V.

While Frederic was yet fighting his way home through Italy, Adrian had

to face about and confront another foe in William, the Norman king of

Sicily.

William had lately succeeded his father Roger, a wise and able

monarch, to whom however his son, as so commonly happens, bore no sort

of resemblance; but by his incapacity and total subjection under the

influence of a profligate favourite of low birth, named Wrajo, soon

threw the state, which Roger had left in so prosperous a condition,

into the worst disorder.

The breach between him and the pope arose out of a letter which the

latter had occasion to address to the king at Salerno, in which the

royal title was omitted, and that of mere lord substituted. Adrian did

this because William had assumed the crown of Sicily without first

asking it of the pope, who, as the feudal patron of that island by

ancient compact with its Norman conquerors under Robert de Guiscard,

in the time of Pope Leo IX. (A. D. 1053), justly felt his rights

infringed by a proceeding which set at nought their established forms.

In revenge of this pretended insult, William refused to negotiate with

the ambassadors through whom it came; and, furthermore, gave orders to

his chancellor Scitinius, whom he had just made viceroy of Apulia, to

attack the domain of the Church, which that officer accordingly did,

by laying siege to Beneventum, and devastating its territory. But as

this proceeding caused a number of disaffected crown vassals of

Apulia, already secretly tampered with by agents of the Greek emperor,

anxious to recover his lost sway in Italy, to revolt against the

Sicilian government,--many of whom in so doing marched to the relief

of Beneventum,--Scitinius was soon obliged to raise the siege of that

city, and turn his arms against some more vulnerable point. To this

end, he passed direct into the Campagna, and there set fire to the

towns of Ciparano, Barbuco, and Todi; after which, he made his

retreat, demolishing by the way the walls of Aquino, and driving a

crowd of monks out of their convents, which he gave up to the plunder

of the soldiers.

These events had transpired while Frederic Barbarossa was yet

advancing towards Rome, to demand the imperial crown, and on his

arrival formed one of the heads of complaint to him on the part of the

pope, who hoped to use the strong arm of the professed champion of the

Church in redressing her wrongs. Frederic, indeed, expressed the

warmest zeal in the pope's cause, and, none the less so, as it

presented, under the appearance of a sacred duty, a prospect so

inviting to his own ambition. But, as we have seen, he was reluctantly

compelled by his murmuring soldiers to close his campaign and return

home. He did not, however, lose sight of Sicily; which, as will be

described in the sequel, gave rise to a fresh and sharper quarrel

between him and the pope.

Disappointed in his hopes of assistance from Frederic, Adrian, with

characteristic energy, resolved to assist himself; and rejoined to the

ruffianism of William with a ban of excommunication, a proceeding

which instantly decided in the pope's cause several of the most

powerful nobles of Apulia, especially Robert Count of Loritelli, the

king's cousin, Andrew Count of Rupi Canino, Richard Count of Aquila,

and Robert Prince of Capua; men who, like the bulk of their order,

were impatient to shake off the oppressive and ignominious yoke of the

royal favourite Wrajo. Backed by these, who again were secretly

encouraged by the court of Constantinople, Adrian followed up his ban

of excommunication, by invading at the head of his troops the Terra di

Lavoro, which he totally subdued, and then proceeded to Beneventum,

where he fixed his head quarters.

William, who in the mean time was in Sicily, and lulled asleep to

every interest under the noxious influence of Wrajo, no sooner became

aware of his bad fortune across the water,--where, owing to the events

just related, all his Italian possessions, with the exception of

Naples, Amalfi, Sorrento, and a few other towns and castles of

secondary importance, were wrested from him,--than he presently shook

off his lethargy, sailed over to Salerno, and from that city sent

ambassadors to the pope to negotiate a peace.

To this step he was urged all the more by finding out that Emanuel,

the Greek emperor, after refusing to stand his ally at the beginning

of the war, was in correspondence, through his minister Palaeologus,

with Adrian; trying to procure from the latter the cession of three

sea-ports of Apulia in consideration of a large sum of money, and of

the promise to expel the Sicilian king from his Italian dominions. The

offers which William made were, namely: to pay a sum equivalent to

that tendered by Emanuel; to surrender the three sea-ports in question

as an indemnification for the damage done by Scitinius; and to swear

fealty to the pope as the liege lord of Sicily.

At first Adrian doubted if these terms were genuine, and sent a

cardinal to Salerno, to learn the truth. On being advised that all was

straightforward, he declared his readiness to accept them. But a cabal

in the German interest among the cardinals now put in such a strong

opposition to the pope's intention, that, taken by surprise, he

dropped it, and retracted his favourable answer to William.

The truth was, a reconciliation between Adrian and William, would have

seriously embarrassed Frederic Barbarossa's designs on Sicily;--to say

nothing of the protection which such an event would secure to the pope

against those farther aggressions on the Church, which the emperor had

in view.

Driven to desperation by the final decision of the pope, William, who,

with all his faults, seems still to have been capable of a rash energy

when real danger stared him in the face, resolved to throw himself

again on the chance of war. Collecting a formidable armament by sea

and land, he invested Brundusium; which, with the exception of the

citadel, had fallen into the hands of Michael Ducas, the Greek

general. [1] The citadel, which could not be subdued by arms, was

obliged at last to yield to famine; when, in the moment that the

garrison was about to close with the terms of surrender, proposed by

the enemy, William came up with his army, and obliged the Greek

commander, instead of taking possession of the citadel, to face about

and fight a pitched battle for the town. The struggle was obstinate

and bloody: fortune often changed sides; but at last declared for the

Sicilians, into whose hands Ducas himself fell.

The recovery of Brundusium, which followed this victory, seasonably

placed at William's disposal a number of rich Greek captives,--whom he

sent to Palermo,--much ready money and precious property, besides

ships and stores.

A crowd of Apulian malcontents had also the misfortune to fall into

his power; on whom he did not fail to wreak his vengeance, by

executing some; blinding and maiming others; and selling the rest into

slavery.

Flushed with this success, he next marched to Bari. Here he met with

no resistance; but, on the contrary, an affecting appeal to his mercy

in the spectacle of the citizens coming out before him, dressed in

sackcloth, in token of submission. So solemn a humiliation, however,

could not atone in the king's eye, for their crime in having

demolished the citadel of the town, because it refused to turn

disloyal, when the rebellion first broke out. To their entreaties for

pardon, he sternly replied, that he should deal out strict justice to

them; that as they had not spared his house, he should not spare their

houses. A respite of two days only was allowed them, in which to quit

their homes with their goods; upon its expiration, the entire city

with its walls was reduced to a heap of ruins. Struck with terror at

so cruel a vengeance, the rest of the revolted Apulian towns hastened

to send in their submission; whereupon, William turned his arms at

once against Beneventum; where not only the pope, but also prince

Robert of Capua, and several other leaders of the rebellion resided.

As the king approached, the prince of Capua, seized with terror, fled;

but with so little caution as to fall into an ambush set for him by

his vassal and fellow rebel, Richard Count of Fondi; who took the

prince his son and daughter prisoners, and delivered them to his

sovereign; by which piece of seasonable perfidy, Richard atoned for

his treason, and recovered the royal favour.

As to Robert, he was shipped off to Palermo, thrown into a dungeon,

where his eyes were put out. In this sad condition, however, he did

not long survive, as the severity of his treatment soon brought death

to his relief.

With such melancholy proofs of the mutability of worldly fortune

before his eyes, and viewing, moreover, the success of his enemy as a

sign of the divine disapprobation of his having been so weak as to

refuse terms of peace against his better judgment, Adrian now resolved

to lose no time in doing what was yet in his power towards repairing

his error; and began by successfully requesting the Sicilian king, to

give up farther pursuit of his vengeance against the rest of the rebel

chiefs, still shut up in Beneventum, and to pardon them on condition

of their quitting the kingdom. He next offered to close with those

terms of peace,--the rejection of which had caused the present war,--and

sent ambassadors to the king on the subject. William received them

respectfully and opened negotiations with them. The pope, on his part,

engaged to invest the king in feoff with the kingdom of Sicily, the

duchy of Apulia, the principality of Capua, Naples, Salerno, and

Malfi, with the March and with all that he claimed on this side the

Marsa. The king, in return, engaged to swear fealty to the pope; to

defend him against his enemies; and to pay him a fixed yearly tribute

for Apulia, Calabria, and the March. These formed the principal

articles of the treaty now agreed to. But there were others included,

in which the king took advantage of his position as conqueror, to

exact terms in favour of the secular, and to the detriment of the

spiritual power in his states. By these terms, the royal right to

confirm canonical elections, was extended; appeals to Rome, from

Apulia were restricted; while in Sicily, they were wholly abolished,

as well as the right to send legates into the island.

This peace was signed in the church of St. Marcianus near Beneventum;

where, in the presence of a splendid array of nobles, and of a vast

crowd of people, the king of Sicily prostrated himself in homage at

the feet of the pope; who then embraced his august vassal, and

invested him with feoffs of Sicily, Apulia, and Capua, by presenting

him with three Standards representing those states. After all was

over, the king made rich presents of plate, and precious garments to

the cardinals in the suite of the pope, of whom he then took leave and

returned to Palermo.

Shortly afterwards Adrian published a bull, in which the peace was

confirmed.

On his way from Beneventum to Rome, he visited Orvieto; a city which

had for a long time stood in open rebellion against him as its prince,

but had recently returned to its duty. Here he stayed some time, and

received the most loyal demonstrations from the citizens, on whom he

conferred many tokens of his paternal regard. From Orvieto, he

proceeded to Viterbo for the winter, and then repaired to Rome.

[1] Hugoni Fracundi. Muratori, Scrip. Rer. Italic. vol. 7. page 268.