The Kingdom in the Sun

by John Julius Norwich

  1 See J.B.R.G., vol. V, Monumenta Bambergensia, p. 444.

  It was Roger's first major battle, and it had been a disaster. His losses were enormous, his prestige in Italy dangerously shaken. As the news spread across the peninsula the flame of rebellion spread with it, and more and more towns rallied to the Capuan standard. In Benevento a torch-light procession visited all the principal shrines of the city to render thanks, and arrangements were made to receive a representative of Pope Innocent as Rector in place of the unfor­tunate Crescentius. In Bari, the population rose up again and massacred several of Roger's Saracen guard; at Montepeloso Tancred of Conversano promptly abandoned his crusading preparations and rejoined the revolt. Meanwhile reports were trickling through from Germany that King Lothair had at last got his army together and was even now marching south across the Alps.

  And yet, as the King of Sicily set to work at Salerno to rebuild his shattered forces and to strengthen his fleet for the challenges ahead —his command of the sea being now more vital to him than ever— he is said to have impressed all those around him with his cheerful­ness and confidence. To some extent this may have been assumed; but not, perhaps, entirely. Heretofore he had always avoided pitched battles. Diplomacy, bribery, prevarication, attrition, siege tactics— at various stages of his career he had used any or all of these rather than meet his enemy in the open field. The withdrawal from Bene­vento had been a case in point; many of his men would doubtless have preferred to stay and fight rather than make a shameful retreat under cover of darkness, as demoralising as it was undignified; but the long ride through the mountains had given the King plenty of time to search his soul. If he were to still the murmurings of his army and, perhaps, of his own conscience, it had been imperative for him to prove himself worthy of his race and his name. At last, he had gone some way towards doing so. His generalship may have been faulty, the day a disaster; but he had finally discovered, at the age of thirty-six, that when the call to battle came he did not lack courage.

  The reports from the north were well-founded. It was nearly a year and a half since Lothair had promised to escort Pope Innocent to Rome. Unrest in Germany had delayed his departure and still prevented him from raising an army on the scale for which he had hoped. He now decided that the key to his domestic problems lay in the earliest possible acquisition of the imperial crown and the prestige it conferred; and so, in August 1132, with his queen Richenza of Nordheim and a force that amounted to little more than an armed escort, he set off over the mountains and into Lombardy.

  It proved a disagreeable journey. As the Lombard cities grew every year stronger, richer and more independent, so their resent­ment of imperial claims increased. The reception which they there­fore accorded to this latest claimant varied between coldness and out-and-out hostility—to which was added, when they saw the size of his following, more than a touch of derision. Lothair had to pick his way with care, passing only through those towns in which his unpopularity was least evident and trusting that Innocent, who had already been several months in Italy, would have succeeded in drumming up sufficient local support to enable him at least to enter Rome in style.

  He found the Pope waiting for him near Piacenza. Innocent's appeals had not gone entirely unanswered; the imperial army on the last stage of the journey promised to be about two thousand strong. It was still a disappointing figure, but it was no longer shameful. What was principally lacking now was sea support. Pisa and Genoa in particular, the two great maritime republics of the north-west on whose assistance the Pope had relied, could at that moment see no further than the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, over which they had long been squabbling; without their help the imperial forces would stand little chance in the face of a concerted attack. But meanwhile the autumn rains were beginning, the roads rapidly turning to mud; and Lothair decided to postpone his corona­tion till the following spring. By then, perhaps, the warring cities might be persuaded to settle their differences for the common good.

  The fact that they did so was largely due to the Abbot of Clairvaux. He appeared in Italy soon after Christmas; by March he and Innocent together had alternately hectored and flattered the Pisans and Genoese into a truce, and in the following month they were back again at Lothair's camp, ready for the advance on Rome. For a show of strength, the army that now reassembled itself was still sadly unimpressive; but imperial agents reported that Roger was still occupied with his own problems and that there was consequently no fear of serious opposition on the way to the Holy City.

  The church of S. Agnese fuori le Mura still stands today, its aspect essentially the same as in the seventh century when it was built; and in front of it, on 30 April 1133, the Emperor-to-be drew up his army for its final entry. For some days already Rome had been in turmoil. Pisan and Genoese ships had sailed up the Tiber and were now lying threateningly under the walls; and their presence, aided by exag­gerated rumours of the size of the oncoming German host, had induced many Romans—including the Prefect himself—to make a hurried change of allegiance. Much of the city thus lay open to Lothair and Innocent. They were received at the gates by the Frangipani and Corsi nobles and their minions—who had never wavered in their opposition to Anacletus—and led in triumph to their respective palaces: the King and Queen to Otto Ill's old imperial residence on the Aventine, the Pope to the Lateran.

  But the right bank of the Tiber, with the Castel S. Angelo and St Peter's itself, the traditional setting for imperial coronations, still remained firmly in the hands of Anacletus; and Anacletus was not prepared to give in. Lothair, conscious of his own weakness, pro­posed negotiations, but the anti-Pope's reply remained the same as it had always been—let the whole question of the disputed election be reopened before an international ecclesiastical tribunal. If such a tribunal, properly constituted, were to declare against him, he would accept its decision. Till then he would stay in Rome where he belonged. Left to himself, Lothair would probably have been ready to accept this suggestion. Anything in his view would have been better than a continued schism in the Papacy; rival Popes might well lead to rival Emperors, and in such an event his own position might be far from secure. But by now he had been joined in Rome by Bernard; and with Bernard at his side there could be no question of compromise. If Anacletus could not be brought to his knees, he must be ignored. And so it was not at St Peter's but at the Lateran that Innocent was reinstalled on the papal throne and there, on 4 June, with as much ceremony and circumstance as he could command, that he crowned Lothair Emperor of the West, and Richenza his Empress.

  For the second time in half a century one putative Pope had per­formed an imperial coronation while another had sat a mile or two away, impotent and fuming. After the previous occasion Gregory VII had been saved only by the arrival, not a moment too soon, of Robert Guiscard at the head of some thirty thousand troops. Anacletus knew that he could expect nothing from that quarter; the King of Sicily, though still his loyal champion, was otherwise engaged. Fortunately, rescue was unnecessary. Powerless the anti-Pope may have been, but he was not in any physical danger. No imperial attack on Trastevere—the right bank—would be possible without control of the two bridges spanning the river at the Tiber Island; and all approaches to these were effectively dominated by the old Theatre of Marcellus, now the principal fortress of the Pierleoni. In the circumstances, the Emperor had neither the strength nor the inclination to take the offensive. Now that his immediate aims were achieved he thought only of returning to Germany as soon as possible. Within a few days of the coronation he and his army were gone; and the Pisan and Genoese ships had slipped back down the river to the open sea.

  To Pope Innocent, Lothair's departure was nothing short of calamitous. At once his remaining supporters in the city began to fall away. Only the Frangipani remained loyal; but they could not hold Rome unaided. By July the agents of Anacletus had everywhere resumed their activity, and the gold was beginning to flow freely once again from the inexhaustible Pierleoni coffers. In August poor
Innocent found himself forced once again into exile. He slipped unobtrusively from his diocese—just as he had three years before— and made his way, by slow stages, to Pisa and to safety.

  Innocent was not the only one to feel betrayed. For the rebels in South Italy too, the news that the Emperor, so long awaited, had now come and gone without lifting a finger to help them must have dashed what slender hopes of victory they had left. Already the last few months had been disastrous. The year 1133 had started well enough with the revolt spreading, under the leadership of Tancred of Conversano, to every corner of Apulia. Even Melfi, the first capital of the Hautevilles, even Venosa, where four of the greatest— including Robert Guiscard himself—lay buried, had declared against their King. But, with the other towns that followed their example, they soon had reason to regret their faithlessness. With the first signs of spring Roger had crossed from Sicily at the head of a new army— and a radically different one. In the past when he had been anxious to win the sympathy and support of the South Italian vassals, he had found that a following wholly or even predominantly composed of Muslims was apt to do his prestige more harm than good; he had therefore used his Saracens sparingly, as little more than a stiffening for his regular troops. Such scruples bothered him no longer. He was desperate, and the Saracens had proved themselves among the loyalest of his subjects, immune alike from subversion by the Norman baronage and excommunication by the Pope. The army that he now landed on Italian soil was in essence a Muslim army, the only remaining way of bringing his Christian vassals to heel.

  This altered composition of his fighting force seems to reflect a parallel change in the character of Roger himself. Whichever we read of the two chroniclers who have left us detailed accounts of the ensuing campaign—Falco, the notary of Benevento who hated him or, at the other end of the scale, the sycophantic Alexander of Telese —we are conscious of a new facet of his character, merciless and vengeful. He had always been a master of diplomacy and statecraft, and would remain one till the end of his life; but the events of the past two years had taught him that there are situations where such methods are no longer of any avail; and the battle of Nocera, disas­trous though it had been in every other way, had convinced him of his ability to deal with them. No longer, when the occasion demanded it, would he shy away from the shedding of blood.

  And so, in the spring and summer of 1133, the Sicilian Saracens fell on rebellious Apulia. Starting with Venosa—for by first assuring himself of the mountain towns of the centre he hoped to cut off Tancred and his rebels from their Capuan allies in the west—the King swept down eastward and southward to the sea, leaving a trail of desolation behind him. None who resisted were spared; many were burnt alive—according, at least, to Falco, who calls God to witness that 'such cruelty to Christian people had never before been known'. Corato, Barletta, Minervino, Matera and other rebel strong­holds all fell in their turn, until at last Roger drew up his Saracens before Montepeloso, where Tancred had dug himself in and was awaiting the inevitable siege. With him, notes the Abbot of Telese, were forty knights sent to him by Rainulf of Alife, under the com­mand of a certain Roger of Plenco1—'a most courageous soldier but extremely hostile to the King'.

  The walls of Montepeloso were no match for the Sicilian siege engines; and after little more than a fortnight, 'with all their trumpets sounding forth and their voices raised in a great shout to heaven', the Saracens burst into the town. Some of the defenders, 'disguised in the vilest garments, lest they should be taken for knights', managed to make their escape, but their leaders were not so lucky. Falco's pen seems to tremble in his hand as he writes:

  Then Tancred and the unfortunate Roger [of Plenco] flung down their arms and sought refuge among the darkest and most obscure alleys of the town; but they were sought out, and discovered, and led into the presence of Roger the King. Oh the sorrow, the horror, the weeping! Oh reader, how great would have been your own anguish of heart, had you been present! For the King decreed that Roger should forthwith be hanged by the neck, and that Tancred himself, with his own hand, should pull on the rope. Oh, what crime un­speakable ! Tancred, despite his grief, could not but obey the King's command. The whole army was stricken with horror, and called upon God in Heaven to wreak His vengeance upon so great a tyrant and so cruel a man. Next the King ordered that the valiant Tancred should be held a prisoner; we have heard that he was later led captive to Sicily. And then, without further delay, the whole town of Montepeloso, its monasteries and all its citizens, both men and women, with their little ones, were given over to fire and the sword.

  After the fall of Montepeloso, Apulian resistance was effectively broken; but Roger's fury was still not assuaged. Now that he had decided to show the mailed fist, he was determined that the lesson should not be lost on any of his subjects. Henceforth, by each and every one, the price of rebellion should be clearly understood. Trani

  1 Falco calls him Roger de Pleuto.

  he left a burnt-out shell; at Troia, where a municipal delegation was sent tremblingly out to greet him, he had the five principal magis­trates executed on the spot and then razed the city to the ground, dispersing its survivors around the neighbouring villages. Melfi suffered a similar fate; Ascoli fared very little better. At last on 16 October, having destroyed the defences of every important town in Apulia, the King and his Saracens returned to Salerno; on the 19th they took ship for Sicily.

  Roger might have no more to fear from Apulia, but there still remained his two Campanian vassals to be brought to heel. Robert of Capua and Rainulf of Alife had hastened to Rome at the first news of Lothair's arrival and had dutifully attended his coronation, doubtless expecting that once the attendant formalities were over he and his army—such as it was—would march south with them against the King of Sicily. They should have stayed where they were; the speed and suddenness of Roger's counter-attack caught them unprepared, separated from their followers at the time they were most needed. Rainulf had returned with all haste, but he seems to have made no serious attempt—unless we include the forty knights under the luckless Roger of Plenco—to stem die tide of the King's advance. Prince Robert was more cautious and more sensible. The events of the previous summer had taught him that, with the forces at present available, not even an overwhelming victory like Nocera could prove decisive in the long term. Roger's power could never be broken without outside assistance, and if that were not forthcoming from the Emperor, then it must be sought elsewhere. Accordingly, in the last week ot June, he had left Rome for Pisa; and there, after protracted negotiations, he managed to conclude an agreement by which, in return for three thousand pounds of silver, one hundred Pisan and Genoese vessels would be put at his disposal in March of the following year.

  With a fleet of this magnitude sailing against him, Roger's com­mand of the sea would have been seriously imperilled. His enemies might well have risked a full-scale offensive against Messina to block the straits, or even a direct attack on Palermo itself. But he showed no particular concern. In the early spring of 1134 he was back again on the mainland, determined to settle affairs in Italy once and for all. Sweeping up through rebel territory, he met with scarcely any opposition. Reports of his treatment of the Apulian towns in the previous year had long been current in Campania, where the local populations had taken the point, just as he had intended that they should. Wherever his army passed, resistance seemed to crumble; meanwhile the lords of Capua and Alife, strengthened by a thousand Pisan soldiers but still awaiting the bulk of their promised reinforce­ments from the northern sea-republics, remained on the defensive. Now it was their turn to avoid pitched battles. One after another their castles fell. Even Nocera, scene of Roger's deepest humiliation barely two years before, surrendered as soon as it became clear that Rainulf's attempts to relieve it had failed. The King, as merciful this year as he had been implacable in 113 3, took no reprisals; the soldiers of the garrison, once they had sworn an oath of loyalty, were allowed to disperse freely to their homes.

 
Spring turned to summer, and still the Pisan and Genoese fleets failed to appear. Their presence now was vital, less for strategic reasons than because nothing else could hope to restore the insur­gents' morale. Finally a desperate Prince Robert took ship to Pisa, ostensibly to make a last appeal for help but also, one suspects, to save his skin; and Rainulf was left alone to face the oncoming army. The Count of Alife, for all his faults, had never lacked courage. Seeing that a confrontation with his brother-in-law could no longer be avoided, he now mustered all his men in preparation for a final onslaught. But he was too late. The Sicilian agents that Roger had managed to infiltrate into the neighbourhood were open-handed and persuasive; such of the local knights and barons as had remained at his side now suddenly began to fall away. Rainulf was beaten and he knew it. He sent messengers to Roger announcing his uncon­ditional surrender and flung himself on the King's mercy.

  Towards the end of June the two met at the village of Lauro, near Avellino. As the Abbot of Telese describes it, it must have been an affecting scene:

  Falling on his knees before the King, he [Rainulf] first tried to kiss his feet; but the King raised him up with his own hand and made as if to kiss him in his turn. The Count stopped him, begging him first to cast all anger from him. And the King replied with all his heart, It is cast. Further, said the Count, I ask that thou shouldst henceforth esteem me as I had been thy slave. And the King answered, This will I do. Then the Count spoke once more: Let God himself, he said, be witness of those things which have been spoken between thee and me. Amen, said the King. And at once the King kissed him, and the two were seen to stand for a long time embraced, so that certain of those that were present were seen to be shedding tears for very joy.