The Kingdom in the Sun

by John Julius Norwich

  Here Roger must have sat during his last years, gazing up at the splendour that he had called into being; for an inscription beneath the window records that all these apse mosaics were completed by 1148, six years before his death.1 He had always conceived of this cathedral as his own personal offering, and had even built himself a palace in the town from which to superintend the building opera­tions.- And so it can have come as no surprise to his people when, in April 1145, he designated it as his burial-place, endowing it at the same time with two porphyry sarcophagi—one for his own remains and the other, as lie put it, 'for the august memory of my name and the glory of the Church itself. The sad story of how his wishes were disregarded, so that he now lies not in his own glorious foundation but amid the vacuous pomposities of Palermo Cathedral, will be told later in this book. After eight centuries it would be idle to hope for a change of heart by the authorities; it is hard, nevertheless, to visit Cefalù without putting up a quick, silent prayer that the greatest of the Sicilian kings may one day return to rest in the church which he loved, and where he belongs.

  1 The upper row of mosaics on the walls of the choir, with their inscriptions in Latin instead of Greek, are rather later—presumably the work of local artists in the following century. The same is true of the seraphim on the vaulting above.

  2 Traces of this palace still remain in the so-called Osterio Magna, on the corner of the Corso Ruggero and the Via G. Amendola.

  2

  REVOLT IN THE REGNO

  Transalpinati sumus!

  Pope Innocent II to the Archbishop of Ravenna, 16 April 1132

  Roger had weathered one tempest—a fact to which his cathedral at Cefalù was soon rising in superb testimony. But he knew, even before the foundations had been laid, that another, greater storm was gathering fast. Lothair was planning his promised march on Rome, with the dual purpose of establishing Pope Innocent in the chair of St Peter and of having himself crowned Emperor. With the Abbot of Clairvaux, the weight of the western Church and the Kings of England and France behind him, he would probably succeed; and what then was to prevent his leading his army on into Sicilian domains, to rid Europe once and for all of a schismatic Pope and his only champion ?

  Once in the South, he would find no lack of support. Even more than the towns, the vassals of South Italy had always resented their Hauteville overlords. In the previous century they had been a con­stant thorn in the flesh of Robert Guiscard, distracting and delaying him in all his operations. But for their perpetual insurrections he would never have taken so long to conquer Sicily; he might even have ended his life as Emperor in Constantinople. Yet Robert had at least been able to exert some degree of authority; under the son and grandson who had succeeded him as Dukes of Apulia the last shreds of that authority were lost and the land had slipped back into chaos. The vassals were free to do as they wished, to fight and to lay waste, to rob and to pillage until, as the Abbot of Telese lamented, a peasant could not even till his own fields in safety.

  One thing only united them—a determination to preserve this freedom and to resist any attempt to re-establish a firm and central­ised control. The fact that their suzerain was now no longer a Duke but a King had done nothing to reconcile them to the new order. To be sure, they had no love for the Empire either; but if they had to have a suzerain they liked him to be as far away as possible, and a grizzled old Emperor beyond the Alps was infinitely preferable to a determined and efficient young Hauteville on their doorstep. Almost as soon as the King had returned to Sicily in the summer of 1131 two of the worst of them, Tancred of Conversano and Prince Grimoald of Bari, had stirred up a minor insurrection in Apulia, and by Christ­mas the port of Brindisi was in their hands.

  The King was in no particular hurry to bring them to heel. It was his custom to winter in Sicily whenever possible, and Cefalù was doubtless occupying much of his attention. Besides, he loved his wife and family. Queen Elvira, the daughter of Alfonso VI of Castile, had been married to him for fourteen years. We know sadly little about her except that the marriage was a happy one and that she bore her husband seven children, including the four stalwart sons on whom, during his later years, he was so much to rely. The two eldest of these boys, Roger and Tancred, had made one ceremonial appearance in Italy at Melfi in 1129, when they and their father had received the grudging fealty of the Apulian and Calabrian nobles; but for the most part mother and children remained in Sicily, where during recent summers Roger had had little chance of seeing them.

  By March 1132, however, he could no longer delay his return to the mainland. It was not only Apulian rebels who claimed his atten­tion; a graver problem was posed by Anacletus, who met him at Salerno to discuss plans for the future. The anti-Pope was growing worried: in preparation for the imperial coming, his rival Innocent had already appeared in North Italy. There was still no immediate danger; so far as anybody knew, Lothair's army had not yet begun to march. But Rome was already alive with rumours and these, fostered by Anacletus's old enemies the Frangipani, were having an unsettling effect on the populace. To make matters worse, the moon —according to Falco, the chronicler of Benevento—had suddenly lost its splendour and turned the colour of blood; no one could call that a good sign. What was needed, Anacletus argued, was a show of strength—a reminder to the Romans that he was still master in their city, and that the King of Sicily was behind him. Roger took the point; two of his leading vassals, Prince Robert of Capua and his own brother-in-law Rainulf, Count of Alife, were immediately despatched with two hundred knights to Rome, with instructions to remain there until further notice.

  The gesture, like so many of the King's gestures, was not so altruistic as it looked. Robert of Capua had fought—though admit­tedly without much determination—with his fellow-nobles to keep Roger out of the South Italian dukedoms a few years before. Later, like the rest, he had capitulated and, in his capacity as leading vassal, had actually laid the crown on the King's head in Palermo Cathedral. But he had never become altogether reconciled to the new regime and Roger was probably glad of the opportunity, in view of the coming crisis, to send him a safe distance away. The Count of Alife was an even trickier character. He had betrayed his brother-in-law more than once before1 and would undoubtedly do so again if it suited his book. Moreover, his brother Richard, who held in fief the city of Avellino, had recently denied the King's suzerainty and proclaimed himself independent. When Roger had summoned him to order, his reply had been to put out the eyes and split the nostrils of the royal messenger. The King had thereupon seized the disputed territory; but now a further complication ensued. While Rainulf was away in Rome his wife, Roger's half-sister Matilda, deserted him and sought refuge at the court, alleging that her husband's persistent cruelty made any continuation of their married life impossible.

  Roger upheld her action, and when Rainulf—in defiance of his orders—left Rome to demand the restitution of both his territorial and his conjugal rights, had replied that though Matilda was of course free to return to him whenever she liked he had no intention of forcing her to do so against her will. Meanwhile she and her son were going back with him to Sicily, and he for his part was obliged to ask Rainulf for the immediate surrender of the lands she had

  1 The Normans in the South, pp. 309-18.

  brought with her as her dowry—the Caudine valley and all the castles it contained. On the matter of Avellino he was equally unyielding: Rainulf had never raised an eyebrow when his brother had asserted his independence; by failing to defend the rights of his lawful suzerain he had forfeited all claims to the town. One concession only was Roger prepared to make: if the Count and his followers would like to lay their case formally before him at Salerno, he would listen to anything they might have to say.

  Rainulf of Alife had no intention of submitting to such treatment, still less of presenting himself cap in hand at Salerno. Instead he approached Robert of Capua—who had also returned unbidden from Rome—and together the two began to lay their plans.


  The Apulian rising was quickly suppressed. After a short siege in May 1132 the inhabitants of Bari surrendered Prince Grimoald and his family to Roger, who packed them off as prisoners to Sicily, while Tancred of Conversano bought his liberty only with a promise— which he never kept—to leave for the Holy Land. The whole cam­paign was over in a month; it was, however, symptomatic of a deeper discontent throughout the South and, more important still, it created a diversion which kept Roger occupied just at that crucial time when Rainulf and Robert were gathering their forces. If he had moved firmly against them the moment they returned from Rome— and their unauthorised departure from the city would have given him pretext enough—he might have saved himself many of the troubles which awaited him in the next few years. But he missed his opportunity. Sure-footed as he was in the conduct of Sicilian affairs, he had still not caught the measure of his vassals on the mainland. Not for the first time, he had underestimated them. He had wounded his brother-in-law in his pride but not in his effective strength, and had succeeded only in turning a potential opponent into a real one. The Count of Alife was now aggrieved and angry—and dangerous, since he could count on the support of the Prince of Capua, still the strongest military force in South Italy after the King.

  Robert of Capua had never been particularly distinguished in the past for his moral courage; but rebellion was in the wind, and Lothair and the imperial army could not be long delayed. Besides, was he not Rainulf's liege-lord ? How could he hope to maintain his status as a feudal prince if he lost the confidence of his vassals ? With all the energy of which he was capable he threw himself into preparations for a new, nation-wide revolt. By the late spring of 1132 he and Rainulf could boast three thousand knights and perhaps ten times that number of foot-soldiers under arms. And most of the South Italian barons were behind them.

  The strength of the opposition took the King by surprise. He had just put down one rising; the last thing he wanted was to find himself faced with another—this time of far more formidable proportions— just when he needed all his energies to deal with the danger from the north. It was his habit never to do battle if he could avoid it; some accommodation might still be possible. In mid-July he sent mes­sengers to the rebels proposing talks. It was no use. The two leaders were adamant. They had been wronged, and there could be no question of negotiations until their wrongs were redressed.

  Both armies were by this time gathered near Benevento, and for good reason. Benevento was papal territory. Ever since its citizens had expelled their ruling princes and put themselves under the pro­tection of Pope Leo IX some eighty years before, they had remained loyal subjects of the Holy See, and they now constituted the principal bastion of papal power in South Italy. It was outside the walls of Benevento that Pope Honorius had invested Roger with his duke­dom in 1118, and it was from its pontifical palace that Anacletus, two years later, had granted him the crown, pledging him also the city's assistance in time of war. In the present situation this was a significant commitment; but could Roger count on it now?

  At first it seemed as if he could. A certain Cardinal Crescentius, Rector of Benevento in Anacletus's name, together with the local Archbishop and a group of the leading citizens, came out to assure the King of their good will; and on hearing from him that he pro­posed in return to renounce several financial claims on the city, they seem to have had no hesitation in promising him active military help. It was a disastrous mistake; and it lost them, and Roger, the city. During their absence, Robert's agents had been busy; rumours were spreading fast that Crescentius and his friends had sold out to the King of Sicily, and when the terms of the agreement were revealed the Beneventans were horrified. What was the use of being a papal city if they were going to be swept up in internecine squabbles like everyone else ? At a general gathering of the entire populace, they made their position clear:

  We cannot ally ourselves in this wise with the King, nor can we accept to puff and sweat and exhaust ourselves on long marches with Sicilians and Calabrians and Apulians, all under the blazing sun; for our lines are cast in quiet places, and we were never accustomed to such perilous ways of life.

  There is something disarming about such a protestation, but it may not have been quite so naive as it seems. The citizens of Benevento must surely have known perfectly well that the eyes of Pope Innocent and King Lothair were upon them. When the great con­frontation should occur between Pope and anti-Pope, they were still more anxious than everyone else in the South to end up on the winning side. Gentle and peace-loving as they claimed to be, their reception of Crescentius was such that the Cardinal fled back to Roger, having narrowly escaped with his life; meanwhile the wretched Archbishop locked himself, terrified, in the Cathedral.

  For the rebels it was a triumph. Prince Robert now had no diffi­culty in securing promises of friendly neutrality, with free right of passage for his troops through Beneventan territory; and the Arch­bishop emerged, quaking, from his refuge to witness the solemn swearing of a new treaty between Capua and Benevento—saving always, he was careful to point out, the city's loyalty to the Pope. Just which Pope he had in mind, he did not make altogether clear; his flock seem to have thought it wiser not to ask.

  For Roger the loss of Benevento to his enemies came as a severe blow. How serious it might prove in the long term was still an open question, but its immediate effect was to put his own forces in danger. They were dependent on the Beneventans for food and other supplies; and now, suddenly, the good will on which they relied had turned to open hostility. Moreover the Prince of Capua, secure in the knowledge of local support, might at any moment decide to attack. Once again Roger instinctively recoiled, as he nearly always did, from a direct confrontation. He ordered instead that every section of the army should keep a close watch on his standard and be ready to follow it, in any direction, as soon as it moved.

  Shortly after nightfall the signal was given, and under cover of darkness the Sicilian army retreated across the mountains to the south. Although technically the manoeuvre might have been described as a strategic withdrawal, its circumstances and speed were distinctly suggestive of flight—for dawn broke to find the royalist forces at the foot of Mt Atripalda, just outside Avellino. Twenty miles at night over mountain paths was no small achievement for an army, but the march was not yet over; the King, so Falco tells us, had been revolving thoughts of vengeance in his mind as he rode and was determined to regain the initiative. Thus, instead of making for his mainland capital at Salerno, he swung off to his right towards Nocera—Prince Robert's chief stronghold after Capua itself. A sudden attack might take the town by surprise; and it would with any luck be several days before the insurgents, who would assume that he had returned to Salerno, discovered where he had gone. Once they found out, they would be sure to hasten to the defence of Nocera, taking the quickest—though not the most direct—route via the coastal plain and the valley running between Vesuvius and the Apennine massif; but this would mean a crossing of the wide lower reaches of the river Sarno, where there existed only one bridge—an old wooden construction at Scafati, a mile or two away to the west on the road to Pompeii. If this bridge were destroyed, several more days at least would be gained. A party of sappers was despatched forth­with; their work was quickly done and they returned to find the siege of Nocera under way.

  It was a brave and imaginative plan, one of which Roger I or Robert Guiscard would have approved. It deserved to work, and it very nearly did. But the rebel forces moved faster than expected. Only five days after the start of the siege, they had completed a make­shift bridge and were encamped opposite the King on the broad plain to the north of the city—Robert of Capua with a thousand knights on the left, Rainulf on the right with another fifteen hundred, split into three separate divisions. Of these, two hundred and fifty were sent up to the walls to divert part of the besieging force; the remainder made ready for battle.

  The date was Sunday, 24 July. Roger was reluctant no longer. He had raised the siege of Nocera as
soon as he heard of the enemy's crossing of the Sarno and had made his own dispositions. The first wave of the assault force was already drawn up on the field; now, at the King's command, they lowered their lances, spurred their horses to a gallop, and charged. Prince Robert's line crumbled under their impact; the Capuan infantry in the rear, seeing the horsemen bearing down upon them, panicked and fled towards the river. The bridge, so recently and so hastily erected, proved inadequate for their numbers and their speed; hundreds plunged into the water and were drowned.

  A second charge of royalists followed with similar effect; but now the Count of Alife, with five hundred of his own knights behind him, swept in from the flank and fell on the attackers. Momentarily they wavered; and before they had time to reform, this onslaught was succeeded by another, and then by yet another as Rainulf's right and left followed his centre—descending on the enemy, as Falco puts it, like a lion that has not eaten for three days.

  The tide was turned. Roger, himself now in the thick of the battle, seized a lance and galloped backwards and forwards through his reeling ranks, calling upon them to rally once again around their King. He was too late. His army was in full retreat, and he had no choice but to follow. That same evening he rode into Salerno, blood­stained and exhausted; four knights only were with him. Of the rest some seven hundred, with twenty loyal barons, had been taken prisoner. The others lay dead on the field or, like the bulk of the infantry, had been cut down as they ran. The spoils were immense. Falco admits that he has not the power to describe 'the abundance of gold and of silver, the rich golden vessels, the infinite variety of clothing for men and caparisons for horses, the cuirasses and other accoutrements' that were seized; while Henry, Bishop of St Agatha, who as a staunch champion of Pope Innocent had followed Robert to Nocera, records that the victors found, among the royal archives, the very Bull by which Anacletus had granted Roger his kingdom.