No More Learning

With the fall of this
town perished the Norman dominion of Africa. At first sight it seems


## p. 195 (#241) ############################################

Revolt of Norman nobles
195
as though William I did little to defend his African possessions. Very
probably the abandonment of Africa was dictated by political necessity.
At Palermo it was regarded as inadvisable to undertake a struggle with the
mighty Almohad Empire at the very moment when war with Barbarossa
seemed imminent; and it was preferable to keep intact the forces of the
kingdom, which might soon have to struggle for its very existence.
At the beginning of 1160 the position of the kingdom of Sicily,
which was at peace with the Greek Empire and allied with the Pope
and the Lombard towns, was unquestionably much stronger than at the
accession of William I, thanks to the policy pursued by the Grand Emir,
Maio of Bari. It was at the very moment when the latter might have
hoped to reap the harvest of his skill that he was assassinated.
Since the revolt in 1156, Maio's influence had constantly increased,
to the great dissatisfaction of the nobles, who regarded the minister as
responsible for the severe measures taken after William's victory, and
were profoundly irritated because they were not allowed a share in the
government of the State. Maio was equally unpopular with the in-
habitants of the large towns, where he was blamed for the royal decisions
which had attacked their municipal liberties, and also for the increase of
the financial burdens which weighed on the bourgeois. A plot against
the all-powerful minister was organised, in which the principal part was
assigned to the Italian vassals of the King of Sicily. Richard of Aquila,
Count of Fondi, Gilbert, Count of Gravina, and Roger, Count of Acerra,
were the leaders of the movement. They came to an understanding with
the exiled Norman nobles and with the inhabitants of certain towns.
When the revolt broke out, the leaders of the movement declared that
they desired only to deliver the king from an imprudent minister who
aspired to usurp the throne. In reality the conspirators were equally
hostile to William I, whom they wished to replace by his son Roger.
On 10 November 1161 one of the conspirators, Matthew Bonnel, as-
sassinated the Grand Emir. For some time William did not dare to
take vengeance on the guilty, but was forced to entrust the government
to Henry Aristippus, Archdeacon of Catania, who was friendly with
Maio's murderers. Emboldened by their impunity, the conspirators
succeeded in taking possession of the royal palace of Palermo, where
they seized the person of the king (9 March 1161), who only owed his
deliverance to the popular riots excited by the bishops then present at
court. Even when set at liberty, the king had still to disguise his
wrath and to treat with the rebels. But as soon as he felt himself strong
enough, William I arrested Matthew Bonnel, whose eyes were put out.
Immediately after Easter (16 April) 1161, the king marched against the
Sicilian rebels, who were forced to treat with him; they only obtained
pardon on condition that they left the kingdom. Sicily being subdued,
the king crossed to Italy, where the revolt headed by Robert of Loritello
had spread on all sides. Calabria, Apulia, and the Terra di Lavoro were
H. v.
13_2


## p. 196 (#242) ############################################

196
Death of William I
forced in turn to recognise the royal authority. Anxious to make ex-
amples, the king imposed on all the towns a supplementary tax called
redemptio; moreover he ordered Salerno to be rased to the ground, and
it was only saved by the intervention of Matthew of Ajello, one of the
principal officials at court, who was a native of the city. This successful
campaign enabled the king to punish the most highly-placed culprits;
on his return to Palermo he threw Henry Aristippus into prison, and
pursued all the supporters of Matthew Bonnel with the utmost severity.
After the arrest of Henry Aristippus, William entrusted the govern-
ment to Count Silvester of Marsico, to Richard Palmer, the Bishop-
elect of Syracuse, and to the Master Notary, Matthew of Ajello; after
Silvester's death the Grand Chamberlain Peter was associated with the
other two. Trained in the school of Maio, Matthew of Ajello was the
inheritor of his political traditions, and up to the end of William's reign
Norman policy pursued the same course.
The great aim of this policy was to prevent Barbarossa from in-
vading South Italy. Frederick indeed had not abandoned his plans
of intervention. The alliance with Sicily was one of his chief grounds
of complaint against Alexander III, and in 1160 he resumed nego-
tiations to gain the support of Manuel Comnenus. After the fall of
Milan he formed a treaty with Pisa and Genoa to conquer the Norman
kingdom (March 1162). The expedition, which was constantly postponed,
appeared at last about to start in 1164; but the league of Verona pre-
vented Barbarossa from realising his designs.
Meanwhile the King of Sicily remained obstinately faithful to the
cause of the Pope and benefited by the progress made by him. From
1159 to 1161 Alexander III, who had not been able to hold his own
in Rome, remained almost continually close to the Norman frontier
ready to apply for shelter to William in case of need. After his return
from France in 1165, the Pope landed at Messina, and it was Norman
troops who, on 23 November 1165, established him in the Lateran.
The reinstatement of the Pope in Rome was the last success achieved
by William I, who died on 7 May 1166. Even to the last the King of
Sicily was faithful to the papal alliance, and on his death-bed he be-
queathed to the Pope a considerable sum.
Judged as a whole, William's reign was not devoid of greatness, and it
is evident that he has been unfairly treated by historians. Placed in
particularly difficult circumstances, he succeeded in averting the dangers
which threatened his dominions. He undoubtedly displayed excessive
severity in repressing rebellions by his subjects, but it must not be for-
gotten that these occurred when the enemy was at the very gates of his
kingdom. There are consequently many excuses to be found for him,
and it must also be remembered that even his bitterest enemy, the
chronicler Hugo Falcandus, was forced to regret him when he con-
templated the anarchy which followed his reign.


## p. 197 (#243) ############################################

Minority of William II: Council of Regency
197
Duke Roger, the king's eldest son, had been killed by a stray arrow
on the occasion when the king was liberated by the people; the crown
consequently devolved on the second son William. On his death-bed
William I entrusted the regency to his wife Margaret, daughter of
Garcia VI Ramirez, King of Navarre, and recommended his chosen coun-
sellors as worthy of her confidence.
The accession of the new king aroused great hopes in all his subjects,
and his youth caused everyone to regard him with sympathy. It was
expected that the queen-regent would be more lenient than her husband,
and that she would be forced to make concessions to the nobles and the
cities. Margaret wished to call a new man to her assistance in governing,
and having summoned her cousin, Stephen of Perche, from France,
she bestowed on him the appointments of Chancellor and Archbishop
of Palermo. This choice was unpopular with everyone, and the new
chancellor encountered formidable opposition. The leading nobles of
the kingdom and the councillors of the queen-regent combined against
him, and were joined by all those who considered themselves injured by
the reforms which the new chancellor attempted to introduce into the
administration, or by the favours granted to the Frenchmen who had
come in his train. Stephen of Perche succeeded in foiling the first
plot; but the conspirators contrived to obtain possession of Messina,
and on receipt of these tidings an insurrection broke out at Palermo.
Stephen was besieged in the campanile of the cathedral, and was obliged
to treat with the rebels. His life was spared on condition that he left
the kingdom.
The coalition which achieved Stephen's downfall was the logical
consequence of the aristocratic attempts to reduce the royal power. A
common hatred of foreigners reconciled all the parties which had hitherto
striven with one another in rivalry. For some time the queen-regent
was entirely deprived of any exercise of authority, as the rebels estab-
lished a council consisting of ten members of the royal Curia—Richard
Palmer, Bishop of Syracuse; Gentile, Bishop of Girgenti; Romuald,
Archbishop of Salerno; John, Bishop of Malta; Roger, Count of Geraci;
Richard, Count of Molise; Henry, Count of Montescaglioso; Matthew of
Ajello; Richard the Kaid; and Walter Ophamil, Dean of Girgenti (like
Palmer, an Englishman), who was the king's tutor and was consecrated
Archbishop of Palermo in September 1169. He soon played a very
important part, and appears to have deprived the Council of Ten of the
powers which they had usurped. Supported by Matthew of Ajello,
Walter excluded the representatives of the aristocracy from the council,
and very soon reverted to the governmental tradition of Roger II and
William I. And when William II reached his majority, the Archbishop
of Palermo still retained his confidence.
Under William II Norman policy as regards the Papacy and the
Germanic Empire for many years remained identical with that of the
CA. IV.


## p. 198 (#244) ############################################

198
Marriage-alliance with the Hohenstaufen
previous reign. The King of Sicily was the more inclined to support the
papal cause, because in 1166, when Barbarossa invaded Italy, everyone
thought that the Emperor intended to attack the Norman kingdom in
the following year. But when Frederick was about to advance towards
the south, he was summoned to Rome by the victory of Christian of
Mayence at Monteporzio. In these critical circumstances Alexander III
found support from the Normans, and the Sicilian galleys penetrated the
Tiber as far as Rome. Alexander III did not take advantage of the
proffered assistance, preferring to remain in the Eternal City, but a little
later, when he took refuge at Benevento, he was again protected by
Norman troops. The formation of the Lombard League prevented
Barbarossa from interfering in South Italy, as before he could deal
with the Norman kingdom he had to conquer North Italy, the whole
of which was in arms. William II on his side did not stint his subsidies
to the League; and in 1173, when Frederick tried to detach him from
the papal alliance, the Norman king refused to fall in with the imperial
views. At the Peace of Venice the Norman envoys played a leading part
in the negotiations which preceded the conclusion of peace, and it was
owing to their support that Alexander III succeeded in overcoming the
difficulties raised by the Emperor and the Venetians. By the Peace a
truce of fifteen years was assured between the Norman kingdom and the
Germanic Empire. But henceforward William II modified his attitude
towards the Papacy. When Lucius III, who succeeded Alexander III,
was in his turn on bad terms with the Emperor (1184), William refused
to side with the Pope. Intent on distant conquests of which we shall
presently speak, the King of Sicily saw no use in risking a struggle with
the Empire. The Treaty of Constance (1183) had put an end to the
Lombard League, and William II was faced by the possibility of being
the Pope's only champion in a conflict; he preferred to come to terms
with Barbarossa, who had recently approached him to obtain the hand
of Constance, Roger II's daughter, for his son Henry. As William II
was childless, the Emperor hoped that the Norman kingdom might be
secured for his son, Constance being the legitimate heir. On 29
October 1184 the betrothal was announced at Augsburg, and on 28
August 1185 Constance was handed over to the imperial envoys at
Rieti.
His alliance with Alexander III had enabled William II to play an
important part in the great events which occupied European diplomacy
during his reign. He was brought into relations with the King of England
in connexion with Henry II's quarrel with Thomas Becket, and eventually
in 1176 he married Henry's daughter Joan. This marriage brought the
two countries closer together, and many Englishmen came to settle in
Sicily.
Norman policy towards the Greek Emperor underwent a series of
changes during William II's reign. About 1167 Manuel Comnenus


## p. 199 (#245) ############################################

Eastern schemes of William II
199
definitely demanded from Alexander III the restoration of imperial
unity, with himself as sole Emperor of East and West. As he feared
that the King of Sicily would oppose this plan, he at once approached
the court of Palermo with an offer to marry his daughter Maria, heiress
to his dominions, to the young King William II. Nothing further is
known as to the relations between the two courts until 1171, when
owing to his quarrel with the Venetians Manuel reverted to this proposed
marriage, and it was agreed that the Byzantine princess should arrive in
Taranto in the spring of 1172. But when William went to meet his
bride on the appointed day, she was not there. Probably by that time
Manuel had entered on fresh negotiations with a view to arranging the
marriage of his daughter to Barbarossa's son.
William II was deeply offended at the insult offered him, and resolved
to be avenged. He began by forming an alliance with the Venetians
(1175) and the Genoese (1174), thus depriving the Byzantines of possible
allies, and as soon as a favourable opportunity occurred he dispatched
troops to conquer Constantinople. When after Manuel's death Andro-
nicus Comnenus dethroned Alexius II (1184), the King of Sicily took
advantage of the disturbances which broke out in the Greek Empire
to declare war. As in bygone days Guiscard had used a pseudo-
Michael VII, so William now made use of a spurious Alexius to gain
partisans among the Byzantines. From the Norman kingdom an army
of, it is said, eighty thousand men was gathered under the command of a
certain Baldwin and of Richard, Count of Acerra. The fleet was com-
manded by Tancred of Lecce. In June 1185 the Normans took Durazzo
and advanced on Salonica, which was invested at the beginning of
August. After the fall of this town, they marched on Constantinople
and proceeded as far as Seres and Mosinopolis. Near the latter town
was fought the decisive battle, wherein the Normans, treacherously
attacked while negotiations were proceeding, were overwhelmed by the
Byzantines. All the conquered cities were quickly recaptured from the
invaders, only Durazzo remaining in their hands for a time. William II
indeed carried on the war by sending his fleet under the command of the
Admiral Margaritus to support Isaac Comnenus who had been pro-
claimed Emperor; but he came to terms with the Emperor Isaac Angelus
before 1189, although we do not know the exact date when the war
ended.
In sending his troops to attempt the conquest of Constantinople,
William II was reverting to the grandiose policy of expansion formerly
pursued by Robert Guiscard and Roger II. His Moorish policy was
derived from the same sources. It is, however, specially in these matters
that we can trace the personal influence of the king, for we know that
his ministers were opposed to these distant expeditions; moreover, when
he dispatched his ships to attack the Moorish possessions, William II
was not only considering the Sicilian trade, he was not only seeking to
CH. 1.


## p. 200 (#246) ############################################

200
Death of William II: disputed succession
1
assure communications between the Western world and the Holy Places,
but he was ambitious to pose as the protector of the Christian com-
munities of the Levant. This explains why in his reign the Norman
fleets specially directed their attacks against the Muslims of Egypt.
Only the Normans supported the King of Jerusalem in his proposed
campaign against Egypt, which was prevented by his death (1174). In
like manner during the ensuing years, even while William was treating
with the Almohades, he continued to send his sailors to lay waste the
coasts of Egypt and to pillage Tinnīs (1175-1177). These naval ex-
peditions were interrupted by the war with the Greeks, but were resumed
when the Christians of the Levant appealed to the West. The King of
Sicily was one of the first to assume the cross on the occasion of the
Third Crusade. He aspired to lead the expedition, and the engagements
he entered into with some of the leaders of the Crusade (aused serious
embarrassment to his successor. Death prevented William II (18 November
1189) from realising his design, but the Norman fleet had already set sail
for the East, and the exploits of its admiral Margaritus off the coast near
Laodicea (Lāțiqiyah) cast a halo of glory round the last days of his reign.
Of all the Norman sovereigns William II is the one of whose character
we know least. He seems to have been devoid of the vigorous qualities
of his race, for he never took personal command of his army and pre-
ferred a life of ease and pleasure in the seclusion of his palace to the life
of the camp. But it was precisely this contrast to his predecessors which
caused his popularity. People were weary of the despotic authority exercised
by Roger and William I; they breathed a sigh of relief at the accession
of William II, and the tranquillity of his reign was almost too much
appreciated, while deep gratitude was felt towards the sovereign who had
bestowed these benefits. Regretted by his subjects, William "the Good"
continued to be regarded in Italy as the ideal type of king,
Rex ille magnificus,
Pacificus,
Cuius vita placuit
Deo et hominibus;
and when Dante gave him a place in Paradise he was only echoing
popular sentiment?
As William left no children, Constance, daughter of Roger II, was
legitimate heiress to the crown of Sicily. Before her departure for Ger-
many, William II had made his vassals swear fealty to her, thus clearly
indicating his wishes, which were however disregarded. While one party,
led by Walter, Archbishop of Palermo, was anxious that the royal will
should be executed, two other parties, which had nothing in common save
their hatred of the Germans, wished to elect a king, one supporting
1 Cf. infra, Chapter viii, and supra, Vol. iv, Chapter xii, p. 377.
? Paradiso, xx, 66. The Latin threnody is by Richard of San Germano, MGH,
Script. xix, 324 (SGUS, p. 5).
1


## p. 201 (#247) ############################################

Tancred and Henry VI
201
Roger of Andria, the other Tancred, Count of Lecce, illegitimate son of
Duke Roger, and thus grandson of Roger II. Tancred was chosen
(January 1190? ), thanks to Matthew of Ajello, who was rewarded with the
appointment of Chancellor. From the very outset he was faced by the
most serious difficulties. A Muslim insurrection broke out in Sicily; in
Italy the partisans of Roger of Andria revolted and espoused Henry VI's
cause out of hatred for Tancred; finally, the arrival of the Third Crusade
at Messina was the source of the gravest embarrassment to the new
king
Richard of Acerra, Tancred's brother-in-law, succeeded in restoring
order in Italy and in seizing Roger of Andria, while Tancred conceded
numerous privileges to the burghers of the towns and thus sought to
secure their support against the feudal nobility. At the same time the
king was carrying on very troublesome negotiations with the crusaders
in Italy. Richard Coeur-de-Lion had complained even before his arrival
in Messina that his sister Joan, widow of William II, was detained in
captivity and had not received her jointure. Moreover, he demanded
an important legacy bequeathed by the deceased king to Henry II of
England, to wit, a golden table twelve feet in length and a foot and a
half in breadth, a silken tent large enough to contain two hundred
knights, twenty-four golden cups, a hundred galleys equipped for two
years, and sixty thousand loads of wheat, barley, and wine.
Tancred met these demands by setting Joan at liberty and giving her
a million taris as jointure, but Richard was annoyed because all his
claims had not been satisfied and, on his arrival at Messina, he occupied
Bagnara on the Italian coast; subsequently, disagreements having arisen
between the English and the people of Messina, he took possession of the
city by force and built a wooden tower which he mockingly called “Mâte
Grifon” (Slaughter-Greek). In the end Tancred came to terms with the
irascible King of England; he indemnified Queen Joan by giving her
another twenty thousand ounces of gold. In return for an equal sum
Richard I renounced William II's legacy and agreed to arrange a marriage
between his nephew Arthur of Brittany and one of the King of Sicily's
daughters. Moreover Richard promised to uphold Tancred as long as he
remained in the latter's dominions. There is little doubt that the alliance
was directed against Henry VI, Constance's husband, but this clause of
the treaty was of no assistance to Tancred's interests, for after the de-
parture of the crusaders for the Holy Land (March and April 1191) he
remained in isolation to confront the German invasion.
Ever since 1190 Henry VI had determined to claim his wife's in-
heritance by force. He was delayed by the death of his father, which took
place during the Crusade, but was soon in a position to resume his
Italian plans. In March 1191 he renewed the treaty of 1162 with Pisa;
about the same time he entered into negotiations with Genoa, which
were concluded a little later. He appeared outside Rome just after the
CH. II.


## p. 202 (#248) ############################################

202
Death of Tancred
death of Pope Clement III, and the cardinals hastened to elect a suc-
cessor before the arrival of the German troops (30 March 1191). The
new Pope, Celestine III, was called upon to crown the Emperor the day
after his own consecration (15 April). Immediately afterwards Henry VI
directed his march towards southern Italy. There Hocked round him not
only the exiled Normans but also a large number of the nobles who had
taken part in the last insurrection. The German expedition advanced
with great ease, and it was almost without serious fighting that the
Emperor laid siege to Naples, where the Norman troops had concentrated.
While Henry was besieging Naples, the people of Salerno made their
submission. The Empress Constance then repaired to Salerno and estab-
lished herself in the royal palace of Terracina, where she remained
when, in the course of the summer, an epidemic forced the Emperor to
raise the siege of Naples and retire to the north. But he left garrisons
in all the towns that had adopted his cause, and retained occupation of
the conquered territory.
After the departure of the Germans, the people of Salerno were much
ashamed of their disloyalty, and to conciliate Tancred they handed over
Constance to him. During the summer of 1191 Tancred crossed to Italy;
he succeeded in wresting several towns from the Germans, among them
Capua. He could not however drive out Henry's troops; hostilities con-
tinued for some years, and the Germans managed to hold their ground
in the district of Monte Cassino, while on the other hand the King of
Sicily established his authority in the Abruzzi.
In expectation of the German Emperor making a fresh attack, Tancred
sought to secure the aid of Byzantium, and arranged a marriage between
his son Roger and Irene, daughter of Isaac Angelus. At the same time,
in order to obtain the protection of Pope Celestine III, the King of Sicily
agreed by the concordat of Gravina (1192) to relinquish the rights
which the Treaty of Benevento had granted to the kingdom of Sicily.
The mediation of the Pope with the Emperor, however, was un-
successful, and Celestine III proffered no other assistance to Tancred.
He even gave him the unpalatable advice to liberate Constance. Tancred
followed this unhappy suggestion, and thus deprived himself of the hostage
whom chance had placed in his hands.
Tancred, however, did not live to witness the victory of Henry VI,
for he died on 20 February 1194. He has been held up to ridicule by
Peter of Eboli, who gloats over his ugly face and dwarfish stature; but
he does not deserve the jibes of this poetical adulator of the German
conquest, for it cannot be denied that during his short tenancy of the
throne he displayed rare qualities as a military commander, which enabled
him to offer resistance under almost hopeless conditions.
The king's elder son and crowned colleague Roger having predeceased
him, the crown devolved on the second son William III,
still
very
young. The regency was in the hands of the queen, Sibylla, sister of
who was


## p. 203 (#249) ############################################

Victory of Henry VI
203
Count Richard of Acerra. The German Emperor had therefore only a
woman and an infant to oppose him in the conquest of the Norman
kingdom. Henry VI indeed had not relinquished his plans; he had been
delayed by events in Germany, but was ready to take the field in 1194.
In January of that year he concluded the treaty of Vercelli with the
Lombard towns, so as to ensure that neither the Pope nor the King of
Sicily should find allies among them. Having quelled in March 1194 the
revolt of the house of the Welfs in Germany, Henry VI opened the
campaign. He carefully arranged that he should be supported by the fleets
of Pisa and Genoa.
The characteristic feature of the expedition was the ease of his con-
quest. There does not seem to have been any attempt at resistance, as
from the outset the cause of William III was regarded as hopeless. As
soon as Henry VI appeared outside a town, its gates were thrown open
to him. Only the people of Salerno, who feared chastisement for their
treachery, dared to resist, whereupon their city was taken by storm. In
Sicily Sibylla vainly endeavoured to withstand him; she suffered the
mortification of seeing the inhabitants of Palermo open the gates of the
capital to the Emperor (20 November 1194). Having Hled to Caltabellotta
with her son, she accepted the peace proposals made by Henry VI, who
offered William the county of Lecce and the principality of Taranto,
and on Christmas Day 1194 the Emperor was crowned King of Sicily at
Palermo in her presence and that of her son. Four days later, on the pretext
of their complicity in a plot, the queen and the principal nobles of the
kingdom were arrested. The Emperor has been severely blamed for these
arrests, and has been accused of having forged all the documents proving
the existence of a plot and of having caused the death of the prisoners.
He has been partially exonerated on this score. In 1194 there was no
blood-thirsty repression, and there apparently was a plot. On the other
hand, there is no doubt that, after the great insurrections against the
German domination which broke out in 1196 and 1197, Henry VI did
order wholesale executions. He not only punished the instigators of the
revolt, but also directed that some of the prisoners of 1194 who had
taken no part in it should have their eyes put out. Consequently, even if
we adopt the most favourable hypothesis, Henry VI's conduct must
appear excessively cruel, as he punished individuals who, having been in
German prisons for two years, must necessarily have been innocent of
complicity in the later events.
The fate of William III, last of the Norman kings, is unknown;
according to some reports Henry VI caused him to be mutilated, according
to others Tancred's son became a monk.
The administrative organisation established by the Norman kings
in South Italy and Sicily was not less remarkable than their political
achievement. Two facts dominate the history of the Norman organisation
CH, P.


## p. 204 (#250) ############################################

204 Legal and social organisation of the Norman kingdom
laws ne
and explain its methods: the very small numbers of the conquerors and
the sparseness also of the indigenous population. Even after the con-
querors had been strengthened by a further immigration, still none too
large, of their compatriots, they were never sufficiently numerous to out-
weigh the native races; they were obliged to attract settlers from all parts
to populate vacant lands, and to retain their ascendency they were led
to concede equal importance to the institutions, customs, and characters
of all the races they found represented in the regions they subjugated.
Hence although French remained the court language, the Norman
Chancery made use of Greek, Latin, or Arabic, according to the nation-
ality of those to whom they dispatched the royal diplomas. The same
principle recurs in private law, and in the preamble of the Assises of
Ariano in 1140 the greatest Norman king decreed as follows: “The
promulgated by our authority are binding on everyone. . . but
without prejudice to the habits, customs, and laws of the peoples subject
to our authority, each in its own sphere. . .
unless any one of these laws or
customs should be manifestly opposed to our decrees. ” We find an ex-
pression of the same spirit in the manner in which Roger II and his
successors borrowed from various legal systems those elements of public
law which they considered most advantageous to their dynasty and most
easily applicable to the conquered country. Thus Norman public law
seems to be a mixture partly of Justinianean and Byzantine, partly of
feudal law. Recently H. Niese has endeavoured to prove that in Sicilian
law there was an element of Norman law, the importance of which he
may have exaggerated.
The greatest social change which the Normans introduced into their
new domain was, perhaps, feudalism in the true sense of the word.
Neither the Lombards of the south nor the Byzantines had known vassal-
age or fiefs, however much hereditary counts and nobles may have formed
a fitting prelude to feudalism proper. But by the reign of Roger II we
find a feudal hierarchy of princes, dukes, counts, and barons, holding fiefs
by military tenure under homage and fealty, and usually enjoying feudal
jurisdiction, at least in civil causes. Below and beside them stand the
simple knights with or without fiefs. Roger II, by decreeing that only
the son of a knight could himself be knighted, endeavoured to form the
whole feudal body into a kind of caste. In its general outlines this
system was not different from that of Normandy. The mass of the
peasantry were either actual serfs, bound to their plots, many of whom
(the defensuti), not unlike the German ministeriales, were specially liable
to military service, or men who, though personally free, held their land
by servile tenure. The new settlers, called in to people vacant lands,
were naturally favoured by their own customs. But there were also large,
if diminishing, survivals of non-feudal freeholders, mostly townsmen,
who fully owned their property absque servitio. Slaves were not very
numerous, and no Christians, save Slavs only, could by custom-law be
1


## p. 205 (#251) ############################################

Administrative organisation
205
bought and sold as such. The non-noble population as a whole were
liable to the angariae, i. e. the repair of roads and castles and the like.
The peasants had already adopted the habit of living together in small
towns for the sake of safety, and, just as happens to-day in Sicily, a man's
plot of ground might lie some miles from his dwelling-place. The
burdens on the peasant were indeed heavy and his lot was hard, but it
was mitigated by the growth of custom, favoured by his value to his
lord and by the strictness of the royal administration.
From a religious point of view the Norman kings borrowed their
conception of a theocratic monarchy from Byzantium, but their spirit of
tolerance mitigated the exaggerated results which might have attended
this principle. The “pious” king, the “defender of the Christians,"
insisted that he was crowned by God” and is shewn in the mosaics
of the churches receiving the diadem from Christ. It was, said Roger II
in his Assises, “equal to sacrilege (par sacrilegio) to cavil at his judg-
ments, his laws, deeds, and counsels. " Further, the privilege of the Apos-
tolic Legateship conferred on the Norman sovereigns an authority over
part of the Latin clergy in their dominions such as was possessed by no
other monarch of that period. Nevertheless they allowed free exercise of
their religion to the Muslims from the start, and to the Greeks after a
comparatively short interval from the conquest.
The administrative organisation established in their states was the
most characteristic creation of the Norman rulers. At the heart of this
skilfully constructed system was the king, who governed with the assist-
ance of the Curia Regis, in whose hands were concentrated all powers.
Gradually there came into being various departments, a Court of Justice,
side by side with a Financial Council (Archons of the Secretum) which
was itself divided into several sections (dohana (diwān] a secretis, dohana
baronum), equipped with official registers, according to the business with
which it had to deal. In the Curia we find both lay and ecclesiastical
vassals, as well as chosen counsellors of the king, the familiares, from
whom were recruited the members of the Privy Council (ń wpatalà kóptn),
known as the Lords of the Curia (Domini Curiae). Among them the
great officials of the kingdom held the chief place. The Emir of Emirs or
Admiral (ammiratus ammiratorum) had at first perhaps the charge of
the Muslim population as well as the command of the fleet, a duty from
which the modern title Admiral for a naval commander is derived, but
under Roger II the Admiral George of Antioch became practically a
prime minister or Grand Vizier. The office was left unfilled after the
death of Maio, and the Chancellor, whose office was also often left vacant,
was, when nominated, the chief royal minister. Over the finances was set
the Grand Chamberlain, who became the chief of the Financial Council
when that emerged. Dependent on one or other of the two great bodies-
the Court of Justice or the Financial Council—there were ranked the
officials of the provinces. These by the time of William II consisted of
CU. IV,


## p. 206 (#252) ############################################

206
Admixture of East and West
the Master Justiciaries, Master Chamberlains, and Master Constables (all
over groups of provinces), and the older posts of Justiciars (for justice),
Chamberlains (for finance), and Constables (for troops), each for a single
province. They had under their orders local subordinates, e. g. catapans,
strategi, viscounts, baiuli, cadis, judges, many of whom still retained the
old Greek, Lombard, or Saracen titles.
Thanks to this hierarchy of officials, royal authority was in all parts
powerfully exercised over its subjects. This is particularly shewn by two
facts. None of the cities in the Norman kingdom ever succeeded in
constituting itself a free town; even the greatest of them had at its head
an official appointed by the king. And, with very rare exceptions, none
of the vassals of the Crown, whose obligations towards the king were
regulated by feudal law, possessed the right of trying criminal cases;
these the king reserved for himself.
The power of the monarchy at home and abroad was increased by its
wealth. From many sources a treasure was amassed which was still con-
siderable when Henry VI captured it at Palermo. In addition to the
revenue derived from the royal demesnes, the profits of justice, and the
usual feudal aids (called in the Norman kingdom the collecta), including
purveyance, the kings raised a variously-named tribute analogous to the
English Danegeld, and drew large sums from tolls and duties, such as
the lucrative port-dues levied on the ships which thronged their harbours.
The kings themselves engaged in trade. The manufacture of silk, intro-
duced by Roger II, was a royal monopoly, and his royal mantle still
preserved shews how exquisite the new art could be.
Even in art we find the combination of various elements resulting in
a new and harmonious whole As creators or promoters of a civilisation
which was enriched on all sides by the most varied influences, the Norman
kings aspired to leave behind them witnesses of their achievements-
monuments capable of attesting the power and originality of a conception
which sought to recognise every living element in the races they governed
and to represent truthfully the particular nature, spirit, and quality of each
of these races in the close collaboration of all. Although some of the
monuments erected under their supervision have a definitely Eastern
character, such as the palaces of La Zisa or La Cuba, most of the buildings
which they constructed present a happy combination of Norman, Byzan-
tine, and Saracenic art. As the finest examples of this composite art
it is enough to mention the Cappella Palatina at Palermo, the cathedral
of Monreale, and the church of Cefalù.
The mosaic of manners and customs due to the juxtaposition of different
races was also evident in the life of the great cities of the Norman king-
dom. Never indeed was there any fusion between the races existing
therein. Greeks, Italians, Normans, Saracens, all continued to dwell in
the same towns subject to the same authority, but faithful to their own
customs and traditions.


## p. 207 (#253) ############################################

Decay of the royal house
207
The court at Palermo exhibited the same diversity as was elsewhere
visible. There the king appeared in a costume derived alike from Byzantine
ceremonial, from Western chivalry, and from the magnificence of the
Saracenic East. For his protection there were two bodyguards, one of
knights, the other of negroes under the command of a Muslim. In the
army there was the same mixture, Norman knights arrayed beside
Saracen troops in striking costumes. In the train of the sovereign, Latin,
Greek, and Muslim officials were in constant intercourse. At Roger II's
court the Arab geographer Idrīsi, the Greek author Nilus Doxapatrius,
and the Emir Eugenius who translated Ptolemy's Optics into Latin,
might be found side by side. Arabic poets composed poems in honour
of the royal family. Abū-ad-Dah bewailed the death of Duke Roger;
'Abd-ar-Raḥmān sang the charms of one of the royal palaces. At
William I's court Henry Aristippus translated the works of St Gregory
Nazianzen by desire of the king, and undertook the translation of the
Phaedo and the fourth book of Aristotle's Meteorologica.
Affected by contact with Eastern civilisation, the Norman sovereigns
allowed themselves to adopt the morals of their Moorish courtiers with a
facility which was a credit to their eclecticism, but which gradually
weakened their energy and dignity; and their example was undoubtedly
followed by most of the nobles at court. If the sons of the Norman
conquerors all suffered more or less from the pernicious influence of
these new customs combined with the effect of an unaccustomed climate,
nowhere was this degeneracy so rapid and so intense as in the royal
family. Most of the sons of Roger II died young; the number of children
diminished with William I, and William II was childless. The extinction
of the royal family only preceded the fall of the Norman domination by
a few years; it was at once a cause and a sign. Between the various
elements which formed the Norman kingdom, elements which differed too
widely ever to blend into a coherent and durable whole, the person of the
king supplied the only link, a link which necessarily disappeared with
his disappearance, for Constance was not regarded as the daughter of
Roger II but as the German Empress. With Henry VI there began a
new period in the history of South Italy and of Sicily, and it may be said
that the conquest in 1194 marked the close of the Norman domination.
CH. I.


## p. 208 (#254) ############################################

208
CHAPTER V.
THE ITALIAN CITIES TILL c. 1200.
1
No more characteristic phenomenon of the prime of the Middle Age
can be found than the self-governing town. It existed, more or less fully
developed, in the chief countries of the West, and we shall hardly err in
attributing its rise and growth to economic causes of equally general
prevalence. It was the resurgence of trade, of manufacture for a wide
market, after the anarchic, miserable ninth and tenth centuries, which
produced town and townsman, merchant and craft. The conditions of
the times imprinted on the medieval town other universal characters.
Safety and orderly life were impossible save in association, in group life,
and the associated burghers replaced or competed with the feudal or kin-
ship groups which preceded them. Local and personal law was the rule,
and the law of merchant and town took its place by the side of other
local and class customs. Central authority in greater or less degree was
shattered, and the town, like the baron, obtained its fraction of autonomy.
Whatever the degree of their independence, the shackled English boroughs,
the French towns in all their varieties, the republics of Flanders and the
Hanse, and the Italian communes, obey the same impulse and bear a
family resemblance.
Yet while the medieval towns are obviously akin, the divergences
among them in character and history are deep and wide; and most
aberrant from the rest, if the most pronounced and perfect of the type,
are the Italian city-states. Like their congeners, indeed, they owed their
florescence ultimately to geographical factors. Some, like Venice and
Pisa, were ports on the sea; others were halting-places at the fords or
junction of rivers, like Cremona; others, like Verona, were at the mouths
of passes; others punctuated the immemorial roads, like Siena or Bologna;
others, perhaps, were merely safe centres in a fertile land, clots of popula-
tion, which could produce un-bled by feudal tyranny. The whole land,
too, had a temporary geographical advantage: Italy was the half-way
house between the East (and Constantinople), with its civilisation, its
luxury, and its arts, and the West, hungry for these amenities, the
most extravagant of purchasers. But, save the last, these advantages of
site were old, and the Italian cities, for the most part, were old too, or
at least conscious children of the past like Venice, and in their history
their inheritance counts for much. Bruges and Bristol were new growths,
1
1
1


## p. 209 (#255) ############################################

The towns in non-Lombard Italy
209
Padua and Milan started as cities on their medieval career. In the wreck
of the Roman Empire, at the coming of the Lombards, they had indeed
lost, even in Byzantine territory, the greater part of their city institutions
of antiquity. They were transformed beyond recognition perhaps, but
not beyond identity. The attempts of historians to shew a continuous
existence of the main institutions of civic government from Theodosius
to Frederick Barbarossa have failed, though in rare cases an office or a
title might outlive the welter; but civic instinct, civic co-operation could
survive and blend with new elements under new conditions after centuries
of revolution. For the understanding of the new growth it is necessary
first to look, though too often by a flickering and uncertain light, at the
dubious remnants of the ancient order.
It is natural that the clearest traces of late Roman institutions should
be found in those Italian cities which fell into Lombard hands either late
or never. A general description of their government before the Frankish
conquest has already been given in a previous volume', and here it will
only be necessary to touch on their organisation in Frankish and post-
Frankish times. We find that at Ravenna and Naples the curiales are
no longer a governing magisterial assembly, but a college of notaries; in
fact the town office-staff had survived the assembly they had served.
Ravenna, however, still possessed a Senate of nobles, though it may
be
questioned if it ever met as an administrative body. Its chief members,
the dukes, who belonged to but a few great families, had individually
judicial and administrative powers; and its secondary members, the
consuls, may have had some functions. At Naples consul was merely a
title enjoyed like other Byzantine ranks by many of the nobility,
i. e. of the wealthier landowners. At Rome the Senate as an assembly
had disappeared, although the title Senator belonged to the greatest
noble family. There the consules et duces, a combined title for which
that of consules Romanorum was substituted before A. D. 1000, had some
of the functions of the Ravennate dukes, while the plain consuls seem
merely to hold a title, and possibly might not be of noble birth”. The
city-militia, ranged in twelve local regiments (numeri, bandi, or scholae),
formed the nearest approach to a popular assembly in Ravenna and Rome,
while at Naples the milites were more like a warrior caste beneath the
nobles. In all three towns there are traces of the ancient trade-corpora-
tions (scholae) still subsisting. Alike in all, however, real authority is
derived, in Byzantine fashion, from the ruler, the Duke at Naples, the
Pope at Rome, and is wielded by his bureaucracy, of which the dukes
at Ravenna and the consules et duces at Rome were only subordinate
1 Vol. 11, Chap. vil(a).
? But the notaries who were consuls (L. Halphen, Études sur l'administration
de Rome au Moyen Âge, p. 29, n. 3) may well have been nobles like those of
Ravenna in the eleventh century. See G. Buzzi, Le curie arcivescovile e cittadina
di Ravenna, BISI, 35, p. 54.
14
C. MED. H. VOL. V. CH, V.


## p. 210 (#256) ############################################

210
The towns in Lombard Italy
members. The distance of Ravenna from Rome, and the desire of its
archbishop to rule it in opposition to the Pope's rights, may have allowed
a Ravennate Senate to continue; the material power of the great Roman
landowners and the local patriotism of the Roman militia may have raised
Alberic as their elected prince to exercise the temporal prerogatives of
the Popes; but in the tenth century no commune, no republican city,
save Venice perhaps, exists in Italy.
The break-down of the institutions of the ancient Empire was of
necessity far more complete in the territory conquered by the Lombards,
which accounted for the greater part of Italy. The Lombards came as
barbaric enemies of Rome; they replaced Roman organisation by simpler
institutions of their own. Here and there so-called curiales or similar
officials might exist as petty tax-gatherers and notaries. Here and there
might continue a trade-corporation, like the soap-makers of Piacenza
who at some time before 744 were paying annually thirty pounds of soap
to the king. The number of survivals may be increased by turther research.
But in general the elaborate Roman administration disappeared. It could
hardly be otherwise. Depopulated and in stagnation, with the self-
sufficing great estate or curtis as the typical economic unit, with the
mass of the population aldii or half-free peasants, with the growing class
of Roman freemen in the towns for long officially ignored by the Arian
Lombards, only the most elementary and hardiest Roman organisations
could be expected to survive. Some such, however, there were, and the
course of time increased their importance. From the first the towns could
not be deprived of their position as economic centres of their surrounding
countryside ; the curtis often had surplus produce to dispose of; Roman
crafts were torpid, not dead—the Lombard merchant and the Italian
shipwright became known abroad. The conversion of the Lombards to
Catholicism, and the inevitable intermixture of race, ended in the official
recognition of Roman as well as Lombard law by the time of Liutprand
(712-744), and the ranking of freemen in the army on a pure propert
basis by King Aistulf in 750.
It is in close connexion with their ecclesiastical arrangements, them-
selves founded on the civil organisation of the falling Empire, that we
find the earliest germs of the later North Italian communes. The diocese
corresponded usually with the Roman civitas, the unit of secular admini-
stration. The largest subdivision of the diocese was the plebs or pieve,
presided over by its archpriest and having its centre in the baptismal
church (ecclesia), in which alone for long the chief rites of religion could
be performed. The plebs was in its turn subdivided. In the country it
was a collection of villages each of which in time had its own oratory
(capella) and bore, at least later, some such name as vicinantia. The
bishop's city, however, with its suburb stretching a mile or so beyond
the walls, formed a plebs by itself, a fact of which the baptisteries of
Italian cities still remind us. Its subdivisions, or parishes in modern


## p. 211 (#257) ############################################

Ecclesiastical institutions
211
language, each with its capella, formed the vicinantiae, populi, or contratae
of the city. A vicinantia in town or country usually possessed, or had
the use of, common lands, pasture and wood, as an economic necessity,
and the meeting of the vicini (parishioners, neighbours) perhaps round
the village elm or at the door of the capella to arrange such matters can
hardly ever have gone out of use. To this day the use of certain Alpine
pastures is managed by similar meetings of the hereditary users'. Nor
in such meetings can the personal status of the vicini have formed a bar
to participation. Later under the communes the vicinantiae were to play
a part in the city-administration. In the country the plebs had at least
its little market for exchange on holy days before its ecclesia, and often,
it seems, the use of common lands to manage in customary fashion.
But in the towns we see an intermediate and purely secular subdivision,
the quarters or gates (portae), going back to Roman times. The first
duty of the quarter was the repair and guarding of the walls, or that
share of the work (one-third) which did not fall on the State or the
Church. The city plebs, too, was not without its assembly and its
elementary functions. There were common lands of the city needing
some management. There were proclamations to be made, public burdens
perhaps to be apportioned, as in the country. As early as Rothari's time
(636-652), strayed animals were cried in the conventus ante ecclesiam,
And perhaps there was the election of a bishop or the alienation of
church-lands to be formally approved. In Carolingian times we find
sure evidence of the existence and occasional activity of this city-assembly
in Lombard Italy. About 790 Charlemagne’s son Pepin of Italy forbade
the men of Piacenza to receive aldii in the city by their decree (prae-
ceptum); and at Piacenza the general assembly (contio) long met in front
of the old cathedral of Sant'Antonino, a proof of the assembly's exist-
ence before the new cathedral of Santa Giustina was built in 877.
Two features with far-reaching effects characterised the assembly.
First, it was composed of dwellers within the walls alone. Even if this
character does not go back to late Roman times, the fact that in the
suburb outside the walls there would be in depopulated Lombard Italy
but scattered hamlets at most would sufficiently account for it. Its im-
portance needs no stressing. The walled city, forming a separate plebs,
exceptional in population, duties, and power, is the starting-point of the
urban Italian commune, cut off from the countryside and, apart from
the State-administration, possessing as its ultimate authority a general
1 Cf. A. Serpieri, Studio sui pascoli alpini della Svizzera, pp. 185-8; at
Cortina certain hereditary groups each dispose of the usufruct of a portion of the
alp, and elect their officers in a meeting of the group in front of the church.
F. Schneider, Die Entstehung von Burg und Landgemeinde in Italien, would apparently
restrict the managing use of common lands to the settlements of Arimanni, i. e. in
this connexion, free warriors specially assigned to the frontier-strips or other
garrison-duty. But his evidence is insufficient.
CA. V.
14-2


## p. 212 (#258) ############################################

212
Development under the Carolingian Empire
assembly of the city dwellers. Secondly, there is the close connexion of
the city with its bishop. Protector of the plain subject in late Roman
times, head of his Catholic flock while the Lombards were still Arian,
chief citizen and a public official under the Carolingians, surrounded by
a throng of vassals in town and country, it was the bishop, whether much
or little privileged, who brought the formless assembly and the elementary
machinery of quarters and vicinanze into working order as a substitute
for decaying government. How strong the feeling of city unity was, and
how intimately linked with the city's church, is seen as early as 715
when the dispute over the diocesan boundaries of Siena and Arezzo led
to armed conflict between the two cities in which the Sienese people
appear as a self-acting body.
The effect of the strictly Carolingian period was to intensify the
existing current of development. Freemen, whether Frank, Lombard,
or Roman, or of some other race or personal law, were privileged according
to their rank in society, not by their racial descent, although the offspring
of Germanic conquerors were naturally still predominant among them.
And a mixed customary law, containing elements both Lombard and
Roman, was evidently growing up locally even in the vicinanze, and even
among a serf-population. The loci consuetudo had been already acknow-
ledged by King Rothari, and King Liutprand in 727 admitted its mingled,
local, and popular character. The development of such local usus terrae
in the towns at least must have been assisted, and the training of
the notables in law and government must have been increased, by
Charlemagne's institution of the scabini'. These law-experts and life-
assessors in judgment, chosen totius populi consensu? by the missi, pro-
duced a competent professional class of lawyers among the very men
who would naturally take the lead in the affairs of the city and its
church.
A far more powerful impulse, however, towards city-autonomy, was
given by the disasters of Italy during the age of anarchy following the
deposition of Charles the Fat in 887. The civil wars, the weakening of
the degenerate kingship, the rapid changes among the provincial wielders
of the public power, left the state unable to exercise its rights, to levy its
dues, or to protect its miserable subjects. Against the Hungarian or
Saracen ravagers the only sure defence lay in the guard of the walled
towns or castles by their inhabitants. Castra (castelli) began to spring
up in the countryside through the unprompted co-operation of the neigh-
bouring population, who would there find a place of refuge for themselves
and their property. The cities were similarly a place of refuge, but their
defence fell on the permanent inhabitants, whose organisation of quarters
(portae) and vicinantiae regained for military purposes its full significance.
1 See supra, Vol. 11, Chap. xxi, p. 668.
Capitulare Wormatiense, A. D.