The Normans In The South

by John Julius Norwich

  By the beginning of February 1130 it was clear that Pope Honorius was near his end; and Cardinal Pierleoni, who enjoyed the support of many of the Sacred College, most of the nobility and practically all the lower orders in Rome, among whom his carefully dispensed generosity had become proverbial, was the obvious successor. But the opposition was taking no chances. Led by the Chancellor of the Curia, Cardinal Aimeri2—whom we last met, with Cencius Frangipani, negotiating with Roger II on the banks of the Bradano—they seized the dying Pontiff and carried him off to the monastery of St Andrew, safe in the centre of the Frangipani quarter, where they would be able to conceal his death until suitable dispositions had been made for the future.3 Next, on 11 February, Aimeri summoned to the monastery such cardinals as he felt he could trust and began preparations for the new election. Now such a proceeding, apart from being manifestly dishonest, was also a flagrant breach of Pope Nicholas's decree of 1059, and it provoked an immediate reaction

  1 Other more outspoken accusations, by such robust prelates as Manfred of Mantua or Arnulf of Lisieux (who actually wrote a book called Invectives) to the effect that the cardinal seduced nuns, slept with his sister, etc., can be discounted as being simply the normal, healthy Church polemic of the kind to be expected at times of schism.

  2 Aimeri was a Frenchman, and I have therefore preferred the French version of his name. He is often called Almeric, or Haimeric, in the German fashion.

  3 This monastery was founded by Gregory the Great. The site is now part of the Church of S. Gregorio Magno, to the left of which there stands among the cypresses a chapel still dedicated to St Andrew, traditionally on the site of Gregory's original oratory. Opposite, at the end of the Circus Maximus, a ruined tower marks the site of the old Frangipani fortress.

  from the rest of the Curia. Hurling anathemas against 'all those who would proceed to the election before the funeral of Honorius', they thereupon nominated a commission of eight electors of all parties who, they decreed, should meet in the Church of St Adrian—not St Andrew—when, and only when, the Pope had been safely laid in his grave.

  This refusal to countenance an election at St Andrew's was clearly due to the unwillingness of Cardinal Pierleoni and his adherents to put themselves at the mercy of the Frangipani, but when they arrived at St Adrian's they found the situation no better there. Aimeri's men had already taken possession of the whole place and had fortified it against them. Furious, they turned away and— accompanied now by several other cardinals who had no particular love for Pierleoni but were outraged by the conduct of the Chancellor—gathered instead at the old Church of S. Marco, where they settled down to await developments.

  On 13 February the rumour swept through Rome that the Pope was dead at last, and that the news was being deliberately suppressed. An angry crowd gathered outside St Andrew's, and was dispersed only after poor Honorius had shown himself, trembling and haggard, on his balcony. It was his last public appearance. The strain had been too much for him, and by nightfall he was dead. In theory his body should have been allowed to He for three days in state; but since the election of a new Pope could not take place before the burial of the old, Aimed had no time for such niceties. Almost before the corpse was cold it was flung into a temporary grave in the courtyard of the monastery, and early the following morning the Chancellor and those who shared his views elected to the Papacy Gregory, Cardinal-deacon of S. Angelo. He was rushed to the Lateran and formally, if somewhat hastily, installed under the title of Innocent II; he then retreated to S. Maria in Palladio—now S. Sebastiano in Pallaria—where, thanks to the Frangipani, he could keep out of harm's way.

  The lovely ninth-century basilica of S. Marco in Rome has suffered as grievously as most of it fellows from the indignities of baroque restoration; but its great apse mosaic still glows as glorious as ever, and the church itself offers a haven of silence and peace after the tumult of the Piazza Venezia outside. The atmosphere must have been very different on the morning of St Valentine's Day 1130, when the news of Honorius's death and Innocent's succession was brought to those assembled within its walls. Their numbers had been steadily growing, and they now comprised virtually all the high dignitaries of the Church—apart from those who had sided with Aimeri—including some two dozen Cardinals, together with most of the nobility and as many of the populace as could squeeze their way through the doors. With one accord the Cardinals declared the proceedings at St Andrew's and the Lateran uncanonical, and acclaimed Cardinal Pierleoni as their rightful Pope. He accepted at once, taking the name of Anacletus II. At dawn that morning there had been no Pope in Rome. By midday there were two.

  Innocent or Anacletus—it is hard to say which candidate possessed the stronger claim to the Papacy. Anacletus, certainly, could boast more overall support, both among the Cardinals and within the Church as a whole. On the other hand those who had voted for Innocent, though fewer in number, had included the majority of the electoral commission of eight which had been set up by the Sacred College. The manner in which they had performed their dudes was to say the least questionable, but then Anacletus's own election could scarcely have been described as orthodox. It had, moreover, taken place at a time when another Pope had already been elected and installed.

  One thing was certain. In Rome itself, sweetened by years of bribery, the popularity of Anacletus was overwhelming. By 15 February he and his party were in control of the Lateran, and on the 16th they took St Peter's itself. Here, a week later, he received his formal consecration—while his rival, whose place of refuge had already been the object of armed attacks by Anacletus's partisans, had to be content with a similar but more modest ceremony at S. Maria Novella. Day by day Anacletus entrenched himself more firmly, while his agents dispensed subsidies with an ever more generous hand, until at last his gold—supplemented, according to his enemies, by the wholesale pillage of the principal churches of Rome —found its way into the Frangipani fortress itself. Deserted by his last remaining champions, Innocent had no choice but to flee.

  Already by the begmning of April we find him dadng his letters from Trastevere; a month later he had secretly hired two galleys, on which, accompanied by all his loyal cardinals except one, he escaped down the Tiber.

  His flight proved his salvation. Anacletus might have bought Rome, but elsewhere in Italy popular feeling was firmly behind Innocent. In Pisa he was cheered to the echo, in Genoa the same; and while his rival lorded it in the Lateran he himself was now free to canvas support where it most mattered—beyond the Alps. From Genoa he took ship for France, and by the time he sailed into the time harbour of St Gilles in Provence much of his old confidence had returned. It was well justified. When he found, awaiting him at St Gilles, a deputation from Cluny with sixty horses and mules in its train ready to escort him the two hundred odd miles to the monastery he must have felt that, at least so far as France was concerned, his battle was as good as won. If the most influential of all French abbeys was prepared to give him its support in preference to one of its own sons, he had little to fear from other quarters; and when the Council of Etampes, summoned in the late summer to give a final ruling, formally declared in his favour, it did little more than confirm a foregone conclusion.

  France then was sound; but what of the Empire? Here lay the key to Innocent's ultimate success; and here Lothair the Saxon, King of Germany, showed no particular eagerness to make up his mind. His inclinations and background should have predisposed him favourably enough; he had long upheld the ecclesiastical and papalist party among the German princes, and had received in return the support of Honorius II and Chancellor Aimeri. On the other hand, he was still engaged in a desperate struggle for power with Conrad of Hohenstaufen, who had been elected King in opposition to him three years before, and he had to weigh his actions with care. Besides, he had not yet been crowned Emperor in Rome. To antagonise the Pope who actually held the City was a step that might have dangerous implications.

  Innocent, however, was not unduly worried; for his
case was by now safely in the hands of the most powerful of all advocates and the outstanding spiritual force of the twelfth century—St Bernard of Clairvaux. Later in this story we shall have to take a closer look at St Bernard, whose influence on European affairs in the next quarter-century was to be so immense and, in many respects, so disastrous. For the moment let it suffice to say that he had thrown all his formidable energies, all the weight of his moral and political prestige, into the scales on Innocent's behalf. With such a champion the Pope could afford to be patient and allow events to take their course.

  The same, however, could not be said for Anacletus. He too was conscious of the need for international recognition, particularly in Northern Europe; but whereas Innocent was able to whip up support in person, he had had to rely on correspondence, and he had so far been singularly unsuccessful. In an effort to reassure King Lothair he had even gone so far as to excommunicate his rival Conrad, but the King had been unimpressed and had not even had the courtesy to answer his subsequent letters. In France, too, his Legates were snubbed; and now, as reports reached him of more and more declarations for Innocent, he began to grow seriously alarmed. The weight of the opposition was far greater than he had expected; and, more disturbing still, it was not only the ruling princes who appeared to favour his antagonist, but the Church itself. During the past fifty years, thanks largely to the Cluniac reforms and to the influence of Hildebrand, the Church had shaken off the shackles imposed on it by Roman aristocrats and German princelings, and had suddenly developed into a strong and cohesive international authority. Simultaneously the mushroom growth of the religious orders had given it a new efficiency and impetus. Cluny under Abbot Peter the Venerable, Premontre under Norbert of Magdeburg (he who had persuaded Lothair to leave Anacletus's letters unanswered), Citeaux under St Bernard—all were vital, positive forces. All three were united in favour of Innocent, and they carried the body of the Church with them.

  And so Anacletus took the only course open to him: like many another desperate Pope in the past, he turned to the Normans. In September 1130, just about the time when the Council of Etampes was deciding in Innocent's favour, he left Rome via Benevento for Avellino, where Roger was waiting to receive him. The negotiations were soon completed. They may have been carefully prepared

  in advance; on the other hand the main issues were simple enough and can have called for time discussion. The Duke of Apulia would give Anacletus his support; in return, he demanded one thing only —a royal crown.

  The request was prompted by something far deeper than personal vanity. Roger's task was to weld together all the Norman dominions of the South into one nadon. The resulting state could be nothing less than a Kingdom; to maintain the identities of three separate duchies would be to invite disintegration. Moreover, if he were not a King, how would he be able to treat on equal terms with the other rulers of Europe and the East ? Domestic considerations pointed in the same direction. He must have a title that would set him above his senior vassals, the Princes of Capua and Bari, one that would bind all his feudatories to him with a loyalty deeper than that which a mere Duke could command. Briefly, he needed kingship not just for its own sake but for the sake of the mystique surrounding it. But the Pope remained and would remain his suzerain, and he knew that if he were to assume a crown without the papal blessing, his prestige, far from being enhanced, would be gravely endangered.

  Anacletus was sympathetic. If, as now seemed likely, the Duke of Apulia was to be his only ally, it was plainly desirable that his position should be strengthened to the utmost. And his claims were incontrovertible. There was no reason for delay. On 27 September, back at Benevento, he issued a Bull granting to Roger and his heirs the Crown of Sicily, Calabria and Apulia, comprising all those regions which the Dukes of Apulia had ever held of the Holy See, together with the Principality of Capua, the 'honour' of Naples—a deliberately ambiguous phrase, since Naples, still technically independent and with vague Byzantine affiliations, was not the Pope's to endow—and the assistance of the papal city of Benevento in time of war. The seat of the Kingdom would be in Sicily, and the coronation ceremony might be performed by the Sicilian archbishops. In return Roger pledged his homage and fealty to Anacletus as Pope, together with an annual tribute of six hundred schifati—a sum equivalent to about 160 ounces of gold.

  It remained only for Roger to make similar dispositions with his own vassals. He was determined that no one should be able, now or in the future, to charge him with usurpation. Returning to Salerno, he therefore called another assembly, on an only slightly smaller scale than that which had met at Meld the previous year, sdll comprising all the senior and most trustworthy nobles and clerics and probably including representatives of the chief cities and towns. To them he submitted proposals for his elevation, which they unanimously accepted. It may have been a formality, but similar formalities had been traditional preliminaries to coronations in England,1 France and Germany for two centuries, and to Roger it was vital. However much his personal sympathies and upbringing might have inclined him towards the Byzantine concept of absolute rule, he knew that he could win the support of his Norman barons only by presenting them with an unexceptionable, legally-constituted monarchy as it was understood in the West. Now that he had been acclaimed at Salerno his legal and moral position was, he knew, as secure as he could possibly make it. He had the approval of both Church and State, of his suzerain and of his vassals. He was free to go ahead.

  ‘It was,' wrote the Abbot of Telese, who was there, 'as if the whole city was being crowned.' The streets were spread with carpets, the balconies and terraces were festooned in every colour. Palermo was thronged with the King's vassals, great and small, from Apulia and Calabria, all of whom had received a royal summons to the capital for the great day, each trying to outdo his rivals in the magnificence of his train and the splendour of his entourage; with wealthy merchants, who saw in this huge concourse possibilities of gain that might never be paralleled in their lifetime; with craftsmen and artisans, townsmen and peasants from every corner of the Kingdom, drawn by curiosity and excitement and wonder; Italians, Germans, Normans, Greeks, Lombards, Spaniards, Saracens, all adding to the clamour and colour of what was already the most exotic and cosmopolitan city of Europe.

  Through such crowds as these, on Christmas Day 1130, King Roger II of Sicily rode to his coronation. In the Cathedral there

  1 Acclamation of the monarch is still, eight hundred years later, an integral part of the English coronation service.

  awaited him the Archbishop of Palermo and all the Latin hierarchy of his realm, together with representatives of the Greek Church to which he had always shown such favour. Anacletus's special envoy, the Cardinal of S. Sabina, first anointed him with the holy oil; then Prince Robert of Capua, his vassal-in-chief, laid the crown upon his head. Finally the great doors of the Cathedral were flung open and, for the first time in history, the people of Sicily gazed upon their King.

  The crisp winter air was loud with the cheering of the populace, the pealing of the bells and the jangle of the gold and silver trappings on the seemingly endless cavalcade which escorted the King back to the Palace. Thither his guests followed him; and there, in a great hall that glowed red with scarlet and purple hangings, he presided at a banquet the like of which had never before been seen in Palermo. The abbot records with amazement how there was not one dish for the meats, not one cup for the wines, that was not of the purest gold or silver; while the servants, 'even those who waited at the tables', were resplendent in garments of silk. Now that Roger was at last a King, he found it both agreeable and politic to five like one.

  Coronations are normally less likely to mark the ends of stories than their beginnings; that of King Roger does both. He was to reign for another twenty-three years, during the greater part of which his life would continue in much the same way as before—in building up his own position and that of his country, in playing off successive Popes and Emperors against one another, and in cea
selessly struggling, as his father and uncle had struggled before him, to keep his vassals under adequate control. But 25 December 1130 nevertheless represents something more than a convenient point at which to pause. On that day the object for which the Hautevilles had so long striven—subconsciously perhaps, but striven none the less—was achieved; henceforth Sicily seems to radiate a new confidence, a new awareness of her place in Europe and of the mission she has to fulfil. The chronicles become fuller and more informative; the characters recover their flesh and blood; and the cultural genius that was Norman Sicily's chief legacy to the world bursts at last into the fullness of its flower. The years of attainment are ended; the years of greatness begin.

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