The Kingdom in the Sun

by John Julius Norwich

  Throughout 1158, Maio had been working to strengthen support for Sicily within the papal Curia—with the invaluable help of Cardinal Roland, Adrian's Chancellor and most trusted associate, who had been the chief architect and was now one of the principal protagonists of the Norman alliance. Together they did their work well. In the spring of 1159 there occurred the first great counter-thrust against Frederick that can be directly ascribed to papal-Sicilian instigation. Milan suddenly threw off the imperial authority, and for the next three years the Milanese stoutly defied all the Emperor's efforts to bring them to heel. The following August, representatives of Milan, Crema, Piacenza and Brescia met the Pope at Anagni, a little town situated conveniently near the frontier of the Regno. And there, in the presence of envoys from King William— Maio may easily have been there himself—was sworn the initial pact that was to become the nucleus of the great Lombard League. The towns promised that they would have no dealings with the common enemy without papal consent, while the Pope undertook to excommunicate the Emperor after the usual period of forty days. Finally it was agreed by the assembled cardinals that on Adrian's death his successor should be elected only from those present at the conference.

  Perhaps it was obvious already that the Pope had not long to live. While still at Anagni he was stricken by a sudden angina, from which he never recovered. He died in the evening of 1 September 1159. His body was taken to Rome, and was laid in the undis­tinguished third-century sarcophagus in which it still rests and which can still be seen in the crypt of St Peter's. During the course of the demolition of the old basilica in 1607 it was opened; the body of the only English Pope was found entire, dressed in a chasuble of dark-coloured silk. It was described by the archaeologist Grimaldi as being that of 'an undersized man, wearing Turkish slippers on his feet and, on his hand, a ring with a large emerald'.

  Adrian's pontificate is hard to assess. To hail him as the greatest Pope since Urban II is not to say very much; he certainly towers above the string of mediocrities who occupied the throne of St Peter during the first half of the century, just as he himself is over­shadowed by his magnificent successor. Yet it remains difficult to see how Gregorovius could have written that his nature was always 'as firm and as unyielding as the granite of his tomb'. In the early days it certainly seemed so; but his complete volte-face after Bene­vento, however ultimately beneficial to papal interests, was imposed upon him by force of circumstances, and from that time on he seems to have lost much of the incisiveness that marked his early career. He left the Papacy stronger and more generally respected than he found it, but much of this success was due to its identification with the Lombard League—for which, in turn, he had the diplomacy of Maio of Bari and the wise statesmanship of Cardinal Roland to thank. And he failed utterly to subdue the Roman Senate.

  He was Pope for less than five years; but those years were hard and vital for the Papacy, and the strain told on him. Before long his health had begun to fail, and with it his morale. He confided to his compatriot John of Salisbury, who knew him well, that the burden of the Papacy had now become greater than he could bear, and that he often wished that he had never left England. He died, as many Popes had died before him, an embittered exile; and when death came to him, he welcomed it as a friend.

  Thus, in the three years separating the Treaty of Benevento from the death of Pope Adrian IV, a curious change occurs in the relative position of King William of Sicily on the European stage. The King himself remains at the still centre of this change. His Sicilian policies, framed and executed by Maio of Bari, continued constant, based as they were on the twin principles of friendship with the Papacy and opposition to the Western Empire. Never did he have any quarrel with the city-states or towns of North Italy, except when they had been bribed or otherwise cajoled into collaboration with his enemies. But, all around him, alignments were shifting. The Papacy, brought to its knees at Benevento, rediscovered a fact that its history over the past hundred years should have made self-evident—that its only hope of survival as a potent political force lay in close alliance with Norman Sicily; Frederick Barbarossa, im­pressed despite himself by the speed and completeness of William's victories over the Byzantines in Apulia and looking on him with undiminished hatred but new respect, decided on the indefinite postponement of his own punitive expedition into the Regno; and, as the supreme paradox, the Lombard towns began to see in the Sicilian monarchy—entrenched in feudalism and more absolutist by far than the Western Empire or any other state of Western Europe— the stalwart defender of their republican ideals, hailing its King as a champion of civic liberty almost before the dust had settled on the ruins of Bari.

  But while William and Maio worked for the downfall of one Empire, they were themselves in the process of losing another. North Africa was rapidly slipping away. The rot had begun in the winter of 1155-56, when Sicilian fortunes were at their lowest. At that time the Greeks were sweeping unchecked through Apulia. The Prince of Capua and his followers were seizing back their old patrimonies in Campania and elsewhere. In Sicily itself another band of insurgents was defying the central government from the heights of Butera. Meanwhile there was, living quietly in the capital, an old Sheikh from North Africa named Abu al-Hassan al-Furriani. Some years before, he had been appointed by King Roger as governor of his own city of Sfax, but being already advanced in years he had soon retired in favour of his son, Omar, in pledge of whose good conduct he had himself gone as a voluntary hostage to Palermo. Now, seeing the Kingdom menaced on three fronts and rightly surmising that it could not possibly fight back on a fourth, he wrote secretly to his son proposing an immediate uprising against the Sicilians. He was fully aware, he said, that he himself would probably pay for it with his life, but that was of no great moment; he was an old man, and for such a cause he would be happy to die.

  Omar did as he was bid. On 25 February 1156 the native popula­tion of Sfax rose up and massacred every Christian in the city. William, hearing the news, at once sent over an ambassador to demand the governor's surrender; if he did not give himself up immediately, his father's life would be forfeit. On his arrival, how­ever, the ambassador was stopped at the gates; and the next morning he was met by a long funeral procession following a coffin. With it came a message from Omar. It read: 'He who is being buried today is my father. I remain in my palace to mourn his death. Do with him as you will.' The ambassador returned to Palermo to report, and old Abu al-Hassan, praising Allah with his last breath, was led to the gallows on the banks of the Oreto and hanged.1

  But the collapse of William's North African Empire had begun. The islands of Djerba and Kerkenna followed where Sfax had led, and some time during the year 553 of the Hegira—between 2 February 1158 and 22 January 1159—the signal was given for revolt in Tripoli itself. By the middle of 1159 only Mahdia, with its suburb of Zawila, was left in Sicilian hands. Thither had flocked all William's remaining Christian subjects in Africa, arriving in such numbers that a new Archbishop had to be installed to minister to them all. His ministry was short-lived. Already three years previously the local Muslims had made one attempt to take over the city, failing only because of the opportune arrival of a Sicilian fleet; now the Almohads themselves appeared in strength under their leader Abd al-Moumen firmly resolved to eradicate the last traces of Christian domination from the continent. Mahdia was ringed by land and sea, and on 20 July the siege began.

  For the first few weeks, morale in the beleaguered city remained high. There was a garrison of three thousand men, provisions were plentiful and no one doubted that a fleet would soon be on its way from Palermo with relief. Sure enough, on 8 September there it was—no less than a hundred and sixty Sicilian vessels, hastily recalled from a raiding expedition to the Balearics, under the com­mand—surprisingly, in the circumstances—of King William's chief eunuch, a converted Muslim from Djerba who had been baptised in the name of Peter. The situation appeared to be saved; Abd al-Moumen, horrified at the size of the navy now bearing down upon him, eve
n ordered sixty of his own ships to be beached so that, if the forthcoming battle went against him, he and his men should at least have some means of escape.

  He need not have worried. Hardly, it seems, had battle been joined outside the harbour mouth when Peter's flagship suddenly turned about and made with all speed for the open sea; and the others followed. The Almohads, taking full advantage of their good

  1 This story is told by no less than three of the principal Arab sources for Norman Sicily—Ibn al-Athir, At-Tigani and Ibn Khaldun, the last two writing as late as the fourteenth century. The heroism of the two Al-Furriani was not, it seems, quickly forgotten.

  fortune, set off in pursuit and captured seven or eight of the Sicilian vessels before returning jubilantly to port.

  What had happened ? Hugo Falcandus, who can always be trusted to interpret everyone's actions in the unkindest possible light, has no doubts on the matter. Peter, he points out, was, 'like all the eunuchs of the palace, only in name and dress a Chrisdan, and a Saracen at heart'. It followed that his retreat must have been due not to incapacity or cowardice, but to treachery pure and simple. The other chroniclers are more charitable; they make no suggestion of any betrayal, and at-Tigani even quotes an eye-witness account by a certain Ibn Saddad, according to whom the Sicilian fleet had been scattered by a gale and was attacked by the Muslims before it had time to reform. This, or some similar catastrophe, seems to have been the true explanation; for nowhere do we find any record of disciplinary action taken against Peter on his return to Palermo. On the contrary, he had a long and distinguished political career before him. Clearly he was no George of Antioch; but there is no evidence, apart from Falcandus's unsupported testimony, that he acted with dishonour.

  The same, alas, cannot be said for the Sicilian government. The garrison held out bravely for another six months, confidently await­ing another relief expedition; none came. At last, when supplies were running so low that the men had begun eating their horses, they sent Abd al-Moumen an offer. Let him allow one or two of their number to go to Palermo and ascertain, once and for all, whether any further help could be expected; if the answer was negative, the garrison commander would surrender the city forth­with. The request was granted. The emissaries left, and soon after­wards returned with the sad and, to the Christian community of Mahdia, almost unbelievable news: in Palermo, North Africa was already considered lost. It had quite simply been written off. On 11 January 1160 Mahdia surrendered. The garrison were given safe conduct, with arms and baggage, back to Sicily.

  Falcandus, it is hardly necessary to add, suggests that the Almohad leader was in contact with the palace eunuchs in Palermo and already knew in advance of William's decision. This theory, like so many others from the same pen, can probably be discounted; but there remains another more important and more intriguing question. Why did William and Maio let North Africa go so easily ? In their European policy they had proved—once the King had shaken off his initial inertia—vigorous, energetic and imaginative. How could they now watch, impassively, while the North African Empire crumbled before their eyes? It was not, after all, only during the siege of Mahdia that this apathy had come upon them; there indeed they had made at least some attempt to fight back. But what of Sfax and Djerba, of Kerkenna and Tripoli? In none of these places had there been more than a token resistance, if that. In 1156, admittedly, the Sicilian forces were fully extended on other, more important fronts; but by 1160 there were no enemies to occupy them else­where, and still there was no sign of any counter-offensive—any move, even, military or diplomatic—to regain their former posses­sions. What held them back?

  These questions also occurred to William's subjects at home, many of whom lost no time in blaming Maio for the loss of the overseas empire; and the Emir of Emirs became more unpopular than ever. But in fact, when we look back over these years, his apparently feeble attitude is shown in its proper light and becomes comprehensible. He was playing for higher stakes. By now the pattern of Italian politics had become infinitely more complex and more challenging than in the days of Roger II and George of Antioch, when the African territories had been conquered. Sud­denly there had appeared a chance of gaining the moral leadership of all Italy in its emerging struggle against German imperial power; and moral leadership today could mean political leadership to­morrow.

  To achieve it, however, Sicily must have freedom of action. With two Empires, a Papacy and an endless number of independent and semi-independent city-states to deal with, to say nothing of an endemic revolutionary situation within her own borders, she could not afford to indulge in enterprises and adventures outside her logical sphere of influence. And, as Maio was intelligent enough to understand, North Africa was well outside. To recover it would mean not just the despatch of an expeditionary force, the siege and capture of a city or two. It would mean the forcible subjection of a whole people and the breaking of a great power—for the Almohads, with an Empire which already extended from the Atlantic to the frontiers of Egypt and from Andalusia to the southern limits of the Sahara, could have held their own against virtually any European army or armies that might have been thrown into the field against them.

  The old principle still held good—expeditionary forces could make conquests, but they could not hold them. The fact had been proved time and time again; to it, Sicily owed her continued existence as a nation. Those who forgot it paid dearly for their forgetfulness. Maio of Bari had no intention of falling into the same error himself.

  12

  MURDER

  This Maio was a very monster; indeed, it would be impossible to find vermin more loathsome, more pernicious or more damaging to the Kingdom. His character was capable of any baseness, and his eloquence was equal to his character. Great was his facility for pretence or dissimula­tion at will. He was, in addition, much given to debauchery, for ever seeking to bring noble matrons and virgins to his bed; the more unstained their virtue, the more ardently did he strive to possess them.

  Hugo Falcandus

  William had slipped back into his old ways. It might have been expected that his crushing defeat of the Byzantines, and the three ensuing years of intense diplomatic activity during which his star rose higher and higher in the European firmament, would have given him a taste for politics, or at least have tempted him to prove himself as gifted a statesman as he had a general. They did neither. No sooner had he returned to Sicily in July 115 6 and passed sentence on those who had taken up arms against him than he once more abandoned himself to a life of pleasure. The old attractions of palace and park, of bower and bedchamber, were too strong. For the next six years he never once visited the mainland, seldom even setting foot outside Palermo and its imme­diate neighbourhood. The handling of state affairs, both domestic and foreign, he placed as before in the capable hands of Maio of Bari.

  Maio's power was now at its zenith. Not only was this Apulian merchant's son the effective ruler of the Kingdom; he was rapidly becoming, thanks to the success of his foreign policies, one of the most influential statesmen in Europe.1 The baronial party, both on the mainland and in Sicily, resented him more than ever. More than ever they found themselves outcasts, obliged to stand impotently by while the government of the Kingdom became, as they saw it, the exclusive preserve of two separate groups, the one detested, the other despised: first, the Emir's family and henchmen, men like Stephen and Simon, the Master Captains in Apulia; like Archbishop Hugh of Palermo, or like the young Salernitan notary Matthew of Ajello who had drafted the Treaty of Benevento and was obviously being groomed by Maio as his eventual successor; second, the palace eunuchs—almost all of them, like that Peter who had cut such a sorry figure against the Almohad fleet, being baptised Saracens and thus politically as well as physically suspect in the eyes of their enemies.

  It was small wonder, in such conditions, that the air of Palermo was heavy with rumours. Men whispered that the Emir was schem­ing to seize the crown for himself—indeed that he had already appropriated several it
ems of the regalia, which he had been showing off to his friends. He had had no difficulty in laying his hands on such treasures; they were passed to him by the Queen, whose infatuation for him was well known. Others made even more scandalous assertions—that he had revived his plans to do away with the King, and that he had already bribed the Pope, through the agency of Matthew of Ajello, to give him his blessing as William's successor.

  Where rumours were so rife, conspiracies were bound to follow.

  In Palermo, Maio's ubiquitous agents and informers were usually able to nip them in the bud; but the mainland provided would-be plotters with opportunities in plenty and here, some time towards the end of 1159, a group of dissatisfied nobles evolved a scheme to

  1 He was also beginning to build the church of S. Cataldo, immediately west of the Martorana (Plate 13). With its three high cupolas and honeycomb windows, this church looks, from the outside, as Islamic as S. Giovanni degli Eremiti. Like S. Giovanni, too, its interior is now stripped of all decoration—though the floor and the altar are both original and quietly remarkable in their way (Plate 14). S. Cat­aldo is, incidentally—with the possible exception of the lovely little SS. Trinita di Delia just outside Castelvetrano—the last Norman Sicilian church in which the Arabic influence is apparent (Plate 15). Henceforth every new Latin church to be built also looked like one.