Member of one of the leading families of Benevento, a palace notary and scribe, Falco wrote a retrospective history of his own city and South Italy as a whole between 1102 and n 39. It is of interest not only for its own qualities—it is reliable, methodical, vivid, and contains much of which its author was an eyewitness—but also because it reflects the opinions of a Lombard patriot, for whom the Normans were little better than a bunch of uncivilised brigands. An Italian translation exists and is listed in the bibliography.
Alexander of Telese
Alexander, Abbot of the monastery of S. Salvatore near Telese, wrote his chronicle at the request of Matilda of Alife, half-sister of Roger II. Though ostensibly a biography of Roger, the first part is sketchy in the extreme; we are told nothing about Adelaide's regency and the account becomes interesting only from n 27, with the events leading up to the establishment of the Sicilian Kingdom. From that point until 1136, when Alexander abruptly breaks off, he becomes a valuable source—though allowance must be made for his extreme tendentiousness. For him Roger was divinely appointed to bring peace and order to the South, after meting out just punishment for earlier iniquities. Despite his cloth, the Abbot has little respect for the Pope, and even chides Honorius II for his 'insolence'. There is an Italian translation listed below.
Womuald of Salerno
Romuald Guarna, a member of the old Salernitan nobility, was archbishop of his native city from 1153 until his death in 1181. Throughout this time he played a leading role in the political life of the Kingdom, both in Sicily and on the mainland, in domestic and foreign affairs. He was one of the negotiators of the Treaty of Benevento; later he was implicated in the plot against Maio of Bari and was largely responsible for the rescue of William I during the 1161 uprising. Under William II—whose coronation he performed—he represented Sicily at the signing of the Treaty of Venice. His Chronicon sive Annates, which begins with the Creation and continues till 1178, is one of the most important sources in existence for the period covered by this book. It would have been more valuable still if Romuald had only been more impartial and less discreet. As it is, he consistently exaggerates his own part in the events he records and minimises that of others. Matters in which he is not directly involved—or those in which he or his friends do not show to particular advantage—he tends to leave out altogether. The work has never been translated into English or French; an Italian translation is listed below.
Hugo Falcandus
Everything, as Chalandon points out, that relates to Falcandus is a mystery; even his name is in doubt. The most distinguished living English scholar of the period, Miss Evelyn Jamison, has cogendy argued—in a book listed below—that he is to be identified with Eugenius, a politician and scholar who was appointed Admiral of the Kingdom in 1190. The Liber de Regno Sicilie covers only the period from 1154 to 1169. It has little to say of Sicilian foreign policy; but as a picture of the social life and the political intrigues of Palermo during a particularly troubled time, it is a masterpiece. The author needs no more than a couple of lines to transform a name into a character; his eye for the significant detail is unerring. In the art of making his story live, none of the other sources with whom we have had to deal can hold a candle to him—except, perhaps, Amatus of Monte Cassino; but whereas Amatus is a naif, Falcandus is a polished and sophisticated man of letters. His great defect is his tendentiousness, and his bitter, almost universal contempt for those around him. For him, every man is a villain; for every action, the worst motives are unfailingly ascribed. Just how accurate he is we have no means of telling; checks are seldom possible, since no other chronicle covers the period in anything like such detail. But he certainly makes splendid reading. It seems almost incredible that a writer who has been compared to Tacitus and Thucydides should never have been translated into English or French; the only version I have been able to find is del Re's Italian one, written in so convoluted a style that Falcandus's elegant Latin is often easier to read.
Peter of Eboli
Peter of Eboli's long poem, the Carmen de Rebus Siculis, gives us a detailed account of the last days of the Sicilian Kingdom, from the death of William the Good to the arrival of Henry VI. As with Falcandus, his reliability as a historian is diminished by his hatred—in this case for Tancred of Lecce, his family and his adherents. His facts can all too seldom be checked against other sources, and when they can they are not always found to be accurate. On the other hand he appears to have lived at the court of Henry VI, so that he must have been better placed than most people to see what went on. Here is another work that cries out for a good modern translation; for the moment, none exists. When it appears—as some day it must—we can only hope that it will include reproductions of the delightful and often brilliandy witty drawings with which Peter has embellished his text. Four of them are reproduced in this book.
I. ORIGINAL SOURCES
i. Collections of Sources
(The abbreviations used elsewhere in this bibliography and in the footnotes follow each entry in parentheses.)
amari, m. Biblioteca Arabo-Sicula. Versione Italiana. 2 vols. Turin and
Rome, 1880-81. (B.A.S.) Archivio Storico Siciliano. (A.S.S.)
bouquet, m. et al. Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France. 23 vols.
Paris, 1738—1876. New Series, Paris, 1899-(in progress). (R.H.F.) caruso, g. b. Bibliotheca Historica Regni Siciliae. 2 vols. Palermo, 1723.
(C.B.H.)
Corpus Scriptorum Historiae By^antinae. Bonn, 1828-97. (C.S.H.B.)
graevius, j. c. Thesaurus antiquitatum et historiarum Italiae, Neapolis, Siciliae, Sardiniae, Corsicae, Melitae, atque adj. terrarum insularumque. 10 vols, in 45 fol. Leyden, 1704-25. (Vol. X, which is so called only in the general index, is that specifically relative to Sicily and has 15 parts.) (G.T.A.)
guizot, f. Collection des Memoires Relatifs a I'Histoire de France. 29 vols.
Paris, 1823-27. (G.M.H.F.) jaffe, p. Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum. 6 vols. Berlin, 1864-73.
(J.B.R.G.)
---- Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ab cond. Feci, ad a. 1198. 2nd edn.,
2 vols. Leipzig, 1885-88. (J.R.P.R.) Liber Pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne. 2 vols. Paris, 1886-92. (L.P.) migne, j. p. Patrologia Latina. 221 vols. Paris, 1844-55. (M.P.L.) Monumenta Bambergensa, ed. Jaffe. J.B.R.G., vol. V.
Monumenta Germaniae Historica, ed. G. H. Pertz, T. Mommsen et al.
Hanover, 1826- (in progress). (M.G.H.) Monumenta Gregoriana, ed. Jaffe. J.B.R.G., vol. II.
muratori, l. a. Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. 25 vols in 28. Milan, 1723-51.
New Series, ed. G. Carducci and V. Fiorini. Citta di Castello—Bologna,
1900- (in progress). (R.I.S.) re, g. del Cronisti e Scrittori Sincroni della Domina^ione Normanna nel Regno
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stubbs, w. Select Charters. Oxford, 1870. (S.C.)
watterich, j. m. Pontificum Romanorum qui fuerunt inde ab exeunte saeculo IX usque finem saeculi XIII vitae ab aequalibus conscriptae. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1862. (W.P.R.)
2. Individual Sources
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2 vols. Paris, 1836. (Vols V and VI of Recueil de Voyages et de Memoires,
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R.C.S.S., vol. II (with Italian tr.). al-MAQRisi Histoire d'Egypte. French tr. by E. Blochet. Paris, 1908. al-marrakeshi Histoire des Almohades. French tr. by E. Fagnan. Algiers,
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ambroise L'Estoire de la Guerre Sainte. Ed. and tr. into modern French by Gaston Paris. Paris, 1897. English
tr. and notes by M. J. Hubert and J. L. La Monte. New York, 1941.
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anonym us vaticanus Historia Sicula. In R.I.S., vol. VIII.
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becket, st thomas Epistolae. In M.P.L., vol. 190. See also in Materials for the History of Becket, ed. J. C. Robertson, vols. V-VII. (Rolls Series, 67, 1875-85).
benedict of Peterborough Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry II and Richard I, transcribed by the order of B. of P. Ed. Stubbs, Rolls Series, vol. 49, London 1867. (Now established as the work of Roger of Hoveden, q.v.)
benjamin of tudela Itinerary. Tr. with notes by M. N. Adler. London, 1907.
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Historia Welforum Weingartensis. Ed. Weiland. In M.G.H. Scriptores, vol. XXI.
ibn abi dinar Kitab al-Munis. Ed. with Italian tr. by M. Amari. In B.A.S. ibn al-athir Kamel al Tawarikh. Ed. with Italian tr. by M. Amari. In B.A.S.
ibn jubair The Travels of Ibn Jubair. Tr. R. J. C. Broadhurst. London, 1952.
ibn khaldun Kitab al Ibr. Italian tr. of relevant passages by M. Amari in B.A.S.
Ignoti Monachi Cisterciensis S. Mariae de Ferraria Chronica. Ed. Gaudenzi.
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Scriptores, vol. XX. English tr. by C. C. Mierow, New York, 1928.
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