Constantinople 107 which in that age so justly despised the ignorance of the Latins. But the Byzantine nation was servile, solitary, and verging to an hasty decline; after the fall of Kiow, the navigation of the Borysthenes was forgotten; the great princes of Wolodomir and Moscow were separated from the sea and Christendom; and the divided monarchy was oppressed by the ignominy and blindness of Tartar servitude.108 The Sclavonic and Scandinavian kingdoms, which had been converted by the Latin missionaries, were exposed, it is true, to the spiritual jurisdiction and temporal claims of the popes; 109 but they were united, in language and religious worship, with each other, and with Rome; they imbibed the free and generous spirit of the European republic, and gradually shared the light of knowledge which arose on the western world.

107 [It is important to notice the growth of monasticism in Russia in the 11th century. The original hearth and centre of the movement was at Kiev in the Pestcherski or Crypt Monastery, famous for the Saint Theodosius [ob. 1074] whose biography was written by Nestor. Kostomarov (op. cit., p. 18 sqq.) has a readable chapter on the subject.]

198 The great princes removed in 1156 from Kiow, which was ruined by the Tartars in 1240. Moscow became the seat of empire in the xivth century. See the first and second volumes of Levesque's History, and Mr. Coxe's Travels into the North, tom. i. p. 241, &c.

109 The ambassadors of St. Stephen had used the reverential expressions of regnum oblatum, debitam obedientiam, &c. which were most rigorously interpreted by Gregory VII.; and the Hungarian Catholics are distressed between the sanctity of the pope and the independence of the crown (Katona, Hist. Critica, tom. i. p. 2025, tom. ii. p. 304, 346, 360, &c.).

Conflict of the Sara

cens, Latins, and Greeks, in

840-1017

CHAPTER LVI

The Saracens, Franks, and Greeks, in Italy-First Adventures and Settlement of the Normans-Character and Conquests of Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia-—Deliverance of Sicily by his brother Roger-Victories of Robert over the Emperors of the East and West-Roger, king of Sicily, invades Africa and Greece-The Emperor Manuel Comnenus-Wars of the Greeks and NormansExtinction of the Normans

T

HE three great nations of the world, the Greeks, the Saracens, and the Franks, encountered each other on the theatre of Italy. The southern provinces, which Italy. A.D. now compose the kingdom of Naples, were subject, for the most part, to the Lombard dukes and princes of Beneventum: 2 so powerful in war that they checked for a moment the genius of Charlemagne; so liberal in peace that they maintained in their capital an academy of thirty-two philosophers and grammarians. The division of this flourishing state produced the rival principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua; and the

1 For the general history of Italy in the ixth and xth centuries, I may properly refer to the vth, vith, and viith books of Sigonius de Regno Italia (in the second volume of his works, Milan, 1732); the Annals of Baronius, with the Criticism of Pagi; the viith and viiith books of the Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli of Giannone; the viith and viiith volumes (the octavo edition) of the Annali d'Italia of Muratori, and the iid volume of the Abrégé Chronologique of M. de St. Marc, a work which, under a superficial title, contains much genuine learning and industry. But my long accustomed reader will give me credit for saying that I myself have ascended to the fountain-head, as often as such ascent could be either profitable or possible; and that I have diligently turned over the originals in the first volumes of Muratori's great collection of the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum.

2 Camillo Pellegrino, a learned Capuan of the last century, has illustrated the history of the duchy of Beneventum, in his two books, Historia Principum Longobardorum, in the Scriptores of Muratori, tom. ii. pars i. p. 221-345, and tom. v. p. 159-245.

[The duchy of Beneventum first split up into two parts, an eastern and a western-the western under the name of the Principality of Salerno. Soon after this the Count of Capua threw off his allegiance to the Prince of Salerno; so that the old duchy of Beneventum was represented by three independent states. For the

thoughtless ambition or revenge of the competitors invited the Saracens to the ruin of their common inheritance. During a calamitous period of two hundred years Italy was exposed to a repetition of wounds, which the invaders were not capable of healing by the union and tranquillity of a perfect conquest. Their frequent and almost annual squadrons issued from the port of Palermo, and were entertained with too much indulgence by the Christians of Naples; the more formidable fleets were prepared on the African coast; and even the Arabs of Andalusia were sometimes tempted to assist or oppose the Moslems of an adverse sect. In the revolution of human events, a new ambuscade was concealed in the Caudine forks, the fields of Cannæ were bedewed a second time with the blood of the Africans, and the sovereign of Rome again attacked or defended the walls of Capua and Tarentum. A colony of Saracens had been planted at Bari, which commands the entrance of the Adriatic Gulf; and their impartial depredations provoked the resentment, and conciliated the union, of the two emperors. An offensive alliance was concluded between Basil the Macedonian, the first of his race, and Lewis, the great-grandson of Charlemagne;' and each party supplied the deficiencies of his associate. It would have been imprudent in the Byzantine monarch to transport his stationary troops of Asia to an Italian campaign, and the Latin arms would have been insufficient, if his superior navy had not occupied the mouth of the Gulf. The fortress of Conquest Bari was invested by the infantry of the Franks, and by the A.D. 871 cavalry and galleys of the Greeks; and, after a defence of four years, the Arabian emir submitted to the clemency of Lewis, who commanded in person the operations of the siege. This important conquest had been achieved by the concord of the East and West; but their recent amity was soon embittered by the mutual complaints of jealousy and pride. The Greeks assumed as their own the merit of the conquest and the pomp of the triumph; extolled the greatness of their powers, and affected to deride the intemperance and sloth of the handful of barbarians who appeared under the banners of the Carlovingian history of Salerno see Schipa, Storia del principato Longobardo in Salerno, in the Arch. storico per le cose prov. Nap., 12, 1887. J. Gay, L'Italie méridionale et l'empire byzantin (867-1061), 1904.]

⚫See Constantin. Porphyrogen. de Thematibus, 1. ii. c. xi. in Vit. Basil. c. 55, p. 181.

of Bari.

New province of

in Italy.

prince. His reply is expressed with the eloquence of indignation and truth: "We confess the magnitude of your preparations," says the great-grandson of Charlemagne. "Your armies were indeed as numerous as a cloud of summer locusts, who darken the day, flap their wings, and, after a short flight, tumble weary and breathless to the ground. Like them, ye sunk after a feeble effort; ye were vanquished by your own cowardice; and withdrew from the scene of action to injure and despoil our Christian subjects of the Sclavonian coast. We were few in number, and why were we few? Because, after a tedious expectation of your arrival, I had dismissed my host, and retained only a chosen band of warriors to continue the blockade of the city. If they indulged their hospitable feasts in the face of danger and death, did these feasts abate the vigour of their enterprise? Is it by your fasting that the walls of Bari have been overturned? Did not these valiant Franks, diminished as they were by languor and fatigue, intercept and vanquish the three most powerful emirs of the Saracens? and did not their defeat precipitate the fall of the city? Bari is now fallen; Tarentum trembles; Calabria will be delivered; and, if we command the sea, the island of Sicily may be rescued from the hands of the infidels. My brother (a name most offensive to the vanity of the Greek), accelerate your naval succours, respect your allies, and distrust your flatterers.""

These lofty hopes were soon extinguished by the death of the Greeks Lewis, and the decay of the Carlovingian house; and, whoever might deserve the honour, the Greek emperors, Basil and his [Bari won son Leo, secured the advantage, of the reduction of Bari. The

A.D. 890

by the Greeks. A.D. 876]

Italians of Apulia and Calabria were persuaded or compelled to acknowledge their supremacy, and an ideal line from mount Garganus to the bay of Salerno leaves the far greater part of the kingdom of Naples under the dominion of the eastern empire. Beyond that line, the dukes or republics of Amalphi and Naples, who had never forfeited their voluntary allegiance, rejoiced in

The original epistle of the emperor Lewis II. to the emperor Basil, a curious record of the age, was first published by Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 871, No. 51-71) from the Vatican Ms. of Erchempert, or rather of the anonymous historian of Salerno. [Printed also in Duchesne, Hist. Fr. scr. iii. p. 555.]

6 See an excellent dissertation de Republicâ Amalphitanâ in the Appendix (p. 142) of Henry Brenckmann's Historia Pandectarum (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to). [Materials for the history of Naples are collected in Capasso's Monuments ad Neap. duc. histor. pertinentia, vol. i., 1881; vol. ii. 1, 1885, 2, 1892.]

8

Lagubar

the neighbourhood of their lawful sovereign; and Amalphi was enriched by supplying Europe with the produce and manufactures of Asia. But the Lombard princes of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua were reluctantly torn from the communion of the Latin world, and too often violated their oaths of servitude and tribute. The city of Bari rose to dignity and wealth, as the metropolis of the new theme or province of Lombardy; the (Theme of title of patrician, and afterwards the singular name of Catapan, dial was assigned to the supreme governor; and the policy both of the church and state was modelled in exact subordination to the throne of Constantinople. As long as the sceptre was disputed by the princes of Italy, their efforts were feeble and adverse; and the Greeks resisted or eluded the forces of Germany, which descended from the Alps under the Imperial standard of the Othos. The first and greatest of those Saxon princes was compelled to relinquish the siege of Bari: the second, after the loss of his stoutest bishops and barons, escaped with honour from the bloody field of Crotona. On that day Defeat of the scale of war was turned against the Franks by the valour of [II.). A.D. the Saracens. These corsairs had indeed been driven by the

'Your master, says Nicephorus, has given aid and protection principibus Capuano et Beneventano, servis meis, quos oppugnare dispono... Nova (potius nota) res est quod eorum patres et avi nostro Imperio tributa dederunt (Liutprand, in Legat. p. 484). Salerno is not mentioned, yet the prince changed his party about the same time, and Camillo Pellegrino (Script. Rer. Ital. tom. ii. pars i. p. 285) has nicely discerned this change in the style of the anonymous chronicle. On the rational ground of history and language, Liutprand (p. 480) had asserted the Latin claim to Apulia and Calabria. [The revival of East-Roman influence in Southern Italy in the last years of the ninth century is illustrated by the fact that an Imperial officer (of the rank of protospathar) resided at the court of the Dukes of Beneventum from A.D. 891. The allegiance of Naples, Amalfi, and Gaeta was indeed little more than nominal. For the history of Gaeta the chief source is the Codex Caietanus, published in the Tabularium Casinense (1890, 1892).]

* See the Greek and Latin Glossaries of Ducange (Karenáva, catapanus), and his notes on the Alexias (p. 275). Against the contemporary notion, which derives it from Karà mâv, juxta omne, he treats it as a corruption of the Latin capitaneus. Yet M. de St. Marc has accurately observed (Abrégé Chronologique, tom. ii. p. 924) that in this age the capitanei were not captains, but only nobles of the first rank, the great valvassors of Italy. [The Theme of Italy extended from the Ofanto in the north and the Bradano in the west to the southern point of Apulia, and included the south of Calabria (the old Bruttii). It must not be confounded with the Capitanata. It was probably about the year 1000 that the governors of the Theme of Italy conquered the land on the north side of their province, between the Ofanto and Fortore (see Heinemann, Gesch. der Normannem in Unter-Italien and Sicilien, i. p. 20). From the title of the governors, Katepanô, this conquest was called the Catepanata, and this became (through the influence of popular etymology) Capitanata.]

* Οὐ μόνον δια πολέμων ἀκριβῶς ἐκτεταγμένων το τοιοῦτον ὑπήγαγε τὸ ἔθνος (the Lombards), ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀγχινοίᾳ χρησάμενος καὶ δικαιοσύνῃ καὶ χρηστότητι, ἐπιεικῶς τε τοῖς VOL. VI.-12

Otho III.

983 [982]