Origin of the Normans in Italy, quences most important both to Italy and the Eastera empire. The broken provinces of the Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens were exposed to every invader, and every sea and land were A.D. 1016. invaded by the adventurous spirit of the Scandinavian pirates. After a long indulgence of rapine and slaughter, a fair and ample territory was accepted, occupied, and named, by the Normans of France they renounced their gods for the God of the Christians; and the dukes of Normandy acknowledged themselves the vassals of the successors of Charlemagne and Capet. The savage fierceness which they had brought from the snowy mountains of Norway was refined, without being corrupted, in a warmer climate; the companions of Rollo insensibly mingled with the natives; they imbibed the manners, language,17 and gallantry of the French nation; and, in a martial age, the Normans might claim the palm of valour and glorious achievements. Of the fashionable superstitions, they embraced with ardour the pilgrimages of Rome, Italy, and the Holy Land." In this active devotion their minds and bodies were invigorated by exercise: danger was the incentive, novelty the recompence; and the prospect of the world was decorated by wonder, credulity, and ambitious hope. They confederated for their mutual defence; and the robbers of the Alps, who had been allured by the garb of a pilgrim, were often chastised by the arm of a warrior. In one of these pious visits to the cavern of Mount Garganus in Apulia, which had been sanctified by the apparition of the archangel Michael,18 16 Some of the first converts were baptized ten or twelve times, for the sake of the white garment usually given at this ceremony. At the funeral of Rollo, the gifts to monasteries for the repose of his soul were accompanied by a sacrifice of one hundred captives. But in a generation or two the national change was pure and general. 17 The Danish language was still spoken by the Normans of Bayeux on the sea coast, at a time (A.D. 940) when it was already forgotten at Rouen, in the court and capital. Quem (Richard I.) confestim pater Baiocas mittens Botoni militiæ suæ principi nutriendum tradidit, ut, ibi linguâ eruditus Danica, suis exterisque hominibus sciret aperte dare responsa (Wilhelm. Gemeticensis de Ducibus Normannis, 1. iii. c. 8, p. 623, edit. Camden). Of the vernacular and favourite idiom of William the Conqueror (A.D. 1035), Selden (Opera, tom. ii. p. 1640-1656) has given a specimen, obsolete and obscure even to antiquarians and lawyers. 18 See Leandro Alberti (Descrizione d' Italia, p. 250) and Baronius (A.D. 493, No. 43). If the archangel inherited the temple and oracle, perhaps the cavern, of old Calchas the soothsayer (Strab. Geograph. Í. vi. p. 435, 436 [p. 284, ed. Casaub.]), has made use of it in his Histoire des Conquêtes des Normands, and added a summary of its contents. This work was quoted by later writers, but was supposed to have been entirely lost.-M. A band of Normans returning from the Holy Land had rescued the city of Salerno from the attack of a numerous fleet of Saracens. Gaimar, the Lombard prince of Salerno, wished to retain them in his service, and take them into his pay. They answered, "We fight for our reli 66 gion, and not for money." Gaimar entreated them to send some Norman knights to his court. This seems to have been the origin of the connection of the Normans with Italy. See Histoire des Conquêtes des Normands, par Gauttier d'Arc, 1. i. c. i. Paris, 1830.-M. they were accosted by a stranger in the Greek habit, but who soon revealed himself as a rebel, a fugitive, and a mortal foe of the Greek empire. His name was Melo; a noble citizen of Bari, who, after an unsuccessful revolt, was compelled to seek new allies and avengers of his country. The bold appearance of the Normans revived his hopes and solicited his confidence: they listened to the complaints, and still more to the promises, of the patriot. The assurance of wealth demonstrated the justice of his cause; and they viewed, as the inheritance of the brave, the fruitful land which was oppressed by effeminate tyrants. On their return to Normandy they kindled a spark of enterprise, and a small but intrepid band was freely associated for the deliverance of Apulia. They passed the Alps by separate roads, and in the disguise of pilgrims; but in the neighbourhood of Rome they were saluted by the chief of Bari, who supplied the more indigent with arms and horses, and instantly led them to the field of action. In the first conflict their valdur prevailed; but in the second engagement they were overwhelmed by the numbers and military engines of the Greeks, and indignantly retreated with their faces to the enemy." The unfortunate Melo ended his life a suppliant at the court of Germany his Norman followers, excluded from their native and their promised land, wandered among the hills and valleys of Italy, and earned their daily subsistence by the sword. To that formidable sword the princes of Capua, Beneventum, Salerno, and Naples alternately appealed in their domestic quarrels; the superior spirit and discipline of the Normans gave victory to the side which they espoused; and their cautious policy observed the balance of power, lest the preponderance of any rival state should render their aid less important and their service less profitable. Their first asylum was a strong camp in the depth of the marshes of Campania; but they were soon endowed by the liberality of the duke of Naples with a more plentiful and permanent seat. Eight miles from his Foundation A.D. 1029. residence, as a bulwark against Capua, the town of Aversa of Aversa, was built and fortified for their use; and they enjoyed as their own the corn and fruits, the meadows and groves, of that fertile district. The report of their success attracted every year new swarms of pilgrims and soldiers: the poor were urged by necessity; the rich were excited by hope; and the brave and active spirits of Normandy were impatient of ease and ambitious of renown. The independent the Catholics (on this occasion) have surpassed the Greeks in the elegance of their superstition. • Nine out of ten perished in the field. Chronique d'Aimé, tom. i. p. 21, quoted by M. Gauttier d'Arc, p. 42.-M. standard of Aversa afforded shelter and encouragement to the out.aws of the province, to every fugitive who had escaped from the injustice or justice of his superiors; and these foreign associates were quickly assimilated in manners and language to the Gallic colony. The first leader of the Normans was Count Rainulf; and, in the origin of society, pre-eminence of rank is the reward and the proof of superior merit 19 The Nor mans serve in Sicily, A.D. 1038. Since the conquest of Sicily by the Arabs, the Grecian emperors had been anxious to regain that valuable possession; but their efforts, however strenuous, had been opposed by the distance and the sea. Their costly armaments, after a gleam of success, added new pages of calamity and disgrace to the Byzantine annals: twenty thousand of their best troops were lost in a single expedition; and the victorious Moslems derided the policy of a nation which intrusted eunuchs not only with the custody of their women, but with the command of their men.20 After a reign of two hundred years, the Saracens were ruined by their divisions.21 The emir disclaimed the authority 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 19 See the 1st book of William Appulus. His words are applicable to every swarm of barbarians and freebooters: Si vicinorum quis pernitiosus ad illos Confugiebat, eum gratanter suscipiebant: Moribus et linguâ quoscumque venire videbant And elsewhere, of the native adventurers of Normandy: Pars parat, exiguæ vel opes aderant quia nullæ: Pars, quia de magnis majora subire volebant. [p. 254.] 20 Liutprand in Legatione, p. 485. Pagi has illustrated this event from the MS. history of the deacon Leo (tom. iv. A.D. 965, No. 17-19). 21 See the Arabian Chronicle of Sicily, apud Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. i. p. 253. This account is not accurate. After the retreat of the emperor Henry the Second, the Normans, united under the command of Rainulf, had taken possession of Aversa, then a small castle in the duchy of Naples. They had been masters of it a few years when Pandulf the Fourth, prince of Capua, found means to take Naples by surprise. Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the republic, with the principal citizens, abandoned a city in which he could not behold, without horror, the establishment of a foreign dominion: he retired to Aversa; and when, with the assistance of the Greeks, and that of the citizens faithful to their country, he had collected money enough to satisfy the rapacity of the Norman adventurers, he advanced at their head to attack the garrison of the prince of Capua, defeated it, and re-entered Naples. It was then that he confirmed the Normans in the possession of Aversa and its territory, which he raised into a count's fief, and granted the investiture to Rainulf, Hist. des Rép. Ital tom. i. p. 267.-G. It 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 engagement 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. 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 forfeit of the debt.22 Above twenty years Their conafter the first emigration, the Normans took the field with quest of no more than seven hundred horse and five hundred foot; and after the recall of the Byzantine legions 23 from the Sicilian war, their numbers are magnified 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 con ealed from the Imperial troops; but in two successive battles they were more fatally instructed of the Apulia, A.D. 1040-1043. 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 [1. xvii. c. 15]); and the Greeks are so hardened to disgrace, that their narratives are impartial enough. Cedrenus specifies the ray of the Obsequium (Phrygia), and the wiges of the Thracesians (Lydia: consult Constantine de Thematibus, i. 3, 4 [tom. iii. p. 22 sq7., ed. Bonn], with Delisle's map); and afterwards names the Pisidians and Lycaonians with the foederati. 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 24 were chosen 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.25 The manners of his countrymen are fairly delineated by a contemporary and national historian. 26 "The Normans," of the 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 ; 66 Character Normans. 24 Omnes conveniunt; et bis sex nobiliores, Quos genus et gravitas morum decorabat et ætas, 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. [p. 255.] And after speaking of Melphi, William Appulus adds, Pro numero comitum bis sex statuere plateas, Atque domus comitum totidem fabricantur in urbe. [p. 256.] Leo Ostiensis (1. ii. c. 67) enumerates the divisions of the Apulian cities, which it is needless to repeat. 25 Gulielm. Appulus, 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 talidas vires, probitus animi, and vivida virtus; and declares that, had he lived, no poet could have equalled his merits (1. i. p. 258, 1. 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 Be habere diffidebant. .... 26 The gens astutissima, injuriarum ultrix . . . . adulari sciens . . . . eloquentiis inserviens, of Malaterra (1. i. c. 3, p. 550), are expressive of the popular and pro verbial character of the Normans. |