the greatest personalities in the city, i.e. San Pietro a Corte, the former palatine chapel built by the Lombard Prince Arechis II,2 and the cathedral planned by Archbishop Alphanus I and Norman leader Robert Guiscard.3 In addition, the monastery of San Benedetto4 and the private residence Palazzo Fruscione5 (now accessible after an extensive restoration project) are also significant, despite remaining doubts on their high-rank patronage and chronology. During both the Lombard and the Norman periods, patronage was not the exclusive prerogative of the court entourage and nobles. Merchants and artisans acted as patrons of both churches and



1 The transformation of the city between the eleventh and twelfth centuries is extensively discussed in Vaccaro, Palinsesto e paradigma. Still crucial on the Lombard period are Delogu, Mito di una città meridionale, and Taviani-Carozzi, La principauté lombarde de Salerne. On the twelfth century: Delogu and Peduto, Salerno nel XII secolo. 2 Paduto, Fiorillo, and Corolla, Salerno. Una sede ducale. 3 D’Onofrio, ‘La basilica di Desiderio a Montecassino’, pp. 231–46; Pace, ‘La Cattedrale di Salerno’; Braca, Il duomo di Salerno. 4 Falchi, ‘Montecassino e l’architettura campana’. 5 Corolla, ‘Architettura residenziale nella Salerno normanna’. Maddalena Vaccaro  •  is Lecturer in Medieval Art History at Università degli Studi di Salerno. She received her PhD at Università degli Studi di Milano (2011). Her main research interests focus on decorative systems and liturgical sources in Medieval Europe as well as Norman patronage, particularly in the area of Salerno. The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. by Emily A. Winkler and Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small, MISCS 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 163–185 © FHG10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.121961

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Figure 6.1. Map of ecclesiastical foundations in Salerno before 1076. Map courtesy of Laboratorio di Archeologia medievale, Università degli Studi di Salerno; elaboration by M. Vaccaro.

Figure 6.2. Map of ecclesiastical foundations in Salerno after 1076. Map courtesy of Laboratorio di Archeologia medievale, Università degli Studi di Salerno; elaboration by M. Vaccaro.

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Figure 6.3. Norman cities in Southern Italy and Sicily. Photo from Hicks 2016.

luxury goods, which is shown in the contemporary documents.6 In particular, with regard to the ecclesiastical foundations, this complex situation can be understood by analysing the historical documentation and the architectural remains, from which it emerges that Salerno was a very vivid city, animated by several family groups. When Robert Guiscard joined the political and cultural environment of the city, Salerno already abounded with monumental buildings and churches.7 Robert’s wide interest in southern Italy, his relationship with the Church,8 and his military and strategic actions that prepared the way for the creation of the kingdom of Sicily under Roger II are well known and have been investigated in depth.9 Robert Guiscard and his entourage prosecuted the ‘Kinship and Conquest’ policy specifically in Salerno, largely thanks to family strategies: Johanna Drell, and now Aurélie Thomas, clearly explain how the newcomers pursued marriages and personal bounds in order to gain alliances with noble Lombard families.10 However, the settlement of the Normans in the city and the changes they promoted within the urban landscape are not comprehensible without considering the historical and cultural context that shaped Salerno before

6 Zanichelli, ‘Le strategie della committenza salernitana’; Zanichelli, ‘Rilievi salernitani dell’ultima età longobarda’. 7 This chapter presents part of the results of my research for ‘Databenc’, the project for the cataloguing of the cultural heritage of Salerno, held at the Università degli Studi di Salerno – Dipartimento di Scienze del Patrimonio Culturale, see Di Domenico, Galante, Pontrandolfo, Opulenta Salernum. 8 Loud, The Latin Church in Norman Italy; Cantarella, ‘I Normanni e la chiesa di Roma’, pp. 377–406, and bibliography. 9 Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard; Hicks, The Normans, pp. 70–78. 10 Drell, Kinship and Conquest. See also Thomas, this volume.

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1076.11 A crucial element of this context is the presence of churches and private palaces that were built or re-built within the Lombard urban palinsesto, i.e. the pre-Norman urban structures that were later ‘overwritten’ by new buildings. In fact, the newcomers often took advantage of buildings erected during the Lombard domination, which not only gave a monumental identity to the city but also played a crucial role for the religious and economic life, becoming and remaining visible landmarks for the whole Salernitan society. (Figs 6.1–6.2). Before the Normans, Salerno was a Roman castrum along a Roman road, the via Popilia. By 787, it became a strategic city within the Lombard principality of Arechis II, duke of Benevento (754–87). After the attack of Charlemagne in Pavia in 774, Arechis II decided to strengthen the political centres in southern Italy: he was based in Benevento, but he decided to make Salerno his second city, with strategic access to the sea. Since that moment, the city developed its urban plan according to the needs of the Lombard society and, above all, of the family groups close to the sovereigns, who held jurisdictional and economic power within the Lombard political system, introduced by Arechis and strengthened by his successors.12 The main evidence for Lombard life, from the eighth to the end of the eleventh centuries, is the religious buildings and palaces erected in the urban space. These structures and their extensions were shaped by political decisions made by the ruling Lombard princes of the city.13 After the Roman period, the city was centred around the area of San Pietro a Corte, a former thermae area and then Byzantine coemeterium, a sepulchral area with distinguished graves dating to the fifth–sixth centuries, located in the south-west part of the modern historical city centre. Arechis II decided to build his palace on these Roman structures, with access to the sea, and with a Palatine Chapel dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, then called San Pietro a Corte. The chapel is well known today, but parts of the two-storey palace also survive, as do re-used columns still visible in their original positions.14 Unfortunately, more than a few doubts remain on the material nature of the eighth-century city: of the ancient city walls only few parts are known;15 of the first cathedral no structure survives and its location has been discussed for decades.16 In spite of limited material remains, documents of the period attest to several religious foundations, which clearly reveal how the progressive expansion of the urban space and its relationship to the coast strictly followed the political actions and interests of the Lombard princes.17

11 Kreutz, Before the Normans; Ramseyer, The Transformation of a Religious Landscape. 12 Delogu, Mito di una città meridionale, pp. 13–69; Finella, Storia urbanistica di Salerno; Ramseyer, The Transformation of a Religious Landscape, part i; Vaccaro, Palinsesto e paradigma, pp. 23–48. 13 Alaggio, ‘Lo sviluppo urbano di Salerno nel Medioevo’, pp. 17–43; Borsa, ‘Le fondazioni monastiche urbane di Salerno’, pp. 7–30. 14 Most of the knowledge on medieval Salerno is due to excavations and studies by Paolo Peduto and his collaborators, see Peduto, ‘Consuetudine ed evoluzione dell’antico’, and bibliography. 15 Finella, Storia urbanistica di Salerno, pp. 51–63. 16 Vaccaro, ‘Tra la prima e la seconda cattedrale di Salerno’. 17 Vaccaro, ‘Salerno tra terra e mare’.

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Figure 6.4. Drawing of the follaro of Prince Gisulf II. 1052–1077. Photo from Lucia Travaini, La monetazione nell’Italia normanna (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medioevo, 1995).

Prince Guaiferius’s choice to build a church dedicated to San Massimo next to his personal residence in 868 represents the most evident display of a second phase of urban changes during the Lombard era. The church was also connected to a hospital but despite its relevant social role,18 it was Arechis’ sacrum palatium that remained the political and administrative centre of Salerno. This new construction led to a broadening of the Lombard city towards the north-west and to the creation of the so-called città nova (i.e. new city).19 Since Guaiferius did not belong to Arechis’ family, but was a descendant from Dauferid ancestry, he promoted the construction of a new city centre, which affected not only the social dimension but also the urban configuration of Salerno. To the south, the città nova was linked to the oldest part of the city; to the north and west, it was linked to the main roads leading outside Salerno, and it was protected by towers which are still visible on Gisulf II’s follaro (1052–1077)20 (Fig. 6.4). Concerning the structure of San Massimo, documents make note of a church with one apse and one subtana (that can be recognized as a crypt or a lower level)

18 Ruggiero, Principi, nobiltà e Chiesa nel Mezzogiorno longobardo. 19 Kalby, ‘Il quartiere “Plaium montis”’. 20 Natella and Peduto, ‘Tipi di fortificazione medievale.

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Figure 6.5. Fragments of the lost inscription from San Massimo celebrating Prince Guaiferius’s foundation. c. 865. Photo from Kalby 1969.

where was placed an altar dedicated to St Bartholomew.21 This space was directly connected to Guaiferius’ palace, marking it for private use by the prince and his entourage. On the ancient portal, a lost inscription celebrated the instinctu (inspiration) of the Prince Guaiferius who built the pulchra domus (beautiful house) (Fig. 6.5).22 Unfortunately, during the seventeenth century the church was incorporated into the structures of a private palace, but the naves seem to survive. Here were placed six homogeneous ancient columns with their capitals

21 Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, i, 79, doc. 64 (868): ‘et nos et nostris heredibus liceat introire in ipsa ecclesia da ista parte de ipsa casa nostra, ubi ipse anditus modo est usque ad ipsa regiam, que in ipsa ecclesia edificata est in ipsa subdita subtana de ipsa ecclesia, ubi altario in onore sancti bartholomei apostoli edificatum est’ (to us and our heirs be licit entering the church from that part, next to our house, where there is a corridor that goes to the same prince’s house. In the same church there is a crypt, where an altar dedicated to St Bartholomew is built). 22 ‘† Guaiferius princeps instinctu | flaminis almi | duo haec struxit | moenia | pulchra domus’ (Prince Guaiferius, thanks to the flame of inspiration in his soul, built the walls of a beautiful house): the carved marbles with the inscription was seen and photographed by Kalby, ‘Il quartiere “Plaium montis”’, pp. 181–84. The marbles were then lost.

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(Campanian production, dated to the second century), probably collected from the same building, but is not possible to confirm if the spolia belong to the first church or to a later reconstruction (twelfth–thirteenth centuries?),23 due to the absence of archaeological excavations. In the southern part of the city, another church determined subsequent urban development: Santa Maria de Domno. Sichelgaita, wife of Prince John II (son of John of Spoleto), had it built in 986, and for this high-rank foundation she obtained special prerogatives: the right to choose its ‘abbas’ —not ‘abbot’ but ‘father’ of the community — and of the clerus. Above all, the church had the right of celebrating baptism and sepulchral rites, of visiting the sick, and blessing candles and water, in spite of the close proximity to the cathedral. The public power of this particular church can be understood in relation to the economic interest that the church had in this area of the city, named in medieval documents as ‘inter murum et muricinum’ (between the wall and the shorter wall), i.e. the more ancient wall closer to the sea, the murum, which was doubled with a parallel and shorter wall, creating the muricinum.24 In fact, Santa Maria de Domno had remunerative properties (lands and storage buildings) in this city area, and conducted businesses with the Jews who lived in the Giudaica: i.e. the quarter located between the western part of the mentioned double walls and the city gate on the coast ‘Porta di Mare’ (the city gate towards the sea).25 In this case, the church partially survives, ‘absorbed’ by modern residences and one restaurant, but its plan is recognizable thanks to documents: in a private controversy dated immediately after the foundation are named three apses.26 Moreover, in a private document from the nineteenth century the plan of the building was recorded and the three naves are clearly recognizable27 (Fig. 6.6). To the western part of the nave belongs a surviving column in pink granitic stone, placed in its original position, that also indicates that ancient columns and spolia were re-used in this building. Thus, concerning the Lombard period, it is possible to emphasize two main elements. First, that churches are strategically founded and prompt the urban development; second, that the re-use of ancient materials, above all columns and capitals, is attested since Arechis’s time both for material distinction and architectural convenience. As the Normans took the city, new patrons carried on these practices, adapting and improving them according to changing political and cultural context.

23 Palmentieri, ‘Il riuso in Campania’. 24 Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, ii, 272–74 and 289–95, no. 412 (989) and 422 (990); Vaccaro, ‘Tra la prima e la seconda cattedrale’, pp. 28–29. 25 Delogu, Mito di una città meridionale, pp. 146–51. 26 Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, ii, 320, no. 442 (991): ‘terra in quo ipse tribus obside de ipsa ecclesia constructe sunt’ (the land where three apses of that church are built). 27 Archivio di Stato di Salerno, Fondo Registro e Bollo, b. 628, anno 1862.

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Figure 6.6. Archivio di Stato di Salerno (ASSa), Fondo registro e bollo, b. 628, year 1862. Santa Maria de Domno deconsecrated and divided in spaces for private use. Reproduced with the permission of ASSa.

A Turning Point: The Cathedral Concerning the cathedral, no evidence survives of the early Christian building. During the Lombard era it is known only through documents and chronicles, which mention it as the burial place of Arechis II († 787).28 The church was named ‘ecclesia Dei genitricis’ (church of the Mother of God), the only holder of this title until 954, when the relics of the apostle Mathew arrived in Salerno. Since then the cathedral has been named both Santa Maria and Santa Maria e San Matteo.29 Unfortunately, no material remains survive of this building, but written sources document the construction of an atrium in the front of the church, probably used as jurisdictional space as in the case of Sant’Andrea de Lama. Several documents also name a marble column showing a mensura (measure), i.e. the standard unit for agrarian measurement 28 Chronicon Salernitanum, ed. by Westerbergh, chapter 17. Following Arechis, Grimoaldus I († 806) and Guaimarius I († 900) were also buried in the cathedral. Chronicon Salernitanum, ed. by Westerbergh, chapters 30 and 159. 29 Vaccaro, ‘Tra la prima e la seconda cattedrale’; on the cult to St Matthew, see Galdi, ‘Il santo e la città’; Oldfield, City and Community in Norman Italy; Oldfield, Sanctity and Pilgrimage in Medieval Southern Italy.

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used to regulate the trade in agricultural products and ensure a fair exchange between traders (or pro iusta causa, i.e. for a fair estimate, as it said in 1032.)30 This was originally located in the open space of the cathedral but no material evidence remains today. Its presence, however, suggests that architectural spolia were re-used in the ancient cathedral too, as well as in the rest of the city of Salerno, as the above-mentioned Lombard cases demonstrate.31 The few examples mentioned so far show how the monumental landscape might have looked as found by Robert Guiscard when he conquered the city in 1076, whereupon he renewed the court entourage and encouraged new private patronage. Guiscard’s action was well-structured, played on both military and diplomatic levels, and was based on personal alliances, as his marriage with Sichelgaita primarily demonstrates. In fact, she was the daughter of the Lombard Prince Gisulf II and in marrying her Guiscard managed to tighten his control of the whole city.32 Robert Guiscard famously himself affirmed his presence in Salerno not only as a conqueror, but also as a patron: he focused on the main building of the city, i.e. the cathedral of Santa Maria e San Matteo, the reconstruction of which was promoted by him and by Archbishop Alphanus I and the consecration of which was celebrated by Pope Gregory VII in July 1084 (Fig. 6.7).33 Guiscard gave his personal economic support, de erario peculiari, as the inscription on the façade of the new building states.34 The choice of a monumental and external plat band (inscribed marble slabs) is quite original, recalling on the one side the role of the Roman tituli, and on the other the Lombard tradition of placing inscriptions — even if not so monumental — at the entrance of the church to underline and celebrate the role of its founders. It is not possible to say if this choice was solely Robert’s, but this communication system, modelled on a prestigious ancient use, aimed to glorify his person. Concerning previous Lombard cases, in Salerno celebratory inscriptions were placed on the doors of San Massimo by Prince Guaiferius35 and Santa Maria dei Barbuti by Prince Dauferius.36 Moreover, a long titulus celebrating Arechis, composed by Paul the Deacon, was placed in the interior of the palatine chapel.37 Out of the city, a paradigmatic instance can be found in the external inscription at Abbot Joshua’s basilica in San Vincenzo al Volturno monastery, founded by Lombard nobles.38 Many scholars have studied the layout and plans of the new cathedral,39 but the choice of building materials — comparatively understudied — is equally important. In fact, in 30 Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, v, 212–14, no. 842 (1032). 31 Vaccaro, ‘Tra la prima e la seconda cattedrale’, pp. 21–24. 32 Drell, Kinship and Conquest, pp. 55–89. 33 Vaccaro, Palinsesto e paradigma, pp. 49–72; Becker, Die Architektur der Normannen in Süditalien. 34 Lambert, ‘La produzione epigrafica di Alfano I’. 35 See n. 22. 36 ‘Hoc opus egregium sacram quod creavit in aulam coniugis auxilio Dauferius condidit heros’ (the great Dauferius established this excellent building, that he converted in a sacred church with his wife’s help) in Salerno, Biblioteca Provinciale, MS n.n., Staibano, Salerno epigrafica, fol. 47. 37 Peduto, ‘Consuetudine ed evoluzione’, pp. 25–29, tav. 30 n. 1. 38 Mitchell and Hansen, San Vincenzo al Volturno 3, i, 39–40, 43–50. 39 See n. 4 and Becker, ‘Der Dom von Salerno’, pp. 105–40.

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Figure 6.7. Santa Maria and San Matteo cathedral, Salerno. 1080–twelfth century. Photo by M. Vaccaro.

the naves (c. 1085) Roman spolia were used as sumptuous and legitimizing elements, as ancient columns and capitals reveal their direct provenance from the Urbe and its market, such as columns in pavonazzetto and in pink granitic stone from Assuan. Archaeologists linked their presence to the role of Guiscard himself, as the sack of Rome in 1084 would have allowed him to repurpose these valuable marbles.40 Instead, in the atrium built by Guglielmo da Ravenna, archbishop from 1137–1152, both columns and capitals appears as Campanian artefacts, revealing local supply channels. In Campania, as in Salerno, scholars have underlined that the re-use of classical materials had a religious-political meaning in connection to the most ancient Roman churches and to the abbey of Montecassino, where such marbles are part of the ideological issues that determined its reconstruction in the context of the political and religious ‘Reform’ promoted by the papacy.41 However, the surviving Lombard buildings in Salerno demonstrate that spolia were already in use and re-use because ancient materials were readily available through trade with nearby inhabited centres. Moreover, the most up-to-date studies on the re-use of antiquity in Salerno demonstrate that during the twelfth century materials from the regional area, especially from Paestum, were employed not only in the quadriporch, but also in

40 Palmentieri, ‘Civitates spoliatae’, p. 164; Palmentieri, Marmi antichi a Salerno. 41 Mitchell, ‘“Giudizio sul Mille”’.

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structures belonging to the archiepiscopal palace, i.e. in those traditionally — but not correctly — identified as the ‘Tempio di Pomona’ (temple of Pomona). This building was considered as ancient and so called according to an ‘invention’ of nineteenth-century historiography, but recent studies clarified that there was never a classical temple and the present building dates to the late twelfth or thirteenth century.42 As for why the cathedral was located on its specific site, the analysis of documents allows us to understand that the new building replaced the ancient one, and that it was surrounded by other private churches founded during the ninth and tenth centuries. This included Sant’Andrea de archiepiscopium (property of the Bishop of Paestum), San Gregorio and Santi Matteo e Tommaso (a private and high-rank foundation which had liturgical functions comparable to a parish church, as in the case of Santa Maria de Domno).43 The rebuilding of the cathedral in c. 1080 caused a new major expansion of the city of Salerno towards the east of the cathedral, within the city area known as horto magno (great garden), so called for its gardens and aqueducts, and where the monastery of San Benedetto (the Lombard phase) already existed. After the Norman conquest, this area underwent an intensive building process as it was chosen for the development of the new residences of the Norman principality: in fact, not far from San Benedetto monastery, a prestigious private palace was built, characterized by walls materially and ornamentally enriched with polychromatic stone inlay (Fig. 6.8). The building was discussed and recognized as Castel Terracena, named by the contemporary sources and by Peter of Eboli in the late twelfth century, and was probably commissioned by Robert Guiscard himself, even if the construction continued for decades after his death.44 This particular decoration is firstly attested in Salerno, and then spread throughout southern Italy (for example the Amalfi Coast, in Santa Maria del Patir at Rossano Calabro, in the cathedral of Monreale). This is a visible result of both cultural and artistic exchanges, as the city participates in the wider Mediterranean material culture thanks to the relevant role it played during Lombard times, in connection with both the other duchies and allogeneic cultures.45 The urban position of the palace was strategic to the Norman court entourage as it guaranteed a close connection of the private residence to the cathedral and its crypt, and probably originally had direct access from the city streets (a choice already carried out by Guaiferius in San Massimo). Even if many doubts remain concerning the administrative or residential function of the palace, it is clear that the sumptuous structure was a step towards the deliberate monumentalization of the city through private residences, which reflected the new requests of the Norman-enriched society

42 Palmentieri, ‘Civitates spoliatae’, pp. 16–17, 106, 163, 167; De Divitiis, ‘A Renaissance Story of Antiquarianism and Identity’. 43 Vaccaro, ‘Tra la prima e la seconda cattedrale’. 44 Dell’Acqua, ‘La riscoperta di frammenti di decorazione parietale’; De Simone, ‘Il sito del castello di Terracena’. 45 Tabanelli, ‘La decorazione muraria ad intarsi’; Tabanelli, ‘Beyond “Plan bénédictin”’. Another aspect of ‘Mediterranean’ architectural elements are windows with decorated lattice present in Salerno and other cities along Costiera Amalfitana, widely spread from the late Norman period, De Duonni, ‘Le grate di Santa Maria dei Barbuti’.

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Figure 6.8. Norman residential building, the so-called Castel Terracena, Salerno. Eleventh to thirteenth century. Photo by M. Vaccaro.

for new houses and urban spaces after 1076. Further evidence for this process is the presence of other traces of Norman palaces that still survive in the eastern area, next to Palazzo Pinto (Pinacoteca Provinciale), recently discovered and now under investigation by Beat Brenk. However, more traces in the western part, in the city area around San Pietro a Corte,46 also confirm the Normans’ complete control of the city and their fundamental role in reshaping it. During the period of Norman rule of Salerno, religious architecture was promoted as well. Apart from the cathedral, the most monumental sign of the Norman era is the reconstruction of the monastic church of San Benedetto that shows clear connection with the cathedral (three naves, three apses, oculi in the upper part of the apses walls, use of spolia in the naves) (Fig. 6.9). An atrium was built on the front of the church (at the expense of the Lombard eastern walls of the city, which were demolished) clearly, and importantly, revealing the quick architectural growth of the city towards the east, in the area of horto magno.47

46 Fiorillo, ‘Salerno: la ricerca archeologica’, pp. 46–47. 47 The church is north–south oriented, Falchi, ‘Montecassino e l’architettura campana’.

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Figure 6.9. San Benedetto, Salerno. Twelfth century. Photo by M. Vaccaro.

As a consequence of this urban expansion, in the lower part of the city, at the end of via carraria, the street that ran the full length of the urban centre, the eastern city gate named Porta Elini (Elini’s Gate) was moved farther east, and was later re-named Porta nova (New Gate).48 Near this entry, a church probably existed from the tenth century, even if its foundation is unknown:49 it was dedicated to the Virgin, and later named Santa Maria de Portanova after its urban collocation. Its architecture is quite complex due to the stratification of different structures: the most ancient nucleus is underground, and it became the crypt of the upper church (comparable to the development of Sant’Andrea de Lama and Santa Maria de Lama).50 The new church (the extant one), was thus modelled on the cathedral example: even if there is no transept, it presents two architectural levels (probably with different liturgical functions), has three naves, three apses (even in the crypt), and re-used columns, magnificent for their coloured and ancient marbles (Figs 6.10–6.11). This building dates from after the Norman conquest, possibly to the twelfth century, and it represents the

48 De Simone, ‘L’identificazione della via’, pp. 257–66. 49 Bergamo, Parrocchia del SS. Crocifisso. 50 The crypt was painted in the later thirteenth century. Recently, the workshop was recognized as Italian, probably from the Umbria area and updated in accordance with the latest painted cycles in Rome, against the ‘traditional’ literature that ascribed the artists to the Roussillon area, Falchi, ‘Modelli centroitaliani e d’Oltralpe’.

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Figure 6.10. Santa Maria de Portanova, Salerno. Twelfth century. Photo by M. Vaccaro.

Figure 6.11. Archivio della Diocesi di Salerno (ADS), Ufficio tecnico, b. 14. Plans of Santa Maria de Portanova in 1962 during restoration. Reproduced with the permission of ADS.

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clearest example of building patronage under Norman power, probably encouraged by the construction of the cathedral. The main problem concerning this building is the reconstruction of the historical context of its patronage, as the first documents distinctly related to the church concern the monastery of Santa Maria della Pietà, a female cenobium established during the middle of the thirteenth century. However, a document dated to August 1084 could be related to this church, as it attests to the will of Maurus qui Calbarusus dicitur (Maurus, known as Calbarusus) who, before leaving trans mare with Robert Guiscard, named as executor the ‘abb(ati)s’ of Santa Maria, a church that is indicated as constructed intra hanc civitatem (in this city) and ante hac porta (facing the gate).51 Unfortunately, a hole in the parchment erased the name of the door, but we can confirm its identification with Santa Maria de Portanova as it is the only church built close to a city door among the several ones dedicated to the Virgin.52 Moreover, a document dated 1140 attests that Romoaldus filius quondam Landonis comitis (Romoaldus, son of a certain count Landone) donated his part of property of the church to the Archbishop of Salerno.53 This document reveals that portions of properties of the churches were still inherited by family members.54 These documents and the architectural structure suggest that Santa Maria, by the beginning of the twelfth century and certainly in the following decades, became a new focal point within the city. This is because the growing Norman society required adequate space for its settlement for both housing and religious necessities. For similar reasons, another church is significant: Santa Maria de Lama is placed in the west part of the city named vicus trophimenae (Trophimena’s quarter) as founded in 838/39, when Prince Siconolfus forced family groups from Amalfi and Atrani to move to Salerno in order to improve maritime activities. This church is a former beneficiary of Lombard princely patronage and presents a lower structure where Roman walls were re-used in the tenth century, and the main level has three naves and ancient columns (Fig. 6.12). Its chronology is still debated, but the church was probably re-built after the cathedral during Norman times and affirms their constant activities and interests in the Amalfitan quarter.55

The ‘Norman’ Urban Landscape The Norman conquest was a crucial moment for the history of Salerno. The reconstruction of the cathedral was just one fundamental step in the long process that gave the episcopal church a central role in the religious life of the city, fragmented by several private foundations

51 Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, xi, 171–74, doc. 62 (1084). 52 See nn. 16 and 17. 53 Giordano, Le pergamene dell’Archivio diocesano di Salerno, pp. 188–90 n. 99. 54 Drell, Kinship and Conquest, pp. 90–121. 55 Vaccaro, Palinsesto e paradigma, pp. 78–80.

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Figure 6.12. Santa Maria de Lama, Salerno. Twelfth century. Photo by M. Vaccaro.

even at the beginning of the twelfth century. Moreover, Robert Guiscard’s choices reveal that he acted in part according to Lombard cultural norms: in fact, he supported the construction of a public building — the cathedral — and declared his private patronage in the titulus on the façade, just as several Lombard princes did in the past. This strong connection with the Lombard past is still affirmed at the beginning of the twelfth century, when Roger Borsa, son and successor of Guiscard, as ruler of the city and heir to the Lombard princes, claimed his right to designate priests of the churches according to the Lombard Law. For this he was accused by Archbishop Alphanus II in front of pope Urban II of acting iniuste et contra canones et decreta sanctorum patrum (unfairly and against canons and decrees of the holy fathers).56 Furthermore, private foundations seem to have persisted during the first decades after the Norman Conquest (Fig. 6.2). Only under Archbishop Guglielmo da Ravenna during the 1150s did the episcopal Church gain real control of the cura animarum and of the monasteries within the city, even though the power of the Abbey of Cava was rapidly growing.57 However, it seems that the episcopal control of the city churches was effective only by the end of the twelfth century. This is evident in the homage paid by the churches to Saint Matthew during the arbores procession, held on the 6th of May, and on the apostle’s translation feast, when priests of the main Salernitan churches brought the archbishop flower gifts for the saint. As recognized by Giovanni

56 Vitolo, ‘Città e chiesa nel Mezzogiorno’, p. 136. 57 On Norman power in the first decades of twelfth century, see Graham Loud’s chapter in this book.

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Vitolo, this can be considered the first ‘parish subdivision’ of Salerno.58 Reading the churches’ list clearly shows that all the Lombard and private foundations — or, as Jill Caskey wrote, ‘the family-based approach to structuring sacred space’ — became cells of the bigger organism of the Episcopal Church.59 With particular attention to the Normans’ architectural choices, it is necessary to underline that the Normans adopted solutions already known in buildings of Lombard patronage, including the re-use of spolia, a constant practice in Salerno since the eighth century. During the Lombard era the re-use of ancient marble elements had a legitimizing role for private foundations facing the bishop’s authority, as antiquity recalled the past of the city itself. Instead, at the end of the eleventh century the re-use of spolia came to mean new things. The new cathedral has to be considered in its complex connections to Montecassino and to Rome, as Alphanus I was a close friend of Desiderius and Pope Gregory VII found his last refuge in Salerno. In this context the re-use of ancient materials aimed at a direct connection to Rome, and precious marbles were employed with a new awareness of composition and rhythm, as Patrizio Pensabene observed in the new ‘Norman’ construction sites.60 In Salerno, this conscious use of spolia can be observed in the cathedral, but also in Santa Maria de Lama and, especially, in Santa Maria de Portanova, that can be considered as the results of a high-level patronage, which chose the cathedral as model. Finally, it must be noted that these architectural choices did not go unremarked: the construction of the Salerno cathedral marked a turning point in religious building in Campania and analogous solutions can be observed in buildings of private Norman patronage in the Salerno area, as Sant’Eustachio Pontone and San Pietro ‘alli marmi’ (with marbles) in Eboli reveal.61

Conclusion By the end of the twelfth century, another church shows a close relationship to Norman power: Santa Maria, later known as ‘de Cancellariis’ (of the Chancellor), which in 1183 belonged to Matteo D’Ajello, King William II of Sicily’s vice-chancellor. It was located on the west boundary of the city, beyond the core of the Amalfitan quarter. This area seems to have played a marginal role during the first decades after the Norman conquest of the city, because of the eastward expansion of the city, but the presence of Santa Maria de Cancellariis, built next to the private palace of D’Ajello

58 Vitolo, ‘Città e chiesa nel Mezzogiorno’, pp. 138–39. On the appropriation of the urban space in Salerno, see Vaccaro, Palinsesto e paradigma, pp. 87–89; an analogous procession was held in Benevento in the first half of the twelfth century in a different political context, see Irving, ‘Processions at the Crossroads’, pp. 45–66. 59 Jill Caskey considers the Amalfi area, but in a wider panorama: analogous problems can be recognized also in Salerno: Caskey, Art and Patronage, ch. 3. 60 Pensabene, ‘Contributo per una ricerca sul reimpiego’, pp. 11–12. 61 Caskey, Art and Patronage, pp. 128–33; Gandolfo, ‘A proposito di due questioni ancora aperte’.

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Figure 6.13. Palazzo Pedace, former residence of Matteo D’Ajello. Second half of twelfth century. Photo by M. Vaccaro.

family (still surviving as Palazzo Pedace), revealed a renewed interest in the western area of the city. (Fig. 6.13) In fact, the chancellor personally donated this church to his son Archbishop Niccolò in order to build San Giovanni hospital.62 This was probably next to the port, which reveals Matteo D’Ajello’s strong interest in a close connection to the sea, due to his role within the Sicilian-based court. However, at this moment, in the late 1180s, the political and cultural context was very different. Since the 1140s, Palermo had been the capital of the kingdom. Patrons in Salerno had to face this situation along with new problems and connections that projected the city clearly towards the south and that enriched its cultural horizons.63 The Salerno experience is paradigmatic in its urban development from Lombard to Norman domination. By the last quarter of eleventh century, Robert Guiscard managed to stand out in the Normans groups, and he chose Salerno as a base for his growing power in southern Italy. In order to get real control of city, he promoted

62 Braca, ‘Palazzo Pedace’, pp. 34–38. 63 Longo and Scirocco, ‘A Scenario for the Salerno Ivories’, and mentioned bibliography; Vaccaro, ‘Dal documento all’immagine’.

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both personal alliances with Lombard families and the appropriation of urban spaces through the control of churches and monasteries. Crucial in his action were the promotion of the reconstruction of cathedrals, and the strengthening of the cult of saint Matthew as patron of Salerno, who finally got his specific worship place in the monumental crypt. Between the end of eleventh and the twelfth century, this new building turned out to be a distinguished example for the promotion of local cults also in other cities conquered by Norman groups. Among the others, significant cathedrals were built in Taranto and Otranto in Puglia, but also in Capua, Benevento, Alife, and Gaeta, proving the political ‘success’ of monumental urban metamorphosis.64 However, when Roger II became king in 1130, Palermo achieved a leading role in southern Italy, specifically in the new regnum. In Sicily, new buildings were needed, new installations were sculpted, and new workshops operated within the new capital city: Norman culture mixed with Roman, Greek, and Arabic elements, and from there spread throughout all southern Italy. But cultural and artistic mutual exchanges between Palermo and Salerno did not stop: the production of the pavements in Salerno cathedral and in Palermo palatine chapel show the dissemination of Salernitan mosaicists’ inventions in the first half of twelfth century.65 On the other hand, the new ambo promoted in Salerno by Matteo D’Ajello around 1180 shows the adoption of installations developed in Palermo.66 Fundamentally, after the long journey of the Normans in the south, they found in Salerno not only the seed of their increasing power, but also an adequate space for experimenting urban appropriation, monumental buildings and artistic experiences, thanks to the support of these new, and mindful, patrons.

Works Cited Manuscripts, Archival Sources, & Other Unedited Material Salerno, Biblioteca Provinciale, MS n.n., Staibano, Luigi, Salerno epigrafica o raccolta delle iscrizioni salernitane Primary Sources Codex diplomaticus Cavensis, vols 1–8 (Naples: Hulricus Hoepli, 1873–1893); vols 9–10 (Cava dei Tirreni, Badia di Cava, 1984–1990); vols 9–12 (Battipaglia: Laveglia & Carlone, 2015) Chronicon salernitanum: A Critical Edition with Studies on Literary and Historical Sources and on Language, ed. by Ulla Westerbergh, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Studia Latina Stockholmensia, 3 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1956)

64 Vaccaro, Palinsesto e paradigma, pp. 80–86. 65 Longo, ‘L’“opus sectile” nei cantieri normanni’, pp. 179–89. 66 Scirocco, ‘Liturgical Installation in the Cathedral of Salerno’, pp. 205–21.

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Secondary Studies Alaggio, Rosanna, ‘Lo sviluppo urbano di Salerno nel medioevo. I temi della ricostruzione storiografica’, in Memoria, storia, identità, ed. by Marcello Pacifico, Maria Antonietta Russo, Daniela Santoro, and Patrizia Sardina (Palermo: Associazione Mediterranea, 2011), pp. 17–43 Becker, Oliver, Die Architektur der Normannen in Süditalien im 11. Jahrhundert. Kontinuität und Innovation als visuelle Strategien der Legitimation von Herrschaft, Studien zur Kunstgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit, 17 (Affalterbach: DydimosVerlag, 2018), pp. 84–130 —, ‘Der Dom von Salerno und die Abteikirche von Montecassino. Anspruch und Wirkung zweier Bauprojecte in Unteritalien im XI. Jahrhundert’, in Frümittelalterliche Studien, 41 (2007), 105–40 Bergamo, Giuseppe, Parrocchia del SS. Crocifisso nella chiesa di S. Maria della Pietà in Salerno (Salerno: Volpe, 1962) Borsa, Luca, ‘Le fondazioni monastiche urbane di Salerno in epoca longobarda, tra VIII e XI secolo’, Salternum, 20 (2016), 7–30, 36–37 Braca, Antonio, ‘Palazzo Pedace, antica dimora di Matteo d’Ajello’, in Medioevo e Barocco a Porta Catena. Studi su un’area del centro storico di Salerno, ed. by Antonio Braca (Salerno: Plectica, 2010), pp. 23–42 —, Il duomo di Salerno. Architettura e culture artistiche del medioevo e dell’età moderna (Salerno: Laveglia, 2003) Cantarella, Glauco M., ‘I Normanni e la chiesa di Roma. Aspetti e momenti’, in Chiese locali e chiese regionali nell’alto medioevo (Spoleto, 4–9 aprile 2013), Settimane di studio della Fondazione CISAM, 61 (Spoleto: CISAM, 2014), pp. 377–406 Caskey, Jill, Art and Patronage in the Medieval Mediterranean. Merchant Culture in the Region of Amalfi (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) Corolla, Angela, ‘Architettura residenziale nella Salerno normanna: l’esempio di Palazzo Fruscione’, in Case e torri medievali, ed. by Elisabetta De Minicis, Atti del V Convegno internazionale di studi: Indagini sui centri dell’Italia meridionale e insulare (sec. xi– xv), Orte, 15–16 marzo 2012 (Rome: Kappa, 2014), pp. 27–39 D’Onofrio, Mario, ‘La basilica di Desiderio a Montecassino e la cattedrale di Alfano a Salerno: nuovi spunti di riflessione’, in Desiderio di Montecassino, ed. by Faustino Avagliano (Montecassino: Pubblicazioni Cassinesi, 1997), pp. 231–46 De Divitiis, Bianca, ‘A Renaissance Story of Antiquarianism and Identity. The “Temple of Pomona” from Rome to Salerno’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 60.1 (2018), 33–53 De Duonni, Veronica, ‘Le grate di Santa Maria dei Barbuti tra Salerno e il Mediterraneo’, in Cum magna sublimitate. Arte e committenza a Salerno nel Medioevo, ed. by Giuseppa Z. Zanichelli and Maddalena Vaccaro, Studi e ricerche di archeologia e storia dell’arte, 20 (Spoleto: CISAM, 2017), pp. 65–71 De Simone, Vincenzo, ‘L’identificazione della via che conduceva alla porta di Elino’, Rassegna storica salernitana, 9.1 (1992), 257–66 —, ‘Il sito del castello di Terracena in Salerno’, Rassegna Storica Salernitana, 16.2 (1999), 9–21

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Dell’Acqua, Francesca, ‘La riscoperta di frammenti di decorazione parietale a Castel Terracena, residenza dei principi normanni di Salerno’, Rassegna Storica Salernitana, 16.1 (1999), 7–30 Delogu, Paolo, Mito di una città meridionale: Salerno, secoli VIII–IX (Naples: Liguori, 1977) Delogu, Paolo, and Peduto, Paolo, eds, Salerno nel XII secolo. Istituzioni, società, cultura. Atti del Convegno internazionale, Raito di Vietri sul Mare, Villa Guariglia, 16–20 giugno 1999 (Salerno: Incisivo, 2004) Di Domenico, Giovanni, Maria Galante, and Angela Pontrandolfo, eds, Opulenta Salernum: una città tra mito e storia (Rome: Gangemi editore, 2020) Drell, Johanna H., Kinship and Conquest: Family Strategies in the Principality of Salerno During the Norman Period, 1077–1194 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002) Falchi, Antonio, ‘Modelli centroitaliani e d’Oltralpe nella Crocifissione della cripta del SS. Crocifisso a Salerno’, Rassegna storica salernitana, 34.2 (2017), 149–66 —, ‘Montecassino e l’architettura campana di XI secolo. Il caso di San Benedetto a Salerno’, Hortus artium medievalium, 20.2 (2014), 544–54 Finella, Antonietta, Storia urbanistica di Salerno nel Medioevo (Rome: Bonsignori, 2005) Fiorillo, Rosa, ‘Salerno: la ricerca archeologica tra gli anni 2014–2016’, in Cum magna sublimitate. Arte e committenza a Salerno nel Medioevo, ed. by Giuseppa Z. Zanichelli and Maddalena Vaccaro, Studi e ricerche di archeologia e storia dell’arte, 20 (Spoleto: CISAM, 2017), pp. 41–51 Galdi, Amalia, ‘Il santo e la città: il culto di S. Matteo a Salerno tra X e XVI secolo’, Rassegna Storica Salernitana, 13.1 (1996), 21–92 Gandolfo, Francesco, ‘A proposito di due questioni ancora aperte del medioevo campano. I rilievi di Vico Trapani a Teggiano e la chiesa di Sant’Eustachio a Pontone’, Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale d’Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte, ser. 3, 39 (2016), 207–40 Giordano, Anna, Le pergamene dell’Archivio diocesano di Salerno (841–1193), Schola Salernitana. Documenti, 2 (Battipaglia: Laveglia & Carlone, 2014) Hicks, Leonie V., The Normans (London: Tauris, 2016) Irving, Andrew J. M., ‘Processions at the Crossroads: Falco Beneventanus and the Description of Processions in Twelfth-Century Benevento’, in Prozessionen und Gesänge in der mittelalterlichen Stadt. Gestalt - Hermeneutik - Repräsentation, ed. by Harald Buchinger, David Hiley, and Sabine Reichert, Forum Mittelalter. Studien, 13 (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner 2017), pp. 45–66 Kalby, Luigi Gino, ‘Il quartiere “Plaium montis” nel centro antico di Salerno’, Rivista di studi salernitani, 3 (1969), 165–91 Kreutz, Barbara M., Before the Normans. Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991) Lambert, Chiara M., ‘La produzione epigrafica di Alfano I per la cattedrale di Salerno, tra religiosità e politica’, in Cum magna sublimitate. Arte e committenza a Salerno nel Medioevo, ed. by Giuseppa Z. Zanichelli and Maddalena Vaccaro, Studi e ricerche di archeologia e storia dell’arte, 20 (Spoleto: CISAM, 2017), pp. 33–40. Longo, Ruggero, ‘L’“opus sectile” nei cantieri normanni: una squadra di marmorari tra Salerno e Palermo’, in Medioevo: le officine, Atti del convegno internazionale di studi (Parma, 22-27 settembre 2009), ed. by Arturo Carlo Quintavalle, I convegni di Parma, 12 (Milan: Electa, 2010), pp. 179–89

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Longo, Ruggero, and Elisabetta Scirocco, ‘A Scenario for the Salerno Ivories: The Liturgical Furnishing of the Salerno Cathedral’, in The Salerno Ivories: Objects, Histories, Context, ed. by Francesca Dell’Acqua (Berlin: Gebr. Man, 2016), pp. 191–210. Loud, Graham A., The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow: Longman, 2000) —, The Latin Church in Norman Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) Mitchell, John, ‘“Giudizio sul Mille”: Rome, Montecassino, S. Vincenzo al Volturno, and the beginnings of the Romanesque’, in Rome across Time and Space, ed. by Claudia Bolgia, Rosamond McKitterick, and John Osborne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 167–81 Mitchell, John, and Inge Lyse Hansen, eds, San Vincenzo al Volturno 3: the Finds from the 1980–1986 Excavations, 2 vols, Studi e ricerche di archeologia e storia dell’arte, 3/1–2 (Spoleto: CISAM, 2001) Natella, Pasquale, and Paolo Peduto, ‘Tipi di fortificazione medievale da monete campane’, Castellum, 6 (1967), 111–22 Oldfield, Paul, City and Community in Norman Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) —, Sanctity and Pilgrimage in Medieval Southern Italy: 1000–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014) Pace, Valentino, ‘La Cattedrale di Salerno. Committenza, programma e valenze ideologiche di un monumento di fine XI secolo nell’Italia meridionale’, in Desiderio di Montecassino, ed. by Faustino Avagliano (Montecassino: Pubblicazioni Cassinesi, 1997), pp. 189–230 Palmentieri, Angela, ‘Civitates spoliatae. Recupero e riuso dell’antico in Campania tra l’età post-classica e il medioevo (IV–XV sec.)’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 2009–2010) —, ‘Il riuso in Campania. Pratiche e ideologia nelle architetture medievali di Salerno e della costa d’Amalfi’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen Âge, 129.1 (2017),

—, Marmi antichi a Salerno. Le vicende storico-archeologiche e antiquarie dei reimpieghi tra XI e XVI secolo ([Naples]: Angela Palmentieri, 2018) Peduto, Paolo, ‘Consuetudine ed evoluzione dell’antico nelle costruzioni di Arechi II’, in Salerno. Una sede ducale per la Langobardia meridionale, ed. by Paolo Peduto, Rosa Fiorillo, and Angela Corolla (Spoleto: CISAM, 2013), pp. 15–35 Peduto, Paolo, Rosa Fiorillo, and Angela Corolla, eds, Salerno. Una sede ducale per la Langobardia meridionale (Spoleto: CISAM, 2013) Pensabene, Patrizio, ‘Contributo per una ricerca sul reimpiego e il “recupero” dell’Antico nel Medioevo. Il reimpiego nell’architettura normanna’, Rivista dell’Istituto Nazionale d’Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte, ser. 3, 13 (1990), 5–118 Ramseyer, Valerie, The Transformation of a Religious Landscape: Medieval Southern Italy, 850–1150 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006) Ruggiero, Bruno, Principi, nobiltà e Chiesa nel Mezzogiorno longobardo: l’esempio di s. Massimo di Salerno (Naples: Istituto di storia medievale e moderna, 1973) Scirocco, Elisabetta, ‘Liturgical Installation in the Cathedral of Salerno: The Double Ambo in its Regional Context between Sicilian Models and Local Liturgy’, in Romanesque

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Cathedrals in Mediterranean Europe. Architecture, Ritual and Urban Context, ed. by Gerardo Boto Varela and Justin E. A. Kroesen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), pp. 205–21 Tabanelli, Margherita, ‘Beyond “Plan bénédictin”: Reconsidering Sicilian and Calabrian Cathedrals in the Age of the Norman County’, in Designing Norman Sicily: Material Culture and Society, ed. by Emily A. Winkler, Liam Fitzgerald, and Andrew Small (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2020), pp. 166–83 —, ‘La decorazione muraria ad intarsi nel Meridione normanno: gli episodi calabresi nel contesto dei rapporti tra contea e ducato’, in Arte medievale (Medioevo tra Occidente e Mediterraneo. Studi in ricordo di Antonio Cadei. Atti del Convegno internazionale [Villongo – Rome, 25 ottobre-17–18 dicembre 2014]), ser. 4, 6 (2016), pp. 70–85 Taviani-Carozzi, Huguette, La principauté lombarde de Salerne (ixe-xie siècle). Pouvoir et société en Italie lombarde méridionale, Collection de l’École Française de Rome, 152 (Rome: École Française de Rome, 1991) Vaccaro, Maddalena, ‘Dal documento all’immagine: la cattedrale e la città’, in Opulenta Salernum: una città tra mito e storia, ed. by Giovanni Di Domenico, Maria Galante, and Angela Pontrandolfo (Rome: Gangemi editore, 2020) —, Palinsesto e paradigma. La trasformazione monumentale nella Salerno di Roberto il Guiscardo, Mousai, 12 (Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2018) —, ‘Salerno tra terra e mare: i committenti e l’architettura prima della conquista normanna’, in Tra terra e mare. Architettura e potere sulla costa del Tirreno meridionale (VIII–X secolo), Atti del convegno internazionale, ed. by Antonino Tranchina, Tanja Michalsky, and Kordula Wolf (Rome: Bibliotheca Hertziana, 3–4 maggio 2018) [in press] —, ‘Tra la prima e la seconda cattedrale di Salerno: testimonianze materiali e documentarie’, in Cum magna sublimitate. Arte e committenza a Salerno nel Medioevo, ed. by Giuseppa Z. Zanichelli and Maddalena Vaccaro, Studi e ricerche di archeologia e storia dell’arte, 20 (Spoleto: CISAM, 2017), pp. 19–32 Vitolo, Giovanni, ‘Città e chiesa nel Mezzogiorno medievale: la processione del santo patrono a Salerno (secolo XII)’, in Salerno nel XII secolo. Istituzioni, società, cultura, Atti del Convegno internazionale, Raito di Vietri sul Mare, Villa Guariglia, 16–20 giugno 1999, ed. by Paolo Delogu and Paolo Peduto (Salerno: Incisivo, 2004), pp. 134–48 Zanichelli, Giuseppa Z., ‘Le strategie della committenza salernitana nel Medioevo’, in Cum magna sublimitate. Arte e committenza a Salerno nel Medioevo, ed. by Giuseppa Z. Zanichelli and Maddalena Vaccaro, Studi e ricerche di archeologia e storia dell’arte, 20 (Spoleto: CISAM, 2017), pp. 1–18 —, ‘Rilievi salernitani dell’ultima età longobarda fra Oriente e Occidente’, in MVLTA PER ÆQVORA. Il polisemico significato della moderna ricerca archeologica. Omaggio a Sara Santoro, ed. by Marco Cavalieri and Cristina Boschetti, Fervet Opus, 4 (Louvain-laNeuve: Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2018), pp. 711–30 Zanichelli, Giuseppa Z., and Maddalena Vaccaro, eds, Cum magna sublimitate. Arte e committenza a Salerno nel Medioevo, Studi e ricerche di archeologia e storia dell’arte, 20 (Spoleto: CISAM, 2017)

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7. Palermo and the Norman Conquest of Sicily

Introduction and Problematization In his description of the foundation of the Norman kingdom of Sicily in 1130, Alexander of Telese remarked that Roger II’s followers determined: ʻquod regni ipsius principium et caput, Panhormus Sicilie metropolis fieri deceret; que olim sub priscis temporibus super hanc ipsam provinciam Reges nonnullos habuisse traditur, qui postea, pluribus evolutis annis […] nunc usque sine regibus mansit’ that the centre and capital of his kingdom ought to be Palermo, the metropolis of Sicily, which is said to have had kings over this region in ancient times but was later for many years […] until now without them.1 With this statement, the chronicler emphasizes the supremacy of Palermo over the kingdom’s territory and also alludes to a time in which Palermo was a ʻroyal’ capital. Whilst the reference to an ancient tradition must certainly be considered in terms of attempts to legitimize Roger II’s uncertain claims to kingship, it is nevertheless striking that the chronicler explicitly connects the Norman establishment of royal rule with Palermo and its past.2 This is all the more interesting as Palermo had functioned as Sicily’s capital under Muslim rule. The aim of this



1 Alexander of Telese, De rebus gestis Rogerii Siciliae regis, ed. by De Nava, ii. 1, p. 23. 2 In fact, Alexander repeats an almost identical explanation in the following chapter, thus enforcing Palermo’s importance for Roger II’s kingship, see Alexander of Telese, De rebus gestis Rogerii Siciliae regis, ed. by De Nava, ii, 2, p. 24: ʻUt Rogerius dux in regiam dignitatem apud Panhormum, Sicilie metropolim, promoveri debeat […] Nam si regni solium in eadem quondam civitate ad regendum tantum Siciliam certum est extitisse, et nunc ad ipsum per longum tempus defecisse videtur.’ (That Duke Roger ought to be promoted to the royal dignity at Palermo, the metropolis of Sicily […] As it was certain that kingship had once existed in that city, ruling all Sicily, but it seemed to have been in abeyance for a long time). Theresa Jäckh  •  (PhD Heidelberg) is Assistant Professor of Medieval History at Durham University.

The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. by Emily A. Winkler and Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small, MISCS 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 187–209 © FHG10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.121962

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chapter is to discuss the implications of Alexander’s declaration with an eye to the (dis)continuities in Palermo’s status as the capital of Sicily in the transition from Islamic to Norman rule. Following the Aghlabid capture of Palermo in 831, the town became the military and political power base of the Muslim conquerors in Sicily. The subsequent influx of people, commodities, and wealth catalysed a rapid expansion that transformed Palermo from a Byzantine backwater into the island’s chief city, supplanting Syracuse.3 Palermo’s political, economic, and cultural influence soon came to dominate the island and its trans-Mediterranean networks.4 This perception of Palermo as a central point of reference was shared by the geographers Ibn Ḥawqal and al-Muqaddasī, and was also implied in the Kitāb al-gharāʾib, known as the Book of Curiosities.5 In this latter work, a map of Sicily depicts Palermo’s centrality by its proportion, form, and position in relation to the rest of the island. Indeed, Palermo’s significance for the island was also reflected in the name al-Ṣiqillīya, a term which meant Sicily, but from the mid-tenth century often referred to Palermo alone.6 A similar Palermo-centric emphasis exists in the rich variety of written and material evidence for the time following the creation of the Norman kingdom of Sicily in 1130. To a large extent, this can be explained by the way in which Palermo’s royal palace and its various satellites functioned as vehicles of artistic, administrative, and literary production. Therefore, it may be of little surprise that it is this period of the city’s history that has come to dominate scholarly discourse.7 However, several clues suggest that Palermo’s status as a major Norman centre pre-dates Roger II’s coronation by at least a decade. Besides the well-known charter of Roger II which marked his rite de passage into majority in Palermo in 1112,8 Vera von Falkenhausen has recently suggested that a centralized Norman administration may have existed in the city as early as 1123.9 Nonetheless, even if it can be assumed that Palermo regained some measure of its old importance in the decades preceding the foundation of the



3 Writing only a few decades after the Muslim conquest of Palermo, the Greek monk Theodosius — brought through the city in chains from Syracuse — noted how it seemed that many settlements had sprung up around Palermo’s ancient core, see ‘Theodosii Monachi Epistola’, ed. by Gaetani, p. 29; Zuretti, ʻLa espugnazione di Siracusa’; Rognoni, ʻAu pied de la lettre?’. For a modern overview of Palermo’s urban developments under Islamic rule, see Nef, ʻIslamic Palermo’. 4 As for Sicily’s shifts within Mediterranean networks, see Davis-Secord, Where Three Worlds Met. 5 Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb ṣūrat al-arḍ, pp. 118–31, as for Palermo, see especially pp. 118–22; Al-Muqaddasī, Kitāb aḥsan at-taqāsīm, p. 225; for the Book of Curiosities, see An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide, ed. by Rapoport (hereafter Book of Curiosities), pp. 145–36; for the translation, see pp. 457–66. 6 De Simone, ʻPalermo nei geografi e viaggiatori’, pp. 133–38; Nef, ʻIslamic Palermo’, pp. 40–41, 55–56. 7 See particularly, De Simone, ʻPalermo araba’; Maurici, Palermo araba; Maurici, Palermo normanna; Nef, ed., Companion to Medieval Palermo, see here particularly the articles by Pezzini, ʻPalermo in the 12th Century’; Bagnera, ʻFrom a Small Town to a Capital’. 8 In 1112, Adelaide and her son Roger II signed a privilege in his palace in Palermo, see Rogerii secundi regis diplomata, ed. by Brühl, no. 3, pp. 6–8. See also von Falkenhausen, ʻZur Regentschaft der Gräfin Adelasia’, p. 95. 9 Von Falkenhausen, ʻTesto e contesto’.

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kingdom, a considerable gap remains in which scholarship has assumed that Palermo had lost its leading status amongst the other urban centres of Sicily. More precisely, this supposedly concerns the time from the disintegration of the island’s central Islamic authority in the mid-eleventh century (or earlier10) and its fragmentation into competing statelets.11 Few Arabic sources have survived for this period. Nonetheless, this does not necessarily indicate that Palermo’s influence waned or that the city ceased to witness further political development. Indeed, the Latin histories for the Norman conquest of the island contain repeated references to Palermo which allow for a different interpretation.12 In fact, these texts appear to suggest that the city retained much of its political and symbolic significance up until its capture by the Normans. This study, therefore, examines the role of Palermo and its representatives in these chronicles. It shall be argued that a close investigation of the sources for the Norman conquest period can elucidate important clues to the internal dynamics and external perception of the Sicilian capital.

The grant cité of Palermo and the Beginning of the Norman Conquest of Sicily The Latin conquest narratives first mention the city of Palermo shortly before they describe how the Hauteville brothers Robert Guiscard and Roger I landed in Sicily. In the Ystoire de li Normant (Historia Normannorum), Amatus of Montecassino reported that Robert Guiscard was determined to conquer Sicily soon after he was acclaimed duke in Reggio in 1059/1060,13 but was unwilling to launch an expedition before God had signalled his approval.14 Amatus then describes how God’s will was made manifest in the arrival of a certain Vultumine, the amirail of the ʻgrant cité de

10 According to Annliese Nef, ‘[I]t was at the end of the 1030s that Palermo’s role as a capital of Sicily came to an end.’ See Nef, ʻIslamic Palermo’, p. 49. 11 The most comprehensive survey of this period is given by Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 70–87. 12 As for the chronicles, see Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Pontieri; William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu. In the past decade, these accounts have been at the centre of renewed scholarly interest that has resulted in new editions and textual studies: Geoffrey Malaterra, Histoire du Grand Comte Roger et de son frère Robert Guiscard, ed. by Lucas-Avenel (page-numbers for books i and ii are given according to this edition, whilst the pagenumbers for the books iii and iv refer to Pontieri’s edition); Kujawinski, ʻAlla ricerca del contesto’; Kujawinski, ʻSaved in Translation’; as for the long-neglected twelfth-century conquest chronicle known as the Historia Sicula, see Stanton, ʻAnonymous Vaticanus’; Aspinwall and Metcalfe, ʻNorman Identity’. 13 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, iv. 3; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Pontieri, i. 35,; Chronicon monasterii Cassinensis, ed. by Hoffman, p. 707. For the debate concerning the date of this event, see William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, ii. 400–01; Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, p. 190; Deer, Papsttum und Normannen, pp. 112–13. 14 Amatus, Ystoire, v. 7 and v. 8 (n. b.: chronologically, v. 6, p. 392 follows v. 3, pp. 353–54).

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Palerme’ (great city of Palermo), who came from Catania to seek Guiscard’s assistance against the Sarazin Belcho.15 This Vultumine left his son as a sign of his good faith, but was driven from Sicily himself and forced to seek Guiscard’s protection in Reggio.16 Shortly after, Guiscard directed his younger brother Roger I and Geoffrey Ridel to attack the island together with Vultumine.17 A similar account is found in Geoffrey Malaterra’s De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius. The chronicler notes that a certain Betumen (i.e. Vultumine), the admiraldus Siciliae, came to Reggio to seek Norman assistance against a princeps called Belcawed (i.e. Belcho). In this narrative, Betumen enters an alliance with Roger I, not Guiscard.18 Further evidence for this encounter can be found in the Arabic-Islamic record. The thirteenth-century Kitāb kāmil fī l-tarīkh of Ibn al-Athīr reports that Ibn al-Thumna, who is to be identified with Vultumine / Betumen, was one of the rulers (al-quwwād, pl. of al-qāʿid) who dominated fragmented parts of Sicily from about the 1050s.19 Ibn al-Athīr claims that Ibn al-Thumna sought an alliance with the Normans following his defeat by the commander of Agrigento and Castrogiovanni, Ibn al-Ḥawwās, who corresponds to Belcho / Belcawed. While Ibn al-Athīr links Ibn al-Thumna’s rule with Catania, he also suggests that his authority was recognized, or at least in some way promoted in Palermo, where he is said to have had the Friday sermon held in his name.20 It is significant that all accounts contend that the Normans attacked Sicily following Ibn al-Thumna’s invitation. Whilst claims of collaboration between invaders and invaded is a narrative that has frequently been used to justify or, at least, explain large-scale conquests,21 in this example, it carried extra weight given that the Norman conquest chronicles identify Ibn al-Thumna as the leading and rightful ruler of the

15 Amatus Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 8. For a similar account, see Chronica monasterii Casinensis, ed, by Hoffman, p. 734. 16 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 8. 17 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 9–10. On Ibn al-Thumna as a scout and loyal supporter of the Normans, see Johns, Arabic Administration, pp. 32–33; Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 93–95; Birk, Norman Kings of Sicily, pp. 41–48; Wolf, ʻSostegni, saccheggi, schiavi’; Catalioto, ʻNefanda impietas Sarracenorum’. 18 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 3–4. See also the anonymously composed Cronica Roberti Biscardi, which drew on Malaterra’s text. It names Bentantus as the panormitanus princepus and describes how Palermo was the principal seat of the island’s tyrants, see Vat. lat. 6206, fol. 292v, col. I. 19 For the so-called ṭāʾifa-period in Sicily, see Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 83–85. 20 Ibn al-Athīr, Kitāb al-kāmil fī l-tarīkh, ed. by Tornberg, x, 131. In addition, he was called by the title al-qādir bi-llāh which suggests that Ibn al-Thumna was either superior to the other quwwād, or that he at least aspired to such a position, see Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, p. 85; Johns, Arabic Administration, p. 32. 21 On collaboration as a factor of conquest, see e.g. the figure of the rebellious Euphemios in al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab, ed. by Fawwāz and Fawwāz, xxiv, 193–96. As for the figure of Julian and the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, see Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr wa-akhbāruhā, pp. 205–06 and Ibn al-Qūṭiyya, Tarīkh iftitaḥ al-Andalus, ed. by al-Ibyārī, pp. 29–32.

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island. Indeed, the words amirail / admiraldus clearly derive from the Arabic title amīr,22 which designated the leading governing office in Islamic Sicily. In the case of Amatus, the title as well as the seat of the amīr seem to be inextricably connected with Palermo. It is therefore tempting to assume that, despite Sicily’s decline into a number of competing territories, Palermo retained its symbolic importance as the island’s capital and was apparently perceived as the place of legitimate authority over Sicily.

The amirail of Palermo and Guiscard’s Emissary The Normans’ first Sicilian target was the city of Messina.23 Control of this strategic bridgehead between the island and Calabria was essential for supplying any campaign launched from mainland Italy. It is noteworthy that, according to Malaterra, Palermo dispatched an ultimately ineffective fleet to prevent the Norman crossing.24 However, it is unclear as to who held power in Sicily’s capital at this time. Malaterra claims that Ibn al-Thumna’s defeat saw Ibn al-Ḥawwās seize power as admiraldus; according to Amatus, control fell to a certain amirail called Sausane.25 Whilst this name may be an anachronistic reference to the last Kalbid ruler Ṣamṣām al-Dawla, who probably remained active in Palermo until 1052–1053,26 it is intriguing that Amatus states that the amirail Sausane had been ʻeslit’ (elected) in Palermo.27 Based on sporadic references in the documents of the Cairo Geniza as well as in Arabic-Islamic historiography, it has been suggested that an urban council of elders was active in Palermo at this time.28 Scholars disagree on whether such a council operated on an independent urban level, thus replacing a single ruler, or whether the elders were operating alongside such an authority.29

22 Al-Dūrī, ʻAmīr’; Ménager, Amiratus–Ἀμηρᾶς; Takayama, ʻAmiratus in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily’; De Simone, ʻNote sui titoli arabi di Giorgio di Antiochia’; Johns, Arabic Administration. 23 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 5, with the fall of Messina in ii. 10; Amatus, Ystoire ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 10, up until the victorious entry of the duke in v. 19. 24 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii.8. 25 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 8; Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 13, p. 397. 26 Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, p. 84. 27 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 13. 28 See the letter written by a certain Ḥayyim b. ʿAmmār from Palermo who mentions an urban council (šūrā), Cambridge T-S NS J 566, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iv, no. 648, pp. 151–52, here l. 12, p. 152; Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 61, pp. 95–96, here p. 95; as for dating this fragment and Ḥayyim’s activities in Palermo, see Gil, ‘Sicily and its Jews’, pp. 550–52, 554, 556, 573–74; see also the reference to a group of mašāykh (pl. of šaykh) holding power in the city by al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab, ed. by Fawwāz and Fawwāz, xxiv, 207. 29 See Nef, ʻIslamic Palermo’, pp. 49–50; Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 94–95.

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After the capture of Messina in 1061, the Normans advanced into the island’s interior to besiege Ibn al-Ḥawwās at Castrogiovanni. The hilltop fortress had become a refuge for many inhabitants of the surrounding cities and fortresses and was, therefore, overcrowded with people. Following a Norman victory near the Dittaino river,30 Amatus reported that many of the leading Sicilian commanders (caÿte, from al-qāʾid) submitted themselves to Guiscard and presented him with gifts.31 Amongst them, the amirail de Palerme sent messengers to Guiscard laden with silk, linen fabrics, silver and gold vessels, and 80,000 ṭarī as well as mules adorned with precious bridles and saddles.32 Gifts represent an important and highly ritualized practice of diplomacy.33 It may be that the amirail had sought to display his power or had attempted to negotiate a truce with Guiscard. Indeed, Amatus recalls how the duke accepted the gifts and, in return, sent a messenger called Peter to the amirail who rejoiced believing that he had won the duke’s friendship.34 However, Peter, who understood and spoke Arabic,35 was instructed not to reveal his skills, but instead use his knowledge to secretly reconnoitre in Palermo. As such, Guiscard’s embassy represents a significant event in the Ystoire as it describes an intersection between two previously disconnected spheres. On his return, Peter reported that ʻla cité est asoutillié, et ceuz de la cite sont comme lo cors sans l’arme’ (the city is dispirited, and the inhabitants are like a body without means of defence).36 While such statements might well refer to Palermo’s deteriorating political situation, they nonetheless suggest that a form of central authority was still present in the city: indeed, the foremost status of Palermo amongst other Sicilian cities is referred to by the fact that the city’s ruler appears to have been a leading figure amongst other Muslim commanders (one amirail vs several caÿte). In addition, it is also significant that Robert Guiscard sought information about Palermo from the beginning of the Sicilian enterprise. Peter’s sojourn provided crucial insights to this effect and allowed the duke to understand the disposition of Palermo and how provisions were being brought there by sea and by land. From here, Guiscard is said to have withdrawn to Apulia in order to prepare his forces for the capture of Palermo.37

30 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 23; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 16–17. 31 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 23. 32 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 24; Chronica monasterii Casinensis, ed. by Hoffmann, p. 378 stating that ‘a Panormitano admirato dona ingentia recipit’ (he received immense gifts from the Palermitan admiratus). 33 For the importance of gifts in medieval diplomacy, see Davies and Fouracre, eds, Languages of Gift; Bijsterveld, ʻThe Medieval Gift’; Grünbart, ed., Geschenke erhalten die Freundschaft. On Robert Guiscard and the practises of gift-giving, see Cowell, The Medieval Warrior Aristocracy, pp. 37–51. 34 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 24. 35 For Peter, who probably spoke both Greek and Arabic, see Johns, Arabic Administration, p. 33. 36 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 24. 37 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 26.

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The arcadius of Palermo and the Battle of Cerami In the year 1063, the Muslim armies engaged the Normans in a pitched battle near Cerami.38 Geoffrey Malaterra described how the summer heat had forced Roger I to withdraw from raiding near Troina when an army of Muslims attempted to block his retreat. Malaterra notes that this army was not only composed of Sicilian troops, but also of Africani and Arabi who are said to have gathered troops to wage war against the Normans.39 The latter were presumably dispatched by the Zirid ruler of North Africa. In the year 1062, al-Muʿizz b. Bādīs died and was succeeded by his son Tamīm b. al-Muʿizz. Despite the Zirid’s internal political struggle following the Hilālī invasions in Ifrīqiya, Tamīm sent a fleet with troops to Sicily under the leadership of his two sons, ʿAlī and Ayyūb,40 hoping to bring the island under his control.41 At Cerami, the Muslim and Norman armies lay opposite each other for three days with only the river separating them. On the fourth day, the Normans attacked the enemy. Malaterra described how the Muslims were led by an armour-clad commander on horseback, identified as the ʻarcadius de Palerna [sic]’ (commander of Palermo), whom Roger I killed with a single thrust of his lance.42 The Muslim army, greatly disheartened by their arcadius’ death, was slaughtered in the subsequent rout; Malaterra speaks of 20,000 men.43 In the aftermath of the battle, the count sent four camels to Pope Alexander II and, in return, received the apostolic blessing, the absolution of all sins, and a papal banner, the vexillum Sancti Petri.44 Scholars have analysed the Battle of Cerami in terms of Norman–papal relations and shared motifs or literary elements in crusading texts.45 However, the Latin accounts of the Battle of Cerami also reveal important details concerning the organization of the Muslim army and the consequences of its defeat. If Malaterra’s account can be credited, it would appear that the Normans not only removed an important Muslim leader — again associated with Palermo — but also decimated the Muslim field army. According to Ibn al-Athīr, the arrival of Zirid forces under ʿAlī and Ayyūb at Agrigento and Palermo respectively antagonized local Muslim powers: Ibn al-Ḥawwās marched against Ayyūb, but was killed and Ayyūb was proclaimed ruler.46 When exactly and to what extent Ayyūb actually gained control in Palermo and its surrounding area is difficult to assess, as Ibn al-Athīr dates these events only vaguely

38 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 33. 39 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 32, pp. 328–31, here p. 329. For Muslim collaboration at the Battle of Cerami, see Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 95–97. 40 Ibn al-Athīr, Kitāb al-kāmil fī l-tarīkh, ed. by Tornberg, pp. 132–33. 41 For a similar Zirid attempt in the mid-1030s, see Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, p. 81. 42 Geoffrey Malatera, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 33. For a literary discussion of this passage, see Bennett, this volume. 43 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 33. 44 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 33; Becker, Graf Roger I, p. 130. 45 e.g. Chevedden, ʻ“A Crusade from the First”’. 46 Ibn al-Athīr, Al-Kāmil fī l-tarīkh, ed. by Tornberg, x, 132–33.

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between 1062–1063 and 1068–1069.47 However, it is of interest that in the map of Sicily in the Kitāb al-gharāʾib, there is a qalʿa (fortified place) positioned south of Palermo named after a certain Ayyūb who could — given the rare occurrence of the name — possibly be the same Ayyūb b. Tamīm.48 Irrespective of details, it is likely that these dynamics further divided the Muslims and critically weakened Palermo’s resistance defence. Thus, by 1064, even with (or possibly accelerated by49) Zirid reinforcements in Palermo, the city was confronted with increasing internal and external pressures.

A Failed Alliance? The Pisans in Palermo Amatus of Montecassino’s Ystoire did not report on the Battle of Cerami. Instead, he claimed that, while Guiscard was preoccupied with his affairs in Apulia,50 he also knew that he should not give Palermo too much time to recover from its former defeats.51 Convinced that any siege had to prevent the city from being resupplied from the sea, Guiscard sought an alliance with the Pisans to block Palermo’s harbour and destroy its shipping.52 Such a pact would have been of benefit for both parties: the Normans would have been able to remove Zirid resistance based in Palermo and demoralize the city’s inhabitants, while the Pisans could demonstrate their growing influence in the central Mediterranean. Indeed, Amatus describes that the Pisans broke the Palermitan harbour chain, prevented ships from embarking and disembarking, and even conducted small-scale skirmishes on the land. According to the Ystoire, Guiscard rewarded them for their efforts.53 A better-known account of the Pisan attack on Palermo is given by Malaterra. According to the De rebus gestis, the Pisans sailed to Sicily following the victory at Cerami and met Roger I in Troina, where they proposed a joint strike against Palermo. Roger prevaricated, and so the Pisans took unilateral action to avenge past injuries. Malaterra notes that the Pisans broke Palermo’s harbour chain, a feat which — he ironically notes — they inflated as if it was a great victory. He further tempers his praise by noting that the Pisans were mere traders and unreliable

47 See Ibn al-Athīr, Al-Kāmil fī l-tarīkh, ed. by Tornberg, p. 133. 48 Book of Curiosities, pp. 138–39 with no. [044] for qal‘at Ayyūb. Alex Metcalfe has pointed out to me that this would fit or, at least, not contradict the Kitāb al-kāmil fī l-tarīkh, in so far as the ʻqalʿa’ on the map is situated en-route between Palermo and Agrigento, probably leading towards Palermo via the citadel al-Khāliṣa. 49 This was also the case when the Zirids had intervened in Palermo in the 1030s and the city was plunged into large-scale internal conflicts, see Ibn al-Athīr, Kitāb al-kāmil fī l-tarīkh, ed. by Tornberg, pp. 130–31; Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, p. 81. 50 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 25–28. 51 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 26. 52 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 28, pp. 410–11, here p. 410. 53 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 28.

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allies who, too afraid to leave their ships, were more interested in raiding than in conquering.54 While Malaterra does not date the event, scholarship on Sicily has often assumed that the Pisan attack took place in the year 1063 and was of little significance.55 It is worth reconsidering both assumptions. The Pisan historiography and a twelfth-century inscription on the commune’s cathedral remember the Palermitan enterprise as an important event.56 They record how the Pisans attacked Palermo, broke its harbour chain, and captured six large ships laden with treasures. The inscription further states that they plundered one of the ships, sold its goods, and then burned the remaining ships. The riches of this victory must have been considerable: the booty is said to have funded the construction of Pisa’s cathedral.57 The date of the Pisan expedition is given as: ANNO QUO CHRISTUS DE VIRGINE NATUS AB ILLO / TRANSIERANT MILLE DECIES SEX TRESQUE SUBINDE In the year, after 1063 years had passed in which Christ had been born by the Virgin58 This Pisan style of dating designates the common year 1064 (stilus communis).59 As such, it carries important implications concerning Malaterra’s interpretation of a failed Norman assault on Palermo which he describes following the chapter on the Pisan enterprise.60 According to the De rebus gestis, Guiscard brought several hundred men to Sicily to attack Palermo with his brother in 1064, presumably during summer. Upon his arrival, Guiscard arranged his troops on a mountain which was allegedly infested with flatulence-inducing spiders. The beleaguered Normans were forced to move their camp. From a new position, they besieged the city for three months. They achieved nothing and finally abandoned the siege.61 It appears significant that the Pisan sources claim that their attack on Palermo occurred on the day of St Agapitus which falls on 18 August.62 This dating suggests that it is not impossible that the Pisan attack and the Norman siege overlapped at some point. Under such circumstances, Malaterra’s description of the Pisan emissary

54 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 34. 55 See e.g. Stanton, Medieval Maritime Warfare, p. 113; Birk, Norman Kings of Sicily, p. 49; Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, p. 157. 56 Annales Pisani di Maragone, ed. by Lupo Gentile, p. 5. As for the inscription, see the study of von der Höh, Erinnerungskultur, pp. 346–7; see furthermore, Annales Pisani Antiquissimi, ed. by Novati; Cronicon Pisanum, ed. by Gentile, pp. 100–02, here p. 101. 57 Von der Höh, Erinnerungskultur, pp. 346–47. 58 Von der Höh, Erinnerungskultur, p. 353 with nn. 4–6. 59 Scalia, ʻL’impresa pisana del 1064’. 60 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 35, pp. 346–49, here p. 347. 61 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 36. 62 In the Antico Calendario della Chiesa Pisana, St Agapitus is mentioned twice: Once on 18 August and once together with Sixtus and Felicissimus on 6 August: ʻAugusti […] VIII. Idus Xisti, Felicissimi et Agapiti et Transfiguratio Domini’, see Sainati, Diario sacro pisano, p. 261.

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and the ill-fated Norman siege may disguise a short-lived alliance between the two parties. Such a hypothesis might well explain why Malaterra went to such lengths to discredit the Pisans and chose to include a colourful explanation as to why the Norman expedition failed. Furthermore, it should be noted that the Pisans attacked Palermo from ʻQUA FLUVII CURSU(m) MARE SENTIT SOLIS AD ORTUM’ (where the course of the river reaches the sea at sunrise).63 The description of such a river undoubtedly describes the Wādī ʿAbbās / Oreto in the south-east of the city. This would imply that Palermo suffered a twofold assault, namely on both the harbour and the city’s outskirts around the Oreto. From the Oreto, the Pisans could have attacked the suburban quarters of Palermo (such as the Ḥāra al-Jadīda, the New Quarter) and the purpose-built citadel of the Fatimid’s governors, al-Khāliṣa, on one side of the river’s mouth; a fortified Kalbid castle and a watch-tower on the other side of the Wādī ʿAbbās.64 Thus, the Pisans would have targeted an area that was rich in portable wealth and central to the defence, power, and representation of the city.65 As such, their assault could have been more strategical and serious than has previously been assumed. In addition to this evidence, two letters of the Cairo Geniza report that Palermo witnessed large-scale disruption following the events in the harbour. In a letter dated to 23 Elul, the last month of the Jewish year that falls into late summer, Salāma b. Mūsā b. Isaac al-Safāquṣī reports from Mazara on how trade and business conditions had severely deteriorated in Palermo. Within the past year, the selling and buying of goods had stagnated and forced the merchant to relocate.66 Remembering his arrival in the city, he notes how ships surrounded Palermo’s walls and how no money was left in the city. This was on the day of ʻyaum raʾs al-sana’,67 the Jewish New Year’s Day on 1 Tishri, which, in 1064, would have fallen on 14 September. Later in that document, he also reports on an incident in which ships in the Palermitan harbour were burnt.68 Another letter, written in Jerusalem on 28 Tishri of presumably the same year, reports on recent and first-hand information concerning Palermo. Its author Avon b. Ṣadaqa, remarks how he had learned that ships in Palermo had burnt in the city’s port.69 The dating of both letters is problematic as only the day and the month are indicated.

63 Von der Höh, Erinnerungskultur, pp. 346–47. 64 For a topographic description in the Arabic sources, see Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb sūrat al-arḍ, ed. by De Goeje and Kramers, pp. 119–20 and p. 123; al-Muqaddasī, Kitāb aḥsan at-taqāsīm, ed. by De Goeje, pp. 321–22; Book of Curiosities, p. 464 and p. 138; see also Jäckh, ʻSpace and Place’, pp. 72–76; Spatafora and Canzonieri, ʻAl-Khāliṣa’. 65 As for the importance of this area, see Jäckh, ʻWater and Wealth’. 66 Philadelphia, Dropsie College 389; Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iv, no. 751, pp. 453–74; for the English translations, see Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 151, pp. 332–44. 67 Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iv, no. 751, fol. 1a, line 25–6, p. 457. 68 Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iv, no. 751, fol. 1b, line 47, p. 471. 69 Cambridge, T-S 10 J 5.10; Palestine, iii, no. 500, pp. 233–42, here line 20–21, retrieved from Geniza Princeton Lab: (last accessed 6 August 2019); Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 153, pp. 346–51, here p. 347. The letter has been dated to the 11 November 1064, however, in that year 28 Tishri would have fallen on 11 October ( Julian calendar!) which is supported by the author’s reference (line 2) to have written on a Monday.

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However, given they both refer to similar events happening in the harbour during Tishri, they may allude to the Pisan attack in 1064.70 This episode, again, would highlight the continued importance of Palermo, as a political and military basis, and also as a hub for trade and a place of portable wealth. The Pisan attack — one of the commune’s first naval enterprises against Muslim territories71 — allows for a number of inferences concerning whether assaults on the city were motivated not only by rivalry amongst Mediterranean trading cities, but also for its symbolic standing as Sicily’s capital.

Palermo without a Ruler? Meanwhile, Amatus of Montecassino records how Guiscard seized cities in Apulia in order to gather a fleet which would allow him to besiege Palermo from both land and sea. Here, Amatus implies that Guiscard’s attack on the port of Otranto was an attempt to enhance Norman naval capacity and provide access to both ship building facilities and trained crews.72 It is possible that similar considerations influenced the Norman decision to take Bari, the last Byzantine bastion of Apulia. Indeed, the siege of Bari witnessed the Normans’ first large-scale naval engagement.73 As William of Apulia suggested, this experience would prove a useful test for their subsequent siege of Palermo.74 In the years after 1064, Roger remained in Sicily and weakened the island’s western territories with numerous raids. At the same time, the Sicilians decided to take united action against the Normans. When Roger was raiding the hinterland of Palermo in 1068, he was suddenly attacked at Misilmeri, about 16 kilometres from the capital, with an army recruited from ʻundique’ (every possible place). In the subsequent engagement, the Muslims suffered a devastating defeat.75 The Norman victory at Misilmeri may have heralded the end of Zirid involvement in Sicily.76 By 1069, Ayyūb had withdrawn the Zirid fleet to Ifrīqiya.77 According to

70 Moshe Gil has linked these testimonies to the Norman conquest of Palermo, see Gil, ʻJews in Islamic Countries’, pp. 556–57; however, a recent article by Mandalà, which was published after this manuscript had already been submitted, came to similar conclusions to the present chapter: see Mandalà, ʻL’incursione’. 71 Later campaigns included an attack on al-Mahdiyya in 1087, see Cowdrey, ʻThe Mahdia Campaign of 1087’ and the famous ʻCarmen in victoriam Pisanorum’ (Song on the occasion of the victory of the Pisans). 72 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 26. 73 For the siege of Bari, see Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, v. 27; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 40. 74 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, iii. 189–91; Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 133–37; Stanton, Maritime Maritime Warfare, pp. 52–53. 75 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 41 and ii. 42. 76 As for the later Norman-Zirid encounters and Norman activity in North Africa, see King, ʻHoly War’, this volume. 77 Ibn al-Athīr, Kitāb al-kāmil fī l-tarīkh, ed. by Tornberg, p. 133.

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Ibn al-Athīr, members of Palermo’s foremost civil and military elite followed suit.78 The Arabic-Islamic sources, however, make no reference to the battle at Misilmeri. Instead, they suggest that Ayyūb’s withdrawal followed a conflict that arose between the Palermitans (ʻthe people of the city’) and the Zirid army (ʻthe slaves of Tamīm’).79 Ibn al-Athīr reported that these inner-urban clashes saw the rise of a certain Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ.80 While there is not enough information to reconstruct the precise chronology, it is possible that such events even preceded the Battle of Misilmeri: in a speech placed in the mouth of Roger, Malaterra refers to a dux who had become the new leader of the Muslims.81 The documents of the Cairo Geniza provide further information on Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ.82 In a letter from Tinnīs dated to c. 1068, Bishr b. Daʿūd asked Nehorai b. Nissim at Fusṭāṭ about shipping between western Sicily and North Africa.83 Here, Bishr refers to the island’s deteriorating conditions and may have alluded to an exodus of certain groups of Palermo’s Jewish and Muslim populations. Bishr was also keen to hear news concerning whether his master, Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ (who, he notes, was on his way to Alexandria), had fled Sicily or only travelled. Significantly, Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ also appears in other Geniza documents: between 1056 and 1071, Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ (also called ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad) is mentioned in more than a dozen cases.84 During these years

78 Ibn al-Athīr, Kitāb al-kāmil fī l-tarīkh, ed. by Tornberg, p. 133. See also Gil, Muslim Rule, p. 557, who refers to the high costs of fleeing. This is probably also referenced by Mosseri Collection, ii, 128 (L130) 2, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iii, no. 460, pp. 533–38, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 158, pp. 365–68. 79 Ibn al-Athīr, Al-Kāmil fī l-tarīkh, ed. by Tornberg, p. 133. 80 It has been suggested that Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ began his career in the service of Tamīm al-Muʿizz, but later sought the protection of the Fatimids, see Gil, Muslim Rule, p. 558; Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 97–99. 81 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 41, pp. 368–69, here p. 369: ʻSi ducem mutaverunt […], ejusdem nationis, qualitatis, sed et religionis est cuius et caeteri sunt’ (If they have changed their leader […] they are still the same people, of the same quality and also of the same religion as the others). This was noted by Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, p. 98 and p. 110 n. 19. 82 For the evaluation of this source material, its chronology, and prosopography, I rely on the studies of Gil, Muslim Rule, pp. 558–62 and Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily. 83 Cambridge, T-S 12.386, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iv, no. 695, pp. 306–09, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 161, pp. 375–77. 84 As for references to Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ in the Geniza, see Cambridge T-S 8 J 24.21, fol. 1a, 10, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iv, no. 622, pp. 194–97, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 93, pp. 176–78 [c. 1052]; St Petersburg, Asiatic Institute V A 70, fol. 1b, 6–8, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, v, no. 789, pp. 570–75, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, n. 104, pp. 206–09 [c. 1055]; Cambridge T-S K 2.32, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iii, no. 354, pp. 163–70, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 106 pp. 213–17 [summer 1055]; Budapest, David Kaufmann Coll. 22 (new 230d), Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iii, no. 561, pp. 854–63, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 109, pp. 224–29 [summer 1056]; Cambridge T-S 16.179, fol. 1a, 47, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iv, no. 619, pp. 48–51, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 122, pp. 255–61 [c. 1058]; New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, Adler Coll. 1822a, fol. 9, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, ii, no. 294, pp. 885–90, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 139, pp. 296–98 [c. 1060‒1061]; Oxford, Bodl. MS Heb. c. 28.61, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iii, no. 576, pp. 914–20, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 156, pp. 356–60 [c. 1065]; Mosseri Collection ii, 128 (L130)2, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iii, no. 460, pp. 533–38, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 158, pp. 365–8 [c. 1065‒1071]; Cambridge, T-S 12.386, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iv, no. 695, pp. 306–09, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 161, pp. 375–77 [c. 1068]; Cambridge T-S 16.13, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iv, no. 654, pp. 167–72, Simonsohn,

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Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ, who might have been of Jewish decent,85 rose from an established merchant to a person of considerable political influence reaching the height of his power in around 1068. In a fragmentary letter dated to c. 1069, Faraḥ b. Joseph al-Qābisī reports that Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ had returned from Alexandria.86 Importantly, one section of this letter reads: ʻIbn al-Baʿbāʿ is the sulṭān and he has killed the Sicilian quwwād, and he defeated the enemy.’87 A few days later Faraḥ b. Joseph sent another letter which confirmed that Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ had become sulṭān.88 If Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ had indeed gained power in the city, the precise details concerning his role or competences remain uncertain. Aside from the letters of the Cairo Geniza, another source to report on his career is the thirteenth-century history of Sibṭ b. al-Jawzī which claims that Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ became Palermo’s governor in the late 1060s, but was unable to pay a monetary debt to the Fatimids in the year 463 (October 1070–September 1071),89 and so opened Palermo’s gates to the Normans, who would later kill him.90 This latter interpretation of events clashes with the Latin accounts which report that, after a long siege, a group of representatives (referred to as caÿte or primores) negotiated the surrender of Palermo on oath in accordance with their law.91 It is unclear whether Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ would have been amongst them. Nonetheless, the suggestion that the Normans negotiated with a body of Palermitans, rather than a single figure of executive authority, can be used to complement a broader body of evidence which suggests that the rise of Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ may have coincided with the emergence of a mercantile community which sought to develop a semi-independent form of urban self-government.92

Jews in Sicily, no. 162, pp. 377–81 [c. 1069]; Oxford Bodl. MS Heb.d. 76.59, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iii, no. 519, pp. 733–35, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 163, pp. 381–82 [c. 1069]; Cambridge T-S Misc. 28.235, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iii, no. 520, pp. 736–39, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 164, pp. 383–85 [c. 1069]. 85 As for the hints to Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ’s Jewish background, see Gil, Muslim Rule, p. 559; Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, p. 98. 86 Oxford Bodl. MS Heb.d. 76.59, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iii, no. 519, pp. 733–35, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 163, pp. 381–82. 87 Oxford Bodl. MS Heb.d. 76.59, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iii, no. 519, here line 5, p. 519, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 163, here p. 382. 88 Cambridge T-S Misc. 28.235, Be-malkūt, ed. by Gil, iii, no. 520, pp. 736–39, here line 1 (‫)ב״ע‬, p. 738, Simonsohn, Jews in Sicily, no. 164, pp. 383–85, here p. 384. 89 For Moshe Gil, it is possible that he was supported and financed by the Jewish population under the nominal authority of the Fatimids, see Gil, Muslim Rule, p. 562. 90 Ṣibṭ b. al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān, ed. by Amari and Rizzitano, p. 380. 91 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, vi. 19; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 45, pp. 382–87, here p. 385. Furthermore, the idea of killing Ibn al-Baʿbāʿ seems unlikely given that the Latin conquest chronicles report several instances in which the Normans were willing to accommodate and collaborate with former elites, see e.g. the case of Chamutus-Ḥammūd, the qāʾid of Castrogiovanni, who was relocated to Calabria, see Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Pontieri, iv. 5–6, p. 88; see also Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 100–02. 92 Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 97–99; Nef, ʻIslamic Palermo’, pp. 49–51, particularly p. 50 n. 57. See also Amabe, Urban Autonomy, pp. 14 and 114 with nn. 33 and 123.

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If such processes had occurred in Palermo,93 it seems even more significant that — in the years leading to the Norman conquest — the titles or offices previously identified with the city cease to be attributed to Palermo within the Latin chronicles. Such omissions may not only reflect Palermo’s inner-urban developments but may also be important indicators as to the city’s new status in relation to the rest of the island. With the Norman advances of the 1060s having seized much of Sicily from Muslim control, Palermo’s territorial sway was diminished, and it was increasingly difficult for the city to exercise political, military, and symbolical influence beyond its hinterland. Even if notions of internal reorganization or transformation came to an abrupt halt with the Norman conquest of Palermo, it may be that these brief years marked a more serious political transformation than has previously been acknowledged.

The Norman Conquest and Transformation of Islamic Palermo The Norman capture and subsequent transformation of Palermo is one of the most extensively described events in all the Latin conquest narratives. Here, the Gesta Roberti Wiscardi of William of Apulia, which up until this point had not considered the Sicilian campaign, extensively reports on these events alongside the Ystoire and the De rebus gestis.94 After the successful conquest of Bari, Roger and his troops approached Palermo from the eastern hinterland whilst Guiscard reached the city via the sea. They first took control of the area around the Oreto river.95 From here, the Normans broke into a part of the city which was identified as ʻurbs exterior / nova’ (the outer / new city) and, as such, possibly referred to the walled complex of al-Khāliṣa.96 With this attack, the Normans would have penetrated the former heart of Kalbid authority and administration. Although the function of this space is not discussed in the Latin chronicles, Malaterra notes that it was from this place that the city’s priores negotiated their legal status before submitting Palermo to the Norman conquerors.97 Thus, after a siege that stretched over several months, Sicily’s capital finally had fallen to Norman forces by 1072. 93 If such developments were reflected in the political rise of urban elites of both merchants and nobles, Palermo’s dynamics could have shared a number of important characteristics with other port or trading cities of the time. A notable example of semi-independent urban government amongst merchant elites and a council of notables (shūrā) in the central Mediterranean would be the case of Tripoli, which has been analysed by Brett, ʻThe City-State in Medieval Ifriqiya’. 94 See William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, iii. 204–343. 95 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, vi. 16. 96 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 45, pp. 382–87, here p. 382; William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, iii. 29. Jäckh, ʻSpace and Place’, pp. 72–76. This view was rejected by Ruggero Longo who opts for an identification with the Ḥāra al-Jadīda, see Longo, ʻThe First Norman Cathedral’, pp. 20–22. 97 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 45, pp. 382–87, here p. 385; William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, iii. 320.

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Concerning the strategies which the Normans employed to implement their rule in Palermo, it is interesting to note that — in contrast to other Sicilian cities conquered by the Normans — they not only immediately established physical structures such as fortifications and churches, but also revived or adapted certain offices connected to them. According to Amatus, Roger was the first to enter the city and was received by a group of urban representatives.98 Thereafter, the victors paraded through the city to the Friday mosque.99 Here, the Normans presented themselves as restorers of the Christian faith while re-shaping Palermo’s urban spaces: firstly, the mosque was appropriated. For the conquest chroniclers, this happened because a place of Christian worship was needed, and also because the space had once belonged to the Christians in pre-Islamic times.100 Amatus of Montecassino reports how a weeping Robert Guiscard restored the church which, during the Islamic period, was said to have been the scene of celestial lights and angelic voices.101 Geoffrey Malaterra records how the Normans dedicated the Palermitan cathedral to the sanctissima Dei Genetrix Maria.102 Furthermore, a Greek bishop — who previously served in a small church outside the city — was brought into Palermo and installed in the cathedral where mass was duly celebrated.103 This appointment of an archbishop in Palermo is the first example of an episcopal see in post-Islamic Sicily.104 As such, the basis for Palermo as the religious centre of Norman Sicily was founded, although this see would only be integrated into the Sicilian metropolitan structure after the creation of the kingdom.105 Furthermore, the Normans also emphasized their claims to political and military mastery. For this purpose, the conquerors, who only comprised a minority population in Palermo, immediately (re)constructed fortifications to consolidate their power.106 The only source to localize the Norman strongholds is the mid twelfth-century Historia Sicula. Its author records that the Normans imposed their dominion with the fortification of two castles: ʻAlterum iuxta mare, alterum a loco qui dicitur Galca’ (one nearby the sea, the other in a place which is called Galca).107 The castrum iuxta 98 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, vi. 19. 99 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, vi. 19. 100 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 45; William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, iii. 332–36. 101 Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, vi. 2. 102 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 45; William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, iii. 334; Anonymi Historia, ed. by Muratori, col. 765; this view was shared by Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb sūrat al-arḍ, p. 119, ed. by De Goeje and Kramers; al-Muqaddasī, Kitāb aḥsan at-taqāsīm, ed. by De Goeje, p. 225. 103 Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 45; Nikodemos is later mentioned in a charter of Roger I dating to the year 1093, see Documenti latini e greci, no. 27, pp. 125–26. 104 Becker, Graf Roger I, pp. 168–72; Italia Pontificia, x, no. 19, p. 228, no. 20, p. 229. The earliest foundation-document of a bishopric is Troina in 1080, see Documenti latini e greci, ed. by Becker, no. 2, pp. 40–43 and no. 5, pp. 49–52. 105 See Becker, Graf Roger I, pp. 168–72. 106 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, iii. 337; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 45; Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, vi. 23. 107 Anonymus Vaticanus, Histora Sicula, col. 765.

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mare probably refers to the later Castellammare, a fortified structure which guarded the northern entrance to the port from the Islamic period.108 The castellum in loco qui dicitur Galca can be identified as the site of the later royal palace which had intermittently functioned as a seat of authority since antiquity.109 In addition, William of Apulia states that an amiratus was engaged to rule the city.110 The use of the term amiratus in the Geste as well as in early ducal documents111 suggests that, due to the demands of the post-conquest settlement, the immediate tendency was to at least nominally adopt some of the administrative practices of their predecessors.112 In this context, it is interesting to note that the conquest chronicles perceived the office and authority of amīr to be located in Palermo, even if — by the time of the conquest — it had probably fallen into disuse several years earlier.113 However, the office of amīr and the city of Palermo would remain connected with one another into the twelfth century.114

Palermo as a Norman Capital As far as Palermo’s further development is concerned, it is important to stress that the city, together with the Val Demone in the north-east of the island, was assigned to Guiscard.115 The Val Demone, with its connection to the Calabrian mainland, was not only of strategic importance but also already largely under Norman control at that time. In the case of Palermo, one may assume that the duke wanted to reserve the most important city of the island, which clearly was associated with power

108 With the discovery of the Book of Curiosities, we can also assume that a fort next to the harbour existed in Islamic times, see Book of Curiosities, p. 464. 109 For a detailed study on the palace, see Longo, ʻ“In loco qui dicitur Galca”’. 110 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, iii. 340–43. 111 As for the first Palermitan amiratus Peter Vidone, see Ménager, Amiratus–Ἀμηρᾶς, pp. 181–84; Documenti latini e greci, ed, by Becker, no. 6, pp. 53–55; von Falkenhausen, ʻAncora sul monastero’; pp. 40–45. 112 This is also evident in the coinage of 1072, which was minted in Arabic. They display a mixed form of Islamic-style practice with Arabic transliterations of the Latin titles (al-dūqa for dux, al-qūmis for comes) and also contain Islamic verses, or the creed (shahāda); Travaini, La monetazione, pp. 109–10 and pp. 398–99 with n. 61; Johns, ʻI titoli arabi’, pp. 11–54. For the amiratus’ responsibilities which partially mirror those of the strategoi in other conquered cities, see von Falkenhausen, ʻLa tecnica dei notai italo greci’; ʻI funzionari greci’; ʻPrima del palazzo’. 113 William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti, ed. by Mathieu, iii. 340–43; on the later development of the admiral’s office with its multiple responsibilities, see Johns, Arabic Administration, pp. 68–69; Ménager, Amiratus–Ἀμηρᾶς; Takayama, ʻAmiratus in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily’; De Simone, ʻNote sui titoli arabi’. 114 With the exemption of Roger I’s emir Eugenios who was active in Troina, all of them would be strongly connected with Palermo; von Falkenhausen, ʻI funzionari greci’, see pp. 175–77; von Falkenhausen, ʻTesto e contesto’. 115 Amatus noted that Robert kept half of the city, while Malaterra suggested that Guiscard retained Palermo entirely for himself, see Amatus, Ystoire, ed. by Guéret-Laferté, vi. 21; Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Lucas-Avenel, ii. 45.

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and prestige, for himself and his heirs. Roger I was to hold the rest of the island — large parts of which had yet to be conquered. This arrangement would define the immediate post-conquest settlement as well as the long-term development of Norman Palermo. In order to organize the city after the conquest, Guiscard remained in Palermo for several months. He was, however, soon drawn back to Southern Italy and even prepared for an expedition against Byzantium.116 His son and successor Roger Borsa sporadically resided in Palermo during the 1080s, but was again distracted by a rebellious mainland.117 When Roger I began to distribute the conquered land of Sicily after the last stronghold of Muslim resistance had fallen in 1091, Palermo was not part of his dominion and, therefore, could not be integrated into his designs of the comital re-organization of the island.118 As such, early Norman Palermo was not only a remote part of the duchy, but — due to ducal claims — also somewhat disconnected from the developments in comital Sicily. When Roger I repeatedly supported his nephew against rebellions on the Italian mainland in the 1090s, Roger Borsa granted him shared rule (condominium) over Palermo in return — an arrangement which led to tensions between the two branches.119 In fact, it is tempting to suspect that it was this period which critically disrupted Palermo’s status as the island’s capital. This appears to owe much to the way in which its administration and governance became increasingly condensed around other urban centres such as Troina, Mileto, or Salerno, whilst claims to Palermo were disputed. As Vera von Falkenhausen has noted, it is perhaps no coincidence that the resurgence of Palermo as a centre of power and government occurred at the same time in which the balances of power between the comital and ducal line shifted: shortly after Roger Borsa’s death, Roger II claimed power in Palermo and his activity and representation in the city increased significantly.120 For such reasons, Alexander may have been right to stress the importance of Palermo for Roger II’s accession and rule. However, for scholars to interpret his statement as indicative of Palermo’s discontinuity as a capital from the time of the mid-eleventh century, would be to approach capital cities from the perspective of a single figure of executive authority, whether amīrs or kings, alone. However, even without an urban residing ruler, Palermo retained both centrality and symbolic meaning throughout the crises of the Norman conquest period. With an eye to such dynamics, the periodization for the fracture points in Palermo’s tradition as a capital can be further differentiated and reconsidered.

116 Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 209–22. 117 See the analysis of these poorly documented, yet formative years on the mainland, Loud, ʻThe Nobility of Norman Italy, c. 1085–1127’, this volume. 118 Becker, Graf Roger I, pp. 77–93. 119 Becker, Graf Roger I, pp. 203–31. 120 Von Falkenhausen, ʻZur Regentschaft der Gräfin Adelasia’, p. 94.

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Works Cited Manuscripts, Archival Sources, & Other Unedited Material Budapest, David Kaufmann Coll. 22 (new 230d) Cambridge, Mosseri Collection II, 128 (L130) 2 Cambridge, T-S 12.386 Cambridge, T-S 16.179 Cambridge, T-S 8 J 24.21 Cambridge, T-S 10 J 5.10 Cambridge, T-S Misc. 28.235 Cambridge, T-S K 2.32 Cambridge, T-S 16.13 Cambridge, T-S NS J 566 Città della Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 6206 New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, Adler Coll. 1822a.9 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley Heb. c. 28.61 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Heb. d. 76.59 Philadelphia, Dropsie College 389 St Petersburg, Asiatic Institute V A 70 Primary Sources Alexander of Telese, De rebus gestis Rogerii Siciliae regis, ed. by Ludovica De Nava and comm. by Dione Clementi, Fonti per la storia d’Italia, 112 (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1992) Amatus of Montecassino, Ystoire de li Normant. Édition du manuscript BnF fr. 688, ed. by Michèle Guéret-Laferté, Les classiques frainçais du Moyen Âge, 166 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2011) Annales Pisani Antiquissimi, ‘Un nuovo testo degli “Annales Pisani Antiquissimi” et le prime lotte di Pisa contro gli arabi’, ed. by Francesco Novati, in Centenario della nascita di Michele Amari, vol. 2 (Palermo: Virzi, 1910), pp. 11–20 Annales Pisani di Maragone, ed. by Michele Lupo Gentile, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 6.2 (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1930‒36) Anonymi Historia Sicula a Normannis ad Petrum Aragonensem, ed. by Ludovico Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 8 (Milan: S. Lapi, 1726), cols 744–80 Be-malkhut Yishmaʿel bi-teḳufat ha-geʾonim (= In the Kingdom of Ishmael), vols 2–4, Publications of the Diaspora Research Institute, 118–20, ed. by Moshe Gil (Tel-Aviv / Jerusalem: Graphit, 1997) Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, ed. by Hartmut Hoffmann, MGH SS, 34 (Hanover: Hahn’sche Buchhandlung, 1980) Cronicon Pisanum seu fragmentum auctoris incerti, ed. Michele Lupo Gentile, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 6.2(Bologna: Zanichelli, 1930‒36)

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Documenti latini e greci del conte Ruggero I di Calabria e Sicilia, ed. by Julia Becker, Ricerche dell’Istituto Storico Germanico di Roma, 9 (Rome: Viella, 2013) Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi Ducis fratris eius, ed. by Ernesto Pontieri, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 5.1 (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1925–1928) —, Histoire du Grand Comte Roger et de son frère Robert Guiscard, vol. 1: lib. 1 & 2, ed. by Marie-Agnès Lucas-Avenel, Fontes & Paginæ (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2016) Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Futūḥ Miṣr wa-aḫbāruhā, ed. by Charles Torrey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1922) Ibn al-Athīr, Al-Kāmil fī l-tarīkh, ed. by Carolus Tornberg, vol. 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1864) Ibn al-Qūṭiyya, Tarīkh iftitaḥ al-Andalus, ed. by Ibrāhīm al-Ibyārī (Cairo: Dār al-Kitāb alMiṣrī, 1989) Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb Ṣūrat al-arḍ, Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum 2a), ed. by Michael J. De Goeje and Johannes H. Kramers, 2nd edn (Leiden: Brill, 1938) Italia Pontificia sive Repertorium privilegiorum et litterarum a Romanis pontificibus ante annum MCLXXXXVIII Italiae ecclesiis, monasteriis, civitatibus singulisque personis concessorum, vol. x: Calabria – Insulae, ed. by Dieter Girgensohn, Regesta pontificum romanorum (Zurich: Weidmann, 1975) Leo Marsicanus and Petrus Diaconus, Chronicon monasterii Cassinense III, 15, ed. by Wilhelm Wattenbach, MGH SS 7 (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1846), pp. 551–844 Al-Muqaddasī, Kitāb aḥsan at-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm, ed. by Michael J. De Goeje, Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum, 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1877) Al-Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab, ed. by Naǧīb Muṣṭafā Fawwāz and Ḥikmat Kashlī Fawwāz, vol. 24 (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2004) Rogerii secundi regis diplomata Latina, ed. by Carlrichard Brühl, Codex diplomaticus Regni Siciliae Ser. 1, t. 2,1 (Cologne: Böhler, 1987) Ṣibṭ b. al-Jawzī, Mirʾāt al-zamān, ed. by Kāmil Salmān al-Ǧubūrī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʻIlmīya, 2013) —, Mirʾāt al-zamān, in Biblioteca Arabo-Sicula. Ossia raccolta di testi Arabici che toccano la geografia, la storia le biografie e la bibliografia della Sicilia, ed. by Michele Amari and Umberto Rizzitano, vol. 1, 2nd edn (Palermo: Accademia nazionale di scienze lettere e arti, 1988) Simonsohn, Shlomo, ed. and trans., The Jews in Sicily, vol. 1: 383–1300, Studia post-biblica, 48.3 (Leiden: Brill, 1997) ʻTheodosii Monachi Epistola’, ed. by Ottavio Gaetani, in Historiae Saracenico-Siculae, ed. by Giovanni Battista Caruso (Palermo: Typographia regia, 1720), pp. 23–31 William of Apulia, [Gesta Roberti Wiscardi] La geste de Robert Guiscard. Édition, traduction, commentaire et introduction, ed. by Marguerite Mathieu (Palermo: Istituto siciliano di studi bizantini e neoellenici, 1961) An Eleventh-Century Egyptian Guide to the Universe. The ʻBook of Curiosities’, ed. by Yossef Rapoport, Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science, 87 (Leiden: Brill, 2014)

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—, ʻPalermo nei geografi e viaggiatori arabi del medioevo’, Studi magrebini, 2 (1968), 129–89 Deer, Josef, Papsttum und Normannen. Untersuchungen zu ihren lehnsrechtlichen und kirchenpolitischen Beziehungen, Studien und Quellen zur Welt Kaiser Friedrichs II, 1 (Cologne: Böhlau, 1972) Al-Dūrī, ʻAbd al-ʻAzīz ʻAmīr’, in Encyclopedia of Islam, ed. by P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, and W.P. Heinrichs 2nd edn, vol. 1 (Brill: Leiden, 2012): A‒B, pp. 438–39. Falkenhausen, Vera von, ʻAncora sul monastero greco di S. Nicola dei Drosi (prov. Vibo Valentia). Edizione degli atti pubblici (secoli XI‒XII)’, Archivio storico per la Calabria e la Lucania, 79 (2013), 37–7 —, 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. by Mario Re, and Cristina Rognoni (Palermo: Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoclassici Bruno Lavagnini 2009), pp. 165–202 —, ʻPrima del palazzo: Adelasia e Cristodulo a Palermo’, in Il Palazzo Disvelato, Il Palazzo Reale di Palermo e altri centri del potere nel Mediterraneo medievale, Atti del Convegno, Palermo 26–29 giugno 2018, ed. by Maria Andaloro and Ruggero Longo [forthcoming] —, ʻLa 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. by Filippo Burgarella and Anna Maria Ieraci Bio (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino 2006), pp. 9–57 —, ʻTesto e contesto: un κατόνομα inedito della contessa Adelasia per il monastero di Bagnara (settembre 1111)’, in Ingenita curiositas ‒ Studi sull’Italia medievale per Giovanni Vitolo, ed. by Bruno Figliuolo, Rosalba Di Meglio, and Antonella Ambrosio (Battipaglia: Laveglia & Carlone, 2018), pp. 1273–1290 —, ʻZur Regentschaft der Gräfin Adelasia del Vasto in Kalabrien und Sizilien (1101–1112)’, in Aetos. Studies in Honour of Cyril Mango Presented to Him on April 14, 1998, ed. by Ihor Sevcenko and Irmgard Hutter (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1998), pp. 87–115 Gil, Moshe, ‘Sicily and its Jews in the Light of the Geniza Documents and Parallel Sources (827–1072)’, in Jews in Islamic Countries in the Middle Ages, vol. 3, ed. by Moshe Gil, transl. by David Strassler, Études sur le Judaïsme medieval, 28 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 535–93 Grünbart, Michael ed., Geschenke erhalten die Freundschaft. Gabentausch und Netzwerkpflege im europäischen Mittelalter. Akten des Internationalen Kolloquiums Münster, 19.‒20. November 2009, Byzantinische Studien und Texte, 1 (Berlin / Münster: LIT Verlag, 2011) Höh, Marc von der, Erinnerungskultur und frühe Kommune: Formen und Funktionen des Umgangs mit der Vergangenheit im hochmittelalterlichen Pisa (1050‒1150), Hallische Beiträge zur Geschichte des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit, 3 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag 2006) Jäckh, Theresa, ʻSpace and Place in Norman Palermo’, in Urban Dynamics and Transcultural Communication in Medieval Sicily, Mittelmeerstudien 17, ed. by Theresa Jäckh and Mona Kirsch (Paderborn: Brill, 2017), pp. 67–95

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Sainati, Giuseppe, Diario sacro pisano (Turin: Monza, Istituto di Paolini, 1893) —, ʻL’impresa pisana del 1064 contro Palermo nella testimonianza del Duomo di Pisa’, in Immagini di Pisa a Palermo. Atti del Convegno di studi sulla pisanità a Palermo e in Sicilia nel VII centenario del Vespro, Palermo-Agrigento-Sciacca, 9–12 Giugno 1982 (Palermo: Istituto storico italiano, 1983), pp. 15–32 Spatafora, Francesca and Canzonieri, Emanuele, ʻAl-Khāliṣa: Alcune consideranzioni alla luce delle nuove scoperte archeologiche del quartiere della Kalsa’, in Les dynamiques de l’islamisation en Méditerranée centrale et en Sicilie: nouvelles propositions et découvertes récentes, ed. by Annliese Nef and Fabiola Ardizzone, Collection de l’École française de Rome, 487 (Rome: École française de Rome, 2014), pp. 233–46 Stanton, Charles D., ʻAnonymous Vaticanus: Another Source for the Normans in the South?’, The Haskins Society Journal, 24 (2012), 79–94 —, Medieval Maritime Warfare (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2015) Takayama, Hiroshi, ʻAmiratus 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 von Freunden, Schülern und Kollegen dargebracht, ed. by Karl Borchardt and Enno Bünz (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1998), pp. 133–39 Travaini, Lucia, La monetazione nell’Italia normanna, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo Nuovi Studi Storici, 28 (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1995) Wolf, Kordula, ʻSostegni, saccheggi, schiavi: relazioni tra cristiani e musulmani all’ombra delle conquiste normanne’, in Civiltà a contatto nel Mezzogiorno normanno svevo. Economia Società Istitutioni, Atti delle ventunesime giornate normanno-sveve, Melfi, 13‒14 ottobre 2014, ed. by Maria Boccuzzi and Pasquale Cordasco, Centro di Studi Normanno-Svevi, 21 (Bari: Mario Adda, 2018) Zuretti, Carlo Oreste, ʻLa espugnazione di Siracusa nell’880. Testo greco della lettera del monaco Teodosio’, in Centenario della nascita di Michele Amari, vol. 1 (Palermo: Virzì, 1910), pp. 165–73

209

Nicole Mölk

8. Community and Conquest on Medieval Monte Iato, Sicily

Under the reign of the Normans the influence of Roman-Catholic Christendom spread over the then Islamic Sicily, which led to a unique cross-cultural interplay and complex social and economic changes. The interplay I will discuss in this chapter occurred on medieval Monte Iato in Sicily, beginning with the Norman invasions and culminating in the Hohenstaufen conquest of the kingdom of Sicily in the thirteenth century. The power struggles during the first half of the thirteenth century especially have often been described as a clash of two different religions and, therefore, two different ‘communities’: Muslims and Christians. This perspective falls short in view of recent archaeological results. Excavations and the analyses of material culture and architecture, as well as the careful re-examination of historiographical sources, paint a picture of various cultural and religious groups that met and lived alongside each other in the city of Jāṭū (or Jato) on Monte Iato. Over many decades, this hill-top settlement was shaped by its Christian and Muslim co-inhabitants.1 The recent archaeological excavations on Monte Iato have unveiled a broad spectrum of findings, consisting of commodities and goods from Islamic North Africa, the Latin West, and the Byzantine East, that perfectly showcase the changing — and, overall, surprisingly peaceful — interactions between different cultures. It is this material culture that stands as an example of the various ways of living and manifold arts and crafts techniques that seem to have been adapted by Christians as well as by Muslims. But Jāṭū was also a settlement that was frequently attacked and besieged by different Latin Christian rulers of Sicily, both the Normans and the Swabians. Archaeological and historiographical sources show clear evidence of violent political repression of the community. Jāṭū’s material culture was also shaped by this repression and conflict, and stands as a record of resistance to conquest, in contrast to chroniclers’ claims of total annihilation of indigenous populations.



1 There is no historical or archaeological evidence of Jewish settlement in the city. Dr Nicole Mölk  •  is a medieval archaeologist, who received her PhD from the University of Innsbruck in 2019. She specializes in the archaeology of Sicily and the Mediterranean during the ninth to fourteenth centuries ce. The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. by Emily A. Winkler and Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small, MISCS 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 211–225 © FHG10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.121963

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Figure 8.1. Monte Iato, view from the North and Location on Map. Photo by N. Mölk 2019.

The Mountain and the City: Iato and Jāṭū Monte Iato is a mountain located around thirty kilometres south of Palermo (Fig. 8.1). The mountain is 852 metres high, possesses steep cliffs on its northern side and rather gentle slopes to the south. Due to the advantageous location of the mountain, it was possible for the inhabitants of the city to control the Belice Valley and the road heading towards Palermo. This valley was the quickest route between Selinunte on the southern coast and Palermo in the north. Monte Iato possesses dense strata of archeological remains accumulated over the centuries, making it one of the most important sites in Sicilian archaeology. This includes material from the mountain’s prehistory, when the indigenous inhabitants came into contact with Phoenicians and Greeks during the period from the seventh to the fifth century bce. In the ninth century ce, after the hegemony of Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines, the Arabs arrived on the island and brought a new religion with them: Islam.2 Nearly two hundred years later the Normans came to the island. The first Normans who set foot on Sicily were Robert Guiscard and Roger I in May 1061. The most important Norman with regard to the city of Jāṭū was King Roger II. With the help of his admirals ’Abd ar-Raḥmān-Christodoulus and George of Antioch, Roger II proceeded to assume control over the Muslim government and was able to unify Sicily.3 George of Antioch is also known to have been the district governor (strategot / ͨāmil) of Jāṭū.4 This is also a good indicator of the city’s importance during the Norman period.

2 Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy. 3 Houben, Roger II of Sicily, p. 38; Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily, p. 71. 4 Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily, pp. 6–71.

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After the marriage of Constance of Sicily, daughter of Roger II, to Henry VI, the son of Frederick I ‘Barbarossa’ and a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, the Swabians arrived on the island in 1186. This change of dynasties marked a turning point in the history of Jāṭū, and after several decades of frequent struggles and sieges, the settlement on Monte Iato came to a bloody end in the thirteenth century due to the conquest of Frederick II. All in all, the area of the city embraced more than forty hectares and was encircled by a fortified wall in ancient and medieval times. The long-lasting sequence and the cohabitation of diverse cultures shaped the island in political, religious, and economic ways. This interaction between different cultures also influenced the island’s material culture between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. The interplay between different social and religious backgrounds is evident in the material culture of smaller settlements like Jāṭū. Together with architectural remains, this material culture displays a unique mixture of different building and design strategies, mainly due to the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Christians within the city walls during the Norman period and even through the Swabian era. In this article I will briefly examine the historical written sources produced during and after the transition from the Norman to the Hohenstaufen period, and compare their conclusions with archaeological evidence and material remains of one of the most important settlements of the time: Jāṭū.

The Historical Background In the year 827, Muslims began to arrive on the island of Sicily,5 and in 965 they finally conquered the last Byzantine bastion, Rometta, near Messina. After years of religious war in the course of the Arab invasion, many fertile lands lay dormant, trade links came to a standstill, and the economic situation declined to a level of subsistence agriculture and local exchange. The conquerors did not only settle in the greater cities, such as Palermo, an agglomeration of more than 300,000 inhabitants, but they also repopulated abandoned cities and villages in the hinterlands. It is noteworthy that no centralized or targeted settlement and occupation policy existed. The settling of Muslim clans throughout the island’s interior was rather random and not always peaceful.6 Two hundred years after the Muslims arrived on the Island, the Normans began to claim sovereignty over the territories occupied by Muslims in Sicily. Soon after 1000, and over the following ninety years, the Normans assumed control over the whole southern part of Italy. The first Normans who conquered Sicily were Robert Guiscard and Roger, later Count Roger I of Sicily, in May 1061.7 After a long period of wars and struggles



5 In 831 Palermo became the capital of the Sicilian emirate; in 878 Syracuse fell under Arabic dominion: see Dittelbach, Geschichte Siziliens; see also Abulafia, Das Mittelmeer; Vanoli, La Sicilia musulmana. 6 Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy. 7 For further information see Loud, this volume.

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Roger II assumed control over the Muslim government in 1127.8 But he did not simply abolish the well-established administration. In fact, he replaced very few officials with Christians.9 Historical sources of the eleventh century, especially the De rebus gestis Rogerii Comitis of Roger II, written by Geoffrey Malaterra, describe the city of Jāṭū as primarily Muslim-dominated at the time. Malaterra reports that the 13,000 families living on the mountain refused to bear out more than their fixed servitude and refused to pay their taxes: Incarnati Verbi anno I Jatenses natura montis in quo habitabant, in numerosa multitudine suorum fisi erant enim usque ad tredecim millia familiarum jugum nostrae gentis abhorrentes statutum servitium et censum persolvere renuntiant.10 In the year 1079 from the incarnation of the Word, the residents of Iato (in a great multitude, for there were as many as 13,000 families), trusting in the natural condition of their mountain and hating the yoke of our people, rejected their established servitude and refused to pay taxes. Consequently, Roger II attacked and besieged the mountain. As it is described in the De rebus gestis of Roger II: XXI. — Mensis erat sextus; hostilis denotat aestus: / Hic studet ut laedat, studet alter ut ille recedat. / Laedunt, laeduntur. Sic alternando premuntur; / Sic paribus votis non deficit hostibus hostis. / Tempus erat messis; armis macerat ita fessis. / Uruntur messes: turbat res ista Jatenses: / Quodque jam laedit Cinensibus haud bene cedit. / Consilium captant, succurrere messibus aptant; / Sed cum vi nequeunt, hocartibus addere quaerunt. / Conveniunt comitem, tentant sibi reddere mitem; / Foedere componunt; fraudis munimenta reponunt. / Fruges salvantur, comitque reconciliantur.11 XXI. The sixth month was here: The heat shows the enemy. / One tries to harm, the other to cast him out. / They harm and suffer; so they are pursued alternately, / so, with vows on both sides, enemy fails not enemy. / Harvest had come: He pressed hard with armed forces although he was exhausted. / The harvest is put to the torch: This shocks the residents of Monte Iato. / And since he harms those from Cinisi too, they are not prospering either. / They make a decision and prepare themselves to march out for the rescue of the harvest. / Since they can not succeed by force they try it with cunning. / They negotiate with the count, try to soften his mind, / sign a treaty and repair the fortifications on whom their betrayal is based. / Their corn is rescued, they reconcile with the count.

8 9 10 11

See also Hayes, Roger II of Sicily. See also Yamboliev, this volume. Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Pontieri, iii. 20. Translation by the author. Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis, ed. by Pontieri, iii. 21. Translation by the author.

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The numerical inferiority of the Norman invaders in comparison with the sheer number of Muslims on the island may explain the fact that it took more than three generations to pacify and unite the island under Norman rule. But even when Muslim society fell under Christian rule, Muslims continued to play an important role in the socio-economic life of the island as merchants, craftsmen, and farmers in spite of their changing environment.12 The population of the western part of the island remained mainly Muslim until the end of the twelfth century with the exception of the cities of Palermo and Mazzara.13 An account of this is given in the history of the Diocese Agrigento, written at the end of the thirteenth century: ‘pauci Christiani erant ibi usque ad mortem regis Guillelmi secondi’ (there were few Christians until the death of King William II).14 Under Norman rule, the influence of Latin Christianity spread over Sicily, and caused a great part of the remaining Islamic population to retreat from the urban centres to the mountainous hinterlands.15 Formerly city-dwelling Muslims, with a growing discontent for the new situation, were now forced to live in hardly accessible but well-fortified hill-top settlements such as Jāṭū.16 After the heyday of the Norman kingdom, a new dynasty seized power over Sicily: the Hohenstaufen dynasty. One of the most important figures of this era was Frederick II, the grandson of Frederick I ‘Barbarossa’. From 1215 until his death in 1250, Frederick II was king of Sicily, and from 1220, he also held the title of Holy Roman Emperor. After his imperial coronation in Rome by Pope Honorius III in November 1220, Frederick II set sail for Sicily in May of 1221. His aim was to re-establish order on the island, because after the death of his father, Henry VI, the island was in turmoil. While the Christians on the island saluted Frederick II, the Muslims refused to accept the Hohenstaufen ruler as their new emperor, as they had been used to a more laissez-faire rule under Norman government. After decades of chaos throughout the Hohenstaufen dominion the Muslims took up arms in the years 1220–1221 and started a guerrilla war. The Muslims had selected the mountainous regions in the west of the island to organize their resistance against the Christian rulers united under one leader. According to the chronicler Riccardo San Germano their leader was called Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abbād (also known as Mirabetto).17 During his regime, he began to mint coins18 which are frequently found on Monte Iato.19 The coins of Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abbād show an Arabic inscription on both sides. The purely epigraphic coins possess the following inscription on the obverse side — Muḥammad Ibn /Abbād amīr /

12 Metcalfe, ‘The Muslims of Sicily under Christian Rule’, p. 292; Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily. 13 Loud, ‘Betrachtungen über die normannische Eroberung Süditaliens’. 14 Translation by the author; Collura, Le più antiche carte dell’archivio capitolare di Agrigento, pp. 257–80. 15 Molinari, ‘Paessaggi rurali e formazioni sociali nella Sicilia islamica’. 16 Rill, Sizilien im Mittelalter. 17 Maurici, ‘Uno stato musulmano’. 18 Weiss, Die mittelalterlichen Fundmünzen. 19 For example I–M 65; attribution by Dietrich Feil; weight: 0.44 g, diameter max.: 14.7 mm; AV: Arabic inscription in circle of pearls; RV: Arabic inscription; dating: 1220–1223 ce.

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al-muslimīn — and on the reverse side, a verse of the Šahāda (Islamic statement of faith).20 These coins are a perfect example of the Muslim rebel’s refusal to accept the Hohenstaufen sovereign as they would have been a complete affront to Frederick II, especially as Ibn ‘Abbād gives himself the title amīr. In 1222, Emperor Frederick II started a military offensive against the rebels. It seems that Jāṭū was one of the last strongholds of Muslim resistance against Frederick II and served as the headquarters of Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abbād during the time of revolts. To defeat the rebels the troops of Frederick II besieged the refugee-settlement on Monte Iato ‘in castris in obisdione Jati’ (in the field camp during the siege of Iato)21 that is, in the summers of 1222, 1223, and 1224.22 Finally, the Muslim resistance came to a bloody end. The rebel leader Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abbād was beheaded in Palermo and after a long period of sieges and struggles, Frederick II started a last major offensive against the rebellious Muslims and furthermore: ‘dominus Fridericus ivit cum magno exercitu super Saracenos Jatii’ (the emperor Frederick defeated the Saracens of Iato with a vast army).23 The last resistance on Monte Iato had to surrender in 1246 and the Sicilian Muslims were finally defeated and deported to Apulia,24 where Frederick II evacuated the city of Lucera for the purpose of resettling the Muslims. According to historical sources this was also the fate of the inhabitants of Jāṭū.25 But the inhabitants of Jāṭū were not only Muslims, as is attested by the registers of Monreale.26 The archaeological record also challenges some of the written sources. Recent archaeological findings — like the denarius of King Conradin I27 under the destruction rubble of a medieval single room house — illustrate that history at times was much more complex than the historical sources of the Hohenstaufen emperor would have us believe. While those sources tell of the complete eradication and abandonment of the city in 1246, it is this denarius stemming from a precisely definable stratigraphic unit, that for the first time gives evidence of a reuse (even if only partially) of the city of Jāṭū after this date.

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Feil, Ludwig, and Mölk, ‘Monte Iato: Die mittelalterlichen Münzen’. Translation by the author; Maurici, ‘Le fortezze musulmane’, p. 219. Acta Imperii inedita saeculi XIII et XIV, ed. by Winkelmann, i, 220–23, ii, 233–35. Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs, ed. by Böhmer, p. 296; 1394a; Friedrich II. 1222. Ind. 10. Imp. 2. Sic. 24; translation by the author. 24 See also Engl, ‘Religionskonflikt im Protostaat’. 25 Rader, Friedrich II; for discussion of the preserved Arabic and Latin sources see Taylor, Muslims in Medieval Italy, pp. 4–32; Vogeler, ‘Konflikte in Süditalien’; see also Nania, ‘L’eccelsa Jato’; Nef, ‘La déportation des musulmans siciliens’; Orsitto, Lucera tra tardoantico e altomedioevo; Clemens and Matheus, ‘Musulmani e provenziali in Capitanata’. 26 Die Register Innocenz III, ed. by Hagender and others, fols 90v–91y no. 93, pp. 149–52. 27 Kistler and others, ‘Zwischen Aphrodite-Tempel und spätarchaischem Haus’, 182–83, fig. 31. I–M 92; Feil, Ludwig, and Mölk, ‘Monte Iato: Die mittelalterlichen Münzen’; attribution by Dietrich Feil: denar of Conradin: weight: 0,40 g; diameter max: 17.1 mm; AV: eagle with spread wings, head to the right, inscription: † ° CONR °SCD‘°IERL’; RV: cross, inscription: °ET – SICI – LIE – REX, dating: 1254–1258 ce.

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The Archaeological Evidence The excavations on Monte Iato started in the 1970s under the guidance of Hans Peter Isler from the University of Zurich, and they unveiled a broad spectrum of findings consisting of commodities and goods from Islamic North Africa, the Latin West, and the Byzantine East. The medieval architectural remains on Monte Iato date predominantly to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, although it is highly likely that buildings of earlier date may have looked the same; given the current status of excavations, this hypothesis has still to be verified.28 The following characteristics are dominant during the aforementioned later period. The houses were most commonly constructed in a simple fashion, consisting mostly of a single room. A slightly elevated pavement was often found within these one-room houses and was possibly used as a sleeping place or a separated zone for other activities. The floor was mainly built up of consolidated soil, and semicircular clay bricks were used for the roof. The walls were constructed of stone, but mostly the masonry was relatively poorly executed and unstable.29 Obviously, these building techniques were not meant for lasting durability, and Hans Peter Isler interpreted this as evidence for the hasty construction of emergency shelters.30 Several of these houses were abandoned during the sieges of Frederick II and were used as ad hoc tombs. According to Isler’s interpretation, the existence of the tombs reflects the impact of the sieges.31 The single-room houses were grouped around a common free space and are found predominantly in the area of the Hellenistic agora and theatre,32 but also in the so-called Western Quarter of the city. This illustrates a specific mode of habitation and social organization of the Muslim settlers on Monte Iato.33 The archaeological finds — from ceramics and bronze to glass and bone — are also reminiscent of Muslim habitation.34 Recent excavations and ethno-archaeological comparisons with modern single-room houses from the Rif Mountains35 (Morocco) show that the carelessly constructed masonry is not necessarily related to the siege-status of the settlement. It is therefore possible, that these ‘careless’ buildings are not a result of the inhabitants’ desperation during the time of turmoil, but a representation of their sense of aesthetics as indicated by ethno-archaeological comparisons. Most of the huts in Morocco are of a simple construction with the exception of the door, the only prestigious part of the house.36 The paleozoological findings37 also shed

28 See also Isler’s most recent publication, ‘Die Siedlung auf dem Monte Iato’. 29 For a comparison of the medieval building complexes on Monte Iato see Harb, ‘Monte Iato. Die mittelalterliche Überbauung der Agora’. 30 Isler, ‘Gli Arabi a Monte Iato’; Isler, ‘Monte Iato’, p. 151. 31 Isler, ‘Monte Iato’, pp. 121–29. 32 Isler, Monte Iato. Guida archeologico, pp. 93–95. 33 See also Fentress, ‘Reconsidering Islamic Houses’; Fentress, ‘The House of the Prophet’, pp. 47–69. 34 See also Insoll, The Archaeology of Islam. 35 See also Nippa, ‘Luxus auf dem Lande’. 36 Nippa, ‘Leben unter dem Halbmond’, pp. 133–36. 37 Research conducted by Gerhard Forstenpointner and Gerald Weissengruber.

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light on the consumption habits of the inhabitants. Beside slaughter marks on sheep, cow, and goat bones, one can recognize an absence of pig bones in the paleozoological reports. This lack of pig bones could be another indicator for a Muslim population on the mountain. Pork is forbidden in the Koran (for example, verse 2,173).38 As recent results of the ‘Sicily in Transition Project’ by Martin Carver and Alessandra Molinari have shown, pig consumption was almost completely absent during the Arab era especially at urban sites. During Norman times, however, evidence of pork consumption became more common, particularly at sites like Mazara del Vallo and the Norman Palace in Palermo, that is, in sites occupied by the Norman (Christian) upper class. This contrast is not conclusive, but may be suggestive.39 In the course of the 2012 campaign of the FWF-project ‘Between AphroditeTemple and Late-Archaic House II’, under the direction of Erich Kistler, a medieval building-complex has been excavated north of the late-Archaic house.40 This twenty-five square metre single-room house perfectly showcases different phases of construction. After a period of habitation and its subsequent destruction, the single room was subdivided into two rooms and an open annex was built on the east side of the house.41 The main room was accessible through a 1.2-metre-wide threshold on the south side. The entrance area was paved with stone slabs and delimited by medieval brick.42 It is possible that the single-room house of the first phase was connected with other single-room houses around an open square and each house was used for a specific purpose. In the second phase the economic situation changed and an inside wall was constructed, possibly to secure the separation of sexes. A conclusive date for this complex is provided by the find of a denarius of King Conradin of Sicily (1254–1258), excavated under the destruction rubble of the wall of the eastern annex (Fig. 8.2). Contrary to medieval written sources and scholarly consensus, this excavation gave the first archaeological evidence for the reuse of a building complex on Monte Iato after the siege and destruction of the settlement in 1246,43 even if by whom and to what extent has yet to be determined. The economic situation on the mountain, and the access to resources and imports after the destruction, seem to have rapidly deteriorated, evident in the even hastier building technique and also in the ceramic

38 It is important to keep in mind that the excavated area is only a small fraction of the actual settlement and the consistent application of archaeozoological analyses was not standard until 2011. Therefore the absence of pig bones is only secured for the find complex in question and the statement made here can only be a preliminary hypothesis. 39 Carver, ‘Sicily in Transition’, pp. 14–15. 40 For further information regarding the late-Archaic house see: The Monte Iato Project’, University of Innsbruck, (last accessed 28 April 2019); also Kistler and others, eds, Sanctuaries and the Power of Consumption. 41 Kistler and others, ‘Zwischen Aphrodite-Tempel und spätarchaischem Haus’, pp. 181–88, fig. 30. 42 Kistler and others, Ergebnisse der dritten Grabungskampagne am Monte Iato der Universität Innsbruck. 43 Frederick II speaks of total annihilation of all remaining traitors in the Sicilian mountains, see Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs, ed. by Böhmer, 638; *3567; Friedrich II. 1246. Ind. 4. 26. Jer. 21. Sic. 49; The necessity for a licentia populandi for the establishment of San Giuseppe Iato and San Cipirello in 1779 has led to the assumption that a ban of settlement existed since 1246, see Weiss, Die mittelalterlichen Fundmünzen and Maurici, L’insediamento medievale, p. 85.

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Figure 8.2. Ground plan and reconstruction of the single-room house with the find location of the denarius of King Conradin. Photo by N. Mölk, 2019.

findings. Many of the objects, like the high-grade and expensive glazed ceramics, as well as the rough and less prestigious coarse pottery, show clear signs of repair and reuse. A general lack of availability of ceramics suggests that they were not produced locally for basic household needs like cooking pots.44 That Jāṭū’s declining economic situation during this period was a novelty is also exemplified by pre-siege findings like the so-called ‘Hanseschalen’, which were prestigious metal objects.45 The ‘Hanseschalen’ or even church bells must have reached the mountain in times of prosperity and wealth. In times of turmoil when resources became scarce, these objects were fragmented, smelted, and recycled in other ways. According to Dieter Quast, many bronze findings, especially from the late twelfth to the early thirteenth centuries show traces of such reuse.46 Additionally, biological anthropological research sheds light on the value of archaeological evidence and can consequently serve to review the authenticity of the historical sources. Generally, it can be noted that the burials above the Hellenistic

44 For a detailed description of the small findings see Kistler and others, ‘Zwischen Aphrodite-Tempel und spätarchaischem Haus’, pp. 181–88; see also Mölk, ‘Ein mittelalterlicher Nachnutzungsbefund‘. 45 Quast, ‘Romanische Bronzeschalen’, p. 89. 46 Quast, ‘Romanische Bronzeschalen’, p. 89.

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agora and under the medieval pavement of the houses in the theatre followed the Muslim traditions:47 the body is oriented north–south, the view of the deceased is oriented in the direction of Mecca.48 The burial practices and the positioning of the bodies clearly match medieval and modern Muslim burial customs.49 In 1995, some of the skeletons from the agora and the theatre area were anthropologically examined by Rosaria Di Salvo. She concluded that the burials found directly next to the medieval house-complexes could be divided into two different groups: Group a) funerals with Muslim rites, and Group b) funerals with Christian or without any kind of rite. According to Di Salvo both burial groups indicate the existence of extended family units, according to their age and gender.50 The evidence for two differing lines of heritage would also testify to the fact that the military offensive of Emperor Frederick II against the West Sicilian Emirate was not simply a ‘war of religions’ but more a campaign aimed at the elimination of political opponents and rebels. Additionally, historic sources concerning the combat operations at the hill during the Muslim uprisings show that Christian rebels were fighting alongside the Muslims and against the Hohenstaufen sovereign. To exemplify this one can turn to a letter of Pope Innocent III written as early as 1203 in which he complains about monks from Monreale who turned against Archbishop Carus and defected to Monte Iato, taking the church treasure with them.51 To complete our sketch of existing research on the biological anthropological material of thirty-two skeletal remains, the full skeletons and fragments were analysed again in collaboration with the biological anthropologist George McGlynn in 2016. Differences among the skeletons were recorded pertaining to their heights and their state of conservation and abrasion. There are, for example, groups with more caries/ tooth decay and degenerative transformations of the bones caused by comparatively hard living conditions. Some individuals also show marks of malnutrition that indicate the hardship they suffered during the various upheavals between 1203–1246. Some of the individuals, males as well as females, show cutting marks, and it is likely that they were killed during one of the sieges of the troops of Frederick II. A good example for the latter is skeleton ‘Agora 133’. The skeleton and its grave, which was delimited by stone slabs, were brought to light under a mighty medieval fill layer. The grave was flanked by two additional inhumations and had been laid out on the slab-lined floor of a rectangular building of the medieval period that had been erected on the ruins of the ancient northern part of the agora.52 It is an adolescent boy, between sixteen and eighteen years old, who died a painful death caused by sword cuts. A coin of Henry VI, dating between 1194 and 1196 was found on the left pelvic

47 Examples for burials in Sicily following Muslim burial tradition see Bangera and Pezzini, ‘I cimiteri di rito musulmano’, 231–302; Castellana, ‘La necropoli di rito musulmano di Caliata presso Montevago’. 48 See also Mohr and others, ‘Forschungen auf dem Monte Iato im Sommer 2009’; Bloesch and Isler, Studia Ietina, i, 18, fig. 16. 49 Petersen, ‘The Archaeology of Death and Burial in the Islamic World’. 50 Di Salvo, ‘Gli esemplari di Monte Iato’. 51 Die Register Innocenz’ III, ed. by Hagender and others, fols 90v–91y, no. 93, pp. 149–52. 52 Reusser and others, ‘Forschungen auf dem Monte Iato 2013’.

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bone of the buried skeleton.53 The calibrated 14-C dating of the skeleton points to the time of death as it dates between 1157 and 1220. It is highly likely that the boy was slaughtered during the battles for Jāṭū in 1220–1222 and was finally buried alongside other casualties within the abandoned or destroyed single room house.

Conclusion The interactions between and among peoples and communities on medieval Monte Iato produced a broad spectrum of evidence and sources, written and material. Jāṭū’s history was shaped by periods of peaceful coexistence (especially during the Norman period) and later constant struggles between different cultures and religious and political groups (beginning with the Swabian period). These struggles shaped the human geography of Monte Iato and also the written sources and the material remains of the twelfth to thirteenth century. The conquests of the Normans left the old governmental structures, mostly shaped by Muslim sovereignty, intact and the new Norman empire adopted many elements of Muslim culture. Some parts of the Muslim elite converted to Christianity, but the greater part of the Muslim population was able to preserve their traditional way of living under the Normans.54 During the Norman period only one siege of Jāṭū is documented, this during the conquest itself. Afterwards the city became an important node within the Norman administrative structure. In the time between the death of William II and the arrival of Frederick II in Sicily, the situation of Sicily’s Muslim population changed a great deal. Facing rejection and persecution, many sought refuge in hinterland towns and fortresses, or left the island altogether.55 After many decades of being ruled in a laissez-faire way, a number of Sicily’s inhabitants were not inclined to accept the more direct rule the new Hohenstaufen emperor wanted to establish on the island. While most of Sicily’s Christians welcomed the new emperor with open arms, the majority of Muslim Sicilians began to rebel against Frederick II. But it was not only Muslims who seemed to have a problem with the latter. Some sources also tell us of Christian rebels joining the resistance in the mountainous regions of Western Sicily. That Frederick was rejected by some of his Christian subjects may reflect his constant struggles with the papacy in Rome and his successive excommunications, and, perhaps, a more ruthless approach to conquest.56 In conclusion it can be said that excavations and the analyses of material culture and architecture as well as the careful re-examination of historiographical sources draw a picture of various cultural and religious groups that met and lived alongside each other in the city of Jāṭū on Monte Iato. It was not until the Hohenstaufen

53 Reusser and others, ‘Forschungen auf dem Monte Iato 2013’, p. 97. 54 Rader, Friedrich II, p. 421. 55 Rader, Friedrich II, p. 421. 56 See, broadly, Rader, Friedrich II.

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emperor Frederick II began to eradicate all sorts of political opposition with a new wave of military operations all over his realm that this mostly peaceful co-existence ceased. Between the 1220 and 1246 the city of Jāṭū became a stronghold inhabited by a community of various malcontents who revolted against the new political course. The once prosperous city changed significantly, a fact that is reflected in its deceased, its burial practices, its material culture, and its architectural remains. Finally, the city was destroyed, the inhabitants banished, and the city disintegrated and dwindled into an only scarcely populated ‘ghost town’. The case of Jāṭū exemplifies the massive influence of Norman and Muslim culture on medieval Sicily, but the newest archaeological findings advise caution concerning the interpretation of historiographical sources. Only a thorough reading of all available evidence, and continued inquiry, may shed a more accurate light on historical reality in the Mediterranean.

Works Cited Primary Sources Acta Imperii inedita saeculi XIII et XIV: Urkunden und Briefe zur Geschichte des Kaiserreiches und des Königreichs Sizilien in den Jahren 1198–1273, ed. by Eduard Winkelmann, 2 vols (Innsbruck: Verlag der Wagner’schen Universitäts Buchhandlung, 1880–1885) Geoffrey Malaterra, De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi Ducis fratris eius, ed. by Ernesto Pontieri, 3 vols, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 5.1 (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1925–1928) Die Regesten des Kaiserreichs unter Philipp, Otto IV, Friedrich II (VII), Conrad IV, Heinrich Raspe, Wilhelm und Richard, 1198–1272, ed. by Johann F. Böhmer, Regesta Imperii, 5 (Innsbruck: Verlag der Wagner’schen Universitäts Buchhandlung, 1882) Die Register Innocenz’ III. 6. Band. 6. Pontifikatsjahr, 1203/1204. Texte und Indices Registra Vaticana, ed. by Othmar Hagender, John C. Moore, Andrea Sommerlechner and others, Registra Vaticana, 5, fols 90v–91y (N. 93) (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1995), pp. 93, 149–52 Secondary Studies Abulafia, David, Das Mittelmeer. Eine Biographie, trans. by Michael Bischoff (Frankfurt-amMain: S. Fischer Verlag, 2013) Bangera, Alessandra, and Elena Pezzini, ‘I cimiteri di rito musulmano nella Sicilia medievale. Dati e problemi’, Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, 116 (2004), 231–302 Bloesch, Hansjörg, and Hans P. Isler, Studia Ietina 1. Die Stützfiguren des griechischen Theaters. Gestempelte Ziegel. Rezepte vom Monte Iato (Zurich: Rentsch Verlag, 1977) Castellana, Giuseppe, ‘La necropoli di rito musulmano di Caliata presso Montevago’,in Dagli scavi di Montevago e di Rocca di Entella un contributo di conoscenze per la Storia dei Musulmani della Valle del Belice dal X al XIII secolo, ed. by Giuseppe Castellana, Atti

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del Convengo Nazionale, 27–28 ottobre 1990 (Montevago: Regione Siciliana, 1990), pp. 223–29 Carver, Martin, Alessandra Molinari, and others, ‘“Sicily in Transition”: New Research on Early Medieval Sicily, 2017–2018’, The Journal of Fasti Online (2019), 1–34. ISSN 1828–3179, available online at Clemens, Lukas, and Michael Matheus, ‘Musulmani e provenziali in Capitanata nel XII secolo. I primi 2 risultati di un progetto internazionale e interdisciplinare’, in Federico II e i cavalieri teutonici in Capitanata. Recenti ricerche storiche e archeologiche. Atti del Convegno internazionale (Foggia-Lucera, 10–13 giugno 2009), ed. by Favia Pasquale, Hubert and Kristjan Toomaspoeg, Acta Teutonica, 7 (Rome: Mario Congedo Editore, 2012), pp. 369–404 Collura, Paolo, Le più antiche carte dell’archivio capitolare di Agrigento (1092–1282), Documenti per servire alla storia della Sicilia, ser. 1. 25 (Palermo: Boccone del Povero, 1961) Dittelbach, Thomas, Geschichte Siziliens. Von der Antike bis heute (Munich: Beck, 2010) Di Salvo, Rosaria, ‘Gli esemplari di Monte Iato: Antropologia e Paleopatologia’, in Federico e la Sicilia. Dalla Terra alla Corona, ed. by Carmela Angela Di Stefano and Antonio Cadei (Palermo: Lombardi, 1995), pp. 151–61 Engl, Richard, ‘Religionskonflikt im Protostaat? Die Deportation der Muslime Siziliens durch Kaiser Friedrich II. (1223–1246/47)’, in Erzwungene Exile. Umsiedlung und Vertreibung in der Vormoderne (500 bis 1850), ed. by Thomas Ertl (Frankfurt-am-Main: Campus Verlag, 2017), pp. 81–105 Feil, Dietrich, Stephan J. Ludwig, and Nicole Mölk, ‘Monte Iato: Die mittelalterlichen Münzen der Kampagnen 2011–2015. Ein Überblick’, Ausgraben Dokumentieren Präsentieren. Jahresbericht des Instituts für Archäologien 2015, ed. by Christoph Baur (Innsbruck: Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck Innsbruck, 2017) pp. 30–31 Fentress, Elizabeth, ‘The House of the Prophet: North African Islamic Housing’, Archeologia Medievale, 14 (1987), 47–69 —, ‘Reconsidering Islamic Houses in the Maghreb’, in De la estructura doméstica al espacio social: Lecturas arqueológicas del uso social del espacio, ed. by Gutièrres Sonia and Grau Ignasi (Alicante: Publicaciones Universidad de Alicante, 2013), pp. 237–44 Harb, Pierre, ‘Monte Iato. Die mittelalterliche Überbauung der Agora’ (unpublished Lizentiatsthesis, University of Zurich, 1992) Hayes, Dawn Marie, Roger II of Sicily: Strategies of Identity and Power in the Twelfth-Century Mediterranean World, Medieval Identities: Socio-Cultural Spaces, 7 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020) Houben, Hubert, Roger II of Sicily: A Ruler between East and West, trans. by Graham A. Loud and Diane Milburn (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002) Insoll, Timothy, The Archaeology of Islam (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004) Isler, Hans P., ‘Gli Arabi a Monte Iato’, in Dagli scavi di Montevago e di Rocca di Entella un contributo di conoscenze per la Storia dei Musulmani della Valle del Belice dal X al XIII secolo, ed. by Giuseppe Castellana, Atti del Convengo Nazionale, 27–28 ottobre 1990 (Montevago: Regione Siciliana, 1990), pp. 109–11 —, ‘Monte Iato’, in Federico e la Sicilia: Dalla Terra alla Corona, ed. by Carmela A. Di Stefano and others (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, 1994), pp. 121–50 —, Monte Iato. Guida archeologico (Palermo: Regione Siciliana, 2000)

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—, ‘Die Siedlung auf dem Monte Iato (Sizilien) zur Zeit Friedrichs II.’, in Christen und Muslime in der Capitanata im 13. Jahrhundert. Archäologie und Geschichte, ed. by Lukas Clemens and Michael Matheus (Trier: Kliomedia 2018), pp. 79–94 Johns, Jeremy, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) Kistler, Erich, Birgit Öhlinger, Nicole Mölk, and Marion Steger, ‘Zwischen AphroditeTempel und spätarchaischem Haus. Die Innsbrucker Kampagnen 2012 und 2013 auf dem Monte Iato (Sizilien)’, Jahreshefte des Österreichischen Archäologischen Institutes, 83 (2014), 182–83 Kistler, Erich, Matthias Hörnes, Martin Mohr, and Birgit Öhlinger, eds, Sanctuaries and the Power of Consumption: Networking and the Formation of Elites in the Archaic Western Mediterranean World, International Conference Innsbruck, 20–23 March 2012 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2016) Kistler, Erich, Birgit Öhlinger, and Marion Steger, Ergebnisse der dritten Grabungskampagne am Monte Iato der Universität Innsbruck 2013 [accessed 28 April 2019] Loud, Graham A., ‘Betrachtungen über die normannische Eroberung Süditaliens’, in Forschungen zur Reichs-, Papst- und Landesgeschichte, vol. 1, ed. by Karl Borchardt and Enno Bünz (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1998), pp. 115–31 Maurici, Ferdinando, ‘Le fortezze musulmane del Val di Mazara’, in Dagli scavi di Montevago e di Rocca di Entella un contributo di conoscenze per la Storia dei Musulmani della Valle del Belice dal X al XIII secolo, ed. by Giuseppe Castellana, Atti del Convengo Nazionale, 27–28 ottobre 1990 (Montevago: Regione Siciliana, 1990) —, L’insediamento medievale nel territorio della Provincia di Palermo. Inventario preliminare degli abitanti attestati dalle fonti d’archivio (secoli XI–XVI) (Agrigento: Regione Sicilia, 1998) —, ‘Sicilia bizantina: gli insediamenti del palermitano’, in Archivio Storico Siciliano, 4.20 (1994), 27–93 —, ‘Uno stato musulmano nell’Europa cristiana del XIII secolo: L’emirato siciliano di Mohammed Ibn Abbad’, in ACTA mediævalia, 18 (1997), 257–80 Metcalfe, Alex, Muslim and Christians in Norman Sicily: Arabic Speakers and the End of Islam (London: Routledge, 2003) —, ‘The Muslims of Sicily under Christian Rule’, in The Society of Norman Italy, ed. by. Graham A. Loud and Alex Metcalfe (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 289–317 —, The Muslims of Medieval Italy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009) Mohr, Martin, Elena Mango, Christoph Reusser, and Christoph Russenberger, ‘Forschungen auf dem Monte Iato im Sommer 2009’, Antike Kunst, 53 (2010), 114–38, pl. 21, 1–2 Molinari, Alessandra, ‘Paessagi rurali e formazioni sociali nella Sicilia islamica, normanna e sveva (Secoli X–XIII)’, Archaeologia Medievale, 37 (2010), 229–45 Mölk, Nicole, ‘Ein mittelalterlicher Nachnutzungsbefund im Westquartier des um 1246 zerstörten Iato, Sizilien’ (unpublished Masters thesis, University of Innsbruck, 2015) Nania, Gioacchino, ‘L’eccelsa Jato, irriducibile fortezza dell’Islam. La resistenza musulmana a Federico II. nel Val di Mazara’, Kalèghè, 3.1 (1995), 5–7

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Nef, Anneliese, ‘La déportation des musulmans siciliens par Frédéric ii précédents, modalités, signification et portée de la mesure’, in Le monde de l’itinérance en méditerranée de l’antiquité à l’époque moderne, ed. by Claudia Moatti, Wolfgang Kaiser and Christoph Pébarthe, Études, 22 (2009), pp. 455–77 Nippa, Annegret, ‘Luxus auf dem Lande. Eine Reise in den Alltag der arabischen Welt’, in Die Wohnkulturen der arabischen Welt, ed. by Alexander von Vegesack, Mateo Kries, Stefano Bianca, and Sebastian Boulay (Weil-am-Rhein: Vitra Design Museum, 2003), pp. 128–67 Orsitto, Antonio, Lucera tra tardoantico e altomedioevo. Atti del 18° convegno sulla storia del Cristianesimo in Puglia. Lucera, vol. 1 (Lucera: Tipografia Editrice Catapan, 1984) Petersen, Andrew, ‘The Archaeology of Death and Burial in the Islamic World’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial, ed. by Tarlow Sarah and Nilsson Stutz Liv (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 241–59 Quast, Dieter, ‘Romanische Bronzeschalen vom Monte Iato auf Sizilien’, in Vom Bodenfund zum Buch. Archäologie durch die Zeiten. Festschrift für Andreas Heege, ed. by Rinne Christoph and others, Historische Archäologie, 2017 (Bonn: Habelt, 2017), pp. 83–90 Rader, Olaf B., Friedrich II. Der Sizilianer auf dem Kaiserthron. Eine Biographie (Munich: Beck, 2010), pp. 421–29 Reusser, Christoph, and others, ‘Forschungen auf dem Monte Iato 2013’, Antike Kunst, 57 (2010), 96–113 Rill, Bernd, Sizilien im Mittelalter: Das Reich der Araber, Normannen und Staufer (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2000) Taylor, Julie, Muslims in Medieval Italy: The Colony at Lucera (Lanham: Lexington, 2003) Vanoli, Alessandro, La Sicilia musulmana (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2012) Vogeler, Georg, ‘Konflikte in Süditalien’, in Verwandlungen des Stauferreichs. Drei Innovationsregionen im mittelalterlichen Europa, ed. by Bernd Schneidmüller and others (Darmstadt: Konrad Theiss, 2010), pp. 199–201 Weiss, Christian, Die mittelalterlichen Fundmünzen und Gewichte vom Monte Iato auf Sizilien: Die Grabungskampagnen 1971–2008, Studia Ietina, 11 (Rhaden / Westfahlen: VML, 2019)

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Perceptions and Memories

Matt King

9. Holy War in the Central Mediterranean: The Case of the Zirids and the Normans

In his article, ‘The Second Crusade as Seen by Contemporaries’, Giles Constable asked whether the campaigns of Latin Christians against non-Christians in the middle of the 1140s were interrelated.1 To answer this question, he surveys how medieval Latin sources portrayed the Second Crusade to the Levant, Roger II of Sicily’s campaigns in Ifrīqiya (modern-day Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and western Libya), the Wendish Crusade in Central Europe, and joint Anglo-Flemish expeditions in al-Andalus (Muslim Spain).2 Through this analysis, Constable argues that contemporaries of Roger II perceived his conquests in Ifrīqiya to be distinct from more religiously motivated expeditions like the Second Crusade. He concludes that Roger’s campaigns ought to be considered a ‘well-established political ambition’ rather than any kind of holy war.3 Scholars writing after Constable have tended to agree with his argument. Jonathan Riley-Smith writes that Roger’s conquests over the Zirid emirs of Ifrīqiya were ‘not technically part’ of the Second Crusade.4 His discussion of the Second Crusade includes mention of Roger’s simultaneous campaigns in Greece against the Byzantines but Riley-Smith sees them as distinct from the traditionally defined ‘Crusades’ of the twelfth century.5 Helene Wieruszowski similarly argues that ‘Sicilian political traditions, economic needs, and military interests’ overrode any religious



1 Constable, ‘The Second Crusade as Seen by Contemporaries’. 2 The boundaries of Ifrīqiya are roughly akin to those of the Roman province of Africa Proconsularis in modern-day Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and western Libya, but its borders varied over time to suit the needs of various groups. Rouighi, The Making of a Mediterranean Emirate, pp. 4–6. 3 Constable, ‘The Second Crusade as Seen by Contemporaries’, p. 236. For similar perspectives that pre-date the work of Constable, see Chalandon, Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile, ii, 148–65; Caspar, Roger II, pp. 418–24. 4 Riley-Smith, The Crusades, p. 124. 5 Historians have long debated what constitutes a Crusade. The various theories to stem from this debate are aptly summarized in Housley, Contesting the Crusades, pp. 1–23. Matt King  •  is an assistant professor of medieval history and digital humanities at the University of South Florida. His research focuses on interfaith relations in the medieval Mediterranean. The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. by Emily A. Winkler and Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small, MISCS 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 229–247 © FHG10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.121964

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interests Roger II might have had in Zirid Ifrīqiya.6 David Abulafia also shows that political and economic circumstances led to Roger’s African conquests more than any concerted Norman interest in crusading.7 According to this perspective, there is a clear distinction between the traditionally defined Crusades to the Levant and the campaigns of Roger II in Ifrīqiya. While the narrative that these scholars present is convincing when seen largely through the lens of Latin sources, I argue that understudied Arabic sources provide a different perspective on the relationship between campaigns of Christians against non-Christians in the twelfth-century Mediterranean. Muslim chroniclers saw Norman expeditions in Ifrīqiya as one prong of a multi-theatre ‘Frankish’ (an Arabic term for Latin Christians) assault on the lands of Islam. This reveals an unexplored disconnect between the Latin and Arabic sources in the central Mediterranean and shows that even if Roger II did not consider himself a crusader, his enemies still saw him as waging a war with religious overtones.

Historical Background: The Normans and the Zirids Roger II began his reign as count of Sicily in 1112 and, after lengthy struggles against the papacy and local lords in southern Italy, was granted the title of King of Sicily in the 1130s, a title which he held until his death in 1154. For almost the entirety of his reign, Roger engaged diplomatically and militarily with local lords in North Africa. Prominent among these governors was a dynasty called the Zirids, which at one point ruled over the entire region of Ifrīqiya as vassals of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt.8 During the middle of the eleventh century, however, the Zirid emirs of Ifrīqiya lost much of their territories to a confederation of tribes known as the Banu Hilal and from then on ruled coastal lands in Ifrīqiya from their capital at Mahdia, which is located on a strategic peninsula on the coast of Tunisia. The relationship between the two dynasties was peaceful and economically productive during the late eleventh century as the Zirids traded gold and other goods for Sicilian grain. The strength of this relationship was such that Roger II’s father, Roger I, twice turned down opportunities to collaborate with other Christian powers to attack the Zirids.9 As the decades progressed, tensions between local governors in Ifrīqiya spilled over to Sicily and strained the once productive Norman–Zirid relationship.10 At the heart of this tension was economic change in Ifrīqiya. After the invasions of the Banu Hilal during the middle of the eleventh century, the Zirids were pushed to the



6 Wieruszowski, ‘The Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Crusades’, p. 16. 7 Abulafia, ‘The Norman Kingdom of Africa’, p. 39. 8 For overviews of the Zirid–Norman relationship, see Abulafia, ‘The Norman Kingdom of Africa and the Norman Expeditions to Majorca and the Muslim Mediterranean’; Idris, La Berbérie orientale sous les Zīrīdes: xe–xiie siècles, i, 303–406. 9 Dalli, ‘The Siculo-African Peace and Roger I’s Annexation of Malta in 1091’. 10 The economic conditions of Ifrīqiya during the eleventh and twelfth centuries are explored in Brett, ‘Ifriqiya as a Market for Saharan Trade’; Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 44–180.

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coast of Ifrīqiya, far from the inland capitals of Qayrawan and Achir from which they had previously governed. As they ruled from a handful of coastal ports, the Zirids exercised less control over regional agricultural production and instead turned to raiding across the Mediterranean to supply their treasury and allow them to trade for Sicilian grain. Furthermore, the trans-Saharan trade routes that had favoured Ifrīqiya as a terminus began to shift west toward the Maghreb, where the Almoravid dynasty of Morocco had more direct contacts with traders south of the Sahara.11 These factors facilitated conflict within and around Ifrīqiya, as local governors fought for control over this changing economic system. The Normans were brought into these regional conflicts across the early twelfth century, both as an ally and enemy of the Zirids. These encounters were one theatre of a multi-front, opportunistic campaign through which Roger II and his administrators sought greater power in the Mediterranean. While he was fighting and scheming in Ifrīqiya, Roger was also scheming to usurp power in the Crusader states, fighting rival lords in Italy, and marrying into a powerful Iberian family with ties to France.12 For most of the early twelfth century, however, Roger II and the Normans were unable to conquer lands in Ifrīqiya due to the strength of the Zirids’ military and their alliances with other Muslim powers on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. This situation changed in the 1140s, when Ifrīqiya was in the midst of an unprecedented, decade-long drought. The Zirids and other local governors were at this point reliant upon Sicilian grain to feed their populace and, in the face of pervasive drought and the movement of trade routes away from their port cities, they could no longer afford to pay the Normans for it. Roger II and his admiral George of Antioch thus launched a series of campaigns against the Zirids and other local lords based on the coast of Ifrīqiya throughout the 1140s that culminated in the Norman capture of Mahdia in the summer of 1148. By the end of this year, the Normans controlled coastal towns in Ifrīqiya from Tripoli up to Tunis and established the so-called Norman ‘Kingdom of Africa’.13 Roger II and his successor, William I, boasted that the scope of their lands made them the kings ‘of Sicily, Italy, and Africa’. Although Norman governance in Ifrīqiya proved short-lived, the court of Palermo nonetheless made small but meaningful changes to the region’s society that favoured Christian populations.14 The Norman kings minted their own coinage in Mahdia, installed garrisons in Ifrīqiyan cities, and changed the tax structure to benefit Christians. Jewish merchants, deterred by years of violence between the Normans and Zirids, forsook the ports of Ifrīqiya, which gave Christian merchants increased access to its ports. The actions of the Normans in Africa indicate that economic control over the region was of paramount concern to the court of Palermo. Roger II and William I sought to govern these territories so as to make Ifrīqiya more commercially productive,

11 See also Guérin, ‘Forgotten Routes?’. 12 These events are summarized in Birk, Norman Kings of Sicily, pp. 100–06. 13 The Normans on occasion deployed the title ‘King of Africa’, whether in Latin (rex Africe) or Arabic (malik Ifrīqiya). King, ‘The Norman Kings of Africa?’. 14 Brett, ‘Muslim Justice under Infidel Rule’, pp. 325–68.

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which would in turn bring additional funds to their treasury. Nonetheless, the societal changes that the Normans facilitated on the African coast, when combined with prevailing Islamic legal opinions about Christian overlordship, led to uprisings in the middle of the 1150s that nearly brought an end to Norman rule there. The last Norman possession in Ifrīqiya, the city of Mahdia, fell in 554h (1159–1160) to the Almohads — a Berber group from modern-day Morocco.

The Latin Sources Roger II’s campaigns in Ifrīqiya during the 1140s took place contemporaneously with a number of other campaigns of Christians against non-Christians that spanned Europe and the Mediterranean. These expeditions include the Second Crusade in the Levant against Muslim Seljuq Turks, the Wendish Crusade in northern Germany against pagans, and, as Lucas Villegas-Aristizábal has described in this book, a campaign undertaken by an Anglo-Flemish navy in modern-day Portugal against Muslim lords. Numerous Latin chroniclers living across Europe wrote about these expeditions. Although some of these authors considered the connections between these conquests, there is a clear distinction in these works between Roger II’s conquests in Ifrīqiya and other expeditions undertaken in the 1140s. It is from the analysis of these Latin sources that Constable and others have shown that Roger II’s campaigns in Ifrīqiya should be seen as distinct from other, more religiously motivated expeditions against Muslims and Pagans. An example from the Gesta Normannorum Ducum (‘Deeds of the Norman Dukes’) by Robert of Torigni illustrates this trend. Writing in the middle of the twelfth century, Robert devotes a passage of his chronicle to the preaching of the Second Crusade and the subsequent campaign to the Holy Land. Robert notes how the preaching of Bernard of Clairvaux motivated Christians across borders to take up the cross: Visis miraculis quae fiebant in locis religiosis, et afflictione cum humilitate multimoda carris venientibus, audita etiam conquestione Christianorum de sanctis locis veninentium super irruptione Paganorum […] Ludovicus rex Francorum, Conradus imperator Alemannorum […] et de aliis regionibus innumerabiles, non solum milites et laici, sed etiam episcopi, clerici, monachi, crucem in humeris assumentes, ad iter Jerosolimitanum se praeparaverunt.15 Inspired by the miracles that happened in the Holy Land, and by the spectacle of manifold affliction and humility brought here by the conveyances that arrived, driven by the stories of the hardships to which Christians in the Holy Land were exposed by the raids of the pagans […] Louis, king of France; Conrad, emperor of Germany […] and an innumerable multitude from other lands, not only knights and laymen, but also bishops, clerics, and monks, took up the cross and prepared themselves for the expedition to Jerusalem. 15 Robert of Torigni, Chronicle of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, ed. by Howlett, p. 152.

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Robert of Torigni presents the preaching and execution of the Second Crusade as one that appeals to all Christians and has clear religious overtones, expressed most overtly in the taking up of the cross. Then, following brief statements about the cities of Tournai and Rouen, Robert of Torigni considers the Norman conquests in Africa. He writes simply that ‘Rex Rogerius Siciliae Tripolitanam provinciam in Africa super Paganos cepit’ (King Roger of Sicily captured the province of Tripoli in Africa from the pagans).16 Unlike the previous description of the Second Crusade, which mentioned the presence of priests and the symbolic taking up of the cross, no such rhetoric is present in the brief mention of Roger’s campaign. The separation of this passage from that of the Second Crusade by a few mentions about unrelated affairs in France makes it unlikely that Robert considered the campaigns to be interrelated. To Robert of Torigni, the campaign of Roger II was a conquest ultimately of less importance than the Second Crusade and one without the same level of conspicuous religious motivation despite it being fought against non-Christians. Chroniclers writing within the Kingdom of Sicily spared little thought to Norman conquests in Ifrīqiya and, when they did, made no mention of religious motivations in Roger II’s expeditions. For example, the Liber de Regno Sicilie (‘Book of the Tyrants of Sicily’) by so-called Hugo Falcandus, considers the history of the Kingdom of Sicily from 1154 to 1169.17 The bulk of this text concerns the reign of William I, which Falcandus compares unfavourably (to put it lightly) to that of his father and predecessor, Roger II. At the beginning of the chronicle, Hugo mentions Roger’s African conquests, which he ascribes to Roger’s wisdom and desire to extend the borders of his kingdom: [Roger II] ingens illi studium erat et presentia caute disponere et ex presentibus futura sollicite premetiri; idque curabat ut non magis viribus quam prudentia et hostes contereret et regnum suum productis finibus ampliaret. Tripolim namque Barbarie, Affricam, Faxum, Campsiam aliasque plurimas barbarorum civitates multis sibi laboribus ac periculis subuigavit.18 [Roger II] took enormous care both to sort out present problems with care and to make careful provision for the future of present conditions, and he made certain that he would use wisdom not less than power both in destroying his enemies and in expanding his kingdom by extending its territories. For he subjugated Tripoli in Barbary, Africa [Mahdia], Sfax, Gabès and numerous other barbarian cities through many personal efforts and dangers.19 To Hugo Falcandus, religious motivations were not a factor in Roger’s Ifrīqiyan conquests. Instead, he frames these conquests to showcase the wisdom and power

16 Robert of Torigni, Chronicle of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II., and Richard I, ed. by Howlett, p. 153. 17 Hugo Falcandus is likely a pseudonym. See Ugo Falcando, The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’, 1154–1169, trans. by Loud and Wiedemann, pp. 28–42; Ugo Falcando, La Historia o Liber de Regno Sicilie, ed. by Siragusa. 18 Ugo Falcando, La Historia o Liber de Regno Sicilie, ed. by Siragusa, pp. 5–6. 19 This translation is from Ugo Falcando, The History of the Tyrants of Sicily, p. 57.

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of Roger II, which Hugo compares favourably to the less successful decisions of William I. This comparison is presented to readers from the outset of the text. In the introductory section of his chronicle, Falcandus laments the fate of Sicily, for ‘non enim alibi rotam fortuna torquet celerius aut maiori mortalium ludit discrimine’ (nowhere else does Fortune give her wheel a more sudden twist, or sport more hazardously with mortal men).20 These vicissitudes of fate are immediately apparent. Falcandus narrates the glorious conquests of Roger II, a man with vitality and intellect who surrounded himself with wise administrators; these traits are a far cry from his successor William under whose watch ‘tranquillitas omnis elapse repente disparuit’ (all this tranquility slipped away and suddenly disappeared) and who ‘in tantam est primum efferatus amentiam ut optimi patris acta contempneret’ (went wild with such a degree of lunacy that he ignored the decisions of his excellent father).21 Falcandus thus attributes the Norman conquest and subsequent loss of the African coast to the personal successes and failures of the Norman kings and their administrators. Nonetheless, for both Roger II and William I, religiosity does not play a role in their African policies. This perspective is in keeping with Falcandus’s relative lack of attention to the divine within his chronicle, which focuses broadly on the ‘pragmatic behavior and action in kingly capacity’ of the Norman monarchs.22 Within his text, Falcandus makes no comparison between Norman conflict in Ifrīqiya and the contemporaneous Second Crusade or any other conflict between Christians and Muslims within the Mediterranean. Roger II does not assume the mantle of a crusader nor a champion of holy war. Instead, Falcandus’s focus is squarely on the results of just and unjust leadership — a perspective informed by his clear exposure to classical literature and motifs. Other Latin chronicles from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries exhibit similar trends to those of Robert of Torigni and Hugo Falcandus. Romuald of Salerno, for example, provides brief accounts of both the Second Crusade and Norman conquests in Ifrīqiya within his chronicle. However, these campaigns are segregated into distinct sections — one which is concerned primarily with the papacy and another that is devoted to the actions of Roger II and William I. Romuald’s account of the Second Crusade includes the preaching of the expedition, though without the grandeur of Robert of Torigni’s account, and a summary of its ultimate failure that ‘parum boni ad honorem nominis christiani perficere’ (dissipated the honour and good reputation of the Christians).23 The success of Roger’s campaign in Ifrīqiya, however, contains no such mention of success for Christians. Instead, Romuald attributes the conquest to Roger’s desire to rule over more land than just Sicily and Apulia.24 20 Ugo Falcando, La Historia o Liber de Regno Sicilie, p. 3; Ugo Falcando, The History of the Tyrants of Sicily, p. 55. 21 Ugo Falcando, La Historia o Liber de Regno Sicilie, pp. 4–7; Ugo Falcando, The History of the Tyrants of Sicily, pp. 56–60. 22 Bellato, ‘Fortune’s Wheel and God’s Whip’, pp. 147–48. 23 Romuald of Salerno, Chronicon, ed. by Garufi, pp. 229. 24 Romuald of Salerno, Chronicon, ed. by Garufi, pp. 226–27.

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The Normans’ campaigns in Ifrīqiya are thus presented as separate from the Second Crusade and as motivated by a combination of Roger II’s wisdom, unbridled ambition, and expansionist desires — but not his religious zeal.25 From the perspective of these Latin sources, Constable’s thesis holds true. Latin chronicles frame Roger’s campaigns in Ifrīqiya as distinct from the contemporaneous Second Crusade.26 But for the Arabic sources that consider these campaigns, we are confronted with an entirely different story. In these works, Norman aggression is intimately connected to Christian campaigns against Muslims in al-Andalus and the Levant.

The Arabic Sources A handful of Arabic sources consider the relationship between the Norman lords of Sicily and the Zirid emirs of Ifrīqiya. Prominent among these works are the Kitāb al-kāmil fī l-tarīkh (‘The Complete History’) of Ibn al-Athīr,27 the Kitāb al-ʿibar (‘Book of Examples’) of Ibn Khaldun,28 and the Riḥla (‘Travelogue’) of al-Tijānī.29 The textual tradition and chronology of these texts is complex. All three were written in either the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, long after Norman campaigns in Ifrīqiya had ended and jihad had become a more common response to Christian aggression within the Islamicate world.30 This kind of textual transmission is a substantial departure from Latin Christian texts explored in the previous section, which were written in the twelfth century, and thus requires a different kind of analysis. These thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Arabic accounts of Norman–Zirid conflict are the result of each author’s contemporary preoccupations with interreligious conflict in the Mediterranean alongside the eyewitness accounts that provided the basis for their works — most prominently those of the Zirid panegyrist Abū l-Ṣalt and the Zirid prince Ibn Shaddād, both of whom lived in the twelfth century. Abū l-Ṣalt was an Andalusian scholar who travelled across the Mediterranean before settling in the Zirid court at Mahdia.31 There, he worked as a chronicler of the Zirid dynasty and wrote panegyrics in honour of the reigning emirs. He also wrote works on music, astronomy, alchemy, and medicine, and as an apparent expert in 25 This perspective contrasts with earlier campaigns in the central Mediterranean, including the Norman conquest of Sicily in the eleventh century and a 1087 Pisan-Genoese campaign against the Zirids, both of which had religious overtones and are often considered part of the crusading movement. Chevedden, ‘“A Crusade from the First”’; Cowdrey, ‘The Mahdia Campaign of 1087’. 26 There is a small body of scholarly literature that shows Roger II’s connections to the crusading movement even though he never went on crusade himself. See, for example, Drell, ‘Norman Italy and the Crusades’; Oldfield, ‘The Use and Abuse of Pilgrims in Norman Italy’. 27 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh. 28 Ibn Khaldun, Kitāb al-ʿibar. 29 Muhammad al-Tijānī, al-Riḥla. 30 Köhler, Alliances and Treaties between Frankish and Muslim Rulers; Cobb, The Race for Paradise, pp. 104–93. 31 Comes, ‘Abū al-Ṣalt’; Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily, pp. 85–90.

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the latter discipline he made several visits to Sicily. His death in October 1134 meant that he did not witness the fall of the Zirid dynasty to the Normans, though he did live long enough to see the once-productive relationship between the two dynasties begin to sour. Little is known about the life of the Zirid prince Ibn Shaddād (born Abū Muhammad ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Shaddād ibn Tamīm ibn al-Muʿizz ibn Bādīs) beyond what we can infer from his writings and when he is briefly mentioned in other contemporary works.32 He grew up in Mahdia as part of the inner circle of emir al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī, with whom he shared the distinction of being a grandchild of Zirid emir Tamīm ibn al-Muʿizz. When the Normans conquered Mahdia in 543H (1148–1149), he likely fled with al-Ḥasan to the court of Muḥriz ibn Ziyad. After this, his movements are unknown until 551H (1156–1157), when he was in Palermo (probably en route to Damascus), according to the Mamluk chronicler al-Nuwayrī. Although Michele Amari argues that Ibn Shaddād was an eyewitness to the Almohad conquest of Mahdia several years later, H. R. Idris and Jeremy Johns (among others) now think that he was simply reporting the testimony of someone who was an eyewitness to the city’s capture. Regardless, Ibn Shaddād was living in Damascus by 571H (1175–1176) according to Imād ad-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī. He continued to work on his chronicle until at least 582H (1186–1187). It is not known when or where Ibn Shaddād died. When examining the texts produced in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by Ibn al-Athīr, Ibn Khaldun, and al-Tijānī, therefore, we must consider both the perspectives of these two (often uncited) members of the Zirid court as well as these later authors. Bearing this in mind, these later sources present Roger II’s campaigns in Ifrīqiya as one aspect of a monolithic ‘Frankish assault’ on the lands of Islam. In the context of these chronicles, the term ‘al-Franj’ (the Frank) is used to describe Latin Christians while the Byzantines or other Greek Christians are distinguished with the term ‘Rūm’ (Rum / Roman). Ibn al-Athīr shows the connections between the Normans’ campaigns in Ifrīqiya and those in other parts of the Mediterranean. He notes on multiple occasions, both during and before the reign of Roger II, the collusion that took place between Christian powers seeking to invade Muslim lands. The first of these instances took place in 490H (1096–1097), the year in which the ‘Franks’ first appeared in the Levant on the expedition that would come to be known as the First Crusade. In this year, Ibn al-Athīr relates how an envoy from Baldwin the Frank, a member of the First Crusade, sent a message to Roger I (the father of Roger II) telling him of his plans to invade Ifrīqiya. One of Roger’s advisors voiced his opinion that this was a good idea because then the lands would become Christian. Upon hearing this, Roger farted loudly and proclaimed ‘My religion be true! That was more useful than your words!’33 He explained that, should Baldwin take Ifrīqiya, Roger would have to commit numerous resources to facilitate the conquests, he would lose money from

32 Brett, ‘Fitnat Al Qayrawan’, pp. 402–04; Idris, La Berbérie orientale, i, pp. xviii–xix. 33 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, x, 272. !‫ هذه خري من كالمكم‬،‫وحق ديني‬

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the grain trade, and he would have to break his treaties with the Zirids. Although he refused Baldwin’s proposal, Roger I ominously foreshadowed the future conquest of Ifrīqiya at the end of this encounter when he said, ‘When we find the strength, we will take it!’34 This apocryphal episode, which does not appear in other medieval Arabic chronicles, illustrates the extent to which Ibn al-Athīr considered the Frankish campaigns in the Levant and Ifrīqiya to be related. Even though an alliance between Baldwin and Roger I never came to fruition, the implication here is that Christian leaders were actively communicating about their military activity in Muslim lands. This perspective is further enforced elsewhere in this chapter, where Ibn al-Athīr mentions the military campaigns of nameless hordes of Franks against Muslims in al-Andalus, Ifrīqiya, and the Levant.35 By positioning these groups only as the Franks, Ibn al-Athīr presents to his readers one group of people that were working together to destabilize and threaten Muslim lands. The interconnectivity of Christian–Muslim conflict in the Mediterranean is further seen in an episode some fifty years later in 539H (1144–1145). Ibn al-Athīr relates how an unnamed scholar told him the following story. A fleet of Roger II had plundered the lands around Tripoli. When news came of the looting and killing from this raid, Roger II asked a respected Muslim scholar, ‘Where was Muhammad for those lands and their people?’ The Muslim scholar replied, ‘He was conquering for them. He witnessed the conquest of Edessa, which the Muslims have now conquered.’36 Although the knights of Roger II laughed at the idea that Edessa would fall, Roger believed the Muslim because of his reputation for knowing the truth. Sure enough, news reached Sicily several days later of the Muslim seizure of Edessa. Like the story of Roger I’s meeting with Baldwin, this episode presents Frankish actions in Ifrīqiya and the Levant as interrelated. It also solidifies the idea of one Muslim community being the subject of these Frankish incursions, for Ibn al-Athīr compares the poor fortunes of one group of Muslims with the simultaneous good fortune of another. Ibn al-Athīr thus saw connections between Norman aggression in Ifrīqiya and campaigns of Christians in other parts of the Mediterranean. The vocabulary he uses to describe these encounters further shows his perception of these campaigns as interrelated. Ibn al-Athīr refers to Latin Christians en masse as the ‘Franks’, whether describing groups of Christians in al-Andalus, Sicily, or the Levant. Although Ibn al-Athīr acknowledges individual leaders among these Franks like Roger II and his admiral George of Antioch, he nonetheless homogenizes them into one group that is responsible for a monolithic assault on the lands of Islam. This homogenization of both Franks and Muslims is a deliberate rhetorical strategy deployed in Ibn al-Athīr’s chronicle. When Ibn al-Athīr narrates conflict between

34 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, x, 272. ‫متى وجدنا قوة أخذناها‬ 35 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, x, 272–73. 36 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, xi, 100–01. " ‫ وقد فتحها املسلمون اآلن‬،‫ وشهد فتح الرها‬،‫" أين كان محمد عن تلك البالد وأهلها؟" "كان غاب عنهم‬

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Muslims, the emphasis is not on the religiosity of the combatants. Instead, he focuses on the leaders of opposing groups and the peoples that comprised their armies. In the year 513H (1119–1120), for example, he tells of conflict between the Almoravid emir, ʿAlī ibn Yusuf, and the people of Cordoba, who rebelled against the rule of his governor. Ibn al-Athīr acknowledges the diversity of the soldiers that the Almoravids brought to stop the uprising — Sanhaja Berbers, Zenata Berbers, and others.37 The conflict here, although one of Muslims against Muslims, is presented as one of a local population against its rulers. Religion has no place in it. This is seen in areas outside of al-Andalus too. In the year 497H (1103–1104), Ibn al-Athīr recounts the diplomatic negotiations that took place in Baghdad between Barkyaruq and Muhammad to stop years of war. There is no mention of either group’s confessional identity in this episode.38 In Ifrīqiya, too, Ibn al-Athīr acknowledges conflict between Muslim lords without emphasizing their religion. In an entry for the year 482H (1089–1090), for example, he narrates the brief seizure of Sousse by an Arab group and a subsequent battle against the Zirids near Mahdia.39 When Ibn al-Athīr narrates conflict between Christians and Muslims, his rhetorical style changes dramatically. Instead of acknowledging the diverse populations of Muslims in a given area, of which we know that Ibn al-Athīr was aware, he homogenizes them under the banner of Islam. In an entry for the year 520H (1126–1127), he notes how a Frankish ruler in al-Andalus ‘left [his lands] with great armies from among the Franks and entered into the lands of Islam’.40 Despite resistance from the assemblage of Muslims, the Franks were victorious in battle and many Muslims were killed. Similarly, in an entry for the year 505H (1111–1112), Ibn al-Athīr recounts how Alphonso the Frank marched ‘into the lands of Islam’ in al-Andalus and, when Alphonso was defeated, Ibn al-Athīr refers to the victory being for the ‘Muslims’ and not the emir that led them, Yūsuf ibn Tāshfīn.41 This trend holds true outside al-Andalus. In his description of the Norman conquest of Mahdia, Ibn al-Athīr frames al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī’s departure from the city as one that would save Muslims from suffering. He reports al-Ḥasan as saying, ‘I consider it better to save Muslims from slavery and death than to continue governing’.42 Similar rhetoric is found during the Almohad conquest of Mahdia in 554H (1159–1160). Ibn al-Athīr records William I trying to negotiate with the Almohads by threatening that ‘if ʿAbd al-Muʿmin kills our companions in Mahdia, we will kill the Muslims who are on the island of Sicily’.43 Soon after, Ibn al-Athīr records a speech that ʿAbd al-Muʿmin

37 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, x, 558. 38 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, x, 369–72. 39 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, x, 179. 40 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, x, 520. ‫ وجاس يف بالد اإلسالم‬،‫فخرج يف عساكر كثرية من الفرنج‬ 41 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, x, 490–91. ‫إىل بالد اإلسالم‬ 42 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, xi, 126. ‫ خريا من امللك‬،‫وأنا أرى سالمة املسلمني من األرس والقتل‬ 43 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, xi, 245. ‫أن قتل عبد املؤمن أصحابنا باملهدية قتلنا املسلمني الذين هم بجزيرة صقلية‬

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gave to the emirs of the Arabs of the Banu Riyah. The Almohad leader tells them that, ‘aiding Islam is incumbent upon us […] By you, the lands [of al-Andalus] were conquered at the beginning of Islam and by you, the enemy will be repelled from there now!’44 By placing this rhetoric into the mouths of both Christian and Muslim rulers, Ibn al-Athīr cements this theme in his larger history. In particular, the words of ʿAbd al-Muʿmin establish continuity between Almohad conquests in Ifrīqiya and early Islamic conquests in al-Andalus, effectively linking rhetoric of Christians against Muslims across time and space. While Ibn al-Athīr’s narration of the events of the Mashriq are more detailed and nuanced than those in al-Andalus and Ifrīqiya, it nonetheless sometimes presents rhetoric of Frankish aggression against a homogenous Muslim community.45 Ibn al-Athīr’s description of the Frankish conquest of Jerusalem in 492H (1098–1099), for example, mentions on several occasions the horrific fate of the Muslims that remained in the city.46 In an entry for the year 543H (1148–1149), Ibn al-Athīr records how the king of the Germans ‘strove for the lands of Islam’ and that the response of Muʿin al-Dīn of Damascus was to request one of his allies to ‘come to the aid of the Muslims and to drive the enemy from them’.47 Once again, Ibn al-Athīr embeds the notion of a clash between Franks (Christians) and Muslims into his narrative of history. Although this theme does not permeate every entry pertaining to interactions between Christians and Muslims, the instances above nonetheless reinforce a narrative of an interconnected conflict between Christians and Muslims that affects every side of the Mediterranean.48 This same trend holds true of the fourteenth-century chronicle of Ibn Khaldun, which places a similar emphasis on divides between Christian and Muslims. His chapter on Frankish aggression in the central and eastern Mediterranean combines the Norman campaigns in Ifrīqiya with the traditionally defined Crusades to the Levant. Ibn Khaldun calls this chapter ‘an account of the Franks, who captured the coasts of Syria and its ports, and how they subdued them, and the beginning of their authority and their fate there’.49 The subsequent sections in this chapter, beginning with the Franks’ conquest of Jerusalem in 1099 and ending with their seizure of

44 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, xi, 246. ‫ وما يقاتلهم أحد مثلكم‬،‫ واستولوا عىل كثري من البالد التي كانت بأيدي املسلمني‬،‫ فإن املرشكني قد استفحل أمرهم باألندلس‬،‫قد وجبت علينا نرصة اإلسالم‬ ‫ فأجابوا‬،‫ يجاهدون يف سبيل الله‬،‫ ونريد منكم عرشة االف فارس من أهل النجدة والشجاعة‬،‫ وبكم يدفع عنها العدو االن‬،‫فبكم فتحت البالد أول اإلسالم‬ ‫ فحلفهم عىل ذلك بالله تعاىل وباملصحف‬،‫بالسمع والطاعة‬ 45 This homogenization of Christian powers can be contrasted with the occasional times that he and other Arabic authors (particularly Ibn Jubayr) praise the actions of the Normans. Nef, ‘Dire la conquête et la souveraineté des Hauteville en arabe’. 46 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, x, 282–86. 47 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, xi, 129. ‫ وكف العدو عنهم‬،‫ يدعوه إىل نرصة املسلمني‬...‫قصد بالد اإلسالم‬ 48 This argument is enumerated by Cobb, who argues that the late eleventh century gave rise to a sense in the Muslim world of a ‘global Frankish assault on Islam’. Cobb, The Race for Paradise, p. 156. For examples in which there is interaction without the homogenization of forces as Christian or Muslim, see Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, xi, 33 and 40. 49 Ibn Khaldun, Kitāb al-ʿibar, v, 209. ‫أخبار اإلفرنج فيام ملكوه من سواحل الشام وثغوره وكيف تغلبوا عليه عبداية أمرهم يف ذلك ومصايره‬

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Constantinople in 1204, consider the regions of the Islamic world under Frankish control and how Frankish expansion included conquests in Sicily, Ifrīqiya, and Syria. These conquests did not last, though, as the Franks were eventually driven out of Muslims lands. Al-Andalus, which Ibn Khaldun considers in a different section of his work, is absent from this narrative and thus represents a departure from the format of the chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr. Nonetheless, Ibn Khaldun advocates the notion of a Frankish assault on Islam, one in which Ifrīqiya plays a prominent part.50 This is seen in both the narrative he tells and the vocabulary he uses to tell it. The section headings of the Kitāb al-ʿibar listed below show the weaving of the Normans’ campaigns in Ifrīqiya (bolded) with roughly chronological happenings in the Levant:

‫فتح صاحب دمشق بانياس‬ ‫استيالء شمس امللوك عىل الشقيف‬ ‫استيالء االفرنج عىل جزيرة جربة من افريقية‬ ‫فتح صاحب دمشق بعض حصون االفرنج‬ ‫استيالء االفرنج عىل طرابلس الغرب‬ ‫استيالء االفرنج عىل املهدية‬ ‫استيالء االفرنج عىل بونة ووفاة رجار صاحب صقلية وملك ابنه غليامل‬ ‫استيالء االفرنج عىل عسقالن‬ ‫ثورة املسلمني بسواحل افريقية عىل االفرنج املتغلبني فيها‬ ‫ارتجاع عبد املؤمن املهدية من يد االفرنج‬ ‫حصار االفرنجك أسد الدين شريكوه يف بلبيس‬ ‫حصار االفرنج القاهرة‬ The lord of Damascus conquers Banias Shamas al-Malik seizes Beaufort The Franks seize the island of Djerba in Ifrīqiya The lord of Damascus conquers some of the forts of the Franks The Franks seize Tripoli of the West The Franks seize Mahdia The Franks seize Annaba and the death of Roger, lord of Sicily, and reign of his son William The Franks seize Ascalon The uprising of the Muslims on the coast of Ifrīqiya against the Franks, who had been triumphing there ʿAbd al-Muʿmin retakes Mahdia from the hand of the Franks The Franks siege Asad ad-Dīn Shīrkūh at Bilbeis The Franks siege Cairo51

50 Following his consideration of Frankish aggression in the Muslim world, Ibn Khaldun considers the course of the Artuqid dynasty, which ruled in eastern Anatolia and northern Syria / Iraq. Ibn Khaldun, Kitāb al-ʿibar, v, 246. 51 Ibn Khaldun, Kitāb al-ʿibar, v, 230–43.

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Ibn Khaldun’s narrative thus alternates between events in Ifrīqiya and the Levant. The core of the Norman conquests is told in the sections on the Franks conquering Tripoli, Mahdia, and Annaba but these are separated from the other events that involve their presence in Ifrīqiya — the conquest of Djerba and the Almohad reconquest. The intertwining of these events with those in the Mashriq, combined with the use of the term ‘Franks’ to refer to these people as a collective, shows the interrelated perception of these military campaigns. These rhetorical strategies are reminiscent of Ibn al-Athīr, who also cultivated the image of a homogenous assault of Franks on the lands of Islam. Ibn Khaldun’s rhetoric when describing the Almohad conquest of Mahdia is also evocative. In this section, Ibn Khaldun narrates how the Almohads (a Berber group from north-western Africa) led by ʿAbd al-Muʿmin invaded Ifrīqiya and conquered all of the Normans’ coastal cities there. Ibn Khaldun titles this section, ‘ʿAbd al-Muʿmin retakes Mahdia from the hand of the Franks.’ The use of the Arabic verb Artajaʿa (‫ )عاجترا‬here is compelling. Artajaʿa means ‘to retake or take back’, specifically the idea of returning something to its previous form. This means that Ibn Khaldun saw the Almohad seizure of Mahdia as a reconquest, which is compelling because the Almohads had never previously held the city. Instead, the language of Ibn Khaldun implies that the Almohads retook Mahdia on behalf of Muslims from the Franks that had previously ruled there. This deliberate choice of vocabulary highlights Ibn Khaldun’s framing of these conflicts not as isolated examples of lords fighting each other, but of a larger campaign of Christians against Muslims. The chronicles of Ibn al-Athīr and Ibn Khaldun thus provide a counterpoint to the medieval Latin sources utilized by Giles Constable and others. While medieval Latin sources separated the expeditions of Roger II in Ifrīqiya from the Second Crusade and other contemporaneous instances of conflict between Christians and Muslims, the same cannot be said for these Arabic sources. Ibn al-Athīr and Ibn Khaldun deliberately painted Roger II’s campaigns as one theatre of a multi-pronged and homogeneously ‘Frankish’ assault on Muslim lands. However, these two authors wrote their chronicles decades after the Norman dynasty had been expelled from Ifrīqiya and in a different climate of interreligious exchange than in the mid-twelfth century. When the Normans invaded Zirid lands, ideas about jihad and the appropriate response to Frankish aggression (seen as an attack on Islam itself) were developing in the Levant under the reign of Nūr ad-Dīn and Saladin.52 In all likelihood, the presentation of Zirid–Norman conflict as one branch of a Mediterranean-wide conflict was a reflection of the thirteenth and fourteenth century rather than the middle of the twelfth century. Therefore, in order to better understand how the Zirids themselves interpreted their fight with the Normans, it is necessary to search for extant documents produced during this conflict.

52 Köhler, Alliances and Treaties between Frankish and Muslim Rulers, pp. 59–266.

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The Zirids and Holy War The little evidence to survive from the Zirid court of the twelfth century indicates that the Zirids saw their campaigns against the Normans as religious in nature and one that was worthy of jihad — even if they did not explicitly connect this conflict to other campaigns of Muslims against Christians in the Mediterranean. The only texts to survive from the Zirid court of the twelfth century are those embedded in later writings. The fourteenth-century Riḥla (‘Travelogue’) of al-Tijānī in particular contains lengthy quotations from Zirid writers that are not found elsewhere. In this travelogue, al-Tijānī discusses at length the history and peoples of the various cities that he visits. The text ‘observes this blessed journey over the lands, including an account of their situations and their qualities, and information on their roads and their distances, and the description of their conquests and misfortunes, and the situations which engulfed them from the edges of the world. This work highlights all the lands which hold ruins and monuments and it yearns for the examination of them’.53 The history of the cities through which al-Tijānī passes is of the utmost importance to him, which inspires him at times to devote long sections of his travelogue to quotations of earlier sources. Included in these sources are texts relevant to conflict between the Normans and Zirids during the twelfth century. One such text is a letter written in the summer of 517H (1123) by the Zirid panegyrist Abū l-Ṣalt. This letter, which was composed in the wake of a momentous triumph of the Zirids and their Arab allies over the Normans at the fortress of al-Dīmās, was distributed to all of the tribes across Ifrīqiya at the behest of the Zirid emir al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī. It describes in detail this military encounter and the God-given victory of the Zirids:

،‫ وفساد تدبريه‬،‫ وحمله سوء تقديره‬،‫ واستمرعىل عدوانه وبغيه‬،‫وان صاحب صقلية لج يف طغيان غيه‬ ‫ واستنفر‬،‫ فاستجاش وحشد‬،‫ وظن أن ذلك سهل امللتمس قريب املرام‬،‫عىل اهتضام جانب اإلسالم‬ – ‫ سري أسطوله نحو املهدية‬،‫ الذي كان فيه تدمريه‬،‫ وكمل تدبريه‬،‫ وملا اسنتمت له يف ظنه أموره‬،‫واستمد‬ ،‫حامها الله – يف نحو من ثالمثائة مركب حمل عىل ظهرها ثالثون ألف راكب وزهاء ألف فارس‬ ‫ فمن أول ما أسناه الله‬،‫ قاض عليه بتلف األموال وهالك النفوس‬،‫وكان اقالعه يف طالع مقارن للنحوس‬ ‫ أن أرسل عليهم‬،‫ وأظهره من عنايته التي ال يؤدى حقها بغري الشبكر الجزيل‬،‫فيه من صنعه الجميل‬ ‫ ونابت يف اهالكهم مناب زرق االسنة وبيض‬،‫ وأصلتهم بربد املاء حر النار‬،‫ريحا صريت جميعهم إىل التبار‬ ...‫الشفار‬ ‫ وجاؤوا مجىء السيل يعتلج اعتالجا‬،‫فاستظهرنا باستقدام قبائل العرب املطيفة بنا فأقبلوا أفواجا أفواجا‬ ...‫ وكلهم عىل نيات يف الجهاد خالصة‬،‫ويتدفق أمواجا‬

53 Al-Tijānī, al-Riḥla, p. 3. ‫ واالشارة إىل مفتتحيها‬،‫ وبيان طرقها ومسافاتها‬،‫فهذا فقييد يشتمل عىل وصف ما شاهدته يف هذه السفرة املباركة من البالد مضمن ذكر أحوالها وصفاتها‬ ‫ ويتشوق إىل االطالع عليه‬، ‫ وما تضوف اليه‬،‫ وما يتميز به كل بلد من االثار واملعامل‬،‫ وأحوال من اشتملت عليه من أصناف العوامل‬،‫وبناتها‬

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The lord of Sicily was obstinate in the tyranny of his trespassing. He continued his aggression and his injustice. The evil of [Roger’s] assessment and the wickedness of his scheming, which oppressed the side of Islam, burdened [al-Ḥasan]. [Roger] thought that this plan, which was close to his desire, would be easy [to accomplish]. Thus he mobilized and gathered an army. He called upon [his soldiers] to fight. When [Roger] was of the opinion that his affairs were in order and his planning finished, which was to be his annihilation, his fleet set out toward Mahdia — God defend it! — with three hundred ships bearing on their decks 30,000 soldiers and about 1,000 cavalry. But its departure was ill-fated and bound to misfortunes. For God, who is the first and most radiant in the production of beauty, destroyed [the fleet] with the loss of equipment and the perdition of souls. He made visible his providence, which does not reveal its truth without abundant praise, such that he sent on them a wind that moved them toward destruction. It came upon them with the cold of the water and the heat of fire. Their destruction befell them, alternating between the piercing of spears and the flashing of blades […] Then, we sought assistance by summoning the surrounding tribes of the Arabs to us. For they drew near in band upon band. The arrival of the torrent, which was a very violent commotion and surged in waves, came. All of them came with intentions of pure jihad […]54 The rest of the letter complements the above passages. It gives a detailed description of the Muslim victory at al-Dīmās with particular attention given to the role of the Arabs in defeating the Normans. Invective against the Norman invaders is found throughout. The letter ends with an invocation to God that emphasizes His triumph over the idolaters, ‘Thank God, who has triumphed for the hand of Islam, elevated it, and granted it victory. He, who has destroyed, ruined, debased, and driven away idolatry’.55 This letter is significant for its portrayal of conflict with the Normans as religious in nature. Written in the Zirid court and distributed by the orders of emir al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī, it evokes the notion of jihad in the face of Norman Christian aggressors. Abū l-Ṣalt’s invective against the lord of Sicily is grounded in his oppressive exploitation of the Zirids, framed as part of a broader assault on Islam itself. The victory that the Zirids won over the Normans is thus construed along triumphant, religious lines. There is circumstantial evidence from the later chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr to indicate that the Zirids continued to frame their conflict with the Normans along religious lines. In his account of an incident in the city of Gabès in 542H (1147–1148), Ibn al-Athīr relates how an usurper named Yusuf had seized the city and pledged his loyalty to Roger II, a move that agitated the Muslim populace.56 The people collaborated with

54 Al-Tijānī, al-Riḥla, pp. 337–39. 55 Al-Tijānī, al-Riḥla, p. 339. ‫ وأذله ودحره‬،‫ وأباد الرشك ودمره‬،‫ وأعاله وأظهره‬،‫فاحمد لله الذي أيد اإلسالم ونرصه‬ 56 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, xi, 120–21.

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the army of the Zirid emir al-Ḥasan to overthrow Roger’s newest vassal. Several years later, in 548H (1153–1154), a coalition of Arab tribes rejected Roger II’s offer of 5000 Frankish knights to fight alongside them because they only wanted to aid from other Muslims.57 Finally, when the Almohad caliph ‘Abd al-Muʿmin conquered Mahdia from the Normans in 554 (1159–1160), he used the rhetoric of jihad to try to mobilize local Arab tribes to fight with him in al-Andalus.58 Ibn al-Athīr does not make explicit all the rhetoric that surrounded these alliances that formed between the Muslim powers of Ifrīqiya against or excluding Christians. However, based on the 1123 letter from the court of al-Ḥasan that specifically evokes the idea of jihad, it is unlikely that the surrounding incidents were far divorced from this ideology. The Zirids considered these campaigns to be religious in nature and thus mobilized rhetoric of holy war when fighting the Normans.

Conclusion The picture to emerge from this analysis of medieval Latin and Arabic texts shows a fundamental disconnect between how these groups of sources perceived conflict between the Normans and Zirids. From the perspective of Latin sources, the argument of Giles Constable and numerous other scholars appears to hold true. Roger II of Sicily never went on crusade. The evidence and attitude of these sources to Roger’s campaigns imply that he did not consider himself to be a crusader. Rather, his campaigns were the result of Norman economic and political ambitions. As a result, both modern and medieval scholars have seen Norman campaigns in Ifrīqiya as distinct from the more religiously motivated expeditions to the Middle East, those that we today call ‘Crusades’. From the perspective of the Arabic sources, though, the exact opposite is true. Muslim authors writing decades after Roger II’s Ifrīqiyan conquests lumped him together with the leaders of the Second Crusade and other Christians who waged war against Muslims. They saw the Normans as part of a larger monolithic mass that they called the ‘Franks’, a term that encompassed Latin Christians from Spain through the Middle East. For these authors, the Franks were defined first and foremost by their incursions into Muslim lands, which made conflict between these two groups religious in nature by default. Authors like Ibn al-Athīr and Ibn Khaldun saw little distinction between Roger II of Sicily, Louis VII of France, or Conrad III of Germany; all were Franks who sought to aggress upon Muslim lands. The sole surviving document from the Zirid court during the 1120s further supports the idea of the Zirids evoking jihad in the face of Norman aggression. Emir al-Ḥasan presented his victory over the Zirids along triumphant and religious lines, though without the trans-Mediterranean perspective found in later Arabic authors.

57 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, xi, 186. 58 Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, xi, 245–47.

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Works Cited Primary Sources Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 13 vols (Dar Sadir: Beirut, 1966) —, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr for the Crusading Period from al-Kāmil Fī’l-Ta’rīkh, trans. by D. S. Richards, 3 vols (Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006) Ibn Khaldun, Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l’Afrique Septentrionale, trans. by William McGuckin de Slane, 4 vols (Alger: Imprimerie du Gouvernement, 1852) —, Kitab al-ʿIbar, 8 vols (Beirut: Dar al-Fakir, 2001) —, Le livre des exemples, trans. by Abdesselam Cheddadi, 2 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 2002) Muhammad al-Tijānī, al-Riḥla (Tunis: Dar al-Arabiyya Books, 1981) —, Voyage du scheikh et-Tidjani dans la régence de Tunis pendant les années 706, 707 et 708 de l’hégire (1306–1309), trans. by Alphonse Rousseau, Islamic Geography 186 (Frankfurtam-Main: Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science, 1994) Robert of Torigni, Chronicle of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I: The Chronicle of Robert of Torigny, Abbot of the Monastery of St Michael-in-Peril-of-the-Sea, ed. by Richard Howlett, vol. 4, Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, or Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1889) Romuald of Salerno, Chronicon, vol. 7, ed. by Carlo Garufi, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Castello: S. Lapi, 1935) Ugo Falcando, La Historia o Liber de Regno Sicilie e la Epistola ad Petrum Panormitane Ecclesie Thesaurarium, ed. by G. B. Siragusa, Fonti per la Storia d’Italia (Rome: Tipografi del Senato, 1897) —, The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by “Hugo Falcandus”, 1154–1169, trans. by Graham Loud and Thomas Wiedemann (New York: Manchester University Press, 1998) Secondary Studies Abulafia, David, ‘The Norman Kingdom of Africa and the Norman Expeditions to Majorca and the Muslim Mediterranean’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 7 (1985), 26–49 Bellato, Giulia, ‘Fortune’s Wheel and God’s Whip: Religious Attitudes and Secular Power in Hugo Falcandus’s Liber de Regno Siciliae’, The Medieval History Journal, 23 (2020), 144–67 Birk, Joshua, Norman Kings of Sicily and the Rise of the Anti-Islamic Critique: Baptized Sultans (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) Brett, Michael, ‘The Armies of Ifriqiya, 1052–1160’, Cahiers de Tunisie, 48 (1997), 107–25 —, ‘The City-State in Medieval Ifriqiya: The Case of Tripoli’, Cahiers de Tunisie, 34 (1986), 69–94 —, ‘Fitnat al Qayrawan: A Study of Traditional Arabic Historiography’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, London University, 1970)

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—, ‘Ifriqiya as a Market for Saharan Trade from the Tenth to the Twelfth Century ad’, The Journal of African History, 10 (1969), 347–64 —, ‘Muslim Justice under Infidel Rule: The Normans in Ifriqiya, 517–55h/1123–1160ad’, Cahiers de Tunisie 43 (1995): 325–68. —, ‘The Way of the Nomad’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 58 (1995), 251–69 Caspar, Erich, Roger II (1101–1154), und die Gründung der Normannisch-Sicilischen Monarchie (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1963) Chalandon, Ferdinand, Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile, 2 vols (Paris: Librairie Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1907) Chevedden, Paul, ‘A Crusade from the First’: The Norman Conquest of Islamic Sicily, 1060–1091’, Al-Masāq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean, 22 (2010), 191–225 Cobb, Paul, The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014) Comes, Mercè, ‘Abū Al‐Ṣalt: Umayya Ibn ʿAbd Al‐ʿAzīz Ibn Abī Al‐Ṣalt Al‐Dānī Al‐ Andalusī’, in The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference, ed. by Thomas Hockey (New York: Springer, 2007), pp. 9–10 Constable, Giles, ‘The Second Crusade as Seen by Contemporaries’, Traditio, 9 (1953), 213–79 Cowdrey, H. E. J., ‘The Mahdia Campaign of 1087’, The English Historical Review, 92 (1977), 1–29 Dalli, Charles, ‘The Siculo-African Peace and Roger I’s Annexation of Malta in 1091’, in De Triremibus: Festschrift in Honour of Joseph Muscat, ed. by Toni Cortis and Timothy Gambin (Malta: Publishers Enterprises Group Ltd, 2005), pp. 265–74 Drell, Joanna, ‘Norman Italy and the Crusades: Thoughts on the “Homefront”’, in Crusading and Pilgrimage in the Norman World (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2015), pp. 51–64 Guérin, Sarah M, ‘Forgotten Routes? Italy, Ifrīqiya and the Trans-Saharan Ivory Trade’, AlMasāq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean, 25 (2013), 70–91 Housley, Norman, Contesting the Crusades (New Jersey: Wiley-Blackwell, 1986) Idris, H. R., La Berbérie orientale sous les Zīrīdes: xe-xiie siècles, 2 vols (Limoges: Bontemps, 1962) Johns, Jeremy, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Dīwān (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) King, Matt, ‘The Norman Kings of Africa?’, The Haskins Society Journal, 28 (2017), 143–66 Köhler, Michael, Alliances and Treaties between Frankish and Muslim Rulers in the Middle East: Cross-Cultural Diplomacy in the Period of the Crusades, trans. by Peter Holt (Leiden: Brill, 2013) Metcalfe, Alex, The Muslims of Medieval Italy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009) Nef, Annliese, ‘Dire la conquête et la souveraineté des Hauteville en arabe (jusqu’au milieu du xiiie siècle’, Tabularia, 15 (2015), 1–15 Oldfield, Paul, ‘The Use and Abuse of Pilgrims in Norman Italy’, in Crusading and Pilgrimage in the Norman World, ed. by Kathryn Hurlock and Paul Oldfield (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2015), pp. 139–56

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Riley-Smith, Jonathan, The Crusades: A History, 3rd edn (New York: Bloomsbury, 2014) Rouighi, Ramzi, The Making of a Mediterranean Emirate: Ifriqiya and Its Andalusis, 1200–1400 (Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011) Wieruszowski, Helene, ‘The Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Crusades’, in History of the Crusades, vol. 2: The Later Crusades, 1189–1311, ed. by Harry Hazard, Robert Wolff, and Kenneth Setton (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), pp. 3–44

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Kalina Yamboliev

10. Hagiography and the Politics of Memoryin the Norman Conquest of the Italian South

In one holy man’s biographical text or vita, authored in southern Italy in the middle to late twelfth century, the hagiographer began by enumerating the reasons why he desired to record the life of his eminent subject: ʹΕπεὶ οὖν οὕτω πρόδηλος ἐν τοῖς περὶ τῶν ἀοιδίμων ἀνδρῶν διηγήμασιν ἡ ὠφέλεια καὶ πρὸς τὸ κρεῖττον ἐπίδοσις, οὐ καλῶς ἒχειν ᾠήθηλεν τὸν θεάρεστον καὶ ψυχωφελῆ βιον τοῦ ἡμετέρου πατρὸς καὶ ποιμένος βαρθολομαίου, τοῦ ἐν τοσαύτῃ ἀρετῇ διαπρέψαντος καὶ δίκην ἡλίου τὰς τῶν ἑαυτοῦ κατορθωμάτων αὐγὰς πανταχοῦ τηλαυγῶς καταπιρσεύσαντος, σιωπῇ παραπέμψασθαι καὶ λήθης βυθοῖς ἐᾶν ἀμαυροῦσθαι τὰ ἐκείυου καλά Since the benefit drawn from these narratives of illustrious men and their progress towards the best is so evident, we did not believe it good that the life of our father and pastor Bartholomew, which is so pleasing to God and advantageous to the soul, be left in silence, nor that he who distinguished himself in such great virtue and who, like a sun, made the rays of his feats shine everywhere, [it is not right] that his virtuous actions be allowed to fall into the abyss of oblivion.1 As professed, the author intended his act of commemorative writing to benefit his audience by acquainting them with the saint’s virtuous deeds as a model for their own good Christian lives, and as a remedy against the historical tide of forgetfulness and perilous absorption into ‘the abyss of oblivion’. Both were consistent with the rhetorical conventions characteristic of the genre of medieval hagiography, as was the

1 ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni; Latin version: AASS Septembris vii. 792–826. Kalina Yamboliev  •  received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in June 2019 and is currently preparing her book on the Italo-Greek saints’ vitae and narrative belonging in medieval southern Italy.

The Normans in the Mediterranean, ed. by Emily A. Winkler and Liam Fitzgerald with the assistance of Andrew Small, MISCS 9 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021), pp. 249–266 © FHG10.1484/M.MISCS-EB.5.121965

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successive relation of the saint’s life and religious career.2 The biographer described the saint’s family and youth, then recounted his early spiritual formation, his ascetic trials, and the growth of his spiritual authority in a captivating narrative sequence of spiritual power and political sway. This was a rich rhetorical presentation clearly intended for oral recitation to a monastic or popular assembly; lingering on any single topic was precluded by the statement that ‘Ἠμῖν δὲ πρὸς τὰ ἑξῆς τοῦ λόγου ἰτέον καὶ διηγητέον τὰ μνήμης καὶ διηγήσεως ἄξια’ (we must go ahead in the discourse and recount things worthy of memory and narration).3 In its most innocent rendering, such an interjection signalled to the audience the transition to the subsequent topic or theme. Simultaneously, however, the rather casual remark reveals a more complex dimension to the writing, encapsulated by the unseen voice that had selected those things ‘worthy of memory’ and united them purposefully in a precise and calculated narrative sequence. The man in question was Bartholomew of Simeri (d. 1130), the most prominent of the so-termed ‘Italo-Greek’ saints of southern Italy and Sicily in the Norman period.4 Bartholomew was born in the mid-eleventh century in the town of Simeri in southern Calabria, and thus in a primarily Greek-speaking and eastern monastic context. His hagiographer, who historians agree was likely Filagato of Cerami, one of Bartholomew’s disciples, recorded the saint’s encounters with both Byzantine and Norman leaders of the highest echelons. Their patronage allowed him to found two prominent monasteries in southern Italy: St Mary Odighitria (she who shows the way), also called the Patirion, in Calabria; and the Holy Saviour of Messina, in Sicily. However fictional or real these events, Bartholomew’s Vita offers a valuable window into a critical moment of social, political, and religious transition following the Norman conquest of the Italian south. Above all, the text is intriguing for a consideration of whose voice — and indeed of how many voices — it is that guide the narrative. While a reading of the Vita focused upon Bartholomew’s actions would perhaps define him as a strategic cultivator of political ties that yielded both spiritual and material benefit for his congregations, Bartholomew lived at a time when the Normans, newly arrived in southern Italy and a numerical minority, sought legitimacy and local acceptance using a number of social and intellectual strategies of conquest.5 Alliances with powerful religious figures such as Bartholomew of Simeri was one such method, as was the Normans’ broader insertion into well-engrained traditions of religious writing. This article pursues this interweaving of Norman with local religious practices, placing emphasis on the theoretical and actual implications underlying the



2 See, ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, p. 195 on components of hagiography and their adoption from late antique martyrial panegyrics and from the encomiastic genre. 3 See ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, pp. 196–97 on rhythmic and rhetorical elements. See par. xx and xxvii of the Vita for examples of the author’s urging on to the subsequent topic. 4 I employ the term ‘Italo-Greek’ for the communities of southern Italy and north-eastern Sicily that spoke primarily Greek, professed a Byzantine rite, and maintained a cultural allegiance to Byzantium. 5 See Toubert, ‘La première historiographie’, p. 17, on Norman ‘methods of conquest’.

hagiography and the politics of memory

construction of textual tradition. More broadly, I argue for the act of writing as an instrument exercised in the politics of memory, for those who held the power to select those things ‘worthy of memory’ wielded enormous authority in shaping collective remembrance and in defining social and political legitimacy in southern Italy during the transition to Norman rule.6 This argument builds upon a longer scholarly tradition that explores how shared practices and communal belonging are defined; indeed, the academic interest in ‘memory’ has a historiography stretching back roughly sixty years, and scholars have alternately spoken of ‘collective memory’, ‘social memory’, ‘cultural memory’, ‘imaginative memory’, ‘educated memory’, or ‘practical memory’ to make sense of the ways in which conglomerate groups socially construct and bestow shared histories, and how they forget.7 Much remains to be explored, however, regarding the mechanisms by which collective histories were created, perpetuated, and altered across subsequent generations to speak to new sociopolitical configurations. In the first section, then, I contend that Bartholomew of Simeri’s Vita should be seen as a textual arena in which the political and religious interests of the Norman rulers and their Italo-Greek subjects converged, as both groups sought to reify themselves and define their space in the new post-conquest sociopolitical landscape. By considering Bartholomew’s Vita alongside other Italo-Greek hagiographies from the same period, we can gain a sense of the divergent positions holy biographers held as they negotiated their communities’ needs while adapting to the demands of the new Norman rulers. However, the argument is not limited to the Italo-Greek communities of Calabria and Sicily. As such, I also turn briefly to the Norman presence in religious texts from the Latin Lombard regions of Campania and Apulia and to a broader consideration of the power that the composition and revision of texts has in shaping collective memory. A strategic use of the written word was critical to the phase of institutional change in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and helps explain the long-term social and political successes of the Normans in the Italian South.

The Vita of Bartholomew of Simeri and Relations between Italo-Greeks and Latins following the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy When the Normans arrived in southern Italy in the early eleventh century, they encountered a politically and religiously heterogenous region. In Campania, northern Apulia, and parts of Basilicata lived primarily Latin-speaking populations of Lombard descent, while Greek-speaking peoples of Byzantine rite populated southern Apulia, western Basilicata, and much of Calabria, as well as north-eastern Sicily, which was



6 For a discussion of the notion of the ‘politics of memory’, see Verovšek, ‘Collective Memory, Politics, and the Influence of the Past’. 7 Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance; Brenner, Cohen, and Franklin-Brown, eds, Memory and Commemoration in Medieval Culture.

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otherwise under Arab-Muslim control. The Normans arrived initially as pilgrims and mercenaries but subdued the local populations over the span of one century, a conquest that culminated in the foundation of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1130 under Roger II.8 Both preceding and accompanying the establishment of the kingdom, the Normans relied on local Byzantine, Lombard, and Arab-Muslim functionaries and adopted existing legal, administrative, and aesthetic practices. These tactics have driven scholars to characterize the Norman kingdom of Sicily as a ‘multi-cultural’ state of ethnic and religious tolerance, though more recent scholarship has revealed this to be a political construct and part of the Normans’ own propaganda.9 Certainly, cultural exchange and overlap did also occur between populations on the ground and was not always tied to a royal agenda. Nevertheless, the relationships Norman rulers and nobles cultivated with locals remain fundamental to our understanding of their social and political successes. The figure of Bartholomew of Simeri presents an opening into these relations for, although an Italo-Greek saint, his Vita depicts him as one that crossed identity lines between Italo-Greek and Latin. Baptized as Basil and drawn to a religious calling in his youth, the saint abandoned his parents to be tonsured by an ascetic named Cyril near Mileto — when he changed his name, a common practice in Byzantine monasticism, taking the name Bartholomew — before he embarked on a solitary ascetic path in the Calabrian mountains.10 He then resided in caves, fasting and confronting demons, until several hunters discovered him and revealed him to the world (a common topos in Byzantine hagiography). At this point he began to attract followers, and, despite his desire to retreat into solitude again, a personal visitation by the Virgin Mary, who requested that Bartholomew build a monastery for those in spiritual need, prevented him from doing so.11 In this, his Vita claims, Bartholomew received assistance from the Admiral Christodoulos, a Muslim convert to Christianity and prominent member of Roger II’s court, who represented Bartholomew before ‘τῷ εὐσεβεῖ καὶ φιλοχρίστῳ ῥηγὶ Ῥογερίῳ’ (the pious and Christ-loving King Roger) and secured the saint with the means to

8 A useful study of the pre-Norman Italian South is Kreutz, Before the Normans. For Byzantine southern Italy, see Gay, L’Italie méridionale et l’Empire byzantin; Borsari, Il monachesimo bizantino; for scholarship regarding both the pre-Norman period and the transition to Norman rule, see the many works of André Guillou, Jean-Marie Martin, and Vera von Falkenhausen for Basilicata, Calabria, and Sicily. For the Latin Lombard territories of Campania, see the studies by Nicola Cilento, Graham Loud, Paul Oldfield, Joanna Drell, and Valerie Ramseyer, and for Muslim Sicily see Alex Metcalfe and Jeremy Johns. 9 See Takayama, ‘Religious Tolerance in Norman Sicily?’, for a discussion of Norman religious and ethnic tolerance. Jeremy Johns, in particular, has argued for the image of the ‘multicultural’ Norman state as a political fabrication. 10 It was customary within Byzantine monastic practice to retain the first letter of an individual’s baptismal name when she or he was tonsured and took a new name. For this, see ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, n. 66. Bartholomew’s youth is recounted in par. ii–xi. 11 The saint being discovered by hunters is a topos (see ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, n. 89). For this episode, see ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, par. xii and for the visitation of the Virgin, see par. xvi.

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establish the monastery dedicated to the Virgin near Rossano, Calabria.12 There, it appears Bartholomew faced local opposition from the Italo-Greek bishop of Rossano, Nicola Maleinos, for, after a brief account of Bartholomew’s conversion of his parents, the narrator signalled a shift to ‘those things worthy of memory’ as he recounted Bartholomew’s visit to Pope Pascal II in Rome in search of a bull of independence for the Patirion.13 The saint then desired sacred books for his monastic community and visited Constantinople, where he met with the emperor Alexius and Irene Komnene, who gifted him icons, books, and furnishings. The Vita also records that a certain member of Alexius’ court, Basil Calimeris, offered Bartholomew a monastery on Mount Athos, which he accepted.14 After the hagiographer related a synthesis of Bartholomew’s spiritual teachings to the emperor Alexius, he again signalled his desire to ‘ἰτέον γὰρ καὶ διηγητέον τὰ μνήμης ἂξια’ (recount these things worthy of memory) as he shifted to the climax of Bartholomew’s spiritual career.15 The saint returned to southern Italy, but two monks from the Benedictine monastery of Sant’Angelo of Mileto accused him before Roger II of squandering the funds given to him, of engaging in shameful actions, and of being a heretic.16 When the king summoned Bartholomew to his court in Messina, the saint contested nothing and was condemned to death by fire. He was only granted the time to perform the liturgy at the church of St Nicholas della Punta near Messina, to which he was accompanied by Roger II and a large popular assembly. However, the saint’s sentence was never carried out, for a miracle took place: a column of fire extending from earth to sky appeared along with an assembly of angels, which compelled all present to fall to their knees seeking pardon. Roger II then requested that a monastery be built on the same location and provided Bartholomew with the resources to do so. The Holy Saviour of Messina was thus established, according to the Vita, shortly before the saint’s death in 1130, and Bartholomew appointed a monk from the Patirion, Luke, to oversee it.17 Then, in 1131, Roger II conferred archimandrital status on the Holy Saviour of Messina and placed forty-one religious houses in Calabria and Sicily under its jurisdiction, rendering it the most prominent Italo-Greek monastery in the Norman kingdom.18 Bartholomew’s Vita follows upon — and departs in important ways from — a rich tradition of Italo-Greek sainthood recorded in a corpus of roughly a dozen 12 ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, par. xvii. 13 For this episode, see ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, par. xxi. That the bishop of Rossano contested Bartholomew’s growing prominence is known from a subscription in the cod. Vat. Gr. 2050. See Zaccagni, ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, n. 134 on the bull, and Scaduto, ‘Il monachesimo’, p. 171 for a discussion of Vat. Gr. 2050. 14 ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, par. xxv–xxvii. 15 ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, par. xxvii. 16 See ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, par. xxviii, in which the accusation is presented as a direct quotion. 17 For these events, see ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, par. xxviii–xxxi. 18 The text of the diploma is preserved in a seventeenth-century copy in the cod. Vat. Lat. 8201, fol. 56 and fol. 130 (Greek text), fol. 171 (Latin text). For a list of the dependencies in Calabria, see Russo, ‘L’Archimandritato del SS. Salvatore di Messina’.

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tenth- and eleventh-century hagiographies, including those of notable figures such as Elias of Enna (d. 903), Elias lo Speleota (d. 960), Saba of Collesano (d. 995), and Nilo of Rossano (d. 1004).19 Bartholomew’s early calling to the spiritual life was common in Byzantine monasticism, as were his professed ascetic impulse, his resistance to worldly concerns, and his forced re-immersion in temporal affairs following his discovery by hunters roaming the wilderness.20 Yet Bartholomew’s Vita departs from earlier models, particularly in the relationships it portrays between the saint and political figures. While earlier Italo-Greek saints maintained contact with local Lombard or Byzantine authorities, journeyed to Rome or Constantinople on pilgrimage, and, in the case of Nilo of Rossano, even negotiated with Sicily’s Muslim emirs, such political figures nevertheless remained peripheral to the saint’s spiritual manoeuvrings; indeed, reference to high-profile political connections underlined the saints’ religious distinction, but external authorities rarely appeared as founders or great benefactors of Italo-Greek monasteries, which were generally of small-scale and local foundation.21 The pivotal roles of Admiral Christodoulos and Roger II in the foundation of both monasteries thus marks an important departure within the Italo-Greek tradition. It suggests the intentional construction of religious and social links with the new rulers, in what one might consider a ‘declaration of compatibility’ between the existing Italo-Greek and new Latin Norman tradition.22 This very practice reflects the new social configuration that characterized the period during which it became clear that the Normans were to remain a constant, dominating presence. An important discrepancy emerges, however, if we compare Bartholomew’s Vita with the other major extant document relating to the Holy Saviour of Messina: the typikon composed by Bartholomew’s successor, Luke. In fact, the latter states that the monastery was under construction by 1122 — far before the supposed encounter between Bartholomew and Roger depicted in the Vita — and completed ten years later, in 1132.23 Considering this alternative timeline, Bartholomew’s attendance in Messina shortly before his death in 1130 hardly appears to have been the impulse behind the Holy Saviour’s construction, but rather a product of political calculation on the part of Roger II. The king likely wished to build a momentous monastic institution that would link Sicily and Calabria and had simply been awaiting the appropriate prestigious ally with whom to align its foundation. Indeed, Gaia Zaccagni, who edited Bartholomew’s Vita, commented that the donation of the Holy Saviour of

19 For a discussion of these texts, see Re, ‘Italo-Greek Hagiography’. 20 This was a topos; see n. 11 above. 21 For this episode from Nilo of Rossano, see Vita di S. Nilo di Rossano, ed. by Giovanelli, par. lxx–lxxi. Saba of Collesano also had connections with numerous political figures, Latin included, but they rarely assisted in the foundation of new monastic houses. 22 See ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, n. 113, for Zaccagni’s doubts concerning the authenticity of the correspondence between Bartholomew and Admiral Christodoulos. Debates concerning the factuality of these events simply underline the argument for the constructedness of the text and, rather than undermining the usefulness of the text, make one ask why they could work. 23 Miller, trans., ‘Luke of Messina: Typikon of Luke’, p. 637.

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Messina to Bartholomew resulted from ‘il clima di generosità calcolata e necessaria’ (the climate of calculated and necessary generosity) on the part of the Normans, thereby signalling an underlying sense of political design. Still, Bartholomew and Luke appear to have been receptive to the alliance, certainly knowing well that it would secure their insertion into the new political order.24 In fact, the typikon also records the prohibitions Luke instilled on eating meat in the monastery, on promiscuity, on conversations with women, and on the ownership of private property, further revealing how the monks at the Holy Saviour of Messina embraced the reformative impulse that stemmed from the Norman alliance with the Roman papacy, and promoted it actively.25 It therefore appears quite clear that Bartholomew’s hagiographer purposely constructed the connection between the saint and Roger II in the foundation of the Holy Saviour of Messina and encoded a sense of Italo-Greek / Norman compatibility in the text, which then became central to the monastic community’s institutional memory. The motivations for this act were probably also informed by the identity of the author. Although the text is anonymous, it was likely written by Filagato of Cerami, a monk at the Patirion and a disciple of Bartholomew who also composed an encomium to the saint, which is included in the same codex in which the Vita is found.26 Although little is known of Filagato of Cerami’s personal life, he was a skilled preacher and composer of Greek homilies and numerous sermons, some of which he delivered in Rossano, Reggio Calabria, Messina, and in Palermo, possibly for the consecration of the Palatine Chapel.27 Scholars have debated whether Filagato of Cerami should be designated a ‘court preacher’ or simply one whose contacts with the Norman ruling class resulted in his presence at the royal court. Nevertheless, it is clear that his personal prominence was a result of his receptiveness to the Norman rulers, and this likely informed the link he instilled in Bartholomew’s Vita.28 Any further conclusions we might draw on the extent to which the text was a product of political realism on Filagato of Cerami’s part, or an expression of willing affiliation on the part of Bartholomew’s disciples, would be largely conjectural. It is nevertheless useful to comment on several other elements that hint at a more profound Norman imprint on the text and which extend beyond the use of terms of respect for the Norman king or the prominence of Normans as patrons of the new Italo-Greek monasteries. Among these is the Virgin Mary’s appearance in the Vita, including her personal visitation to Bartholomew and the direct speech attributed to her as she requested that the saint build a monastery in her name. Both aspects relay a sense of divine legitimacy underlying Bartholomew’s foundation of the Patirion, and 24 ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, p. 199. 25 See Miller, trans., ‘Luke of Messina: Typikon of Luke’, par. iii and for a more expansive argument regarding the Holy Saviour’s function as a monastic institution of reform, see Morton, ‘Latin Patrons, Greek Fathers’. 26 ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, pp. 201–04. 27 For instance, see Taibbi, Sulla traduzione manoscritta. 28 See Dillon, ‘Philagathus of Cerami’; see also Pertusi, ‘Aspetti letterari’, pp. 82–84.

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both mark a departure from the preceding Italo-Greek tradition in which spiritual revelation never came in personified form. Although the cult of the Virgin pre-existed the Normans, Italo-Greek devotion often centred on the archangel Michael; this, therefore, suggests a reorientation in religious practice.29 The Vita also contains terms from the semantic field of warfare, an element that Zaccagni attributed to classical rhetorical conventions but which could be a mark of the Norman warrior class.30 There is, furthermore, the rather unusual statement in the prologue which situated Bartholomew’s saintly actions at a time when: καὶ ταῦτα τῶν ἀνέκαθεν Ἑλλήνων πολλὴν εἰσενεγκάντων σπουδὴν συγγράψαι τὰ τῶν ἡρώων μυθικὰ ἀριστεύματα καὶτοι μηδὲν ὡφέλιμον ἐκείνων τῷ τῶν ἀνθρώπων βίῳ συνεισφερόντων, βλάβην δὲ μᾶλλον ὅτι πλείστην τοῖς ἀκούουσι πάντοθεν προξενούντων, ὡω ἀνοσιουργίας καὶ αἰσχρὰς πράξεις διηγουμένων the Greeks — the pagans — were preoccupied with writing with great care the mythical undertakings of their heroes, although these brought no benefit to the lives of men and, above all, procured an enormous damage to those who listened to them, for they narrated impiety and disturbing actions.31 This statement stands in stark contrast to the otherwise amicable depictions of Italo-Greek and Latin relations in the same text and, recalling that the extant copy of Bartholomew of Simeri’s Vita dates to 1307, one might imagine that this interjection was inserted at a later time when the text was copied and likely edited to match a new religious climate.32 Nevertheless, as unsuited as the interjection seems, it serves as a reminder that the balance of power between Italo-Greeks and Latin Normans was perhaps more fragile at the time of composition than appears in the rest of the text. In fact, the Vita of the contemporaneous bishop Luke of Isola Capo Rizzuto (d. 1114) offers a vital juxtaposition to the Vita of Bartholomew through the anti-Norman stance it professes, which alternates between an explicit condemnation of Latin authority and hidden denunciations. Luke of Isola Capo Rizzuto’s anonymous Vita also differs notably from others in the Italo-Greek corpus, as it includes minimal information on Luke’s youth, ascetic sufferings, or teachings, and offers little context for his rise to the position of bishop. Emphasis rests, rather, on the saint’s miraculous intervention on behalf of local communities and particularly on his mobile ministry across Calabria and Sicily, which his hagiographer noted was ϰατὰ τοὺς ἐνυπάρχοντας ἐν αὐτῇ ἀθέους ἐχθροὑς (dangerous because of the atheist enemies) that lived there.33 Erica Follieri, following in the footsteps of Gregorio Carruccio, Domenico Martire, and Bruno Lavagnini, considered the mention of ‘atheist enemies’ to be a reference to Sicily’s Muslims, as the antagonistic phrasing resembled that typically used to refer

29 Oldfield, Sanctity and Pilgrimage, p. 169; Papparella, ‘La Basilicata di età longobarda’, pp. 393, 397 on cult sites to the Archangel Michael. 30 For examples and discussions, see ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, nn. 2 and 40. 31 ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, par. i. 32 The surviving edition was copied by Daniele Scevofilace in 1307. 33 Luke of Isola Capo Rizzuto, BHG 2237; Schirò, ‘Vita de S. Luca’, pp. 90–91.

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to ‘Saracens’ in the Mediterranean region.34 Giuseppe Schirò, on the other hand, who edited Luke’s Vita, suggested that it refers to the newly-installed Normans, an idea taken up by Augusta Acconcia Longo.35 They reasoned that religious oppression under the Muslims had declined in this period, while the Normans were expanding their power.36 Luke had been a young boy at the time of the Council of Melfi in 1059, and he had seen the Normans replace the Italo-Greek bishop of Reggio with a Latin successor in 1079, a process repeated in Tropea, Squillace, Nicastro, and Cassano in the 1090s.37 Although Isola Capo Rizzuto retained its Italo-Greek bishop until 1149, this erosion of the Italo-Greek hierarchy must have been unnerving. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the text referred to the Normans. This conclusion also draws traction from other episodes that communicate distaste towards the growing Latin influence. One is an overt condemnation of ‘ὦ Λατῒνοι’ (the Latins) for interpreting biblical scripture like the Pharisees, using unleavened bread as the Hebrews, and for professing ‘μυρίας αἱρέσεις’ (innumerable heresies).38 There is also: reference to a Frank named Revetos whom Luke implored not to persecute his (i.e., the Italo-Greek) priests; mention of Luke’s failed mission to Constantinople (he was not able to depart); and a cryptic reference to ‘αἱρέσεως λύϰους’ (heretical wolves), possibly the Normans who were tormenting local populations. It is unclear whether there were other such examples as the Vita has been damaged, with chapters 8 to 10 missing along with much of chapter 19 and the end of the Vita, perhaps expunged due to their anti-Norman content.39 Luke’s hagiography thus appears a form of resistance, but one expressed in a soft voice. Anything louder could indeed be condemned to the ‘abyss of oblivion’, as Bartholomew’s hagiographer also feared. The Vitae of Luke of Isola Capo Rizzuto and Bartholomew of Simeri attest to the difficulties in generalizing about the state of suspension in which the Italo-Greek monastic communities found themselves following the Norman conquest; reactions to the Normans could, and indeed did, vary, as some communities observed their power erode while others obtained new prestige in their alliance with the incoming rulers. In both cases, religious texts and holy biographies were powerful platforms through which to express popular reception of or resistance to the Normans, and the

34 Schirò, ‘Vita di S. Luca’, p. 46; Martire, Calabria sacra e profana; Lavagnini, ‘S. Luca vescovo di Isola’; Caruso, ‘Il santo, il re, la curia, l’impero’, p. 68 n. 96. For a wider discussion on the derogatory terms used for ‘Saracens’ in the Mediterranean from late antiquity through to the medieval period, with their resonance in anti-Muslim rhetoric in Italy in the modern day, see my article: Yamboliev, ‘Italian Narratives of Oppositional Identity’. 35 Schirò, ‘Vita di S. Luca’, p. 47; Longo, ‘I vescovi nell’agiografia italogreca’, p. 152. This Vita is not the only place where the Latins are called ‘atheists’. 36 Schirò, ‘Vita di S. Luca’, p. 47, comments that the with the accusation of being ‘atheist enemies’ the Italo-Greeks were referring to the Latins, who they also called ‘Franks’ but with a negative connotation. 37 Russo, Storia della Chiesa in Calabria, p. 348; Schirò, ‘Vita di S. Luca’, p. 49; Caruso, ‘Sicilia e Calabria’, 597. 38 Schirò, ‘Vita de S. Luca’, pp. 106–07. 39 For the episode relating to the Latin lord Revetos, see Schirò, ‘Vita de S. Luca’, pp. 120–23; for Luke’s failed mission to Constantinople, pp. 90–91; for mention of ‘heretical wolves’, pp. 84–85 and 98–99.

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lasting preeminence of Bartholomew of Simeri’s monastic foundations speaks to the benefit of interweaving devotional text with political alignment. Still, it is not entirely clear whence the impulse to claim connection between the Norman and pre-existing religious communities stemmed. Should a text like Bartholomew of Simeri’s Vita be considered, in the words of Amalia Galdi, ‘a hagiography of conquest’?40 Or perhaps we should keep Ilya Afanasyev’s warning in mind: studying the hagiographical tradition on the Normans in England, he observed that ‘medieval cults arguably were mainly about local interests [… and] even the cults that look as if they must have had a political dimension very often did not’.41 On the contrary, he suggested, the desire to express an alignment with new ruling powers often stemmed from the local communities rather than the conquerors. Such reflections are significant, for they redirect our attention to the convergence of interests embodied by any particular text or symbolic figure, like the Italo-Greek saint and his hagiographical legacy. To shed more light on this process, however, we must look more broadly at the Norman reliance on holy writings during and after their conquest, as well as to larger questions concerning the power of text.

‘Norman’ Religious Textual Tradition in the Latin Italian South To build their legitimacy among the Italo-Greeks of southern Italy, the Normans founded and patronized churches of Byzantine rite, adopted local saints’ cults into a Norman framework, and inserted themselves into established literary and hagiographical traditions, of which Bartholomew of Simeri’s Vita is simply one resplendent example. Yet, far from a practice reserved for the Greek-speaking populations of Basilicata, Calabria, and Sicily, these tactics were mirrored in territories of Latin-Lombard tradition and reflect broader Norman cultural strategies to confront the heterogeneous ethno-religious landscape of the Italian South. Amalia Galdi, Corinna Bottiglieri, Oronzo Limone, and Thomas Head, in particular, have explored these themes in Campania and Apulia, with emphasis on the Normans’ commissioning of saints’ vitae, inventiones, translationes, and miraculae texts, often in affiliation with prominent institutions like Montecassino.42 Whether the Normans explicitly situated themselves as actors in these texts or remained unnamed patrons, they used such writings to insert themselves into local memory. As such, this strategy underscores the notion that control of the written word was an undisputed instrument of political power.

40 Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini, p. 23. 41 Afanasyev, ‘An Unrealized Cult?’, p. 211. 42 See Head, ‘Discontinuity and Discovery’; Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini; Bottiglieri, ‘Literary Themes and Genres’, pp. 122–23; Limone, ‘Italia meridionale (950–1220)’; Limone, Santi monaci e santi eremiti.

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To be certain, the quantity and typology of religious texts that warrant inclusion in a discussion of Norman textual tradition depends on the very definition of ‘Norman’. If it encompasses not only works specifically composed by Norman authors but those in which they appeared as the patrons, addressees, or subject matter of the texts, or in which ‘the interpretations of contemporary historiography are favourable to the Normans’, then the examples are quite numerous.43 In the ensuing discussion, however, the instances in which the ‘Norman imprint’ is most apparent are two-fold: in the commissioning of inventio or translatio texts related particularly to the ‘rediscovery’ of the relics of late antique or medieval martyrs, bishops, or saints; and in texts in which there is evidence that the Normans intervened in the written tradition. The Latin evidence from Campania and Apulia is far greater in quantity and more expansive than that from Byzantine Calabria and Basilicata, and it is therefore particularly revealing of the Norman reliance on the textual tradition to insert themselves into local memory. The Vitae of St Elias lo Speleota (863–960), Saba of Collesano (d. c. 995), his father Christopher, his brother Macarius, and of  Vitale of Castronuovo (d. 994) are rare examples of texts composed in the Byzantine territories in Greek and then subsequently translated into the Latin. However, we have no hagiographies of saints from either Calabria or Basilicata written in Latin after the Norman conquest (though we do have monastic charter evidence composed in Latin). In contrast, in the traditionally Lombard territories of Campania and Apulia, the number of Latin texts related to the rediscovery or transfer of relics, or vitae of Latin saints who lived in the Norman period, are numerous. Furthermore, in a number of cases there are several extant versions of a single text, and the differences between them reveal that for the Latin populations, as among the Italo-Greek communities, local attitudes to the Norman conquerors often diverged, with some who embraced the new rulers and others who opposed them. Indeed, the ‘rediscovery’ and / or transfer of relics, and their documentation in inventio or translatio texts, is one major mechanism by which the Normans accrued sacred symbols to defend their political legitimacy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, particularly in the Campanian regions of Benevento and Capua.44 Among the more notable examples are the transfer of the relics of St Modestino to Avellino and of St Priscus to Quintodecimo, both of which took place in the twelfth century and in the territory controlled by Benevento. There was also the transfer of St Martin to Carinola in 1094 and the transfer of St Mennas to Caiazzo in 1094 and then to St Agatha dei Goti in 1107/10, both in the region surrounding Capua. As Galdi observed, the reasons for the movement of relics could vary.45 In Campania, relics moved to towns that had recently been deprived of their ancient

43 Bottiglieri, ‘Literary Themes and Genres’, p. 97; Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini, p. 23. 44 See Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini, ch. 3, pp. 183–254. 45 On St Modestino at Avellino, see Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini, pp. 213–29; for St Priscus of Quintodecimo, pp. 189–213; for St Mennas of Caiazzo, pp. 229–47; for St Martin of Carinola in Capua, pp. 247–54.

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episcopal dignities could redefine ‘ecclesiastical and cultual balances within the diocese’, especially in small towns such as Quintodecimo and Avellino.46 At other sites, particularly in Apulia, they were used to retro-date the Christian origins of the community.47 Among these texts, the transfer of the relics of St Mennas is significant not only because his relics were contested between Benevento and Capua, but also because of the identity of the patron and author of the accompanying text. Leo of Ostia (d. 1115) likely authored the account of the initial transfer of St Mennas’ relics to Caiazzo, while Peter the Deacon (d. 1159) penned the subsequent transfer to St Agatha dei Goti. Both were celebrated chroniclers at Montecassino, and its scriptorium was known for specializing in hagiographical writing and guaranteeing authoritative, prestigious textual products.48 The Norman count Robert of Caiazzo, described in the text as a ‘vir plane et in secularibus strenuus et in divinis devotus admodum’ (a man clearly and completely dedicated and vigorous in both secular and divine affairs), commissioned the account, and his function in the text is significant: the authors credited him not only for wishing to sacralize the basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary at Caiazzo with prestigious relics, but also for identifying the location of St Mennas’ body and transferring the relics to the church that he had helped to construct.49 The Normans clearly recognized the central function relics played in shaping urban identities. Further, their involvement in the rediscovery, recovery, or protection of relics could be used to underscore the sense of divine legitimacy that justified their growing temporal power. This was the case in Apulia, as well, where relics were often found rather ‘casually’ as churches were rebuilt and then commemorated in textual accounts that also interwove religious recovery with questions of political competition between Normans and locals.50 Examples included the ‘rediscovery’ of the relics of St Secundinus at Troia between 1022 and 1034, St Cataldus at Taranto after 1060, St Sabinus at Bari in 1092, St Priscus at Quintodecimo, and saints Marus, Pantalemeon, and Sergius at Bisceglie in 1167.51 Numerous versions of each account exist, which warrant a deeper examination than the present discussion allows, yet it is clear that these texts also reveal a range of attitudes to the Normans. In one account relating to St Cataldus, for example, it was a Norman-appointed bishop, Drogo, who located the relics as he rebuilt the cathedral of Taranto. In another, the relics were smuggled past the Norman garrisons in the middle of the night, which Head concluded was likely an attempt to ‘rescue’ the cult of Cataldus from ‘its almost certainly successful appropriation by

46 Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini, p. 189. 47 Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini, pp. 187–88. 48 For a discussion regarding the contested authorship of the texts of the Vita and miracula, see Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini, pp. 230–33; Limone, Santi monaci e santi eremiti, p. 13. 49 Bottiglieri, ‘Literary Themes’, pp. 111–12; Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri, p. 260. 50 Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini, p. 189. 51 Bottiglieri, ‘Literary Themes and Genres’, pp. 104–10: Head, ‘Discontinuity and Discovery’, 172; Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini, pp. 193–97.

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the Norman episcopate’.52 The famous transfer of the relics of St Nicholas of Myra to Bari in 1087, memorialized in four different accounts, is equally promising. It records a disagreement on the depiction of Nicholas — traditionally an eastern figure of worship — not only as a Latin saint but as ‘the flag of the new Normanophile, anti-Byzantine, and Gregorian bourgeoisie in Bari’.53 This is evident when one compares the account by Niceforo, a pro-Norman monk from the Holy Trinity of Cava in Salerno, who was based in Bari, with that of John, a pro-Byzantine deacon. Indeed, the saints were ‘nodules around which to spin narratives of continuity and authority’, and both local populations and the Normans used them as such.54 However, much as in the contrasting voices in the Italo-Greek Vitae of Bartholomew of Simeri and Luke of Isola Capo Rizzuto, the divergences in the Latin religious texts demonstrate that, in the face of growing Norman power, the written word could serve either as an instrument of self-preservation or a means of erasing existing histories as local communities defined their positions in the new sociopolitical context. What Oronzo Limone characterized as the hagiographers’ desire to ‘save themselves’ on the historiographical level, to reconcile themselves to the surrounding political world’ worked concurrently with the desire on the part of the Norman nobles and rulers to represent their continuity with preceding traditions and depict themselves as conquerors by divine will.55 They also achieved this by re-writing pre-existing texts. Maria Vittoria Strazzeri observed this in the Vita of St Elias lo Speleota (863–960), an Italo-Greek saint born in Reggio Calabria.56 Elias’s Vita, originally composed in the late tenth century, was translated from Greek to Latin — or, in Strazzeri’s words, ‘remade’57 — by an anonymous monk in the late eleventh century. This likely took place at the order of Robert de Grandmesnil, a prominent Norman and abbot of the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Évroul in Normandy, who had been appointed to oversee the Benedictine monastery of Sant’Eufemia in Calabria, founded by Robert Guiscard.58 The survival of both the Greek and Latin versions of the text allowed Strazzeri to note that the Latin version contained a new prologue, epilogue, and part of the incipit, and that parts of the narrative had also been edited or removed ‘to the change of taste and audience’.59 Additionally the Latin text was marked by what she called ‘a typically Norman stamp’, seen in the use of French language and concepts of hereditas and vassalage, by which the text could be said to have been ‘Normanized’.60 Thus, the adaptation of existing religious texts to Norman linguistic and institutional structures was a parallel strategy of self-insertion into local tradition. It also serves

52 Head, ‘Discontinuity and Discovery’, p. 196. 53 Limone, Santi monaci e santi eremiti, p. 69; Limone, ‘Italia meridionale (950–1220)’, p. 34. 54 Head, ‘Discontinuity and Discovery’, p. 211. 55 Galdi, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini, p. 17; Limone, ‘Italia meridionale (950–1220)’, p. 13. 56 Strazzeri, ‘Una traduzione dal greco’. 57 Strazzeri, ‘Una traduzione dal greco’, p. 13. 58 Strazzeri, ‘Una traduzione dal greco’, p. 6; Panarelli, ‘Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche’, pp. 349, 358. 59 Strazzeri, ‘Una traduzione dal greco’, pp. 12 and 14, and for a discussion with examples, see pp. 14–18. 60 Strazzeri, ‘Una traduzione dal greco’, pp. 38–40; Oldfield, Sanctity and Pilgrimage, p. 133.

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as a potent reminder of the prolonged life of any single text as its place in collective memory was redefined. Unfortunately, an argument with Strazzeri’s level of detail cannot be undertaken for many other texts, though clues do exist. Within the Italo-Greek tradition there is the Vita of Vitale of Castronuovo (d. 994), a saint born in Sicily who established his community in Calabria. His Vita survives only in the Latin, but its final inscription reveals that it was translated from Greek into Latin in 1194 on the order of bishop Robert of Tricarco. It was likely at this point that the opening chapter was edited to include the commentary that Vitale’s memory was being brought ‘ex opaca Graecorum silva transferam in Latinum, quatenus tempore nostro splendeat’ (out of the shadowy forest of the Greek lands into Latin lands, [so that it might] shine the extent of our time), a rather awkward commentary considering the ItaloGreek milieu within which Vitale was born, trained, and within which his career unfolded.61 A similar effect might very well be in place in Bartholomew of Simeri’s Vita regarding the statement of Greeks who brought great harm by memorializing their heroes.62 In the Latin tradition, the Vita of William of Vercelli / Montevergine is representative of a similar process of editing and rewriting; Oronzo Limone concluded that the text was composed by as many as four distinct authors, and while some made no mention of William of Vercelli’s connections to the Norman king Roger II, in the accompanying Legenda, composed by William’s disciple John of Nusco, the relationship between the two evolved into ‘an almost fraternal friendship’ as John of Nusco underlined the ‘bounty and wisdom of the Norman king’ and the notion of ‘complete faith and admiration that the king nourished in his dealings with the saint’.63 The use of hagiographical sources to unfold relations between the Norman conquerors and local populations is particularly useful due to their widespread and popular appeal, for saints were at the core of urban identities, their feast days were major holidays, and many across society sought their intercessionary powers. As such, these texts were instruments by which the Normans sought ‘downwards’ legitimacy among the popular classes, while their parallel inclusion in chronicle sources increased their appeal across noble circles.64 As the new political order stabilized with the passing of time, such insertions appeared quite natural and no longer expressions of a competitive desire for local and regional primacy. As Federico Marazzi commented in his study on the monastery of St Vincent al Volturno, ‘the control of memory through the instrument of the written word, although not deprived of some unscrupulousness, was thus an indispensable mode of guaranteeing one’s survival’.65 Bartholomew’s Vita similarly reminds us of the

61 Vita Vitalis of Castronuovo, BHL 8697; AASS Martii, ii, 26–34, par. i. 62 ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri’, ed. by Zaccagni, n. 47. 63 Limone, ‘Italia meridionale (950–1220)’, p. 39. 64 Bottiglieri, ‘Literary Themes and Genres’, pp. 103–04. 65 Marazzi, ‘Leggere la storia di San Vincenzo al Volturno’, pp. xxx–xxxi.

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importance of the written word for preserving memories from being swallowed up in the shadows of time.

Conclusion: The Politics of Memory and the Power of the Pen Those medieval communities that found themselves witness to the fall of one regime and the rise of another were frequently suspended between the need to preserve institutional continuity — with the social, political, spiritual, and emotional ties that converged therein — and the desire to incorporate new religious, linguistic, or political structures of power and prove them to be compatibile with existing interests. At the heart of this process were not only the experiences of the individuals who lived through these changes, but also the documentary core that defined a community’s origins and values. For monastic groups, the vitae of the saints around whom the monks originally converged were the foundational texts and among the most crucial embodiments of collective origins. It is no surprise, then, that in the transition to Norman rule in southern Italy, these accounts became a channel through which to construct the vision of a new Norman Christian kingdom acquired with divine support. In truth, however, this textual revisionism was not just a creative undertaking: it also relied on a parallel process of forgetting, one that erased the violence of the Norman conquest from local memory, gradually superseded existing Italo-Greek and Lombard authoritive structures, and suffocated voices of dissent among those affected. The individuals who wielded the pen and wrote these local and regional histories — those who selected what to include, the language with which to present it, and what to leave absent from their accounts — were, therefore, fundamental to constructing the memories of the Norman conquest as a legitimate and divinely-sanctioned event. These observations are in no way restricted to the southern Italy context but can shed light on the wider mechanisms by which the Norman conquest proceeded across the wider Mediterranean basin. The Normans were ambitious and skilled warriors, and they established bases in North Africa and pushed east into the Balkans and the Levant, yet pure military might hardly guaranteed popular approval. On the other hand, their clear receptiveness and ability to adapt to local traditions — including textual practices — could. In this, it becomes clear that text is often less reflective of social realities than it is invested in projects of a political end. The Italo-Greek and Latin vitae, inventiones, and translationes thus not only exemplify the complexity of the Norman relationship with local peoples and the difficulty in generalizing about popular attitudes and memory after the conquest, but they broaden our understanding of the very notion of ‘conquest’ into one that embraces text and speech as channels of political power. Religious texts, far more than praise for the divine, were rich in ideological detail and central to the Norman rulers, who claimed compatibility with existing saintly traditions as they simultaneously bolstered and reshaped them.

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Works Cited Manuscripts, Archival Sources, & Other Unedited Material Vaticanus Latinus 8201, fol. 56, fol. 130, and fol. 171 Primary Sources AASS Acta Sanctorum BHG Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca BHL Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina ‘Il Bios di San Bartolomeo da Simeri (BHG 235)’, ed. by Gaia Zaccagni, Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici 33 (1996), 193–274. Previous edition: AASS Septembris vii, 792–826 Luke of Isola Capo Rizzuto, BHG 2237; Vita de S. Luca vescovo di Isola Capo Rizzuto, ed. by G. Schirò (Palermo: Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici, 1954), pp. 79–125 Miller, Timothy, trans., ‘Luke of Messina: Typikon of Luke for the Monastery of Christ Savior (San Salvatore) in Messina’, in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Survivng Founders’ Typika and Testaments, ed. by John Thomas, and Angela Constantinides Hero (Dumbarton Oaks: Washington, DC, 2000), pp. 637–48 Vita di S. Nilo di Rossano, fondatore e patrono di Grottaferrata, ed. by Germano Giovanelli (Grottaferrata: Badia di Grottaferrata, 1966) Vita Vitalis of Castronuovo, BHL 8697; AASS Martii II, 26–34 Secondary Studies Afanasyev, Ilya, ‘An Unrealized Cult? Hagiography and Norman Ducal Genealogy in Twelfth-Century England’, Historical Research, 88 (2015), 193–212 Borsari, Silvano, Il monachesimo bizantino nella Sicilia e nell’Italia meridionale prenormanne (Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Storici, 1963) Bottiglieri, Corinna, ‘Literary Themes and Genres in Southern Italy during the Norman Age: The Return of the Saints’, in Norman Tradition and Transcultural Heritage: Exchange of Cultures in the ‘Norman’ Peripheries of Medieval Europe, ed. by Stefan Burkhardt and Thomas Förster (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), pp. 97–124 Brenner, Elma, Meredith Cohen, and Mary Franklin-Brown, eds, Memory and Commemoration in Medieval Culture (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013) Caruso, Stefano, ‘Il santo, il re, la curia, l’impero: Sul processo per eresia contro Bartolomeo da Simeri (XI–XII sec.)’, Bizantinistica, 2 (1999), 51–72 —, ‘Sicilia e Calabria nell’agiografia storica italo-greca’, in Calabria cristiana. Società religione cultura nel territorio della Diocesi di Oppido Mamertina-Palmi, ed. by Sandro Leanza (Catanzaro: Soveria Mannelli, 1999), pp. 563–604 Dillon, John B., ‘Philagathus of Cerami’, in Key Figures in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Richard K. Emmerson (New York: Routledge, 2013), p. 525

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Galdi, Amalia, Santi, territori, poteri e uomini nella Campania medievale (secc. XI–XII) (Salerno: Laveglia editore, 2004) Gay, Jules, L’Italie méridionale et l’Empire byzantin depuis l’avènement de Basile 1er jusqu’à la prise de Bari par les Normands (867–1071) (Paris: Fontemoing, 1904) Geary, Patrick, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996) Head, Thomas, ‘Discontinuity and Discovery in the Cult of Saints: Apulia from Late Antiquity to the High Middle Ages’, Hagiographica, 6 (1999), 171–211 Johns, Jeremy, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Diwan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) Kreutz, Barbara, Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011) Lavagnini, Bruno, ‘S. Luca vescovo di Isola’, Byzantion, 34 (1964), 69–76 Limone, Oronzo, ‘Italia meridionale (950–1220)’, Hagiographies, vol. 2, ed. by Guy Philippart (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), pp. 11–60 —, Santi monaci e santi eremiti: Alla ricerca di un modello di perfezione nella letteratura agiografica dell’Apulia normanna (Galatina: Congedo editore, 1988) Longo, Augusta Acconcia, ‘I vescovi nell’agiografia italogreca: il contributo dell’agiografia alla storia delle diocesi italogreche’, Histoire et culture dans l’Italie byzantine, ed. by André Jacob, Jean-Marie Martin, and Ghislaine Noyé (Rome: École française de Rome, 2006), pp. 127–53 Marazzi, Federico, ‘Leggere la storia di San Vincenzo al Volturno attraverso il Chronicon Vulturnense: Segni, disegni, e percorsi di una narrazione monastica’, in Chronicon Vulturnense del Monaco Giovanni scritto intorno all’anno 1130, ed. by Massimo Oldoni, trans. by Luisa Roberti de Luca (Cerro al Volturno: Volturnia Edizioni, 2010), pp. xxi– xlii Martire, Domenico, Calabria sacra e profana (Cosenza: Migliaccio, 1877) Morton, James, ‘Latin Patrons, Greek Fathers: St Bartholomew of Simeri and Byzantine Monastic Reform in Norman Italy, 11th–12th Centuries’, Allegorica, 29 (2013), 20–35 Oldfield, Paul, Sanctity and Pilgrimage in Medieval Southern Italy, 1000–1200 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014) Panarelli, Francesco, ‘Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche legate alla conquista. I monasteri’, in I caratteri originari della conquista normanna. Diversità e identità nel Mezzogiorno (1030–1130). Atti delle sedicesimo giornate normanno-sveve, Bari 5–8 ottobre 2004 (Bari: Dedalo, 2006), pp. 349–69 Papparella, Franca C., ‘La Basilicata di età longobarda: Le testimonianze archeologiche’, in I Longobardi del Sud, ed. by Giuseppe Roma (Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider, 2010), pp. 391–404 Pertusi, Agostino, ‘Aspetti letterari: continuità e sviluppi della tradizione letteraria greca’, in Il passaggio dal dominio bizantino allo Stato normanno nell’Italia meridionale: Atti del secondo convegno di studi sulla civiltà rupestre, ed. by Cosimo Damiano Fonseca (Taranto: Amministrazione provincial, 1977), pp. 63–101 Re, Mario, ‘Italo-Greek Hagiography’, in The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography vol. 1: Periods and Places, ed. by Stefano Efthymiades (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 227–58

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Russo, Francesco, ‘L’Archimandritato del SS. Salvatore di Messina e i monasteri greci della Calabria’, in Messina e la Calabria: nelle rispettive fonti documentarie dal basso medioevo all’età contemporanea. Atti del 1. Colloquio calabro siculo, Reggio Calabria-Messina, 21–23 Novembre 1986 (Messina: Deputazione di storia patria per la Calabria, Società messinese di storia patria, 1988), pp. 191–207 —, Storia della Chiesa in Calabria: Dalle origini al Concilio di Trento (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 1982) Scaduto, Mario, ‘Il monachesimo basiliano nella Sicilia medievale”, Storia e Letteratura, 18 (Rome, 1982). Strazzeri, Maria Vittoria, ‘Una traduzione dal greco ad uso dei Normanni: la vita Latina di Sant’Elia lo Speleota’, Archivio Storico per la Calabria e la Lucania, 59 (1992), 1–108 Taibbi, Giuseppe Rossi, Sulla traduzione manoscritta dell’omiliario di Filagato da Cerami (Palermo: Istituto siciliano di studi bizantini e neoellenici, 1965) Takayama, Hiroshi, ‘Religious Tolerance in Norman Sicily? The Case of Muslims’, in Puer Apuliae: Mélanges offerts à Jean-Marie Martin, ed. by Errico Cuozzo, Vincent Déroche, Annick Peters-Custot, and Vivien Prigent (Paris: Centre de recherche d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance, 2008), pp. 623–36 Toubert, Pierre, ‘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. by Raffaele Licinio and Francesco Violante (Bari: Dedalo, 2006), pp. 15–49 Verovšek, Peter J., ‘Collective Memory, Politics, and the Influence of the Past: The Politics of Memory as a Research Paradigm’, Politics, Groups, and Identities, 4 (2016), 529–43 Yamboliev, Kalina, ‘Italian Narratives of Oppositional Identity: Hagiography and Affect in Distancing the Late Antique and Medieval Saracen, and the Modern Migrant’, Studies in Late Antiquity, 3 (2019), 77–113

Medieval Identities: Socio-Cultural Spaces

All volumes in this series are evaluated by an Editorial Board, strictly on academic grounds, based on reports prepared by referees who have been commissioned by virtue of their specialism in the appropriate field. The Board ensures that the screening is done independently and without conflicts of interest. The definitive texts supplied by authors are also subject to review by the Board before being approved for publication. Further, the volumes are copyedited to conform to the publisher’s stylebook and to the best international academic standards in the field. Titles in Series Robin Hood in Greenwood Stood: Alterity and Context in the English Outlaw Tradition, ed. by Stephen Knight (2011) The Performance of Christian and Pagan Storyworlds: Non-Canonical Chapters of the History of Nordic Medieval Literature, ed. by Lars Boje Mortensen and Tuomas M. S. Lehtonen, with Alexandra Bergholm (2013) Speaking to the Eye: Sight and Insight through Text and Image (1150-1650), ed. by Thérèse de Hemptinne, Veerle Fraeters, and María Eugenia Góngora (2013) Conversion and Identity in the Viking Age, ed. by Ildar Garipzanov, with the assistance of Rosalind Bonté (2014) Melissa Pollock, The Lion, the Lily, and the Leopard: The Crown and Nobility of Scotland, France, and England and the Struggle for Power (1100-1204) (2015) Karin E. Olsen, Conceptualizing the Enemy in Early Northwest Europe: Metaphors of Conflict and Alterity in Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Early Irish Poetry (2017) Dawn Marie Hayes, Roger II of Sicily: Family, Faith, and Empire in the Medieval Mediterranean World (2020) Olivia Robinson, Contest, Translation, and the Chaucerian Text (2020)