bition was founded on the consciousness of superior worth; in the pursuit of greatness he was never arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the feelings of humanity; though not insensible of fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was determined only by his present advantage. The surname of Guiscard 12 was applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too often confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit, and Robert is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were disguised by an appearance of military frankness; in his highest fortune he was accessible and courteous to his fellow-soldiers; and while he indulged the prejudices of his new subjects, he affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient fashion of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he might distribute with a liberal, hand; his primitive indigence had taught the habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not below his attention; and his prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty to force a discovery of their secret treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed from Normandy with only five. followers on horseback and thirty on foot; yet even this allowance appears too bountiful; the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim, and his first military band was levied among the adventurers of Italy. His brothers and countrymen had divided the fertile lands of Apulia, but they guarded their shares with the jealousy of avarice; the aspiring youth was driven forwards to the mountains of Calabria, and in his first exploits against the Greeks and the natives it is not easy to discriminate the hero from the robber. To surprise a castle or a convent, to ensnare a wealthy citizen, to plunder the adjacent villages for necessary food, were the obscure labours which formed and exercised the powers of his mind and body. The volunteers of Normandy adhered to his standard, and, under his command, the peasants of Calabria assumed the name and character of Normans. and success, A.D. 1054-1080. As the genius of Robert expanded with his fortune, he awakened His ambition the jealousy of his elder brother, by whom, in a transient quarrel, his life was threatened and his liberty restrained. After the death of Humphrey the tender age of his sons excluded them from the command; they were reduced to a private estate by the ambition of their guardian and uncle; and Guiscard was exalted on a buckler, and saluted count of Apulia and general of 42 The Norman writers and editors most conversant with their own idiom interpret Guiscard or Wiscard by Callidus, a cunning man. The root (wise) is familiar to our ear; and in the old word Wiseacre I can discern something of a similar sense and termination. Τὴν ψύχην πανουργότατος is no bad translation of the surname an character of Robert. 43 the republic. With an increase of authority and of force, he resumed the conquest of Calabria, and soon aspired to a rank that should raise him for ever above the heads of his equals. By some acts of rapine or sacrilege he had incurred a papal excommunication: but Nicholas the Second was easily persuaded that the divisions of friends could terminate only in their mutual prejudice; that the Normans were the faithful champions of the Holy See; and it was safer to trust the alliance of a prince than the caprice of an aristocracy. A synod of one hundred bishops was convened at Melphi; and the count interrupted an important enterprise to guard the person ana execute the decrees of the Roman pontiff. His gratitude and policy conferred on Robert and his posterity the ducal title, 13 with the investiture of Apulia, Calabria, and all the lands, both in Italy and Sicily, which his sword could rescue from the schismatic Greeks and the unbelieving Saracens." This apostolic sanction might justify his arms: but the obedience of a free and victorious people could not be transferred without their consent; and Guiscard dissembled his elevation till the ensuing campaign had been illustrated by the conquest of Consenza and Reggio. In the hour of triumph he assembled his troops and solicited the Normans to confirm by their suffrage the judgment of the vicar of Christ: the soldiers hailed with joyful acclamations their valiant duke; and the counts, his former equals, pronounced the oath of fidelity with hollow smiles and secret indignation. After this inauguration, Robert styled himself, "By the grace of God and St. Peter, duke of Apulia, Calabria, and "hereafter of Sicily;" and it was the labour of twenty years to deserve and realise these lofty appellations. Such tardy progress, in a narrow space, may seem unworthy of the abilities of the chief and the spirit of the nation: but the Normans were few in number; their resources were scanty; their service was voluntary and precarious. The bravest designs of the duke were sometimes opposed by the free voice of his parliament of barons: the twelve counts of popular election conspired against his authority; and against their perfidious uncle the sons of Humphrey demanded justice and revenge. By his policy and vigour Guiscard discovered their plots, suppressed their rebellions, and punished the guilty with death or exile; but in these domestic feuds his years, and the national strength, were unprofitably Duke of A.D. 1060. 43 The acquisition of the ducal title by Robert Guiscard is a nice and obscure busiWith the good advice of Giannone, Muratori, and St. Marc, I have endeavoured to form a consistent and probable narrative. ness. "Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A.D. 1059, No. 69) has published the original act. He professes to have copied it from the Liber Censuum, a Vatican MS. Yet a Liber Cen. Buum of the xiith century has been printed by Muratori (Antiquit. medii Ævi, tom v. p. 851-908); and the names of Vatican and Cardinal awaken the suspicions of a Protestant, and even of a philosopher. VOL. VII. consumed. After the defeat of his foreign enemies, the Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens, their broken forces retreated to the strong and populous cities of the sea-coast. They excelled in the arts of fortification and defence; the Normans were accustomed to serve on horseback in the field, and their rude attempts could only succeed by the efforts of persevering courage. The resistance of Salerno was maintained above eight months: the siege or blockade of Bari lasted near four years. In these actions the Norman duke was the foremost in every danger, in every fatigue the last and most patient. As he pressed the citadel of Salerno an huge stone from the rampart shattered one of his military engines, and by a splinter he was wounded in the breast. Before the gates of Bari he lodged in a miserable hut or barrack, composed of dry branches, and thatched with straw-a perilous station, on all sides open to the inclemency of the winter and the spears of the enemy." His Italian The Italian conquests of Robert correspond with the limits of the present kingdom of Naples; and the countries united by conquests. his arms have not been dissevered by the revolutions of seven hundred years.46 The monarchy has been composed of the Greek provinces of Calabria and Apulia, of the Lombard principality of Salerno, the republic of Amalphi, and the inland dependencies of the large and ancient duchy of Beneventum. Three districts only were exempted from the common law of subjection-the first for ever, and the two last till the middle of the succeeding century. The city and immediate territory of Benevento had been transferred, by gift or exchange, from the German emperor to the Roman pontiff; and although this holy land was sometimes invaded, the name of St. Peter was finally more potent than the sword of the Normans. Their first colony of Aversa subdued and held the state of Capua, and her princes were reduced to beg their bread before the palace of their fathers. The dukes of Naples, the present metropolis, maintained the popular freedom under the shadow of the Byzantine empire. Among the new acquisitions of Guiscard the science of Salerno 47 and the trade of Amalphi 8 may detain for a moment the curiosity of the 48 "Read the Life of Guiscard in the second and third books of the Apulian, the first and second books of Malaterra. 46 The conquests of Robert Guiscard and Roger I., the exemption of Benevento and the XII provinces of the kingdom, are fairly exposed by Giannone in the second volume of his Istoria Civile, 1. ix. x. xi., and 1. xvii. p. 460-470. This modern division was not established before the time of Frederick II. 47 Giannone (tom. ii. p. 119-127), Muratori (Antiquitat. medii Ævi, tom. iii. dissort. xliv. p. 935, 936), and Tiraboschi (Istoria della Letteratura Italiana), have given an historical account of these physicians; their medical knowledge and practice must be left to our physicians. 48 At the end of the Historia Pandectarum of Henry Brenckmann (Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1722, in 4to.) the indefatigable author has inserted two dissertations-de Salerno reader. I. Of the earned faculties jurisprudence implies the prevous establishment of laws and property; and theology may School of perhaps be superseded by the full light of religion and reason. But the savage and the sage must alike implore the assistance of physic; and if our diseases are inflamed by luxury, the mischiefs of blows and wounds would be more frequent in the ruder ages of society. The treasures of Grecian medicine had been communicated to the Arabian colonies of Africa, Spain, and Sici.y; and in the intercourse of peace and war a spark of knowledge had been kindled and cherished at Salerno, an illustrious city, in which the men were honest and the women beautiful.49 A school, the first that arose in the darkness of Europe, was consecrated to the healing art: the conscience of monks and bishops was reconciled to that salutary and lucrative profession; and a crowd of patients of the most eminent rank and most distant climates invited or visited the physicians of Salerno. They were protected by the Norman conquerors; and Guiscard, though bred in arms, could discern the merit and value of a philosopher. After a pilgrimage of thirty-nine years, Constantine, an African Christian, returned from Bagdad, a master of the language and learning of the Arabians; and Salerno was enriched by the practice, the lessons, and the writings of the pupil of Avicenna. The school of medicine has long slept in the name of an university; but her precepts are abridged in a string of aphorisms, bound together in the Leonine verses, or Latin rhymes, of the twelfth century.50 II. Seven miles to the west of Salerno, and thirty Trade of to the south of Naples, the obscure town of Amalphi dis- Amalphi. played the power and rewards of industry. The land, however fertile, was of narrow extent; but the sea was accessible and open: the inhabitants first assumed the office of supplying the western world with the manufactures and productions of the East; and this useful traffic was the source of their opulence and freedom. The government was Republica Amalphitanâ, and de Amalphi à Pisanis direptâ, which are built on the testimonies of one hundred and forty writers. Yet he has forgotten two most important passages of the embassy of Liutprand (A.D. 969), which compare the trade and navigation of Amalphi with that of Venice. 49 Urbs Latii non est hâc delitiosior urbe, Gulielmus Appulus, 1. iii. p. 267. 50 Muratori carrics their antiquity above the year (1066) of the death of Edward the Confessor, the rex Anglorum to whom they are addressed. Nor is this date affected by the opinion, or rather mistake, of Pasquier (Recherches de la France, 1. vii. c. 2) and Ducange (Glossar. Latin.). The practice of rhyming, as early as the viith cen tury, was borrowed from the languages of the North and East (Muratori, Antiquat. tom. ii, dissert. xl. p. 686-708). popular, under the administration of a duke and the supremacy of the Greek emperor. Fifty thousand citizens were numbered in the walls of Amalphi; nor was any city more abundantly provided with gold, silver, and the objects of precious luxury. The mariners who swarmed in her port excelled in the theory and practice of navigation and astronomy; and the discovery of the compass, which has opened the globe, is due to their ingenuity or good fortune. Their trade was extended to the coasts, or at least to the commodities, of Africa, Arabia, and India; and their settlements in Constantinople, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria acquired the privileges of independent colonies.1 After three hundred years of prosperity Amalphi was oppressed by the arms of the Normans, and sacked by the jealousy of Pisa; but the poverty of one thousand fishermen is yet. dignified by the remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces of royal merchants. Conquest of A.D. 1060-1090. a Roger, the twelfth and last of the sons of Tancred, had been long detained in Normandy by his own and his father's age. He accepted the welcome summons; hastened to the Apulian camp; and deserved at first the esteem, and afterwards the envy, of his elder brother. Their valour and ambition were equal; but the youth, the beauty, the elegant manners, of Roger, engaged the disinterested love of the soldiers and people. So scanty was his allowance, for himself and forty followers, that he descended from conquest to robbery, and from robbery to domestic theft; and so loose were the notions of property, that, by his own historian, at his special command, he is accused of stealing horses from a stable at Melphi. His spirit emerged from poverty and disgrace: from these 52 The description of Amalphi, by William the Apulian (1. iii. p. 267), contains much truth and some poetry, and the third line may be applied to the sailor's compass: Nulla magis locuples argento, vestibus, auro Partibus innumeris: hâc [ac] plurimus urbe moratur Nauta maris cœlique vras aperire peritus. Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe Regis, et Antiochi. Gens hæc freta plurima transit. 52 Latrocinio armigerorum suorum in multis sustentabatur, quod quidem ad ejus ignominiam non dicimus; sed ipso ita præcipiente adhuc viliora et reprehensibiliora dicturi sumus [de ipso scripturi sumus] ut pluribus patescat, quam laboriose et cum quantâ angustiâ a profundă paupertate ad summum culmen divitiarum vel honoris Amalfi had only one thousand inhabitants at the commencement of the 18th century, when it was visited by Brenckmann (Brenckmann de Rep. Amalph. dies. i. c. 23). At present it has six or eight thousand. Hist. des Rép. Ital. tom. i. p 304.-G. |