The Kingdom in the Sun

by John Julius Norwich

Manuel was fully aware that at this of all moments the Pope could not antagonise the King of Sicily; and he had no delusions about the Sicilian view of his interference in Italian affairs. But even this problem, he believed, might be soluble. Though he had now been married for six years to his second wife, the fabulously beautiful

  Mary of Antioch, their marriage was still childless; the heir to the Empire remained his daughter by Bertha-Irene, a girl named Maria now fifteen years old.1 Though she was theoretically betrothed

  1 Bertha-Irene had died of a sudden fever in 1060. Manuel had given her a splendid funeral and had her buried in the church of the Pantocrator; but he had married Mary within a year.

  to Prince Bela of Hungary, he now proposed that she should be given in marriage to young William of Sicily; once the boy found himself heir apparent to the throne of Constantinople, he would see Byzantine ambitions in a very different light. It was a bold and imag­inative proposal, and Manuel had had it formally put to the Queen Regent immediately after her husband's death. So far, however, the Sicilians had expressed only a cautious interest, and the Emperor was still awaiting a definite reply.1

  All this, we must assume, was unknown to Frederick Barbarossa as he marched towards Ancona. But his dislike of the Greeks was already more than enough to give him enthusiasm for the task before him, and as soon as his army had dug itself in the siege of the city began. The inhabitants put up a spirited resistance. Their defences were strong and in good order, and they were determined not to be deprived of an association that was bringing so much wealth to them all. Luck, too, was on their side. First the Emperor was diverted by the appearance further down the coast of a Sicilian force under Gilbert of Gravina; soon after his return he received news which caused him to raise the siege altogether and leave at once for Rome. The Anconans were saved.

  The Romans, on the other hand, were as good as lost. On Whit Monday, 29 May, just outside Tusculum, their large but undisci­plined army had attacked the Germans and Tusculans under Christ­ian of Mainz, and, though outnumbering them many times over, had been utterly shattered. Out of a total estimated at some thirty thousand, barely a third had escaped. Before the last survivors had left the field, imperial messengers were already speeding to Frederick with the news. Rome itself, they reported, was still holding out, but failing massive reinforcements it could not last long; still less could it hope to resist a new German attack at full strength. When he heard the news, the Emperor was jubilant. With Rome ripe for the pluck­ing, what did Ancona matter ? He could deal with the Greeks later.

  Although the troops under Archbishop Christian had now been swollen by the local militias of several neighbouring towns, all

  1 For a fuller discussion of this proposal—which, if it had been accepted, would quite possibly have changed the course of history—see J. S. F. Parker, 'The attempted Byzantine Alliance with the Sicilian Norman Kingdom, 1166-1167', Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. XXIV, 1955.

  eager for revenge after years of Roman arrogance and oppression, Rome itself was still fighting hard. The Emperor's arrival, however, sealed the fate of the Leonine City.1 A single savage onslaught smashed the gates; the Germans poured in, only to find an unexpected inner fortress—St Peter's basilica itself, ringed with strong-points and hastily-dug trenches. For eight more days, we are told by an eyewitness, Acerbus Morena, it held out against every attack; it was only when the besiegers set fire to the forecourt, destroying first the great portico so carefully restored by Innocent II, then the lovely little mosaic-covered oratory of S. Maria in Turri, and finally hacking down the huge portals of the basilica itself, that the defending garrison surrendered. Never had there been such a desecration of the holiest shrine of Europe. Even in the ninth century, the Saracen pirates had contented themselves with tearing the silver panels from the doors; they had never penetrated the building. This time, according to another contemporary,2 the invaders left the marble pavements of the nave strewn with dead and dying, the high altar itself stained with blood. And this time the outrage was the work not of infidel barbarians but of the Emperor of western Christendom.

  It was on 29 July 1167 that St Peter's fell. On the following day, at that same high altar, the anti-Pope Paschal celebrated Mass and then invested Frederick with the golden circlet of the Roman Patricias—a deliberate gesture of defiance to the Senate and People of Rome. Two days later still, he officiated at the imperial coronation of the Empress Beatrice, with her husband—whom Pope Adrian had crowned twelve years previously—standing by. That day marked the summit of Frederick's career. He had brought the Romans to their knees, imposing on them terms which, though moderate enough, should ensure their docility in the future. He had placed his own Pope on the Throne of St Peter. North Italy he had already subdued; and now, with the imperial strength still undiminished and the Pisan ships already moored along the Tiber quays, he was ready to mop up the Kingdom of Sicily. He foresaw no difficulties. The Sicilians were governed—if that was the word—by a woman, a child and, he understood, some Frenchman who was little more than a child himself. Soon they would all three be grovelling before

  1 See p. 181. 2 Otto of St Blaise.

  him, and the ambition that had been gnawing away at him for fifteen years would be fulfilled at last.

  Poor Frederick—he could not have foreseen the catastrophe that was so soon to overtake him, one that in less than a single week was to destroy his proud army in a way that no earthly foe could ever have matched. On that memorable first of August, the skies had been clear and the sun had blazed down on his triumph. Then, on the second, a huge black cloud suddenly obscured the valley by Monte Mario; heavy rain began to fall, followed immediately by a still and oppressive heat. On the third came pestilence. It struck the imperial camp with a swiftness and a force such as never before was known; and where it struck, more often than not, it killed. Within a matter of days, it was no longer possible to bury all the dead; and the grow­ing piles of corpses, swollen and putrefying in the heat of a Roman August, made their own grim contribution to the sickness and the pervading horror. Frederick, by now in despair, seeing the flower of his army dead or dying around him, had no choice but to strike his camp; and by the second week of August, 'like a tower in flames' as John of Salisbury describes him, he and his silent, spectral pro­cession were dragging themselves back through Tuscany. The plague went with them. Rainald of Dassel, his Chancellor-Archbishop, succumbed on the fourteenth,1 so, at about the same time, did Frederick of Rotenburg, son of Conrad III and thus the Emperor's first cousin, who had been responsible for the destruction of the doors of St Peter's; so, did Bishop Daniel of Prague, Acerbus Morena the historian and more than two thousand others.

  And even now the nightmare was not over. Full reports of the plague had already spread through Lombardy, and the Germans arrived to find town after town closed against them. At last, and with considerable difficulty, they reached the imperial headquarters at Pavia; and there Frederick was forced to halt, watching in impotent despair when, on i December, no less than fifteen of the leading cities of the region formed themselves into the greater Lombard League, the foundations of which had been laid at

  1 So convinced were his followers—on what grounds it is hard to say—that Rainald had been a saint, that they boiled his body until there was nothing left but the bones, which they took back as relics to Germany.

  Anagni eight years before. It was his crowning humiliation; such was his Italian subjects' contempt for him that they had not even bothered to wait until he was back over the Alps before making their ultimate gesture of defiance. And indeed, when the spring at last came and the snows began to melt, he saw that even this last lap of his homeward journey would be a problem; all the mountain passes were now controlled by his enemies and closed alike to him­self and his shattered army. It was secretly, shamefully and in the guise of a servant that the Emperor of the West finally regained his native land.

  But, it may be asked, while Frederick Barbarossa was tasting
his triumph and his disaster, what had happened to his old enemy the Pope? Alexander had first taken refuge with his Frangipani friends in the Cartularia tower near the Colosseum. Serious as the situation was, he seems to have thought that he might still be able somehow to maintain himself in the capital; and when two Sicilian galleys sailed up the Tiber with further massive subsidies from Queen Margaret, he had actually refused their captains' offer to carry him away to safety. It was a noble decision but, as he soon saw, an unwise one. The Romans, fickle as ever, turned against him. Disguised as a pilgrim, he had embarked in a small boat just as the Pisans were arriving and slipped down the river to freedom. Landing at Gaeta, he had then made his way via Terracina to Benevento —where, ultimately, his loyal cardinals joined him. He had escaped not a moment too soon. If he had fallen into the Emperor's hands, it would have been the end of his active pontificate; even if he had somehow avoided capture, he would probably have perished in the epidemic which, it need hardly be said, did not confine itself to the imperial army but raged through Rome until the Tiber was thick with corpses. The Almighty, perhaps, had been on his side after all.

  Such was certainly the view of the papal supporters. God­fearing men everywhere, and in Germany perhaps most of all, saw in that dreadful visitation on Barbarossa the hand of the extermina­ting angel—not only a just retribution for his crimes, but also a proof of the Tightness of Alexander's cause. The Pope's popularity soared, and with it his prestige. The Lombard cities made him patron and chief of their new League and even invited him—though he did not accept—to take up residence among them. Meanwhile they founded a new city between Pavia and Asti and named it Alessan­dria in his honour.

  In Rome, the anti-Pope Paschal had meanwhile lost what derisory support he had ever had. No longer did he dare even to set foot outside the melancholy tower of Stephen Theobald, the only place in the city where he felt safe. His health too was failing fast, and everyone knew that he had not long to live. In such circumstances it would have been a simple matter for Alexander to return to the Lateran; but he refused. He had come to hate Rome, and he despised the Romans for their faithlessness and venality. Three times in eight years they had welcomed him to their city; three times, through intimidation or bribery, they had turned against him and driven him into exile. He had no wish to go through it all again. Benevento, Terracina, Anagni—there were plenty of other places from which, as he knew from previous experience, the business of the Papacy could be transacted with efficiency and despatch, free from the in­trigues and the ceaseless violence of the Eternal City. He preferred to remain where he was.

  It was eleven years before he saw Rome again.

  16

  THE FAVOURITE'S FALL

  . . . for that land devours its inhabitants.

  Peter of Blois, Letter 90

  The exterminating angel that had wrought such havoc and de­struction on the army of Frederick Barbarossa must have appeared, in Sicilian eyes, a messenger of deliverance. In the century and a half that had elapsed since the Normans first arrived in the peninsula, South Italy had faced the threat of imperial invasion more times than its inhabitants cared to remember; but never could the danger have loomed more large than in that agonising summer of 1167. Then, suddenly, it was past. Expenses, largely in the form of papal sub­ventions, had admittedly been heavy; but the actual losses—apart from a few stragglers in Gilbert of Gravida's army who had failed to retreat fast enough south of Ancona—had been nil. The Kingdom was safe again—at least from the outside.

  In the capital, Stephen du Perche remained at the centre of power, still beloved by the faceless masses but more and more hated by those upon whom, had he but realised it, his survival depended— a hatred which had grown even more bitter after that day in the early autumn when the Queen, while retaining him as her Chancellor, had also had him elected by the complaisant canons of Palermo to the vacant archbishopric of the city. It was an extraordinary step— one in which both Margaret and Stephen demonstrated yet again their strange imperviousness to the sensibilities of those around them. The young man had never been intended for the Church; he had been ordained—by Romuald of Salerno, with one can imagine what reluctance—only a few days before. Richard Palmer in particular had made no secret of his disgust. And it was not only Romuald and Richard who felt the appointment as a personal affront. From the moment Stephen took his seat on the Arch­bishop's throne in Palermo Cathedral and the choir shattered the sullen silence with the Te Deum, the entire ecclesiastical party became his enemy.

  Once more, plots against the Chancellor began to proliferate, just as they had proliferated against Maio and Caid Peter, until Stephen saw that he could now trust no one outside his French entourage. Among the Sicilians, all were now suspect—even the palace eunuchs, even Matthew of Ajello himself, who had made no secret of his hostility ever since the business of the notaries. One day Stephen, hoping to obtain material proof of Matthew's sinister intentions, arranged with a crony, Robert of Belleme, to waylay a messenger travelling between the protonotary and his brother, the Bishop of Catania, and to bring him whatever letters the man was found to be carrying. Robert's ambush failed; the messenger escaped and reported the whole incident to his master, who was understandably furious—so much so that when Robert died shortly afterwards in somewhat sinister circumstances Matthew immediately fell under the suspicion of having had him murdered. This suspicion was increased at the ensuing enquiry, when a certain doctor, known to be a close friend of Matthew's and a fellow-Salernitan to boot, was revealed as having introduced himself into Robert's house with a curious medicament which he described as a simple rose syrup, but which another witness testified to have burnt all the skin off his hand. Though the doctor was found guilty and imprisoned, he never confessed. Nothing was ever proved against Matthew; but his relations with Stephen became worse than ever.

  Some time during the summer of 1167, Queen Margaret's wastrel brother Henry of Montescaglioso had returned to Palermo. Once again, the circumstances of his arrival were typical of him. On reaching Apulia the year before, he had allowed himself to be persuaded by a group of discontented vassals that this ostracism to a remote fief was an insult to his royal dignity, and that his proper place was at his sister's side in the capital, in the seat at that time still occupied by Count Richard of Molise. Count Richard, they ex­plained, was nothing but an upstart opportunist who had wormed himself into Margaret's favour—and, most likely, into her bed—in the cold-blooded pursuit of his own ends. Henry's only honourable course was therefore to go to Palermo and demand his dismissal, thus simultaneously vindicating his own and his sister's honour. It was a task in which they would be happy to assist.

  When, however, Henry arrived in Sicily a few months later with his followers, both Spanish and Apulian, it was only to discover what everyone else in the Kingdom had known long ago—that Richard had already surrendered his position to Stephen du Perche. Though he probably knew little enough of Stephen, it must have been immediately clear to him that he could not object to a blood relation in the same way as he had objected to a local parvenu like the Count of Molise. On the contrary, this new appointment might prove very much to his advantage—if he played his cards right.

  The Chancellor, meanwhile, played his own very cleverly indeed. From what he had been told of Henry, it seemed likely that a few promises and a fair measure of flattery would be all that was needed to render him harmless. Once he himself were won over, there would be nothing to fear from his hangers-on. And so it proved. Stephen, whose career throughout his short life shows that he must have possessed considerable charm, exerted it to the full. In next to no time Henry was one of his cousin's most enthusiastic supporters. The Apulian discontents were disgusted to see their former leader riding everywhere at the Chancellor's side, even accompanying him to the baths, and generally behaving as if the city belonged to him. Beaten, they had no course open to them but to return to their lands—which, not long afterwards, they did.

  So, for
some months, Henry basked; but he was too unstable—or perhaps simply too gullible—to remain quiet for long. The weakness of his character, his conceit and his close kinship with the Regent made him the perfect tool for intriguers and, as the summer wore on, more and more of them began to murmur in his ear how dis­graceful it was that the Queen's cousin should rank above her brother, how instead of calling on the Chancellor, Henry should insist that Stephen should call on him—how iniquitous it was, in fact, that Stephen du Perche rather than Henry of Montescaglioso should hold the reins of power in Sicily.

  At first, Falcandus tells us, Henry would reply that he had had no practice in the art of government, and that in any case he spoke no French, an indispensable language at the court. He was therefore perfectly content to leave state affairs in the hands of his good friend Stephen, who was after all a wise and prudent man, admirably qualified by his noble birth to occupy his high office. Soon, however, the murmurs took on a new note, with more than a tinge of scorn. How could the Count of Montescaglioso continue on such friendly terms with the Chancellor in view of the latter's notorious relation­ship with the Queen? Was he publicly pandering to their ignoble and incestuous desires ? Or was he still feigning ignorance of what was going on under his nose? Surely he could not be so crass and supine—the words are Falcandus's own—as to be genuinely una­ware of what was now the talk of the city ?

  Whether there was any foundation for these rumours we shall never know. Falcandus speaks elsewhere of how the Queen would be seen 'devouring the Chancellor with her eyes'. Margaret was still under forty and is said to have been beautiful;1 she had been largely ignored by her late husband, and it would perhaps have been surprising if she had not formed some sort of attachment to a young and handsome man of high birth, intelligence and marked ability who was, incidentally, one of the few people in Sicily whom she could trust. Even if there had been no such attachment, gossip on the subject would have been unavoidable. In any event, Henry was convinced. He became morose; where hitherto he had sought Stephen's company probably a good deal more often than the Chancellor found necessary or agreeable, now he began to avoid him. More ominous still, he took advantage of his free entree into the palace to recount to the King the stories he had heard about his