Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

LVI.

CHAP. thority of the king of Tunis: the people rose against the emir; the cities were usurped by the chiefs; each meaner rebel was independent in his village or castle; and the weaker of two rival brothers implored the friendship of the Christians. In every service of danger the Normans were prompt and useful; and five hundred knights, or warriors on horseback, were enrolled by Arduin, the agent and interpreter of the Greeks, under the standard of Maniaces, governor of Lombardy. Before their landing, the brothers were reconciled; the union of Sicily and Africa was restored; and the island was guarded to the water's edge. The Normans led the van, and the Arabs of Messina felt the valour of an untried foe. In a second action, the emir of Syracuse was unhorsed and transpierced by the iron arm of William of Hauteville. In a third enagement, his intrepid companions discomfited the host of sixty thousand Saracens, and left the Greeks no more than the labour of the pursuit: a splendid victory; but of which the pen of the historian may divide the merit with the lance of the Normans. It is, however, true, that they essentially promoted the success of Maniaces, who reduced thirteen cities, and the greater part of Sicily, under the obedience of the emperor. But his military fame was sullied by ingratitude and tyranny. In the division of the spoil, the deserts of his brave auxiliaries were forgotten; and neither their avarice nor their pride could brook this injurious treatment. They complained, by the mouth of their interpreter: their complaint was disregarded; their interpreter was scourged; the sufferings were his; the insult and resentment belonged to those whose sentiments he had delivered. Yet they dissembled till they had obtained, or stolen, a safe passage to the Italian continent: their brethren of Aversa sympathised in their indignation, and the province of Apulia was invaded as the

LVI.

quest of

-1043.

forfeit of the debt." Above twenty years after the CHAP. first emigration, the Normans took the field with no more than seven hundred horse and five hundred Their confoot; and after the recall of the Byzantine legions" Apulia, from the Sicilian war, their numbers are magnified A. D. 1040 to the amount of threescore thousand men. Their herald proposed the option of battle or retreat; "of battle," was the unanimous cry of the Normans; and one of their stoutest warriors, with a stroke of his fist, felled to the ground the horse of the Greek messenger. He was dismissed with a fresh horse; the insult was concealed from the imperial troops; but in two successive battles they were more fatally instructed of the prowess of their adversaries. In the plains of Cannæ, the Asiatics fled before the adventurers of France; the duke of Lombardy was made prisoner; the Apulians acquiesced in a new dominion; and the four places of Bari, Otranto, Brundusium, and Tarentum, were alone saved in the shipwreck of the Grecian fortunes. From this æra we may date the establishment of the Norman power, which soon eclipsed the infant colony of Aversa. Twelve counts were chosen

V

X

Jeffrey Malaterra, who relates the Sicilian war, and the conquest of Apulia (1. i. c. 7, 8, 9. 19). The same events are described by Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 741-743. 755, 756) and Zonaras (tom. ii. p. 237, 238); and the Greeks are so hardened to disgrace, that their narratives are impartial enough.

w Cedrenus specifies the rayua of the Obsequium (Phrygia), and the μsgos of the Thracesians (Lydia; consult Constantine de Thematibus, i. 3, 4. with Delisle's map); and afterwards names the Pisidians and Lycaonians with the fœderati.

[ocr errors][merged small]

His alii parent.

Comitatus nomen honoris
Quo donantur erat. Hi totas undique terras
Divisere sibi, ni sors inimica repugnet;

Singula proponunt loca quæ contingere sorte
Cuique duci debent, et quæque tributa locorum.

And after speaking of Melphi, William Apulus adds,

Pro numero comitum bis sex statuere plateas
Atque domus comitum totidem fabricantur in urbe.

Leo Ostiensis (1. ii. c. 67) enumerates the divisions of the Apulian cities, which

it is needless to repeat.

LVI.

CHAP. by the popular suffrage; and age, birth, and merit, were the motives of their choice. The tributes of their peculiar districts were appropriated to their use; and each count erected a fortress in the midst of his lands, and at the head of his vassals. In the centre of the province, the common habitation of Melphi was reserved as the metropolis and citadel of the republic; a house and separate quarter was allotted to each of the twelve counts; and the national concerns were regulated by this military senate. The first of his peers, their president and general, was entitled count of Apulia; and this dignity was conferred on William of the iron arm, who, in the language of the age, is styled a lion in battle, a lamb in society, and an angel in council. The manners of his countrymen are fairly delineated by a conCharacter temporary and national historian." "The Normans," says Malaterra, "are a cunning and revengeful people; eloquence and dissimulation appear to be their hereditary qualities: they can stoop to flatter; but unless they are curbed by the restraint of law, they indulge the licentiousness of nature and passion. Their princes affect the praise of popular munificence; the people observe the medium, or rather blend the extremes, of avarice and prodigality; and, in their eager thirst of wealth and dominion, they despise whatever they possess, and hope whatever they desire. Arms and horses, the luxury of dress,

of the Nor

mans.

y Gulielm. Apulus, 1. ii. c. 12. according to the reference of Giannone (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p. 31), which I cannot verify in the original. The Apulian praises indeed his validas vires, probitas animi, and vivida virtus ; and declares that, had he lived, no poet could have equalled his merits (1. i. p. 258. l. ii, p. 259). He was bewailed by the Normans, quippe qui tanti consilii virum (says Malaterra, 1. i. c. 12. p. 552), tam armis strenuum, tam sibi munificum, affabilem, morigeratum, ulterius se habere diffidebant.

z The gens astutissima, injuriarum ultrix....adulari sciens.....elòquentiis inserviens, of Malaterra, (1. i. c. 3. p. 550), are expressive of the popular and proverbial character of the Normans.

LVI.

the exercises of hunting and hawking," are the delight CHAP. of the Normans; but, on pressing occasions, they can endure with incredible patience the inclemency of every climate, and the toil and abstinence of a military life."

[ocr errors]

of Apulia,

The Normans of Apulia were seated on the verge Oppression of the two empires; and, according to the policy of A.D. 1046, the hour, they accepted the investiture of their lands &c. from the sovereigns of Germany or Constantinople. But the firmest title of these adventurers was the right of conquest: they neither loved nor trusted; they were neither trusted nor beloved: the contempt of the princes was mixed with fear, and the fear of the natives was mingled with hatred and resentment. Every object of desire, a horse, a woman, a garden, tempted and gratified the rapaciousness of the strangers; and the avarice of their chiefs was only coloured by the more specious names of ambition and glory. The twelve counts were sometimes joined in a league of injustice: in their domestic quarrels they disputed the spoils of the people: the virtues of William were buried in his grave; and Drogo, his brother and successor, was better qualified to lead the valour, than to restrain the violence, of his peers. Under the reign of Constantine Monomachus, the policy, rather than benevolence, of the Byzantine court, attempted to relieve Italy from this adherent

a The hunting and hawking more properly belong to the descendants of the Norwegian sailors; though they might import from Norway and Iceland the finest casts of falcons.

b We may compare this portrait with that of William of Malmsbury (de Gestis Anglorum, 1. iii. p. 101, 102), who appreciates, like a philosophic historian, the vices and virtues of the Saxons and Normans. England was assuredly a gainer by the conquest.

e The biographer of St. Leo IX. pours his holy venom on the Normans. Videns indisciplinatam et alienam gentem Normannorum, crudeli et inauditâ rabie, et plusquam Paganâ impietate, adversus ecclesias Dei insurgere, passim Christianos trucidare, &c. (Wibert, c. 6). The honest Apulian (1. ii. p. 259) says calmly of their accuser, Veris commiscens fallacia.

LVI.

e

d

CHAP. mischief, more grievous than a flight of barbarians; " and Argyrus, the son of Melo, was invested for this purpose with the most lofty titles and the most ample commission. The memory of his father might recommend him to the Normans; and he had already engaged their voluntary service to quell the revolt of Maniaces, and to avenge their own and the public injury. It was the design of Constantine to transplant this warlike colony from the Italian provinces to the Persian war; and the son of Melo distributed among the chiefs the gold and manufactures of Greece, as the first fruits of the imperial bounty. But his arts were baffled by the sense and spirit of the conquerors of Apulia: his gifts, or at least his proposals, were rejected; and they unanimously refused to relinquish their possessions and their hopes for the distant proLeague of spect of Asiatic fortune. After the means of perthe pope and suasion had failed, Argyrus resolved to compel or to pires, destroy the Latin powers were solicited against the common enemy; and an offensive alliance was formed of the pope and the two emperors of the East and West. The throne of St. Peter was occupied by Leo the ninth, a simple saint, of a temper most apt to deceive himself and the world, and whose venerable

the two em

A.D. 1049

-1054.

f

a The policy of the Greeks, revolt of Maniaces, &c. must be collected from Cedrenus (tom. ii. p. 757, 758), William Apulus (1. i. p. 257, 258. 1. ii. p. 259), and the two Chronicles of Bari, by Lupus Protospata (Muratori, Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 42, 43, 44), and an anonymous writer (Antiquitat. Italiæ medii Ævi, tom. i. p. 31-35). This last is a fragment of some value.

e Argyrus received, says the anonymous Chronicle of Bari, imperial letters, Fœderatûs et Patriciatûs, et Catapani et Vestatûs. In his Annals, Muratori (tom. viii. p. 426) very properly reads, or interprets, Sevestatus, the title of Sebastos or Augustus. But in his Antiquities, he was taught by Du Cange to make it a palatine office, master of the wardrobe.

A Life of St. Leo IX., deeply tinged with the passions and prejudices of the age, has been composed by Wibert, printed at Paris, 1615, in octavo, and since inserted in the Collections of the Bollandists, of Mabillon, and of Muratori. The public and private history of that pope is diligently treated by M. de St. Marc (Abregé, tom. ii. p. 140-210, and p. 25-95, second column).

« ForrigeFortsett »