SALERNO AND THE HOUSE OF HAUTEVILLE
Backed by gentle slopes well wooded and well tilled, and screened from the
northern blasts by its guarding amphitheatre of grey crags, Salerno
occupies a delightful position upon the Bay to which it gives its own
name. The long stretch of its Marina, tolerably clean to the eye if not at
all points agreeable to the nostrils, follows the broad curve of the
strand, and an idle hour or so may pleasantly be whiled away in watching
the fishing craft moored beside the mole and the attendant sailors. At the
northern end of this promenade, in what constitutes the most fashionable
quarter of the place, is a tiny garden with palms and daturas, whilst hard
by stands a large theatre, evidences of the gentility of modern Salerno.
But the whole town appears sleepy and dead-alive to a stranger, though at
the sunset hour a band occasionally plays in this open space, the music
attracting hither a crowd composed of all the divers elements of society
in the quiet old city. Yet though not possessing any great attractions for
a sojourn in itself, Salerno makes an excellent centre whence to explore
the neighbourhood, for it lies within easy reach of the great Benedictine
Abbey of Santa Trinità; of beautiful La Cava, “that Alpine valley under an
Italian sky”; of Nocera, with its ancient cathedral that was once a pagan
temple; and last, but very far from least, of that glorious group of
temples at Paestum. It has tolerable hotels, and if only their _padroni_
could be brought to realise that a flavouring of rosemary and garlic in
every dish is not appreciated by the palates of the _forestieri_, the fare
provided would be excellent. As in all Italian cities, northern or
southern, however, the nocturnal noise is prodigious. Shouting and
shrieking, quarrelling and yelling rend the air at all hours, whilst the
practice of serenading, more agreeable in romantic poetry than in everyday
life, is here carried to excess, and the twanging of the mandoline and the
throaty voices of ardent lovers are rarely silent o’ nights in the dark
narrow streets of Salerno.
“A lu scur’ vagi cercann’
La bella mia addo è?
Mo m’annascunn’ po’ fann’ dispera’,
I mor’, I mor’ pe’ te,
Ripos’ cchiù ne ho!”
(“In favouring dusk I wandering go,
My fair, where shall I find her?
Now she attracts, now drives me wild;
I die, I die for her;
Repose no more have I.”)
Behind the long line of lofty well-built houses facing the Bay, the
streets are gloomy, narrow and crooked, a labyrinth of dark mysterious
lanes that contain no palaces or churches of note, and but few artistic
“bits” to catch the eye and delight the soul of a painter. As in the case
of Amalfi, the Cathedral of San Matteo at Salerno is almost the sole
monument left standing of a past that is peculiarly rich in historical
associations. Ever since the accession of the Angevin kings Salerno has
remained a quiet provincial town, neither rich nor poor, but stagnant and
without commerce. Into its harbour, which Norman and Suabian princes
attempted to improve, the sand has long since silted, and Naples for many
centuries past has been able to regard with serene contempt the city that
it was once intended to make her commercial rival:
“Se Salerno avesse un porto,
Napoli sarebbe morto.”
Well, Naples owns an excellent harbour, and has in consequence grown into
one of the largest sea-ports on the shores of the Mediterranean, whilst
little Salerno can only afford anchorage for fishing boats.
The chief interest of the place centres in its close connection with the
great Norman house of Hauteville, and especially with Robert Guiscard,
Duke of Apulia and Calabria, who after a fierce struggle managed to
capture this city from the Lombard princes. Sprung from a hardy race of
_valvassors_ or _bannerets_ in Normandy, Duke Robert was one of the twelve
sons of Tancred of Hauteville in the bishopric of Coutances. Joining his
elder half-brother William Bras-de-Fer in Italy, Robert at once began to
make a remarkable display of soldierly and statesman-like qualities. An
adventurer pure and simple in an alien land, this sharp-witted Norman in
course of time obtained the nick-name of Guiscard, or the Wiseacre, and on
the death of his elder brother he was nominated Count of Apulia by
acclamation of the Norman followers, to the exclusion of his helpless
young nephews. Robert Guiscard’s appearance and character have been
sketched for us with loving care by one of the most famous of the world’s
historians, who was fully able to appreciate the mingled force and
cunning, the _suaviter in modo_ and the _fortiter in re_, of this leader
of a handful of Normans in a hostile and distant country. Let Gibbon’s
stately prose therefore present to us a word-painting of the Great
Adventurer himself:—
“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 patent vigour of health and the commanding dignity
of his form. His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair
and beard were long and of a flaxen colour, his eyes sparkled with fire,
and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress obedience and terror
amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder ages of chivalry, such
qualifications are not below the notice of the poet or historian; they may
observe that Robert at once and with equal dexterity could wield in the
right hand his sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of
Civitella he was thrice unhorsed, and that on 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_ 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 for excelling the cunning of Ulysses and
the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were disguised by an appearance of
military frankness: in his highest fortune he was accessible and courteous
to his fellow soldiers, and while he indulged the prejudices of his new
subjects, he affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient
fashion of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he might
distribute with a liberal hand; his primitive indigence had taught the
habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not below his attention;
and his prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty to force a
discovery of their secret treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed
from Normandy with only five followers on horse-back, 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.”
Gaining over the Pope Nicholas II. to his interests, the new Count was
able to exact an oath of fealty in 1060 from the Italian barons, hitherto
his equals, to recognise him as “Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and here-after
of Sicily, by the grace of God and of St Peter,” although it took many
years of hard fighting before these lands, thus proudly claimed, could be
subdued. Beginning with the conquest of the Duchy of Benevento, Guiscard
at once laid siege to Salerno, taking it after an obstinate resistance
lasting over eight months, during which he was himself severely wounded by
a splinter from one of his own engines of war. The city captured with such
difficulty now became the victor’s favourite residence and the recipient
of his bounty and enlightened rule, so that Salerno quickly rose to the
rank of one of the most illustrious towns in Europe, supplanting even its
magnificent neighbour Amalfi in popular esteem.
“Urbs Latii non est hâc delitiosior urbe,
Frugibus arboribus vino redundat; et unde
Non tibi poma nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,
Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum.”
(“All Latium shows no more delightful place,
Whose sunny slopes the vine and almond grace;
’Midst fruitful groves her palaces uprear,
Her men are virtuous, and her women fair.”)
It was under the Guiscard’s auspices that the famous school of Medicine
that had long been seated at Salerno rose to its highest point of
excellence. “Paris for learning, Bologna for law, Orleans for poetry, and
Salerno for Medicine”;—such was the verdict of the age. With the somewhat
grudging consent of the clergy, the hygienic skill of the dreaded Arabs
was in this city permitted to temper the crass ignorance of medieval
Italy, and at Salerno alone were the works of the infidel Avicenna and of
the pagans Galen and Hippocrates openly studied. The result was that the
fame of the doctors of this _Fons Medicinae_ spread over all Western
Europe, so that distinguished patients either came hither to be treated in
person or else sent emissaries to explain their symptoms and to obtain
advice. Nor were the professors of the healing art at Salerno tied down by
a strict adherence to drugs and boluses, for they fully realised that the
height of all human ambition, the _mens sana in corpore sano_, is in any
case more easily to be obtained by self-control than by all the
ingredients of the pharmacopoeia. They were warm believers apparently in
the doctrine of moderation in all things, which after all is one of the
most valuable prescriptions of modern hygiene:
“Curas tolle graves, irasci crede profanum,
Parce mero, coenato parum, non sit tibi vanum,
Surgere post epulas, somnum fuge meridianum.”
(“Throw off dull care; thine angry moods restrain;
Eschew the wine-cup; lightly eat, nor vain
Deem our advice to make Enough thy feast.
Take exercise, and shun the noon-day rest.”)
Such was the oracular reply of the Salernitan sages to Robert, Duke of
Normandy, and no one can dispute the sound common sense of the
prescription given, nor doubt that it is applicable to half the patients
who to-day throng the consulting rooms of fashionable London physicians.
But to return to Robert Guiscard, who shares the historical honours of the
place, together with the great Pope Gregory VII., of whom we shall speak
presently. After subduing the southern half of Italy and the island of
Sicily, the great Duke next turned his victorious arms against the Eastern
Empire, with the secret intention, it was suspected, of ascending the
throne of Constantine. With the pseudo-Emperor Michael in his train, the
Great Adventurer in 1081 assembled a vast army at Otranto, consisting of
30,000 Italian subjects and of 1300 Norman knights, with the object of
crossing over to Epirus. Durazzo on the opposite Albanian coast, the
Dyrrachium of the ancients, a city that was henceforth destined to be
closely associated with succeeding dynasties of South Italy, was the
objective of this gigantic expedition, for it was commonly reported to be
the key of the Eastern Empire. Thither the flotilla set sail, but before
reaching the Greek shore, an unexpected and unseasonable tempest scattered
Guiscard’s argosy, destroying many of the ships and drowning many crews.
Nevertheless, the undaunted spirit and endless resources of the Norman
Duke rose superior to all misfortunes. Landing with the remnant of his
army he at once laid siege to Durazzo, despite the fact that the Emperor
Alexius was marching to its relief, and that the Venetian fleet was
already anchored in its harbour. In spite of overwhelming odds, Guiscard
utterly routed the Byzantine army. With his heir Bohemond and his wife
Sigilgaita beside him, the Duke watched the progress of the battle, and at
its most critical juncture, at a moment when it appeared inevitable that
the hard-pressed Italian army must yield to the sheer numbers of the foe,
the deep voice of the leader could be heard booming like a deep-toned bell
over the battlefield, as he addressed his wavering troops. “Whither do ye
fly? Your enemy is implacable, and death is less grievous than slavery!”
Joined with the hoarse voice of Guiscard, the Norman warriors could
distinguish the exhortations of the Amazon-like Sigilgaita, “a second
Pallas, less skilful in arts, but no less terrible in arms than the
Athenian goddess.” Rallying at the words of their master and shamed by the
martial ardour of the Duchess, the invading troops made one last desperate
effort, whereby the Imperial army was driven back and scattered, so that
Alexius barely escaped with his life. Having routed the Emperor in fair
fight, Guiscard now made use of his unparalleled cunning by bribing the
treacherous Venetians, who eventually assisted the Italian forces to enter
the city gates, and thus Durazzo was gained at the point of the sword
after one of the fiercest sieges known to history. Scarcely had the
beleaguered town been reduced, than the indomitable Guiscard found himself
compelled to return to Italy, where the Emperor of the West, the unhappy
Henry IV., vainly endeavouring to wipe out the humiliation of Canossa, had
seized Rome and was actually besieging the great Hildebrand in the Castle
of Sant’ Angelo. Leaving his son Bohemond in command of the army in
Macedonia, Robert recrossed the sea, and hastened with a handful of men
towards Rome. But so intense a fear did the victor of Durazzo inspire,
that the terrified Emperor without waiting to give combat fled headlong
together with his anti-pope from the Holy City, where Guiscard was
received with acclamation. “Thus, in less than three years,” remarks
Gibbon, “the son of Tancred of Hauteville enjoyed the glory of delivering
the Pope, and of compelling the two Emperors of the East and West to fly
before his victorious arms.” Guiscard’s triumphal entry into Rome was
however marred by scenes of violence and scandal, due to the conduct of
the Saracen troops which his brother, the great Count Roger of Sicily, had
brought to assist the enterprise. So infuriated were the Romans by the
behaviour of the infidels, that the prudent Gregory deemed it wiser to
return to Salerno together with his deliverer, and it was in Guiscard’s
palace that the famous “Caesar of spiritual conquest” expired three years
later. As to the Great Adventurer himself, he died in the island of
Cephalonia in the very year of the Pope’s death at Salerno (1085) and was
buried beside his first wife, the gentle Alberada, at Venosa in Apulia,
though the city which he had always loved and favoured would seem to have
offered a more appropriate spot for his interment.
But although the mortal remains of the Great Adventurer do not rest within
the precincts of his beloved city, an undying monument of his glorious but
turbulent reign is to be found in the Cathedral, which despite the neglect
and alterations of eight centuries may still be ranked as one of the most
interesting buildings in Southern Italy. Standing in a secluded part of
the town, this magnificent church gains nothing from its position, for it
can only be reached by means of tortuous dingy lanes, and even on a near
approach the effect produced on the visitor is not impressive. “The
Cathedral-church of San Matteo,” says the Scotch traveller, Joseph
Forsyth, in quaint pedantic language, “is a pile so antique and so modern,
so repaired and rhapsodic, that it exhibits patches of every style, and is
of no style itself.” But is not this quality, we ask, exactly what a great
historic building, such as Guiscard’s church, truly demands? Ought not it
to bear the impress of the various ages it has survived, and of the many
famous persons who have contributed to its embellishment? From Duke
Robert’s day to the present time, the Cathedral is an epitome of the
history of Salerno, a sermon in stones concerning the great past and the
inglorious present of the city.
In the year preceding his own death and that of the great Pontiff, who was
tarrying at Salerno as his not over-willing guest, Duke Robert erected
this Cathedral, obtaining the chief ornaments for his new structure and
also its most important relic, the supposed body of the Apostle St
Matthew, from the lately deserted city of Paestum across the bay. The
church is approached by means of a quadrangular fore-court, a cloister
supported on antique columns, such as can still be observed in a few of
the old Roman churches, so that we venture to think that this idea at
Salerno was suggested by the great Pope himself. A number of sculptured
sarcophagi, which, like the pillars, were the spoils of Paestum, are
ranged alongside the entrance walls; and once upon a time there stood in
the centre of the courtyard the huge granite basin that all visitors to
Naples will recall as set in the middle of the Villa Reale, where it
performs the humble office of decorating a miniature pond, wherein
lily-white ducks quack and gobble at the bread crumbs thrown to them by
children and their nurses. Fancy the irate disgust of Duke Robert at
waking to learn that the antique fountain for his new Cathedral, brought
with such care and toil from distant Poseidonia, should have been
transported to the rival city and turned to such base uses! Above the
splendid bronze doors, the gift of Landolfo Butomilea and his wife shortly
after Guiscard’s death, we perceive the dedication of the church to the
Apostle Matthew by the proud conqueror of the Two Sicilies and the
protector of Hildebrand.
“A Duce Roberto donaris Apostole templo:
Pro meritis regno donetur ipse superno.”
The donor, we note, is confident that the Apostle, in return for so
glorious a fabric, will undertake to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven for this
generous client upon earth.
The interior, which is sadly marred by white-wash and gaudy decoration, is
a perfect treasure-house of works of art—antique, medieval, Renaissance—of
which the guide-book will give a detailed list. Succeeding generations
have put to strange uses some of the fine marble reliefs that Guiscard
transported hither from Paestum, and we note that one archbishop has gone
so far as to filch a sarcophagus carved with a Bacchanal procession to
serve for his own tomb. We might perhaps infer that the deceased prelate
was addicted to the wine-flask, and to have been a firm believer in and
follower of one of the rules of the medical school of his own diocese:
“Si nocturna tibi noceat potatio vini,
Hoc ter mane libas iterum, et fuerit medicina.”
(“If a carouse at night do make thee ill,
For morning medicine drink of wine thy fill”)
Let us hope that this extraordinary receipt for “hot coppers” was intended
satirically, or else given seriously as the only advice that a confirmed
toper was likely to follow in any case. But the use of classical adjuncts
to adorn Christian tombs, which to-day appears so incongruous to us, was
popular enough at the time of the Renaissance, and readers of Robert
Browning’s poetry will call to mind the story of the dying Bishop’s
injunction to his heirs concerning his tomb in St Praxed’s church at Rome:
“The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod thyrsus with a vase or so,
The Saviour at His sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,
And Moses with the tables....”
But it is necessary to shake off the spirit of Renaissance dilettantism
before we venture to approach the chapel of John of Procida to the right
of the high altar, where stands the stern figure of the greatest of the
medieval Pontiffs. Above the marble statue of the Caesar of the Papacy,
that was tardily erected to his memory by the unfortunate Pio Nono, appear
the glittering mosaics of the apse of the chapel, from which look down the
figures of John of Procida and of King Manfred, the last sovereign prince
of the hated Suabian line that Gregory twice anathematized. Beneath the
cold forbidding eye of the last of the Hohenstaufen and his friend and
avenger here rest, strangely enough, the ashes of that “great and
inflexible asserter of the supremacy of the sacerdotal order: the monk
Hildebrand, afterwards Pope Gregory the Seventh.” Born the son of a poor
carpenter in the Tuscan village of Soana, this extraordinary man rose to
eminence as a monk of Cluny, where he became famous for his extreme
asceticism of life in an age of undisguised clerical corruption and
luxury, when simony, lay investiture and priestly marriages were the rule
rather than the exception on all sides, so that but few Churchmen were
able to rise above their surrounding temptations. Such few as could resist
the world, the flesh and the devil were accounted, and not unfrequently
were in reality, ignorant crazy fanatics, half-pitied and half-despised.
Between these two extremes of worldly indulgence and of unreasoning
severity of life, Hildebrand ever pursued a middle course, for whilst on
the one hand he eschewed the vanities of life around him, on the other he
never sank into the self-effacement of a hermit. His acknowledged purity
and zeal soon won for him from the laity a respect mingled with awe,
whilst his natural talents, his indomitable will, and his genuine piety in
course of time brought all Churchmen who had any regard for their holy
office to fix their hopes upon this Clugniac monk, now a Cardinal. For
some years before his actual election to the Papal throne in 1079,
Hildebrand had begun to exercise an immense control over the councils of
the Church, and he was personally responsible for the epoch-making
resolution under Nicholas II., which declared that the choice of a new
Pontiff was vested in the College of Cardinals alone. His own election,
under the terms of this new and drastic arrangement, became the signal for
the fierce struggles, equally of the battlefield and the council-chamber,
that were destined to distract Italy for generations to come. For, as
might have been expected, the Emperor Henry IV., King of the Romans, was
not long in protesting against so decided an infringement of his secular
claims. From the synods of Worms and Piacenza came the Imperial decree of
deposition against Gregory, which was addressed by “Henry, not by
usurpation but by God’s holy ordination, King, to Hildebrand, no longer
Pope, but false monk.” Gregory, strong alike in virtue and in resolve, and
aided by the might of the Countess Matilda of Tuscany and of Robert
Guiscard, answered by pronouncing a solemn anathema upon his secular
adversary. In awe-struck silence the Council of the Lateran listened to
the Pope’s final excommunication of the King, and of all those who dared
to associate themselves with him. “I absolve,” said Gregory, “all
Christians from the oaths which they have taken or may take to him; and I
decree that no one shall obey him as king; for it is fitting that he, who
has endeavoured to diminish the honour of the Church, should himself lose
that honour which he seems to have.” We all know the final act of that
terrible unequal struggle, the duel of brute force against spiritual
terrors in a rude age of violence and superstition, which took place in
the courtyard of the Castle of Canossa, the Countess Matilda’s fortress in
the Apennines.
“On a dreary winter morning, with the ground deep in snow, the King, the
heir of a long line of Emperors, was permitted to enter within the two
outer of the three walls which girded the Castle of Canossa. He had laid
aside every mark of royalty or of distinguished station; he was clad only
in the thin white linen dress of the penitent, and there, fasting, he
awaited in humble patience the pleasure of the Pope. But the gates did not
unclose. A second day he stood, cold, hungry and mocked by vain hopes. And
yet a third day dragged on from morning till evening over the unsheltered
head of the discrowned King. Every heart was moved save that of the
representative of Jesus Christ.”
[Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO RAVELLO]
Can we wonder then that the phrase “to go to Canossa” (_gehen nach
Canossa_) has become ingrafted on to the German language, or that so
significant an expression was openly used by Prince Bismarck during the
fierce religious struggles in the days of the “Kultur-kampf” between the
newly-formed Empire and the direct successor of the spiritual Caesar who
had thus humbled a former Emperor of Germany? It was in vain that Henry
afterwards endeavoured, by making war upon his oppressor, to undo the evil
effects of his public recantation at Canossa; the act of humiliation was
too marked ever to be wiped out either by himself or by his descendants.
For good or for bad, Gregory had succeeded in rendering the Papacy free
from lay control; he had gained for ever for the Church one of her most
cherished tenets, the absolute independence of the Pope’s election by the
College of Cardinals; and he had even partially reduced the Western Empire
into a fief of the Church itself. The former of Gregory’s great objects,
the freedom of election, still remains intact after an interval of more
than eight hundred years; the latter attempt, though long struggled for
and apparently with success at times, has, we know, ultimately failed.
Having accomplished so much during his reign, it is strange to think that
Gregory’s last days should have been passed in a form of exile away from
the Eternal City which he claimed as the metropolis of the Universal
Church. There is pathos to be found in the Pope dying at Salerno, far
removed from the scene of his ambition and success. With the bitter
feeling that his name was execrated in Rome after Guiscard’s sack, and
that his host was bent upon obtaining the imperial title from his
reluctant guest, Gregory’s declining days were spent in melancholy
reflections. To the last he spoke confidently of the righteousness of his
cause, and whilst making his peace with all mankind in anticipation of his
approaching end, he deliberately excepted from his own and God’s mercy the
names of his arch-enemy Henry and the anti-pope Guibert, together with all
their followers. Thus the aged Pontiff languished to his end within the
walls of the Castle of Salerno, encircled by flattering Churchmen who did
their utmost to cheer their dying champion. “I have loved justice and
hated iniquity, and therefore I die in exile,” are the famous words
recorded of Hildebrand in the face of the King of Terrors. “In exile thou
canst not die!” eagerly responded an attendant priest. “Vicar of Christ
and His Apostles, thou hast received the nations for thine inheritance,
and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.”
Perhaps the expiring Pope was cheered by these words—who can tell? In any
case they were prophetic, for the present world-wide character of the
Roman Church, which embraces in its fold all nationalities and holds its
members together all the globe over in one indissoluble bond of a
spiritual empire, is largely due to the trials and exertions of one man:
the monk Hildebrand, Pope Gregory the Seventh.
Here then he sleeps his last sleep, the friend of Matilda, the mortal foe
of King Henry, the patron of William the Conqueror, the guest of Robert
Guiscard:—what a galaxy of illustrious names shines upon that dim silent
chapel in the Cathedral of Salerno! Here stands in unchanging benediction
his gleaming marble effigy, calmly surveyed by King Manfred near at hand
in imperial robes, the last prince of the hated and twice banned Suabian
House, whose bones were destined to bleach in the sun and rattle in the
wind by the bridge of Benevento under a Papal curse.
Before we quit the Cathedral in order to enjoy the evening sunshine, which
is filling the interior with its roseate glow, let us return for one brief
moment to the northern aisle, to glance at the grave of the Duchess who
fought so boldly by her husband’s side at Durazzo. It is easy to find, for
her simple tomb stands not far from the beautiful and elaborate monument
of Margaret of Durazzo (strange coincidence!) wife of King Charles of
Naples, wherein the sculptor has portrayed angels drawing aside a curtain
so as to display the sleeping form of the dead Queen within. Close to this
monument of a not unusual Renaissance type, we discover the last resting
place of Robert Guiscard’s second wife, the Duchess Sigilgaita, their son
Roger Bursa and their grandson William, in whom the direct line of the
Great Adventurer became extinct. Many stories are told by the old
chroniclers of this bold intrepid princess (not always to her
credit)—daughter of the last Lombard prince Gisulf of Salerno and wife of
her father’s supplanter, whose humble Norman ancestry she affected to
despise. But despite her reputation for cruelty and even for murder,
Sigilgaita was a faithful wife and a brave woman, with a character not
unlike that of our own Queen Margaret of Anjou; and it seems strange that
so devoted and well mated a pair as herself and Robert Guiscard should be
separated in death, he at Venosa and she in the cathedral of her husband’s
foundation.
Passing out of the silent church into the warm light of eventide, by steep
alleys and by stony footpaths we gradually mount upwards towards the
ruined castle that commands a lofty position with an all-embracing view of
the bay and its encircling mountains. The crumbling fragment of the old
palace of Salerno differs but little in appearance from any one of those
innumerable dilapidated piles of the Middle Ages with which Southern Italy
is so thickly studded, yet coming fresh from visiting Guiscard’s cathedral
and Hildebrand’s last resting-place, we find it comparatively easy to
conjure up some recollections of its past, so as to invest its crumbling
red-hued walls with a spell of interest. These broken apertures were
surely once the windows through which the dying Pope must have wearily
glanced upon the sun-smitten waves and violet-shadowed hills that we
behold to-day; here in this embrasure, long despoiled of its marble seat,
must have brooded the fierce and unscrupulous Sigilgaita, thinking of how
best to rid herself of her step-son Bohemond, in order that her own
children might inherit their father’s realms. The ghosts of princes and
popes are around us, yet the only living inhabitant of the roofless castle
is the ragged little goat-herd, whose unsavoury charges are cropping the
short grass that covers the site of the banqueting hall, where Norman
knights and Italian barons once caroused in the crusading days of long
ago. We seat ourselves on the dry sward in a sun-warmed angle of the
ruins, where an almond tree that has sprouted from the rubble sends down
from time to time upon our heads a tiny shower of pale pink blossoms at
the bidding of the soft evening breeze. At our feet are masses of the dark
shiny leaves of the wild arum, and rank grass which is plentifully starred
with tall-stemmed crimson-petalled daisies and the mauve wind-flowers that
are drowsily closing their cups at the approach of night. The little
goat-herd eyes us solemnly, but—strange and welcome to relate—shows no
inclination to pester the _signori_. The soft murmuring of the distant
sea, the subdued hum of the city far below us and the drowsy buzzing of
the bees in the almond and ivy bloom close at hand combine to strengthen
the golden chain of imagination. As we sit basking in the peaceful beauty
of the scene around us and serenely conscious of its glorious past, one of
our party suddenly remembers in a welcome flash of inspiration that this
deserted courtyard has been made the scene of one of Boccaccio’s most
famous tales. It is a story that many writers of succeeding ages have
endeavoured to imitate in prose or verse, but this fictitious love-tragedy
between a princess and a page at Salerno has a simple charm and dignity in
its original setting that only the master-hand of the Tuscan author could
impart. The scene of the novel of Guiscard and Ghismonda is laid, as we
have said, at this very spot, and as the hero, the heroine and the villain
of the tale have Norman names, we may be allowed to conjecture that this
graceful story, which Boccaccio puts into the mouth of the lady Fiammetta,
was founded upon some actual but half-forgotten family scandal in the
annals of the mighty but self-made House of Hauteville.
* * * * * *
Once upon a time there reigned in Salerno the Prince Tancred, who was a
widower, and the father of an only daughter, Ghismonda, Duchess of Capua.
The Duchess, who was considered one of the most beautiful, accomplished
and virtuous princesses of her day, had been early married to the Duke of
Capua, but on his death after a very few years of matrimony had been left
a childless widow. Being still very young, the Princess Ghismonda was now
taken back to his court by her father, who jealously guarded her and
seemed unwilling for her to be remarried. Living in rooms that over-looked
the courtyard of the palace, the Duchess, who found time hang on her hands
somewhat heavily, used to spend hours daily in watching the lords and
pages of her father’s household passing and repassing the quadrangle
below, and amongst the many well-favoured youths a certain page named
Guiscard found most favour in her sight. Now Guiscard, who had thus all
unwittingly attracted Ghismonda’s attention and finally won her heart, was
a young Norman of no great lineage and of small means, but being discreet,
upright and sensible-minded, had obtained a high place in Prince Tancred’s
estimation. Skilfully questioning her maids of honour without exciting
their suspicions, the Princess gained all she wished to know concerning
Guiscard’s position and attainments, and it was not long before she found
means of conveying the secret of her affection to the youth, who in fact
had already fallen head over ears in love with the beautiful Duchess who
so often leaned from the casement above. She now sent him a letter hidden
in a pair of bellows, wherein she explained to him the existence of a
secret passage, long disused, that led from a hollow in the hillside below
the castle walls up to her own apartment. Over-joyed at receiving this
missive, the infatuated page took the first occasion, as we may well
imagine, to make use of this friendly clue, and before many hours had
passed after receiving the letter, the young man, flushed and triumphant,
was standing in the chamber of his beloved mistress, who had meanwhile
taken every necessary preparation for receiving her lover in secret. Many
a time were the pair able to meet thus without awakening the least
suspicion in the minds of Prince Tancred or of the maids of honour, and
all would doubtless have gone well for an indefinite period of time, but
for a most unforeseen accident. It appears that one morning the old Prince
of Salerno, wishing to confer with his daughter on some matter of state,
came to her private apartment, and on learning that she had gone out
riding settled himself upon a couch that stood within a curtained alcove,
and whilst waiting for her return fell sound asleep. After some hours of
repose the prince was suddenly roused from his heavy slumber by the sound
of two voices in the room, that of his daughter and of a strange man.
Peeping stealthily through the folds of the draperies, he now beheld to
his fury and amazement the Duchess alone with his page Guiscard. But the
descendant of Robert the Wiseacre well knew how to temper vengeance with
dissimulation. Dreading the scandal that would follow an open exposure,
the Prince, in spite of his years and the stiffness of his joints,
contrived to quit the chamber unperceived by means of a convenient window.
That very night the unsuspecting Guiscard was seized by his sovereign’s
orders and thrust into a foul dungeon of the palace, whither Tancred
himself descended to question his prisoner and to reprove him violently
for his base ingratitude. But the unhappy page could only make repeated
answer: “Sire, love hath greater powers than you or I!” On the following
morning Tancred proceeded to visit the Duchess, still ignorant of her
paramour’s fate, and in a voice strangled with the conflicting emotions of
paternal love and desired vengeance bitterly upbraided his erring child.
“Daughter, I had such an opinion of your modesty and virtue, that I could
never have believed, had I not seen it with mine own eyes, that you would
have violated either, even so much as in thought. The recollection of this
will make the pittance of life that is left very grievous to me. As you
were determined to act in that manner, would to Heaven you had made choice
of a person more suitable to your own quality; but this Guiscard is one of
the meanest persons about my court. This gives me such concern, that I
scarce know what to do. As for him, he was secured by my order last night,
and his fate is determined. But with regard to yourself, I am influenced
by two different motives: on one side, the tenderest regard that a father
can have for a child; and on the other, the justest vengeance for the
great folly you have committed. One pleads strongly in your behalf; and
the other would excite me to do an act contrary to my nature. But before I
come to a resolution, I would fain hear what you have to say for
yourself.”
Seeing clearly from her father’s words that her secret had been discovered
and that her lover was in prison, the intrepid Ghismonda, a true daughter
of the high-spirited House of Hauteville, assuming a composure she was
very far from feeling, made a dignified appeal on behalf of Guiscard and
herself.
“Father, it is not my purpose either to deny or to entreat; for as the one
can avail me nothing, so I intend the other shall be of little service. I
will by no means bespeak your love and tenderness towards me; but shall
first, by an open confession, endeavour to vindicate myself, and thus do
what the greatness of my soul prompts me to. It is most true that I have
loved, and do still love Guiscard; and whilst I live, which will not be
long, shall continue to love him; and if such a thing as love be after
death, I shall never cease to love him.... It appears from what you say,
that you would have been less incensed if I had made choice of a nobleman,
and you bitterly reproach me for having condescended to a man of low
condition. In this you speak according to vulgar prejudice, and not
according to truth; nor do you perceive that the fault you blame is not
mine, but Fortune’s, who often exalts the unworthy, and leaves the
worthiest in low estate. But, not to dwell on such considerations, look a
little into first principles, and you will see that we are all formed of
the same material and by the same hand. The first difference amongst
mankind, who are all born equal, was made by virtue; they who were
virtuous were deemed noble, and the rest were all accounted otherwise.
Though this law, therefore, may have been obscured by contrary custom, yet
is it discarded neither by nature nor good manners. If you regard only the
worth and virtue of your courtiers, and consider that of Guiscard, you
will find him the only noble person, and these others a set of poltroons.
With regard to his worth and valour, I appeal to yourself. Who ever
commended man more for anything that was praise-worthy than you have
commended him? And deservedly, in my judgment; but if I was deceived, it
was by following your opinion. If you say, then, that I have had an affair
with a person base and ignoble, I deny it; if with a poor one, it is to
your shame to have let such merit go unrewarded. Now concerning your last
doubt, namely how you are to deal with me: use your pleasure. If you are
disposed to commit an act of cruelty, I shall say nothing to prevent such
a resolution. But this I must apprise you of; that unless you do the same
to me, which you either have done, or mean to do to Guiscard, mine own
hands shall do it for you. If you mean to act with severity, cut us off
both together, if it appear to you that we have deserved it.”
The Duchess’ able defence of her choice of Guiscard and her democratic
views of society were hardly likely to influence the proud tyrant of
Salerno, although his house was sprung from a plebeian stock of Normandy.
Ignoring her plea and arguments, Tancred left his daughter alone with her
grief, and proceeded to the cells below to give the order for Guiscard’s
immediate death by strangling. But Tancred’s fury was by no means appeased
by the page’s death, for tearing the unhappy youth’s heart from the warm
and still quivering body, the brutal prince had the bleeding flesh placed
in a golden covered cup, which he bade his chamberlain deliver to
Ghismonda, with these cruel words: “Your father sends this present to
comfort you with what was most dear to you; even as he was comforted by
you in what was most dear to him.” With a calm countenance and with a
gracious word of thanks, the Princess accepted the gift, and on removing
the cover and realising the contents of the cup, said with meaning to the
bearer of this gruesome present: “My father has done very wisely; such a
heart as this requires no worse a sepulchre than one of gold.” Then after
lamenting for a while over her lover’s fate, Ghismonda filled the goblet
with a draught of poison that she had already prepared in anticipation of
her father’s vengeance, and quaffed its contents. After this she lay down
upon her bed, clasping the cup to her bosom, whereupon her maids, all
ignorant of the cause of their mistress’ conduct, ran terrified to call
Prince Tancred, who arrived in time to witness his unhappy daughter’s
death agony. Now that it was too late, the Prince was stricken with
remorse and began loudly to bewail the violence of his late anger. “Sire,”
said the dying Princess, “save those tears against worse fortune that may
happen, for I want them not. Who but yourself would mourn for a thing of
your own doing?” Then dropping her tone of irony, she made one last
request of her weeping and repentant father, that her own and Guiscard’s
bodies might be honourably interred within the same tomb. Thus perished by
her own hand the beautiful Princess Ghismonda of Salerno, Duchess of
Capua, urged to the fell deed by a parent’s inexorable cruelty. And it is
some slight consolation to the sad ending of the story to learn that
Tancred did at least carry out his daughter’s dying entreaty, for the
bodies of Ghismonda and Guiscard were duly laid in one grave amidst the
pomp of religion and the cold comfort of a public mourning.(7)
* * * * * *
But the sun has long since sunk below the horizon, and the chill dews of
night are falling round us. Hastily we leave the old palace of the princes
of Salerno to the solitary occupation of the bats and owls, to seek warmth
and cheerfulness in our inn upon the Marina.