A people forsooth most astute, vengeful of injuries; in the
hope of profit elsewhere despising their paternal territories,
imitative in every way, keeping some mean betwixt prodigality
and avarice. Their leaders indeed are most prodigal from their
delight in reputation. They are a people apt in flattery, so
studious of eloquence that even the very boys you’ll find are
orators. Unless kept under the yoke of law, the race is most
exceedingly unrestrained (_effrenatissima_) yet long suffering
in toil, in famine, in cold, when fortune demands; industrious
in falcon hunting. They rejoice in horses and the other affairs
of war, and in luxurious garb. From their name indeed comes the
name of their land. North in English means the region of the
north wind (_aquilo_) and because they themselves came thence
they call the land Normannia [Normandy].--MALATERRA.[b]
[Sidenote: [787-1204 A.D.]]
Normans is the softened form of the word “Northman,” applied first to the
people of Scandinavia in general, and afterwards specially to the people
of Norway. In the form of “Norman” (Northmannus, Normannus, Normand) it
is the name of those colonists from Scandinavia who settled themselves
in Gaul, who founded the Norman duchy, who adopted the French tongue and
French manners, and who from their new home set forth on new errands
of conquest, chiefly in the British Islands and in southern Italy and
Sicily. From one point of view the expeditions of the Normans may be
looked on as continuations of the expeditions of the Northmen. As the
name is etymologically the same, so the people are by descent the same,
and they are still led by the old spirit of war and adventure.
[Sidenote: [787-1090 A.D.]]
But in the view of general history Normans and Northmen must be carefully
distinguished. The change in the name is the sign of a thorough change,
if not in the people themselves, yet in their historical position. Their
national character remains largely the same; but they have adopted a
new religion, a new language, a new system of law and society, new
thoughts and feelings on all matters. Like as the Norman is still to the
Northmen, the effect of a settlement of Normans is utterly different from
the effect of a settlement of Northmen. There can be no doubt that the
establishment of a Norman power in England was, like the establishment
of the Danish power, greatly helped by the essential kindred of Normans,
Danes, and English. But it was helped only silently. To all outward
appearances the Norman conquest of England was an event of an altogether
different character from the Danish conquest. The one was a conquest
by a people whose tongue and institutions were still palpably akin to
those of the English. The other was a conquest by a people whose tongue
and institutions were palpably different from those of the English.
The Norman settlers in England felt no community with the earlier
Danish settlers in England. In fact the Normans met with the steadiest
resistance in a part of England which was largely Danish. But the effect
of real, though unacknowledged, kindred had none the less an important
practical effect. There can be no doubt that this hidden working of
kindred between conquerors and conquered in England, as compared with the
utter lack of all fellowship between conquerors and conquered in Sicily,
was one cause out of several which made so wide a difference between the
Norman conquest of England and the Norman conquest of Sicily.
These two conquests, wrought in the great island of the ocean and in
the great island of the Mediterranean, were the main works of the
Normans after they had fully put on the character of a Christian and
French-speaking people, in other words, after they had changed from
Northmen into Normans. The English and the Sicilian settlements form
the main Norman history of the eleventh century. The tenth century is
the time of the settlement of the Northmen in Gaul, and of the change
in religion and language of which the softening of the name is the
outward sign. By the end of it, any traces of heathen faith, and even
of Scandinavian speech, must have been mere survivals. The new creed,
the new speech, the new social system, had taken such deep root that the
descendants of the Scandinavian settlers were better fitted to be the
armed missionaries of all these things than the neighbours from whom they
had borrowed their new possessions. With the zeal of new converts they
set forth on their new errand very much in the spirit of their heathen
forefathers. If Britain and Sicily were the greatest fields of their
enterprise, they were very far from being the only fields. The same
spirit of enterprise which brought the Northmen into Gaul seems to carry
the Normans out of Gaul into every corner of the world.[c]
We may for the present leave the ethnology and early history of the
Northmen to the later history of Scandinavia, and fuller details of their
invasions of France and England to the histories of those countries,
giving here only a brief résumé of their wanderings, and a fuller account
of their career in the powerful little kingdom in Sicily where they
meddled busily with the affairs of all Europe, and much of Asia and
Africa. This was, as Freeman[c] says, “the most brilliant time for Sicily
as a power in the world.” Even under the Greeks it was not so prominent.
But before reaching this period, some mention of their first appearances
in continental European history is necessary.[a]
Evils still more terrible than political abuses were the lot of those
nations who had been subject to Charlemagne. They, indeed, may appear
to us little better than ferocious barbarians: but they were exposed
to the assaults of tribes, in comparison with whom they must be deemed
humane and polished. Each frontier of the empire had to dread the attack
of an enemy. The Saracens of Africa possessed themselves of Sicily and
Sardinia, and became masters of the Mediterranean Sea.
[Sidenote: [787-870 A.D.]]
Much more formidable were the foes by whom Germany was assailed. The
Slavonians, a widely extended people, whose language is still spoken
upon half the surface of Europe, had occupied the countries of Bohemia,
Poland, and Pannonia, on the eastern confines of the empire, and from
the time of Charlemagne acknowledged its superiority. But at the end of
the ninth century, a Tatarian tribe, the Hungarians, overspreading that
country which since has borne their name, and moving forward like a vast
wave, brought a dreadful reverse upon Germany. All Italy, all Germany,
and the south of France, felt the scourge; till Henry the Fowler, and
Otto the Great, drove them back by successive victories within their own
limits, where in a short time they learned peaceful arts, adopted the
religion, and followed the policy of Christendom.
[Illustration: A SLAVONIAN OF THE TENTH CENTURY]
If any enemies could be more destructive than these Hungarians, they
were the pirates of the north, known commonly by the name of Northmen
(Normans). The love of a predatory life seems to have attracted
adventurers of different nations to the Scandinavian seas, from whence
they infested, not only by maritime piracy, but continual invasions,
the northern coasts both of France and Germany. The causes of their
sudden appearance are inexplicable, or at least could only be sought in
the ancient traditions of Scandinavia. For undoubtedly the coasts of
France and England were as little protected from depredations under the
Merovingian kings, and those of the Heptarchy, as in subsequent times.
Yet only one instance of an attack from this side is recorded, and that
before the middle of the sixth century, till the age of Charlemagne. In
787, the Danes, as we call those northern plunderers, began to infest
England, which lay most immediately open to their incursions. Soon
afterwards they ravaged the coasts of France. Charlemagne repulsed them
by means of his fleets; yet they pillaged a few places during his reign.
It is said that, perceiving one day, from a port in the Mediterranean,
some Norman vessels which had penetrated into that sea, he shed tears,
in anticipation of the miseries which awaited his empire. In the ninth
century, the Norman pirates not only ravaged the Balearic Isles, and
nearer coasts of the Mediterranean, but even Greece.
THE NORMANS IN FRANCE
[Sidenote: [870-923 A.D.]]
In Louis’ reign their depredations upon the coast were more incessant,
but they did not penetrate into the inland country, till that of Charles
the Bald. The wars between that prince and his family, which exhausted
France of her noblest blood, the insubordination of the provincial
governors, even the instigation of some of Charles’ enemies, laid all
open to their inroads. They adopted a uniform plan of warfare both in
France and England; sailing up navigable rivers in their vessels of
small burden, and fortifying the islands which they occasionally found,
they made these intrenchments at once an asylum for their women and
children, a repository for their plunder, and a place of retreat from
superior force. After pillaging a town, they retired to these strongholds
or to their ships; and it was not till 872 that they ventured to keep
possession of Angers, which, however, they were compelled to evacuate.
Sixteen years afterwards, they laid siege to Paris, and committed
the most ruinous devastations on the neighbouring country. As these
Northmen were unchecked by religious awe, the rich monasteries, which
had stood harmless amidst the havoc of Christian war, were overwhelmed
in the storm. Perhaps they may have endured some irrecoverable losses
of ancient learning; but their complaints are of monuments disfigured,
bones of saints and kings dispersed, treasures carried away. St. Denis
redeemed its abbot from captivity with 685 pounds of gold. All the
chief abbeys were stripped about the same time, either by the enemy,
or for contributions to the public necessity. So impoverished was the
kingdom, that in 860 Charles the Bald had great difficulty in collecting
3000 pounds of silver, to subsidise a body of Northmen against their
countrymen. The kings of France, too feeble to prevent or repel these
invaders, had recourse to the palliative of buying peace at their hands,
or rather precarious armistices, to which reviving thirst of plunder
soon put an end. At length Charles the Simple, in 918, ceded a great
province (Neustria), which they had already partly occupied, partly
rendered desolate, and which has derived from them the name of Normandy.
Ignominious as this appears, it proved no impolitic step. Rollo [Rolf or
Hrolf an exile from Norway], the Norman chief, with all his subjects,
became Christians and Frenchmen.[d]
France would have only had to congratulate herself upon the assignment
she had been compelled to make to the Normans, had the Treaty of
Saint-Clair ratified peace forever between the kingdom and this nation
of pirates. Unfortunately such was not the case, and for a considerable
time the Normans continued to add their ravages to the burden of the many
sacrifices France had made, of all the calamities she had experienced.
Some years before, a number of pagans who were independent of Rollo, but
of whose adventures but little is known, had established themselves at
the mouth of the Loire. Rollo came and attacked them in their retreat,
but they defended themselves valiantly, and the conqueror of the shores
of the Seine was obliged to return to his domains, and leave the pagans
in possession of the mouth of the Loire. Sometime afterwards, both
companies united and fought together; this came about in the following
manner. There was much indignation in France on account of the deplorable
government of Charles the Simple, the last degenerate scion of the
Carlovingian race. Rudolf or Ralph, duke of Burgundy, who was considered
the only man capable of putting a stop to the anarchy in the kingdom and
the ravages of the Normans, was proclaimed king.
Charles entreated the help of the Normans of the Seine, and those of the
Loire. Accordingly they all came to join the forces of the fallen king,
marched with them towards the Oise, marking their progress by their usual
devastations. For the first time, the people of the north interposed in
a civil war which did not concern them. Rudolf turned his forces against
them, and put them to flight. They revenged themselves by killing the
prisoners they had taken. Regnaud, leader of the Normans of the Loire,
who had extended his inroads as far as Arras, was forced to retire to his
strongholds. Immediately after this retreat, the Burgundians crossed the
Epte and put Normandy to fire and sword. Rollo, who evidently had not
expected this invasion, made a truce with Rudolf, and gave him hostages,
as a guarantee of his peaceable intentions, but, in his turn, set up
claims which had to be satisfied. King Charles, he said, whose cause
he had followed, had promised him more lands. To do no less than the
dethroned monarch, Rudolf, according to Flodoard (or Frodoard),[e] the
historian, bestowed upon Rollo, Bessin, and also Maine. The Normans of
the Loire were treated in like manner, and it seems that a sum of money
was granted to them, and that a tax had to be levied in all parts of
France to pay it.
[Sidenote: [923-930 A.D.]]
The kingdom continued to be very much agitated by political events.
Although he twice sold peace to Rudolf and broke it again, the Norman
duke embraced Count Heribert’s cause, who, forsaking Rudolf after
seconding him ably, had gone over to the dethroned prince, his prisoner,
and with the assent of Rollo and Hugh, had again proclaimed the unhappy
Charles king. All seemed lost to Rudolf. But Charles was the puppet of
his party; scarcely had he reascended the throne, than Heribert once
more changed his mind, flung the phantom prince into prison again, and
acknowledged Rudolf. Charles died sometime after in the castle of his
jailer.
Whilst these events were taking place in the interior of France, the
Breton generals, in the vicinity of Normandy, commenced, perhaps in
revenge for the incursions of the Scandinavians, ravaging the territory
of their neighbours, and invaded the province of Bayeux, but Rollo
appeared with his warriors, engaged in battle with the aggressors and
conquered them. One of the Breton counts, Beranger, yielded to the
Normans; another, Alan, the chief instigator of the war, took refuge in
England. The nobles who had fought under these two commanders established
themselves in France, in Burgundy, or in Aquitaine; some of them followed
Alan to England. All those who remained were obliged to acknowledge the
suzerainty of the duke of Normandy. The neighbouring provinces, such as
Anjou and Poitou, were henceforth delivered from the hostile irruptions
of these turbulent chiefs. Thus, Rollo, in his old age, found himself
the peaceful possessor of Normandy, and able to maintain order and peace
therein.
It is said that Charles the Simple, while he was still upon the
throne, secretly sent emissaries to Rouen to his daughter Gisela who
had married Rollo; that this clandestine mission gave umbrage to the
Normans, and that Rollo seized and publicly put to death the envoys of
his father-in-law. Gisela died sometime afterwards; and Rollo lived as
before with Popa, by whom he had two children, a son named William, and a
daughter called Gerloc, who later received the Christian name of Adela or
Adeline.
When William grew to man’s estate, the Norman nobles requested their
duke to appoint his successor. He named his son, and he it was the
Normans had in mind, in spite of his illegitimacy. The nobles swore
fidelity and obedience to him beforehand. Rollo lived for five years
after this important event, and died of old age at Rouen. The precise
date of his death, and also his age, are unknown. Everything tends to
show that it was about the year 930, that the death of the first and
probably octogenarian duke of Normandy took place. His bravery, his
steadfastness, the energy of his government are incontestable, but it is
permissible to doubt the truth of the eulogies which the Norman monks in
their chronicles have bestowed upon his devotion, and his respect for
the clergy. It is possible he enriched the churches and convents, that
he walked in processions, and with bare feet before the relics of St.
Ouen, formerly taken to France, and which he forced his father-in-law to
restore; but on the other hand we read in an English chronicle, that he
sold or allowed to be sold many relics belonging to the Norman churches,
which were acquired by his ally, Athelstan, king of England.
A French historian, Adhémar,[f] even declares that, feeling his end
approaching, Rollo caused a hundred Christian prisoners to be sacrificed
to the northern idols, and he gave a hundred pounds in gold as a gift to
the churches of Normandy in order to propitiate the pagan gods and the
Christian deity at the same time. According to another historian it was
at the moment that he was about to embrace the Christian faith that Rollo
offered a last human sacrifice to the divinities of that worship he was
forsaking. Perhaps that massacre of Christian prisoners, which he ordered
when Rudolf drove him back from the north of France, was the cause of
these strange tales.
Rollo was buried in the church he had built at Rouen; afterwards his
remains were placed in a chapel of the cathedral itself. His tomb, facing
that of his son, is still to be seen there.[g]
THE NORMANS COME TO ITALY
[Sidenote: [930-1053 A.D.]]
When the Northmen, or Normans, had embraced Christianity, in their
attachment to pilgrimage to the Holy Land, they surpassed all the
European people. This was consistent enough with the habits of men, the
most enterprising, courageous, and valiant on earth. Two motives appear
to have directed their route to Naples; Mounts Cassino and Gargano were
illustrious for miracles; and from Naples, Gaeta, Amalfi, or Bari, parts
which maintained a constant intercourse with the East, a passage to Syria
might easily be obtained.
Early in the eleventh century, while forty of these adventurers were at
Salerno, on their return from the Holy Land, a Saracen fleet anchored
off the coast, and demanded heavy contributions as a reward for sparing
the city. The Normans instantly asked Guiomar III, prince of the place,
for arms. To the astonishment of the inhabitants, they mounted their
steeds, caused the gates to be opened, and plunged into the midst of the
misbelievers, many of whom they slew, the rest they forced precipitately
to embark.[9] Guiomar, with the hope of retaining them at his court,
offered them riches and honours as the condition; and when he found
them resolved to revisit their homes, he brought them to proclaim his
offers among their kindred and friends. It appears, however, that the
Normans had no great reason to be dissatisfied with their own country;
one knight only, Drengot by name, who, from a deadly feud with a noble of
his nation, was not averse to foreign adventure, resolved to collect his
kindred and dependents and sail for Italy.
On his arrival there with about one hundred followers, he found the yoke
of the Greeks no less detested than the depredations of the Saracens;
that the pope, emperor, and feudatory were alike prepared to reduce the
maritime places and the mountain forts. For some time their success was
thwarted by obstacles which valour could not surmount. On one occasion
they were defeated by a greatly superior force, and their leader slain;
and the emperor, Henry II, whose army they had joined, was compelled by a
pestilence to abandon the north of Italy. But under Rainulf, the brother
of Drengot, they resolved to establish a sovereignty for themselves; and
in this view they reduced Aversa, a fortress belonging to the duchy of
Naples, which they fortified in opposition to the wish of that republic.
That city, however, they had soon an opportunity of conciliating. When
Pandulf IV, prince of Capua, took Naples by surprise, where open force
would have failed, Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the
commonwealth, fled to Aversa, implored the succours of the strangers, and
with their aid expelled the garrison of Capua. The grateful chief erected
Aversa into a fief, with which he invested the Norman leader as Count
Rainulf. But this leader was not destined to lay the foundation of Norman
sovereignty.
About this time and allured by the same hope of distinction, there
arrived three sons of Tancred of Hauteville, an illustrious house of
Normandy. In the war which ensued, both Greeks and Saracens were worsted,
until all Apulia was wrested from the former, when the new conquests
were partitioned among twelve counts, each with a town and territory.
At the head of these adventurers was Guillaume Bras de Fer, eldest son
of Tancred. But they acknowledged no subordination; they committed on
churches and monasteries, Christians and infidels, friends and foes,
excesses which neither Greek nor Saracen could have exceeded, until the
pope, justly regarding them as the greatest curse of the country, formed
a league to expel them.
At the head of a motley army of Romans, Germans, Greeks, Campanians, and
Apulians, Leo IX himself took the field. Guillaume was dead, but his
brother Humphrey (or Humbert) filled his place; Humphrey was assisted by
Robert Guiscard [or Wiscard] another son of Tancred, and by the count of
Aversa.[i]
CAPTURE OF THE POPE; ROBERT GUISCARD (1053 A.D.)
The Normans of Apulia could muster in the field no more than three
thousand horse, with a handful of infantry; the defection of the natives
intercepted their provisions and retreat; and their spirit, incapable
of fear, was chilled for a moment by superstitious awe. On the hostile
approach of Leo, they knelt without disgrace or reluctance before their
spiritual father. But the pope was inexorable; his lofty Germans affected
to deride the diminutive stature of their adversaries; and the Normans
were informed that death or exile was their only alternative.
Flight they disdained; and, as many of them had been three days without
tasting food, they embraced the assurance of a more easy and honourable
death. They climbed the hill of Civitella, descended into the plain, and
charged in three divisions the army of the pope. On the left, and in
the centre, Richard, count of Aversa, and Robert, the famous Guiscard,
attacked, broke, routed, and pursued, the Italian multitudes, who fought
without discipline, and fled without shame. A harder trial was reserved
for the valour of Count Humphrey, who led the cavalry of the right
wing. The Germans have been described as unskilful in the management of
the horse and lance; but on foot they formed a strong and impenetrable
phalanx, and neither man, nor steed, nor armour could resist the weight
of their long and two-handed swords. After a severe conflict they were
encompassed by the squadrons returning from the pursuit, and died in
their ranks with the esteem of their foes and the satisfaction of revenge.
The gates of Civitella were shut against the flying pope, and he was
overtaken by the pious conquerors, who kissed his feet, to implore his
blessing and the absolution of their sinful victory. The soldiers beheld
in their enemy and captive the vicar of Christ; and though we may suppose
the policy of the chiefs, it is probable that they were infected by the
popular superstition. In the calm of retirement, the well-meaning pope
deplored the effusion of Christian blood, which must be imputed to his
account; he felt that he had been the author of sin and scandal; and as
his undertaking had failed, the indecency of his military character was
universally condemned. With these dispositions, he listened to the offers
of a beneficial treaty; deserted an alliance which he had preached as the
cause of God, and ratified the past and future conquests of the Normans.
By whatever hands they had been usurped, the provinces of Apulia and
Calabria were a part of the donation of Constantine and the patrimony of
St. Peter: the grant and the acceptance confirmed the mutual claims of
the pontiff and the adventurers. They promised to support each other with
spiritual and temporal arms; a tribute or quit-rent of twelve-pence was
afterwards stipulated for every plough-land; and after this memorable
transaction, the kingdom of Naples remained above seven hundred years a
fief of the holy see.
[Illustration: NORMAN WOMAN OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY]
[Sidenote: [1015-1057 A.D.]]
The pedigree of Robert Guiscard, born about 1015, is variously deduced
from the peasants and the dukes of Normandy; from the peasants, by
the pride and ignorance of a Grecian princess; from the dukes, by the
ignorance and flattery of the Italian subjects. His genuine descent
may be ascribed to the second or middle order of private nobility. He
sprang from a race of _valvassors_, or _bannerets_, of the diocese of
the Coutances, in lower Normandy; the castle of Hauteville was their
honourable seat; his father Tancred was conspicuous in the court and
army of the duke; and his military service was furnished by ten soldiers
or knights. Two marriages, of a rank not unworthy of his own, made him
the father of twelve sons, who were educated at home by the impartial
tenderness of his second wife. But a narrow patrimony was insufficient
for his numerous and daring progeny; they saw around the neighbourhood
the mischiefs of poverty and discord, and resolved to seek in foreign
wars a more glorious inheritance. Two only remained to perpetuate the
race, and cherish their father’s age; their ten brothers passed the Alps,
and joined the Apulian camp of the Normans. The elder were prompted by
native spirit; their success encouraged their younger brethren; and the
first three in seniority, William, Drogo, and Humphrey, deserved to be
the chiefs of their nation and the founders of the new republic.
Robert was the eldest of the seven sons of the second marriage; and
even the reluctant praise of his foes has endowed him with the heroic
qualities of a soldier and a statesman. His lofty stature surpassed
the tallest of his army; his limbs were cast in the true proportion of
strength and gracefulness; and to the decline of life he maintained
the patient vigour of health and the commanding dignity of his form.
Robert, at once and with equal dexterity, could wield in the right
hand his sword, his lance in the left; in the battle of Civitella he
was thrice unhorsed, and, in the close of that memorable day, he was
adjudged to have borne away the prize of valour from the warriors of the
two armies. His boundless ambition was founded on the consciousness of
superior worth; in the pursuit of greatness he was never arrested by the
scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the feelings of humanity; though
not insensible of fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was
determined only by his present advantage.
The surname of Guiscard[10] was applied to this master of political
wisdom, which is too often confounded with the practice of dissimulation
and deceit; and Robert is praised by the Apulian poet[j] for excelling
the cunning of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. According to the
Greeks he departed from Normandy with only five followers on horseback
and thirty on foot; yet even this allowance appears too bountiful: the
sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim, and
his first military band was levied among the adventurers of Italy. His
brothers and countrymen had divided the fertile lands of Apulia; but they
guarded their shares with the jealousy of avarice; the aspiring youth was
drawn forwards to the mountains of Calabria, and in his first exploits
against the Greeks and the natives it is not easy to discriminate the
hero from the robber. To surprise a castle or a convent, to ensnare a
wealthy citizen, to plunder the adjacent villages for necessary food,
were the obscure labours which formed and exercised the powers of his
mind and body. The volunteers of Normandy adhered to his standard;
and, under his command, the peasants of Calabria assumed the name and
character of Normans.
[Sidenote: [1057-1060 A.D.]]
As the genius of Robert expanded with his fortune, he awakened the
jealousy of his elder brother, by whom, in a transient quarrel, his life
was threatened and his liberty restrained. After the death of Humphrey,
the tender age of his sons excluded them from the command; they were
reduced to a private estate by the ambition of their guardian and uncle;
and Guiscard was exalted on a buckler, and saluted count of Apulia, and
general of the republic. With an increase of authority and of force, he
resumed the conquest of Calabria, and soon aspired to a rank that should
raise him forever above the heads of his equals. By some acts of rapine
or sacrilege, he had incurred a papal excommunication; but Nicholas II
was easily persuaded that the divisions of friends could terminate only
in their mutual prejudice; that the Normans were the faithful champions
of the holy see; and it was safer to trust the alliance of a prince,
than the caprice of an aristocracy. A synod of one hundred bishops was
convened at Melfi; and the count interrupted an important enterprise,
to guard the person and execute the decrees of the Roman pontiff. His
gratitude and policy conferred on Robert and his posterity the ducal
title, with the investiture of Apulia, Calabria, and all the lands, both
in Italy and Sicily, which his sword could rescue from the schismatic
Greeks and the unbelieving Saracens.
This apostolic sanction might justify his arms; but the obedience of
a free and victorious people could not be transferred without their
consent; and Guiscard dissembled his elevation till the ensuing campaign
had been illustrated by the conquest of Cosenza and Reggio. In the hour
of triumph he assembled his troops and solicited the Normans to confirm,
by their suffrage, the judgment of the vicar of Christ. The soldiers
hailed with joyful acclamations their valiant duke; and the counts, his
former equals, pronounced the oath of fidelity with hollow smiles and
secret indignation.
CONQUEST OF SICILY; EASTERN INVASIONS (1060-1090 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1060-1081 A.D.]]
After this inauguration, Robert styled himself, “by the grace of God
and St. Peter, duke of Apulia, Calabria, and hereafter of Sicily”; and
it was the labour of twenty years to deserve and realise these lofty
appellations. Such tardy progress, in a narrow space, may seem unworthy
of the abilities of the chief and the spirit of the nation; but the
Normans were few in number, their resources were scanty, their service
was voluntary and precarious. The bravest designs of the duke were
sometimes opposed by the free voice of his parliament of barons; the
twelve counts of popular election conspired against his authority; and
against their perfidious uncle the sons of Humphrey demanded justice
and revenge. By his policy and vigour, Guiscard discovered their plots,
suppressed their rebellions, and punished the guilty with death or exile;
but, in these domestic feuds, his years and the national strength were
unprofitably consumed.
After the defeat of his foreign enemies, the Greeks, Lombards, and
Saracens, their broken forces retreated to the strong and populous cities
of the sea coast. They excelled in the arts of fortification and defence;
the Normans were accustomed to serve on horseback in the field, and their
rude attempts could only succeed by the efforts of persevering courage.
The resistance of Salerno was maintained above eight months; the siege
or blockade of Bari lasted near four years. In these actions the Norman
duke was the foremost in every danger; in every fatigue the last and most
patient.
Roger, the twelfth and last of the sons of Tancred, had been long
detained in Normandy by his own and his father’s age. He accepted a
welcome summons; hastened to the Apulian camp; and deserved at first
the esteem, and afterwards the envy, of his elder brother. Their valour
and ambition were equal; but the youth, the beauty, the elegant manners
of Roger, engaged the disinterested love of the soldiers and people.
So scanty was his allowance for himself and forty followers, that he
descended from conquest to robbery, and from robbery to domestic theft;
and so loose were the notions of prosperity, that, by his own historian
Malaterra,[b] at his special command, he is accused of stealing horses
from a stable of Melfi. His spirit emerged from poverty and disgrace;
from these base practices he rose to the merit and glory of a holy war;
and the invasion of Sicily was seconded by the zeal and policy of his
brother Guiscard.
After the retreat of the Greeks, the idolaters, a most audacious reproach
of the Catholics, had retrieved their losses and possessions; but the
deliverance of the island, so vainly undertaken by the forces of the
Eastern Empire, was achieved by a small and private band of adventurers.
In the first attempt, Roger braved, in an open boat, the real and
fabulous dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, landed with only sixty soldiers
on a hostile shore, drove the Saracens to the gates of Messina, and
safely returned with the spoils of the adjacent country. In the siege
of Trani, three hundred Normans withstood and repulsed the forces of
the island. In the siege of Palermo the Norman cavalry was assisted by
the galleys of Pisa; and, in the hour of action, the envy of the two
brothers was sublimed to a generous and invincible emulation. After a
war of thirty years, Roger, with the title of Great Count, obtained the
sovereignty of the largest and most fruitful island of the Mediterranean;
and his administration displays a liberal and enlightened mind above the
limits of his age and education. The Moslems were maintained in the free
enjoyment of their religion and property.
To Robert Guiscard the conquest of Sicily was more glorious than
beneficial; the possession of Apulia and Calabria was inadequate to his
ambition; and he resolved to embrace or create the first occasion of
invading, perhaps of subduing, the Roman Empire of the East. From his
first wife, the partner of his humble fortunes, he had been divorced
under the pretence of consanguinity; and her son Bohemond was destined
to imitate, rather than to succeed, his illustrious father. The second
wife of Guiscard was the daughter of the princess of Salerno; the
Lombards acquiesced in the lineal succession of their son Roger; their
five daughters were given in honourable nuptials, and one of them was
betrothed in a tender age to Constantine, a beautiful youth, the son and
heir of the emperor Michael.
But the throne of Constantinople was shaken by a revolution: the imperial
family of Ducas was confined to the palace or the cloister; and Robert
deplored and resented the disgrace of his daughter and the expulsion of
his ally. A Greek, who styled himself the father of Constantine, soon
appeared at Salerno, and related the adventures of his fall and flight.
That unfortunate friend was acknowledged by the duke, and adorned with
the pomp and titles of imperial dignity; in his triumphal progress
through Apulia and Calabria, Michael was saluted with the tears and
acclamations of the people; and Pope Gregory VII exhorted the bishops to
preach, and the Catholics to fight, in the pious work of his restoration.
After two years’ incessant preparations, the land and naval forces were
assembled at Otranto, and Robert was accompanied by his wife, who fought
by his side, his son Bohemond, and the representative of the emperor
Michael.
Before the general embarkation the Norman duke despatched Bohemond
with fifteen galleys to seize or threaten the Isle of Corfu. The
Island of Epirus and the maritime towns were subdued by the arms or
the name of Robert, who led his fleet and army from Corfu (we use the
modern appellation) to the siege of Durazzo. In the prosecution of his
enterprise the courage of Guiscard was assailed by every form of danger
and mischance. In the most propitious season of the year, as his fleet
passed along the coast, a storm of wind and snow unexpectedly arose;
the Adriatic was swelled by the raging blast of the south, and a new
shipwreck confirmed the old infamy of the Acroceraunian rocks. The sails,
the masts, and the oars were shattered or torn away; the sea and shore
were covered with the fragments of vessels, with arms and dead bodies;
and the greatest part of the provisions was either lost or damaged.
The Normans had wept during the tempest; they were alarmed by the hostile
approach of the Venetians, who had been solicited by the prayers and
promises of the Byzantine court. The Apulian and Ragusian vessels fled to
the shore; several were cut from their cables, and dragged away by the
conqueror; and a sally from the town carried slaughter and dismay to the
tents of the Norman duke. A seasonable relief was poured into Durazzo,
and as soon as the besiegers had lost the command of the sea, the
islands and maritime towns withdrew from the camp the supply of tribute
and provision. That camp was soon afflicted with a pestilential disease;
five hundred knights perished by an inglorious death; and the list of
burials (if all could obtain a decent burial) amounted to ten thousand
persons. Under these calamities the mind of Guiscard alone was firm and
invincible; and while he collected new forces from Apulia and Sicily, he
battered or scaled or sapped the walls of Durazzo.
[Sidenote: [1081-1085 A.D.]]
While the Roman Empire was attacked by the Turks in the East and the
Normans in the West, the aged successor of Michael surrendered the
sceptre to the hands of Alexius, an illustrious captain, and the
founder of the Comnenian dynasty. The princess Anna,[k] his daughter
and historian, observes, in her affected style, that even Hercules was
unequal to a double combat; and, on this principle, she approves a hasty
peace with the Turks, which allowed her father to undertake in person the
relief of Durazzo.
[Illustration: A NORMAN MATRON OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY]
Against the advice of his wisest captains Alexius resolved to risk
the event of a general action. The princess Anna, who drops a tear on
this melancholy event, is reduced to praise the strength and swiftness
of her father’s horse, and his vigorous struggle when he was almost
overthrown by the stroke of a lance which had shivered the imperial
helmet. His desperate valour broke through a squadron of Franks who
opposed his flight; and, after wandering two days and as many nights in
the mountains, he found some repose of body, though not of mind, in the
walls of Lychnidus. The victorious Robert reproached the tardy and feeble
pursuit which had suffered the escape of so illustrious a prize; but he
consoled his disappointment by the trophies and standards of the field,
the wealth and luxury of the Byzantine camp, and the glory of defeating
an army five times more numerous than his own.
A Venetian noble sold the city for a rich and honourable marriage. At
the dead of night several rope-ladders were dropped from the walls, the
light Calabrians ascended in silence, and the Greeks were awakened by
the name and trumpets of the conqueror. Yet they defended the street
three days against an enemy already master of the rampart; and near seven
months elapsed between the first investment and the final surrender of
the place. From Durazzo the Norman duke advanced into the heart of Epirus
or Albania, traversed the first mountains of Thessaly, surprised three
hundred English in the city of Castoria, approached Thessalonica, and
made Constantinople tremble.
A more pressing duty suspended the prosecution of his ambitious designs.
By shipwreck, pestilence, and the sword his army was reduced to a third
of the original numbers; and instead of being recruited from Italy, he
was informed, by plaintive epistles, of the mischiefs and dangers which
had been produced by his absence; the revolt of the cities and barons
of Apulia, the distress of the pope, and the approach or invasion of
Henry, king of Germany. Highly presuming that his person was sufficient
for the public safety, he repassed the sea in a single brigantine, and
left the remains of the army under the command of his son and the Norman
counts, exhorting Bohemond to respect the freedom of his peers, and the
counts to obey the authority of their leader. The son of Guiscard trod
in the footsteps of his father; and the two destroyers are compared, by
the Greeks, to the caterpillar and the locust, the last of whom devours
whatever has escaped the teeth of the former.
After winning two battles against the emperor, he descended into the
plain of Thessaly, and besieged Larissa, the fabulous realm of Achilles,
which contained the treasure and magazines of the Byzantine camp. The
courage of Bohemond was always conspicuous, and often successful; but his
camp was pillaged by a stratagem of the Greeks; the city was impregnable;
and the venal or discontented counts deserted his standard, betrayed
their trusts, and enlisted in the service of the emperor. Alexius
returned to Constantinople with the advantage, rather than the honour, of
victory. After evacuating the conquests which he could no longer defend,
the son of Guiscard embarked for Italy, and was embraced by a father who
esteemed his merit, and sympathised in his misfortune.
Of the Latin princes, the allies of Alexius and enemies of Robert,
the most prompt and powerful was Henry IV, king of Germany and Italy,
and future emperor of the West. Henry was the severe adversary of the
Normans, the allies and vassals of Gregory VII, his implacable foe. The
long quarrel of the throne and mitre had been recently kindled by the
zeal and ambition of that haughty priest; the king and the pope had
degraded each other, and each had seated a rival on the temporal or
spiritual throne of his antagonist. After the defeat and death of his
Swabian rebel, Henry descended into Italy, to assume the imperial crown,
and to drive from the Vatican the tyrant of the church. But the Roman
people adhered to the cause of Gregory; their resolution was fortified
by supplies of men and money from Apulia; and the city was thrice
ineffectually besieged by the king of Germany.
In the fourth year he corrupted, it is said, with Byzantine gold, the
nobles of Rome, whose estates and castles had been ruined by the war. The
gates, the bridges, and fifty hostages, were delivered into his hands;
the anti-pope, Clement III, was consecrated in the Lateran; the grateful
pontiff crowned his protector in the Vatican; and the Emperor Henry fixed
his residence in the capitol, as the lawful successor of Augustus and
Charlemagne. The ruins of the Septizonium were still defended by the
nephew of Gregory; the pope himself was invested in the castle of St.
Angelo; and his last hope was in the courage and fidelity of his Norman
vassal. Their friendship had been interrupted by some reciprocal injuries
and complaints; but, on this pressing occasion, Guiscard was urged by
the obligation of his oath, by his interest, more potent than oaths, by
the love of fame, and his enmity to the two emperors. Unfurling the holy
banner, he resolved to fly to the relief of the prince of the apostles;
the most numerous of his armies, six thousand horse, and thirty thousand
foot, was instantly assembled; and his march from Salerno to Rome was
animated by the public applause and the promise of the divine favour.
Henry, invincible in sixty-six battles, trembled at his approach;
recollected some indispensable affairs that required his presence in
Lombardy; exhorted the Romans to persevere in their allegiance; and
hastily retreated three days before the entrance of the Normans. In less
than three years, the son of Tancred de Hauteville enjoyed the glory of
delivering the pope, and of compelling the two emperors, of the East and
the West, to fly before his victorious arms.
But the triumph of Robert was clouded by the calamities of Rome. By
the aid of the friends of Gregory, the walls had been perforated or
scaled; but the imperial faction was still powerful and active; on the
third day, the people rose in a furious tumult; and a hasty word of the
conqueror, in his defence or revenge, was the signal of fire and pillage.
The Saracens of Sicily, the subjects of Roger, and auxiliaries of his
brother, embraced this fair occasion of rifling and profaning the Holy
City of the Christians; many thousands of the citizens, in the sight,
and by the allies, of their spiritual father, were exposed to violation,
captivity, or death; and a spacious quarter of the city, from the Lateran
to the Colosseum, was consumed by the flames.
The deliverer and scourge of Rome might have indulged himself in a season
of repose; but in the same year of the flight of the German emperor,
the indefatigable Robert resumed the design of his eastern conquests.
The zeal or gratitude of Gregory had promised to his valour the kingdom
of Greece and Asia; his troops were assembled in arms, flushed with
success and eager for action. By the union of the Greeks and Venetians,
the Adriatic was covered with a hostile fleet. The dominion of the sea
was disputed in three engagements, in sight of the Island of Corfu; in
the two former, the skill and number of the allies were superior; but in
the third, the Normans obtained a final and complete victory. The winter
season suspended his progress; with the return of spring he again aspired
to the conquest of Constantinople; but, instead of traversing the hills
of Epirus, he turned his arms against Greece and the islands, where the
spoils would repay the labour, and where the land and sea forces might
pursue their joint operations with vigour and effect.
[Sidenote: [1085-1138 A.D.]]
But in the Isle of Cephalonia, his projects were fatally blasted by an
epidemical disease; Robert himself, in the seventieth year of his age,
expired in his tent (July 17th, 1085); and a suspicion of poison was
imputed, by public rumour, to his wife or to the Greek emperor. This
premature death might allow a boundless scope for the imagination of his
future exploits; and the event sufficiently declares, that the Norman
greatness was founded on his life. Without the appearance of an enemy, a
victorious army dispersed or retreated in disorder and consternation; and
Alexius, who had trembled for his empire, rejoiced in his deliverance.
Roger, his second son and successor, immediately sunk to the humble
station of a duke of Apulia; the esteem or partiality of his father
left the valiant Bohemond to the inheritance of his sword. The national
tranquillity was disturbed by his claims, till the First Crusade against
the infidels of the East opened a more splendid field of glory and
conquest.
ROGER, GREAT COUNT OF SICILY (1101-1138 A.D.)
Of human life, the most glorious or humble prospects are alike and
soon bounded by the sepulchre. The male line of Robert Guiscard was
extinguished, both in Apulia and at Antioch, in the second generation;
but his younger brother became the father of a line of kings; and the
son of the Great Count was endowed with the name, the conquests, and
the spirit of the first Roger. The heir of that Norman adventurer was
born in Sicily; and, at the age of only four years, he succeeded to the
sovereignty of the island.[l]
This prince, who thus succeeded to such extensive states was dissatisfied
with the title of duke; to obtain a higher one, he lent his aid to
the anti-pope Anacletus II, who crowned him king of the Two Sicilies.
This new dignity caused him to regard the republican institutions of
Amalfi and Naples with dislike, perhaps with dread. He took the former,
abolished its privileges, and subjected it to a feudal governor. His next
step was to humble his proud barons, of whom some had too much power
always to remain peaceful. It was attended with equal success; one after
another all were subdued; but the chief, Robert, prince of Capua and
Aversa, the descendant of Drengot, was destined to give him some trouble.
Naples, though nominally subject to the Norman princes, still preserved
its own government, laws, and institutions, and was prepared to defend
them to the last extremity. It opened its gates to Robert, and thereby
afforded another stimulus to the vengeance of Roger. The republicans
obtained the aid of a fleet from Pisa; Amalfi was forced to equip
another to oppose them; the Pisans plundered Amalfi, their chief prize
being a copy of the famous _Pandects_, an accident which is said to
have changed the jurisprudence of half Europe; they were defeated, and
forced to re-embark by the king, who invested Naples more closely than
before. The besieged applied for relief to the emperor and the true pope,
Innocent II. Lothair marched in person to their aid, while a Pisan fleet
advanced by sea. The siege was raised; Robert of Capua was restored to
his principality, and the whole country as far as Bari threw off its
allegiance to the Normans.
But discord soon appeared between the pope, the emperor, and the
Pisans; their combined forces retired, and Roger had little difficulty
in regaining possession of his territories. The fate of Leo IV, a
century before, did not deter Innocent II from taking the field against
the excommunicated Normans; the result was the same; Innocent was
defeated and made prisoner, and was glad to procure his liberation by
confirming the regal title of Roger. He did more; he granted to the king
the investiture not only of Capua, but of Naples, which had hitherto
maintained something like independence, and over which he had assuredly
no control. The republic, abandoned by its allies, was constrained to
submit; the ducal crown was conferred on the king; the kingdom of the two
Sicilies was admitted into the great family of nations.
ROGER II (1138-1154 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1138-1154 A.D.]]
The reign of Roger II was one of vigour, of success, and of internal
tranquillity. He rendered tributary the Mohammedan tyrants of Tripoli
and Tunis, built fortresses, churches, and monasteries, and administered
justice with unparalleled severity, in regard not only to the poor,
but to his haughty barons. The feudal system which had long before
been introduced into Naples, he perfected; and extended its observance
to Sicily, which had hitherto followed the policy of the Greeks and
Saracens. By this revolution, the free colonists were at once transformed
into vassals; new laws were introduced, which were calculated to confirm
the ascendency of the nobles and prelates; and new fiscal impositions
followed, more oppressive, we are told, than any which had been invented
by preceding conquerors. But here, as everywhere else, the same system
also brought its advantages.
In their native hills and forests, the Normans, like the Lombards, and,
we may add, like all other people of Scandinavian or of Germanic descent,
had been accustomed to meet twice a year, not merely to advise their
chief, but to form a sort of diet or parliament, where their more weighty
affairs were discussed and decided. At first these assemblies consisted
of the conquerors only; but in time the more influential inhabitants
were permitted to attend them. During a long period, however--probably
unto the reign of Frederick II--they consisted of two estates only,
the nobles and the ecclesiastics; the great body of the people had no
rights, and consequently no representation. But as the towns purchased
their independence of the feudal tribunals, and constituted themselves
into municipal corporations; as the number of these corporations was
multiplied by charters from the crown the new communities were permitted
to send deputies to their general meetings.
The kings, who so often suffered from the powers of a haughty
aristocracy, were here, as elsewhere, sufficiently disposed to encourage
the formation and influence of this third chamber, or arm of the
legislature. Besides, the burgesses were generally more able to supply
the wants of the state; they were attached to the crown which had
called them into existence; and among them justice was administered, at
least in the last resort, by the royal judges. This triple power of the
legislature was established contemporaneously both in the island and on
the continent; but in the former, which had less intercourse with the
world, it has subsisted in greater vigour down to our own times.
But if Roger thus established his sovereignty, he had the mortification
to lose his two eldest sons, and to see the succession depend on a
third, who was at once vicious and imbecile. Soon after his death, which
happened in 1154, troubles began to distract the realm.[i]
Since the decease of Robert Guiscard, the Normans had relinquished above
sixty years their hostile designs against the Empire of the East. The
policy of Roger solicited a public and private union with the Greek
princes, whose alliance would dignify his real character; he demanded
in marriage a daughter of the Comnenian family, and the first steps of
the treaty seemed to promise a favourable event. But the contemptuous
treatment of his ambassadors exasperated the vanity of the new monarch;
and the insolence of the Byzantine court was expiated, according to the
laws of nations, by the sufferings of a guiltless people. With a fleet
of seventy galleys, George, the admiral of Sicily, appeared before
Corfu; and both the island and city were delivered into his hands by the
disaffected inhabitants, who had yet to learn that a siege is still more
calamitous than a tribute. In this invasion, of some moment in the annals
of commerce, the Normans spread themselves by sea, and over the provinces
of Greece; and the venerable age of Athens, Thebes, and Corinth was
violated by rapine and cruelty.
The silk-weavers of both sexes, whom George transported to Sicily,
composed the most valuable part of the spoil; and in comparing the
skilful industry of the mechanic with the sloth and cowardice of the
soldier, he was heard to exclaim, that the distaff and loom were the only
weapons which the Greeks were capable of using. The progress of this
naval armament was marked by two conspicuous events, the rescue of the
king of France, and the insult of the Byzantine capital. In his return by
sea from an unfortunate crusade, Louis VII was intercepted by the Greeks,
who basely violated the laws of honour and religion. The fortunate
encounter of the Norman fleet delivered the royal captive; and after a
free and honourable entertainment in the court of Sicily, Louis continued
his journey to Rome and Paris.
In the absence of the emperor, Constantinople and the Hellespont were
left without defence, and without the suspicion of danger. The clergy
and people--for the soldiers had followed the standard of Manuel--were
astonished and dismayed at the hostile appearance of a line of galleys,
which boldly cast anchor in front of the imperial city. The forces of the
Sicilian admiral were inadequate to the siege or assault of an immense
and populous metropolis; but George enjoyed the glory of humbling the
Greek arrogance, and of marking the path of conquest to the navies of the
West. He landed some soldiers to rifle the fruits of the royal gardens,
and pointed with silver, or more probably with fire, the arrows which he
discharged against the palace of the cæsars. This playful outrage of the
pirates of Sicily, who had surprised an unguarded moment, Manuel affected
to despise, while his martial spirit, and the forces of the empire,
were awakened to revenge. The Archipelago and Ionian Sea were covered
with his squadrons and those of Venice; in his homeward voyage George
lost nineteen of his galleys, which were separated and taken; after an
obstinate defence, Corfu implored the clemency of her lawful sovereign;
nor could a ship, or a soldier of the Norman prince be found, unless as
a captive, within the limit of the Eastern Empire. The prosperity and
the health of Roger were already in a declining state; while he listened
in his palace of Palermo to the messengers of victory or defeat, the
invincible Manuel, the foremost in every assault, was celebrated by the
Greeks and Latins as the Alexander or Hercules of the age.
[Illustration: A NORMAN MONK OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY]
A prince of such a temper could not be satisfied with having repelled
the insolence of a barbarian. It was the right and duty, it might be
the interest and glory, of Manuel to restore the ancient majesty of the
empire, to recover the provinces of Italy and Sicily, and to chastise
this pretended king, the grandson of a Norman vassal. The natives of
Calabria were still attached to the Greek language and worship, which
had been inexorably proscribed by the Latin clergy; after the loss of
her dukes, Apulia was chained as a servile appendage to the crown of
Sicily; the founder of the monarchy had ruled by the sword; and his death
had abated the fear without healing the discontent of his subjects; the
feudal government was always pregnant with the seeds of rebellion, and a
nephew of Roger himself invited the enemies of his family and nation.
[Sidenote: [1155-1156 A.D.]]
To the brave and noble Palæologus, his lieutenant, the Greek monarch
entrusted a fleet and army; the siege of Bari was his first exploit, and
in every operation, gold as well as steel was the instrument of victory.
Salerno, and some places along the western coast, maintained their
fidelity to the Norman king; but he lost in two campaigns the greater
part of his continental possessions; and the modest emperor, disdaining
all flattery and falsehood, was content with the reduction of three
hundred cities or villages of Apulia and Calabria, whose names and titles
were inscribed on all the walls of the palace.
But these Italian conquests, this universal reign, soon escaped from the
hand of the Greek emperor. His first demands were eluded by the prudence
of Alexander III, who paused on this deep and momentous revolution; nor
could the pope be seduced by a personal dispute to renounce the perpetual
inheritance of the Latin name. After his reunion with Frederick, he spoke
a more peremptory language, confirmed the acts of his predecessors,
excommunicated the adherents of Manuel, and pronounced the final
separation of the churches, or at least the empires, of Constantinople
and Rome. The free cities of Lombardy no longer remembered their foreign
benefactor, and he soon incurred the enmity of Venice. One hundred
galleys were launched and armed in as many days; they swept the coasts of
Dalmatia and Greece; but after some mutual wounds, the war was terminated
by an agreement inglorious to the empire, insufficient for the republic.
The lieutenant of Manuel informed his sovereign that his forces were
inadequate to resist the impending attack of the king of Sicily. His
prophecy was soon verified; the death of Palæologus devolved the command
on several chiefs, alike eminent in rank, alike defective in military
talents; the Greeks were oppressed by land and sea; and a captive remnant
abjured all future hostility against the person or dominions of their
conqueror.
Yet the king of Sicily esteemed the courage and constancy of Manuel, who
had landed a second army on the Italian shore; he respectfully addressed
the new Justinian; solicited a peace or truce of thirty years; accepted
as a gift the regal title; and acknowledged himself the military vassal
of the Roman Empire. The Byzantine cæsars acquiesced in this shadow of
dominion, without expecting, perhaps without desiring, the service of
a Norman army; and the truce of thirty years was not disturbed by any
hostilities between Sicily and Constantinople. About the end of that
period, the throne of Manuel was usurped by an inhuman tyrant, who had
deserved the abhorrence of his country and mankind; the sword of William
the Second, the grandson of Roger, was drawn by a fugitive of the
Comnenian race; and the subjects of Andronicus might salute the strangers
as friends, since they detested their sovereign as the worst of enemies.
The Latin historians expatiate on the rapid progress of the four counts
who invaded Romania with a fleet and army, and reduced many castles and
cities to the obedience of the king of Sicily. The Greeks accuse and
magnify the wanton and sacrilegious cruelties that were perpetrated in
the sack of Thessalonica, the second city of the empire. The former
deplore the fate of those invincible but unsuspecting warriors, who were
destroyed by the arts of a vanquished foe. The latter applaud in songs
of triumph the repeated victories of their countrymen on the sea of
Marmora or Propontis, on the banks of the Strymon, and under the walls of
Durazzo. A revolution which punished the crimes of Andronicus, had united
against the Franks the zeal and courage of the successful insurgents;
ten thousand were slain in battle, and Isaac Angelus, the new emperor,
might indulge his vanity or vengeance in the treatment of four thousand
captives. Such was the event of the last contest between the Greeks and
Normans: before the expiration of twenty years, the rival nations were
lost or degraded in foreign servitude; and the successors of Constantine
did not long survive to insult the fall of the Sicilian monarchy.
WILLIAM THE BAD (IL MALO) (1154-1166 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1154-1166 A.D.]]
The sceptre of Roger successively devolved to his son and grandson;
they might be confounded under the name of William; they are strongly
discriminated by the epithets of the “bad” and the “good”; but these
epithets, which appear to describe the perfection of vice and virtue,
cannot strictly be applied to either of the Norman princes. When he was
roused to arms by danger and shame, the first William did not degenerate
from the valour of his race; but his temper was slothful; his manners
were dissolute; his passions headstrong and mischievous; and the monarch
is responsible not only for his personal vices but for those of Majo, the
great admiral, who abused the confidence, and conspired against the life
of his benefactor.
From the Arabian conquest, Sicily had imbibed a deep tincture of oriental
manners; the despotism, the pomp, and even the harem of a sultan; and
a Christian people was oppressed and insulted by the ascendant of the
eunuchs, who openly professed, or secretly cherished, the religion
of Mohammed. An eloquent historian of the times, Falcandus,[m] has
delineated the misfortunes of his country; the ambition and fall of
the ungrateful Majo; the revolt and punishment of his assassins; the
imprisonment and deliverance of the king himself; the private feuds that
arose from the public confusion; and the various forms of calamity and
discord which afflicted Palermo, the island and the continent, during the
reign of William the First, and the minority of his son.
WILLIAM THE GOOD (1166-1189 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1166-1194 A.D.]]
The youth, innocence, and beauty of William II, endeared him to the
nation; the factions were reconciled; the laws were revived; and from the
manhood to the premature death of that amiable prince, Sicily enjoyed a
short season of peace, justice, and happiness, whose value was enhanced
by the remembrance of the past and the dread of futurity. The legitimate
male posterity of Tancred de Hauteville was extinct in the person of
the second William; but his aunt, the daughter of Roger, had married
the most powerful prince of the age; and Henry VI, the son of Frederick
Barbarossa, descended from the Alps to claim the imperial crown and the
inheritance of his wife. Against the unanimous wish of a free people,
this inheritance could only be acquired by arms.
The historian Falcandus writes at the moment and on the spot, with the
feelings of a patriot, and the prophetic eye of a statesman. “Constanza,
the daughter of Sicily, nursed from her cradle in the pleasures and
plenty, and educated in the arts and manners of this fortunate isle,
departed long since to enrich the barbarians with our treasures, and
now returns with her savage allies to contaminate the beauties of her
venerable parent. Already I behold the swarms of angry barbarians; our
opulent cities, the places flourishing in a long peace, are shaken
with fear, desolated by slaughter, consumed by rapine, and polluted by
intemperance and lust. I see the massacre or captivity of our citizens,
the rapes of our virgins and matrons. In this extremity (he interrogates
a friend) how must the Sicilians act? By the unanimous election of a king
of valour and experience, Sicily and Calabria might yet be preserved;
for in the levity of the Apulians, ever eager for new revolutions, I
can repose neither confidence nor hope. Should Calabria be lost, the
lofty towers, the numerous youth, and the naval strength of Messina,
might guard the passage against a foreign invader. If the savage
Germans coalesce with the pirates of Messina; if they destroy with fire
the fruitful region, so often wasted by the fires of Mount Ætna, what
resource will be left for the interior parts of the island, these noble
cities which should never be violated by the hostile footsteps of a
barbarian?
“Catana has again been overwhelmed by an earthquake; the ancient virtue
of Syracuse expires in poverty and solitude; but Palermo is still crowned
with a diadem, and her triple walls enclose the active multitudes of
Christians and Saracens. If the two nations, under one king, can unite
for their common safety, they may rush on the barbarians with invincible
arms. But if the Saracens, fatigued by a repetition of injuries, should
now retire and rebel, if they should occupy the castles of the mountains
and sea coast, the unfortunate Christians, exposed to a double attack,
and placed as it were between the hammer and the anvil, must resign
themselves to hopeless and inevitable servitude.” We must not forget,
that a priest here prefers his country to his religion; and that the
Moslems, whose alliance he seeks, were still numerous and powerful in the
state of Sicily.[m]
[Illustration: A NORMAN WARRIOR OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY]
The hopes or at least the wishes of Falcandus were at first gratified by
the free and unanimous election of Tancred, the grandson of the first
king, whose birth was illegitimate, but whose civil and military virtues
shone without a blemish. During four years, the term of his life and
reign, he stood in arms on the farthest verge of the Apulian frontier,
against the powers of Germany; and the restitution of a royal captive, of
Constanza herself, without injury or ransom, may appear to surpass the
most liberal measure of policy or reason. After his decease, the kingdom
of his widow and infant son fell without a struggle; and Henry pursued
his victorious march from Capua to Palermo. The political balance of
Italy was destroyed by his success; and if the pope and the free cities
had consulted their obvious and real interest, they would have combined
the powers of earth and heaven to prevent the dangerous union of the
German Empire with the kingdom of Sicily.
But the subtle policy, for which the Vatican has so often been praised
or arraigned, was on this occasion blind and inactive; and if it were
true that Celestine III had kicked away the imperial crown from the head
of the prostrate Henry, such an act of impotent pride could serve only
to cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese, who enjoyed
a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicily, listened to the promise
of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure; their fleet commanded
the Straits of Messina, and opened the harbour of Palermo; and the first
act of his government was to abolish the privileges, and to seize the
property, of these imprudent allies. The last hope of Falcandus was
defeated by the discord of the Christians and Mohammedans; they fought
in the capital; several thousands of the latter were slain; but their
surviving brethren fortified the mountains, and disturbed above thirty
years the peace of the island.
[Sidenote: [1194-1266 A.D.]]
By the policy of Frederick II, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted
to Nocera in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the emperor
and his son Manfred were strengthened and disgraced by the service of the
enemies of Christ; and this national colony maintained their religion and
manners in the heart of Italy, till they were extirpated at the end of
the thirteenth century by the zeal and revenge of the house of Anjou.
All the calamities which the prophetic orator had deplored, were
surpassed by the cruelty and avarice of the German conqueror. He violated
the royal sepulchres, and explored the secret treasures of the palace,
Palermo, and the whole kingdom; the pearls and jewels, however precious,
might be easily removed; but one hundred and sixty horses were laden with
the gold and silver of Sicily. The young king, his mother and sisters,
and the nobles of both sexes, were separately confined in the fortresses
of the Alps; and on the slightest rumour of rebellion the captives were
deprived of life, of their eyes, or of the hope of posterity. Constanza
herself was touched with sympathy for the miseries of her country; and
the heiress of the Norman line might struggle to check her despotic
husband, and to save the patrimony of her newborn son, of an emperor so
famous in the next age under the name of Frederick II.
Ten years after this revolution, the French monarchs annexed to their
crown the duchy of Normandy; the sceptre of her ancient dukes had been
transmitted, by a granddaughter of William the Conqueror, to the house of
Plantagenet; and the adventurous Normans, who had raised so many trophies
in France, England, and Ireland, in Apulia, Sicily, and the East, were
lost either in victory or servitude, among the vanquished nations.[l]
In Sicily the circumstances of the conquest led the Norman settlers to
remain far more distinct from the older races of the land than they did
in England, and in the end not to lose themselves in those older races
of the land but in the settlers of other races who accompanied them and
followed them. So far as there ever was a Sicilian nation at all it
might be said to be called into being by the emperor-king Frederick II.
In his day a Latin element finally triumphed; but it was not a Norman
French-speaking element of any kind. The speech of the Lombards at last
got the better of the Greek, Arabic, and French; how far its ascendency
can have been built on any survival of an earlier Latin speech which had
lived alongside of Greek and Arabic, this is not the place to inquire.
NORMAN INFLUENCE
[Sidenote: [1130-1194 A.D.]]
Of all the points to be insisted on, that which it is most necessary to
bear in mind is the Norman power of adaptation to circumstances, the gift
which in the end destroyed the race as a separate race. English history
is utterly misconceived if it is thought that an acknowledged distinction
between Normans and English went on, perhaps into the fourteenth
century, perhaps into the seventeenth. Long before the earlier of those
dates the Norman in England had done his work; he had unwittingly done
much to preserve and strengthen the national life of a really kindred
people, and, that work done, he had lost himself in the greater mass of
that kindred people. In Sicily his work, far more brilliant, far more
beneficent at the time, could not be so lasting. The Norman princes
made Sicily a kingdom; they ruled it for a season better than any other
kingdom was ruled; but they could not make it a Norman kingdom, nor could
they themselves become national Sicilian kings. The kingdom that they
founded has now vanished from among the kingdoms of the earth, because
it was only a kingdom and not a nation. In every other way the Norman
has vanished from Sicily as though he had never been. His very works of
building are hardly witnesses to his presence, because, without external
evidence, we should never have taken them to be his. In Sicily, in short,
he gave a few generations of unusual peace and prosperity to several
nations living side by side, and then he, so to speak, went his way from
a land in which he had a work to do, but in which he never was really at
home. In England he made himself, though by rougher means, more truly at
home among unacknowledged kinsmen. When in outward show he seemed to work
the unmaking of a nation, he was in truth giving no small help towards
its second making.[c]
FOOTNOTES
[9] [Some historic doubt has been thrown on this anecdote by St. Marc.[h]]
[10] The Norman writers and editors most conversant with their own idiom
interpret Guiscard or Wiscard, by _Callidus_, a cunning man. The root
“wise” is familiar to our ear; and in the old word “wiseacre” we can
discern something of a similar sense and termination.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]