The Normans In The South

by John Julius Norwich

1 The village can no longer be identified.

  conquest during its early years, from the moment that Roger began building up a multiracial society and administration he had been careful to show respect and, later, his genuine admiration for the traditions of Islam. No one knew better than he that a viable Sicilian state could be constructed only on a basis of complete religious toleration, and he was always at pains to emphasise to his Saracen subjects that such military measures as might still be necessary were being undertaken—often with Muslim contingents fighting on the Norman side—for the sole purpose of political unification. Freedom of religion would always be granted to the conquered. As time went on, the majority of Saracens in Norman-held territory had grown to accept these assurances and, mellowed by the return of an ordered and efficient government and the promise of further prosperity to come, had been ready to give Roger their loyalty. Now, suddenly, there came a deliberate attempt by the Emir of Syracuse to reawaken religious animosities. Already in Calabria Christian opinion had hardened once more against the Muslims; if Bernavert were not quickly eliminated, confessional strife would flare up again throughout Sicily also, and all Roger's work would come crashing down in ruins.1

  Immediately Roger began to prepare for a major campaign, on a scale unequalled since that which he had led against Taormina five years before. Throughout the winter and spring he worked, until in mid-May 1085 all was ready. On Wednesday the 20th his fleet set sail from Messina.2 That night it reached Taormina; on Thursday it was near Catania; and on Friday evening the ships anchored off Cape S. Croce, some fifteen miles north of Syracuse, where Jordan— now fully restored to his father's favour—was waiting with the cavalry. Before going farther, Roger decided on a reconnaissance.

  1 Chalandon infers, from accounts of the religious ceremonies which accompanied the military preparations for the Syracuse expedition, that Roger deliberately set out to inflame the passions of his Christian subjects against the Infidel. He underestimates the Count. It was normal to say masses, give alms and perform sundry special acts of devotion before embarking on any military enterprise; but to stoke confessional fires at such a moment would have been contrary to his whole Sicilian policy and might well have proved disastrous.

  2Amari, who puts the expedition a year later, in 1086, has got his chronology a little confused. I follow Chalandon, whose reasoning (vol. I, p. 358) seems incontrovertible.

  A certain Philip was sent forward in a light pinnace manned by twelve Arabic-speaking Sicilians—the greater part presumably Saracens themselves—and managed, under cover of darkness, not only to enter the enemy harbour but by passing his ship off as a local vessel to sail right through the middle of Bernavert's fleet. By Sunday he was back with full information about its size and strength. The Count laid his plans accordingly. On a lonely stretch of coast the army and navy assembled together to hear mass; then at nightfall, confessed and newly shriven, they set off on the last stage of their journey.

  The battle was fought at daybreak the following morning, in those same waters outside the harbour where the ships of Syracuse had destroyed the Athenian fleet almost exactly fifteen centuries before. Now they were not so fortunate. The Norman crossbowmen, lining the decks and perched at the mastheads, could shoot accurately from a far greater range than Bernavert's archers could hope to command; and the Emir soon saw that his only chance was to move in close and come to grips with his attackers. Giving the order for a general advance and directing his own helmsman to head straight for Roger's flagship, he led his fleet through a hail of arrows into the thick of the Norman line; then, as he came alongside, without waiting for grappling-irons, he leaped for the enemy deck. It was an act of immense courage, but it failed. Whether through miscalculation or exhaustion—for he had already been seriously wounded by a Norman javelin—he jumped short. Into the sea he fell; the weight of his armour did the rest.

  Seeing their leader drowned, the Syracusan sailors quickly lost heart. Most of the ships were captured then and there; others fled back into harbour, only to find Jordan and his men already entrenching themselves along the land-walls of the city. The ensuing siege lasted all through the heat of the summer. In vain the defenders tried to appease the Normans by setting free all their Christian prisoners—including, presumably, the luckless nuns of Rocca d'Asino; Roger would accept nothing but unconditional surrender. At last, in October, Bernavert's chief widow, with her son and the leading notables of the town, secretly took ship and, slipping unperceived through the Norman blockade, escaped south to Noto. Their departure settled the issue. Deserted now by their own leaders, the Syracusans gave in.

  With the death of Bernavert on 25 May 1085—the very day on which Pope Gregory finally turned his face to the wall at Salerno— Saracen resistance to the Normans was broken. The Emir, even though he possessed little real authority beyond the immediate neighbourhood of Syracuse, had had sufficient force of personality to capture the imagination and fire the enthusiasm of all those of his co-religionists who felt as he did; after him there was no one. The Saracens lost hope: their spirit was gone. Syracuse, as we have seen, held out for a few more months, but only in the hope of gaining more favourable terms. Such other pockets as remained unpaci-fied were to last only for as long as Roger, after his brother's death once again temporally preoccupied with mainland affairs, allowed them to do so.

  Some time in September 1085, a week or two after he had laid what was left of his father in his tomb at Venosa, Roger Borsa called a meeting of his chief vassals to receive their formal recognition and homage as Duke of Apulia. Their acclaim was, if anything, even more half-hearted than that of the army in Greece two months before. The rise of the Hauteviiles was still resented by nearly all the Norman barons of South Italy. They had given a certain amount of reluctant loyalty to Robert Guiscard, first because they had had little choice and secondly because they had grudgingly recognised his courage and his superb gifts of leadership; even then they had never hesitated to take up arms against him when they got the chance. For his son, who possessed none of Robert's genius and whose very blood was tainted with that of the subject Lombard race, they had little affection and less respect.

  But Sichelgaita had done her work well. Key vassals had been approached in advance and bribed as necessary. Out for themselves as always, they were probably only too pleased to give their assent; if they must acknowledge an overlord, then surely the weaker the better. One only remained implacably opposed to Roger Borsa's succession—Bohemund, as impetuous and consumed with ambition as the Guiscard had been before him, knowing himself more justly entitled in law and infinitely better qualified in character and ability to inherit his father's dominions. Unable to find any adherents among his fellow-vassals, Bohemund had looked farther afield and had acquired the support of Jordan of Capua, who naturally leaped at the chance of encouraging dissension among his greatest rivals. Backed by the Capuan army, fresh and well-equipped—in contrast to the debilitated skeletons who had limped home from Greece with Roger Borsa—these two together constituted a formidable opposition; but Sichelgaita had gained for her son what she knew would be the decisive advantage—the championship of his uncle, unquestionably the most powerful figure in South Italy since the Guiscard's death.

  Roger's support for his nephew and namesake was no more altruistic than that of the Apulian vassals. Although in recent years he had been the effective ruler of all Sicily, his brother had always retained direct tenure of the Val Demone in the north-east, of the city of Palermo and of half Messina, as well as general suzerainty over the whole island. These possessions would be passed to his successor, and Roger had no wish to find himself hamstrung by a new overlord who would try to take an active part in Sicilian affairs. On the other hand he had his lines of communication to consider. The future of Calabria must be assured and, with Bohemund and the Prince of Capua both out for his blood, it hardly looked as though Roger Borsa would be the best man to assure it. And so the Count too had asked his price. In return for his suppo
rt, he had demanded from his nephew the immediate cession to him of all the Calabrian castles that had in the past been held jointly by Robert Guiscard and himself. It was the first of many agreements by which, while remaining a loyal vassal, a wise counsellor and an indispensable ally, Roger would over the next fifteen years steadily increase his own power, on both sides of the straits, at his nephew's expense.

  The Count had left the siege of Syracuse for Salerno, to pay homage to Roger Borsa after his installation. The ceremony was concluded without incident, but no sooner had the vassals dispersed than Bohemund launched his attack. He struck at the farthest and, probably, the most inadequately defended corner of his half-brother's domains—the heel of Apulia. Sweeping southward from his own castle at Taranto, he had seized Oria and Otranto almost before Roger Borsa knew what was happening. Now he was in a position to dictate his own terms, and the new Duke had little alternative but to accept them. Peace was not restored until he had ceded to Bohemund not only the conquered cities but also Gallipoli, Taranto and Brindisi and most of the territories between Brindisi and Conversano, with the title of Prince of Taranto. Thus, within a few months of the Guiscard's death, the first and greatest of his dukedoms had been irreparably split. Roger Borsa had not started well.

  His uncle, on the other hand, was rapidly building up his strength. By the spring of 1086, with Calabria at last under his effective control and an uneasy peace patched up between his nephews, Count Roger felt ready to devote his attention again to Sicily. On 1 April his army laid siege to Agrigento. The town fell on 25 July, and among those taken prisoner were the wife and children of a certain Ibn Hamud, who had succeeded old Ibn al-Hawas as Emir of Enna. Ibn Hamud was the last of the leading Saracens to remain unsubdued—largely because the Normans had never until now made any effort to subdue him; and Roger, remembering the towering impregnability of his citadel and the fruitless siege of a quarter of a century before, was anxious at all costs to bring him to terms. He therefore gave orders that his distinguished captives should be treated with honour and due deference, and began forthwith to plan his approach to the Emir.

  The rest of the year was taken up with entertaining Roger Borsa —now making his first visit to Sicily as its Duke—rebuilding the fortifications of Agrigento, and generally consolidating Norman control over the newly-won territory. Meanwhile, Roger felt, he could profitably leave Ibn Hamud to reflect on his situation. Apart from Enna, only two small pockets of resistance now remained in all Sicily—Butera and Noto, neither of which was equipped to withstand a concerted attack. Final pacification of the island was, therefore, imminent and inevitable. The Emir could no longer expect aid from outside; with his wife and family already in Norman hands, he would be well-advised to come to terms.

  Early in 1087, with a hundred lancers as his escort, Roger rode from Agrigento to the foot of the great pinnacle on which Enna stands and invited Ibn Hamud, under a promise of safe-conduct, down for a parley. He found the Emir in entire agreement with everything he had to say, perfectly prepared to capitulate and exercised only by the problem of how best to do so without losing face. By now the Count had lived too long among the Muslims to underestimate the importance of such a question; he too wanted the surrender to pass off as smoothly as possible, and was more than willing to co-operate in whatever way Ibn Hamud might suggest. A solution was soon found, and it was with a good deal of quiet satisfaction that Roger rode back with his men to Agrigento. Some days later Ibn Hamud descended again from his castle, this time at the head of his troops and accompanied by a number of his principal advisers. Their route took them through a narrow defile; just as they entered it they were set upon by a vastly superior Norman force and surrounded. In such circumstances resistance was out of the question. Their captors then moved on to Enna itself which, deprived of Emir, army and notables, also gave in at once. Ibn Hamud, his family restored to him, had himself baptised—the fact that Ids wife now fell within the prohibited degrees of kinship was discreetly overlooked—and retired to Calabria where Roger, in accordance with his usual practice, had provided him with an extensive estate. There he lived out his remaining years, far removed from his old spheres of influence, but happily and in the style to which he was accustomed, like any other Christian gentleman.

  Meanwhile, on the mainland, a new and pressing problem had arisen. It was now more than a year since Pope Gregory had died, and the perennial difficulties over the succession were looming larger than ever. The anti-Pope Clement, having failed to ingratiate himself with the Romans, had been expelled from the city, and the throne of St Peter lay once again untenanted. Not that there was any dearth of candidates; Gregory himself had named four on his deathbed—Archbishop Hugh of Lyons, Bishops Odo of Ostia and Anselm of Lucca, and Desiderius of Monte Cassino. Of these the majority of the Cardinals—as well as the people of Rome—favoured Desiderius. As abbot of one of the greatest and most venerable monasteries of Europe, he had influence and the control of enormous wealth; his talents as a diplomat were well known; he had long enjoyed the respect and trust of the Normans, having successfully mediated between Robert Guiscard and Richard of Capua in 1075 and having also been largely responsible for Robert's reconciliation with Pope Gregory at Ceprano five years later. Admittedly, by acting as broker between Richard's son Jordan and Henry IV in 1082, and in that same year himself coming to a separate agreement with the Emperor-to-be, Desiderius has been considered by many good churchmen to be carrying his peace-making activities too far, and had suffered a twelve-month papal ban for his pains; but Gregory had later forgiven him and, in the now more moderate climate of political opinion, it was thought that the abbot's excellent personal relations with the Emperor would prove, if anything, an advantage. Desiderius thus seemed to be in all respects an admirable candidate for the Papacy. There was only one drawback: he categorically refused to accept it.

  His attitude is easy enough to understand. He was a natural recluse, a scholar and a contemplative. Forty years before, with considerable difficulty, he had succeeded in renouncing the palace of a Lombard prince in favour of a monk's cell; having eventually found his way to Monte Cassino, he had shown himself a great abbot, bringing the monastery the peace and tranquillity it needed after many years as a battleground, and securing for himself the way of life for which, he believed, God had intended him. All his political exertions, all his celebrated diplomacy, had been directed towards these two objects. As a result his abbey had grown and flourished, and with its ever-increasing wealth Desiderius had transformed it from a ramshackle collection of buildings, strife-torn and long-neglected, into the most magnificent architectural and artistic achievement in the South. He had done more; by bringing from centres as far afield as Constantinople skilled craftsmen in mosaics, fresco and opus Alexandrinum—that ornamental marble pavement-work which still glorifies so many churches in South Italy—he had become a patron and cultural influence unique in his country and his age.1

  1 Desiderius's basilica at Monte Cassino, dedicated in 1071 by Pope Alexander in the presence of Hildebrand, St Peter Damian and all the principal Norman and Lombard leaders in South Italy—excepting only Robert Guiscard and Roger, busy besieging Palermo—has, alas, been destroyed; his hand can, however, be clearly seen in the exterior of Robert Guiscard's cathedral of Salerno, built in the form of a Roman basilica with an atrium adorned with antique columns from Paestum, and mosaics of Byzantine style but Italian workmanship. More remarkable still, and one of the treasures of Italy, is the little church of S. Angelo in Formis, just outside Capua, whose frescoes still seem as brilliant as on the day they were painted, and show just how fresh and vigorous Italian romanesque painting could be.

  Monte Cassino, then, was Desiderius's life, its adornment his pleasure, its greatness his ultimate ambition. He had no desire to exchange that most comfortable of cloisters for the intrigues and passions, the danger and heat and violence of papal Rome. He knew, too, that he was without the force of character or driving determination that was the mo
st necessary qualification for the Papacy. A man of gentleness and peace, he possessed none of the Hildebrandine steel. Besides, his health was beginning to give way. He was only fifty-eight, but he may well have already suspected that he had not much longer to live. As soon as the anti-Pope had fled, he had therefore hastened to Rome in an effort to ensure the rapid election of some other suitable candidate, and he did his best to persuade Jordan of Capua and the Countess Matilda to support his efforts; but when he saw that they too were determined on his own succession he could only repeat his refusal and return hurriedly to his beloved monastery.

  His champions, however, proved just as stubborn; they would not even consider an alternative candidate, and so the stalemate dragged on for nearly a year until, at Easter 1086, a body of cardinals and leading bishops assembled in Rome and sent Desiderius a formal summons to join them in their deliberations. Reluctantly he obeyed —and once again found himself deluged with entreaties to change his mind. Still he stood firm. At last, in desperation, the assembly agreed to accept whatever candidate he chose to name. Desiderius immediately proposed Odo of Osda, adding with characteristic diffidence that if this choice did not meet with immediate approval in Rome he would willingly give the new Pope shelter at Monte Cassino for as long as was necessary. But it was no use. The more he spoke, the greater grew the determination to have him and no other. Odo's candidature was rejected on the grounds that it would contravene Canon Law, which everybody knew was nonsense; the Roman populace, doubtless well-briefed in advance and anyway trained to this sort of thing since the election of Hildebrand thirteen years before, clamoured louder than ever for Desiderius; and the reluctant abbot was carried, struggling, off to the nearby church of S. Lucia where, to his despair, he heard himself joyously proclaimed as Pope Victor III. The red cope was cast about his shoulders before he could prevent it; but no amount of cajolery could persuade him to don the rest of the papal insignia.