The Normans: From Raiders to Kings

by Lars Brownworth

  The entire assembly, clergy and nobles alike, were treated to a glittering display of ducal wealth, and then made to swear new oaths to Roger and his two sons. All the old promises were repeated – to respect the duke and his property – and a new one was added. The nobility had mistaken Roger’s diplomacy and pardons for softness, now they discovered that there was iron underneath the velvet. Each of them was forced to swear not to engage in private warfare, to allow no acts of lawlessness on their lands, and to surrender all brigands to the duke’s justice. To ensure this last part (Roger knew better than to trust their honor) he gave his courts teeth. If any noble failed to comply, they would be hunted down like a common criminal. The traditional way of life of the Normans since they had come to Italy, the ‘right of feud’, had abruptly come to an end. From now on the nobility, like the peasants they controlled, were bound by the rule of law. This was the most significant development in southern Italy since the coming of the Normans themselves.

  Most, no doubt, hoped that it was only a phase that would pass as soon as Roger returned to Sicily, but he was in deadly earnest. On every public occasion for the rest of his long reign he had those oaths repeated and renewed lest any of his nobles should be tempted to forget.

  Roger was now thirty-two and had accomplished more than any Norman since Guiscard. Against stiff papal and local resistance he had united all Norman lands in Italy, and had tighter control over the area than Guiscard had ever managed. But like any good Hauteville he had bigger dreams. For all intents he already had a kingdom; now he wanted a crown.

  There was no chance that the current pope would agree to any such thing, but fortunately for Roger the pope died the following year. The expected successor was a popular cardinal of Jewish descent who took the name Anacletus II, but before his supporters had a chance to organize, a group of rival cardinals hastily elected a reformer named Innocent. The outraged cardinals, who made up a majority of the electing body, went ahead and installed Anacletus anyway, and for a few months there were rival camps in Rome each claiming that the other pope was illegitimate.

  Anacletus, whose family was very wealthy and had made frequent donations to public entertainment, was far more popular than Innocent, and a few armed street fights between the sides convinced Innocent of that fact. He fled from Rome to France where he pleasantly discovered that the situation was reversed. Thanks to the reform movement that was sweeping through Western Europe, the exiled pope found himself a cause célèbre. No one outside of Italy had any desire to return to the bad old corrupt days when the papacy was the plaything of Roman aristocrats, and the well-connected Anacletus seemed to promise just that. The most respected voice in Christendom, Bernard of Clairvaux,43 took up Innocent’s cause. Bernard, a seemingly minor abbot of a small French monastery, dominated all of Europe for nearly two decades through the sheer force of his personality. The result of his championing of Innocent’s cause was that the kings of France and England – as well as the German emperor – hurried to pledge their support.

  Anacletus, who had paraded through the streets of Rome in triumph just a few months before, now suddenly found virtually all of Christendom united against him. Terrified, he turned to the one power which had characteristically not declared for either side – Sicily.

  Roger’s only condition, equally predictably, was that Anacletus give him a crown. Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily were still vastly different places and he needed the mystique of royalty to bind them together. The pope wasn’t in a position to argue and both sides knew it. After a modest show of contemplation, he agreed without reservation.

  Roger, however, was careful to stage the coronation in a way that made it clear that his crown was not at the whim of a pope. The title of king may have been granted by a pontiff, but it could not be taken away by another occupant of St. Peter’s throne. A mass meeting of the important nobles, abbots, and bishops was called and he formally presented them with his argument for being elevated to king. Sicily, he claimed, had once been the seat of an ancient kingdom and therefore this was not a new creation bestowed by the pope, but a restoration. The assembled nobles agreed unanimously by loud acclamation and the meeting broke up. Roger could now claim that the people had urged him to become king; there would be no whiff of the charge of usurpation. As always, he drove this point home with official propaganda. A mosaic was commissioned showing him receiving the crown not from the pope, but from Christ himself.

  The ceremony took place on Christmas Day 1130 in Palermo, and anybody who was anybody tried to cram into the city. The nobility competed to outdo each other with ostentatious displays of wealth, and the locals hung silks and threw flowers from every balcony and upper window. It was, as one eyewitness put it, as if the whole city was being crowned. As was fitting, Roger himself outshone them all. Dressed in a cloth of red and gold he presided over a vast banquet. The servants were dressed in finer silks than many of the watching nobility, and the food was served on settings of silver and gold.

  When it was finished, he processed to Palermo’s cathedral and stood before the high altar for a service almost unique in Christian history. The Catholic archbishop of Palermo presided, with Greek Orthodox priests attending, and the pope’s representative held the holy oil. Roger knelt and was anointed with sacred oil, and then his chief vassal placed the crown on his head. When it was over he stood, and the great doors were thrown open to Palermo’s population.

  Sicily had been a witness to most of the great Mediterranean empires. The Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, and Arabs had in turn ruled over the island. But for all of these it had been a mere conquered province exploited for its grain, forever passed between more powerful neighbors and considered important only for what resources it could provide distant capitals. Now, for the first time in its long history (despite the claims of Roger to the contrary) it had a king of its own, and on that Christmas Day in 1130 the citizens of Palermo caught their first splendid glimpse of him.

  Roger’s crown, however well earned, had come with a fearsome cost. To get it he had backed an antipope and defied the rest of Christendom. At the time, of course, it wasn’t clear which of the rival popes, Anacletus or Innocent, would emerge the victor, but as the months passed more and more crowned heads moved to Innocent’s camp.

  This was largely due to the influence of the tireless Bernard of Clairvaux who convinced both the wavering French king and Henry I of England – along with the majority of the population outside of Italy - to support Innocent. The one important holdout was the German king Lothair who was being heavily courted by both sides. As far as the German was concerned, Anacletus’ great advantage was that he controlled Rome. Lothair could only be crowned emperor in the eternal city, and he wouldn’t be completely secure on his own throne until that was done. Since popular opinion was clearly on Innocent’s side he waffled as long as possible until a personal visit by Bernard changed his mind. Poor Lothair tried to resist, but a public tongue-lashing soon had him promising to lead an army down to Rome to evict Anacletus, overthrow Roger, and install Innocent.

  When Lothair finally arrived in Italy in the spring of 1133, he found the situation unexpectedly in his favor. Roger’s coronation was deeply unpopular in southern Italy. The great Norman barons of the peninsula saw no reason why they should have their wings clipped by a man whose family had only been there for a generation, and in anticipation of Lothair’s arrival they had gathered a rebel army and stormed several royal castles. Roger, in a rare miscalculation, had taken the field against them. He had shown great personal valor, cutting a swath through the opposing infantry, but his own army had been smashed. The defeat shook even his closest supporters. Venosa, the bastion of Hauteville power where four of the most famous members of his family lay buried in state, joined the rebels. Across Apulia and Calabria royal garrisons were slaughtered, and men flocked to the imperial banner. The long-dreaded clash between empire and island kingdom was at hand.

  Roger was clearly the weaker of the two, but he ke
pt his head. The size and speed of the rebellion had taken Lothair by surprise as well, and he wasn’t prepared to take full advantage of it. When the rebel leaders met with him they were disappointed to find that the size of his army had been greatly exaggerated. He had only brought with him some two thousand men, hardly enough to capture Rome or topple Roger from his new throne.

  Lothair had expected his presence to be enough to rattle Anacletus, but instead he dug in his heels. The Norman-supported pope and his supporters controlled the right bank of the Tiber including the fortress of Castel San’Angelo and St Peter’s, and refused to budge. The German king had to settle for installing Innocent into the older Lateran Palace where he was dutifully crowned emperor while being taunted by Anacletus’ supporters across the Tiber.

  The newly-minted emperor proved a grave disappointment to his Italian allies. Any hopes that he would stay to lead a grand offensive against Roger were dashed a few days after the ceremony. Lothair had pressing business in Germany and had obtained what he wanted from Italy. Making a promise to return in force, more as a sop to Bernard than a serious pledge, he withdrew over the Alps as quickly as he could.

  His departure left the rebels stranded. Roger had rebuilt his army and was in no mood to show them any mercy. Innocent tried to assist the barons as much as he could by excommunicating any soldier who participated in Roger’s army, but the clever Sicilian had recruited his troops from the island’s Muslims who couldn’t care less about the pope. Every major rebellious town in Apulia was burnt and its leaders executed. Roger had customarily shown generosity in victory but now there was only the mailed fist. The two barons who had started the rebellion were rounded up and publicly humiliated. The first was hung while the second was made to hold the rope, then he too was dispatched. Roger returned to Sicily well pleased with himself. Despite the disastrous start to the year it had ended in triumph. His papal candidate was still secure in Rome, his entire kingdom was at peace, and he had successfully defied the emperor.

  Unfortunately it proved to be only a short respite. Within a few weeks of his return to Palermo a fever swept through the city leaving the queen dead and Roger broken with grief. He shut himself up in the palace, refusing to see anyone, and the resulting rumor that he was dead awoke all the rebellious dreams in southern Italy. More seriously still was the news from the North.

  Lothair had been quite pleased with his Italian adventure. He had technically fulfilled his oath to install Innocent as pope in Rome, and had gotten his crown. Unfortunately for him, however, Bernard of Clairvaux wasn’t amused by his half-hearted performance. The abbot had come to the sensible conclusion that Anacletus would never be ousted from Rome while Roger was king of Sicily, so he demanded that Lothair turn around, re-invade Italy, and properly finish the job.

  Bernard wasn’t the only one worried about Roger. Southern Italy had been at least partly under control of the Byzantine Empire for the better part of the last thousand years and now the Sicilians had started raiding Byzantium’s rich Dalmatian coast. How long before Roger had the same idea as his uncle Guiscard and invaded the imperial homeland? The Byzantine emperor John the Beautiful didn’t want to wait around and find out. He wrote to Lothair offering his support in a joint attack on Sicily.

  The Byzantine ambassador found a second ally when he stopped by Venice on his way to Germany. The Venetian trading empire had been considerably hurt by the growth of Palermo and the Doge offered the full support of his navy.

  In Germany, the situation had also considerably improved for Lothair since his coronation. The imperial crown had cowed his potential rivals and he could now afford to throw all of his considerable resources into an Italian campaign. He spent a year gathering his forces, and when the snows cleared he crossed the Alps and descended into northern Italy.

  This time there was no resisting the Germans. The northern cities fell with barely a struggle and the Norman barons again rose up in revolt. Pope Innocent, together with his court, joined Lothair as the emperor received the submission of the Italian cities. With any luck they would mop up the mainland before winter hit and the next spring invade Sicily.

  Despite the seriousness of the threat to his kingdom, Roger didn’t panic. He had two great advantages; the summer heat, and the feudal underpinnings of Lothair’s army. The German emperor wasn’t an absolute monarch. He could command several months of military service from his vassals, but couldn’t hold them forever. The longer the campaign wore on, the more restless they would become, so Roger carefully avoided any battles. Every time Lothair advanced, he retreated. At the same time, he constantly offered to meet separately with his antagonists to strain the relationship between pope and emperor.

  By the late summer his efforts had paid off. The heat was oppressive, malaria had decimated the ranks, and Lothair’s vassals were openly demanding to be released from service. Virtually the only thing they could all agree on was their distaste for the pope and his Italian court who complained constantly and for whose sake they had been dragged hundreds of miles from their homes. Things got so bad that there was an attempt on the pope’s life44 that was only thwarted by the Lothair’s personal involvement. In a last ditch effort to force a decisive battle, the emperor besieged Roger’s mainland capital of Salerno, but the Sicilian king calmly stayed where he was.

  The annoyed emperor told his Italian allies to look after themselves and returned across the Alps. The entire campaign had been a colossal waste of time. He hadn’t managed to accomplish anything permanent, there were still two popes arguing over Rome, Roger was still secure as ever, and without the imperial army the Italian rebels couldn’t hope to stand against the Normans. When Lothair died suddenly two months after returning to Germany, the Sicilian king had already recovered most of his territory.

  The emperor was followed to the grave a few months later by Roger’s pope, Anacletus II. Innocent was now the rightful pontiff by default, and Roger did his best to come to terms with his old enemy. As he stamped out the last traces of revolt he was careful not to cross into papal territory. He also officially recognized Innocent as the rightful pope and sent letters to all his supporters to do likewise.

  As far as Innocent was concerned, however, this was far too little too late. Without Roger’s meddling he would have been the accepted pope for years now, and the Church wouldn’t have had to go through the pain and embarrassment of a schism. Roger was officially excommunicated (for the second time) and, since no emperor was handy to lend an army, Innocent raised one himself and invaded the Norman kingdom.

  Papal armies had never fared well against the Normans, and this one was no exception. On July 22, 1139 the forces of Innocent were ambushed by Roger as they crossed the Garigliano River. By nightfall the pope, his cardinals, and his entire treasury were all in Roger’s hands. Like his predecessor Pope Leo IX who had been captured by Robert Guiscard, Innocent bore his defeat stoically. The Normans treated him with excessive respect, almost enough to disguise the fact that he was a prisoner, but he was under no illusions as to what he had to do. Three days later he officially confirmed Roger as King of Sicily, Duke of Apulia, and Prince of Capua, and recognized term by term what Anacletus had agreed to nine years before. He was powerless to do otherwise, but he did have one last spark of defiance. At the ceremony celebrating the occasion, with Roger in attendance dressed in the heavy robes of state and the summer sun beating mercilessly down, he preached a sermon of enormous length.

  The return to Sicily was a happy one for Roger. Southern Italy had finally been pacified – it was never again to offer serious resistance to him for the remainder of his reign – and he left it in the capable hands of his son Roger III. It had taken him ten years to win his kingdom against the strenuous opposition of two emperors and a pope, and now he meant to make sure it endured. The first step was to give it a constitution; uniform laws that would create a strong, centralized state. The German invasion had shown him the limitations of a feudal arrangement, so he patterned his kingdom on
autocratic Byzantium. In a flurry of laws he created his idea of the divine monarchy, an all-powerful sovereign who never let the mask of authority slip. Reinforcing this was a new uniform coinage copied directly from Byzantine coins, which showed Roger in imperial robes on one side and Christ Pantocrator45 on the reverse. The old Norman coins had displayed St Peter to show their loyalty to the pope, but the king of Sicily had a more direct connection to the divine.

  Along with the internal reforms came a rash of architectural and scientific activity. The two crown jewels of Norman Sicily, the Palatine Chapel and the Martorana, were built with royal funds, each a unique fusion of Byzantine, Arab, and Norman culture. A great commission based in the busy port city of Palermo was appointed to study geography. For over a decade every ship that requested entry to Sicily was boarded and questioned about what they had seen. The geographical information collected was recorded in two places, a large globe of pure silver inscribed with the known world’s continents and countries, and a thick tome called The Book of Roger.

  The effort was surprisingly accurate. Scandinavia is described as having few hours of sunlight in the winter, and the sister Norman kingdom of England is described as cold and wet. It even correctly describes the earth as round some three and a half centuries before Columbus. Palermo became the center of a mini-Renaissance, the one place outside Spain or Constantinople where scholars had access to Greek, Arab, and western learning.

  During this period Roger also managed to neutralize his most outspoken critic, Bernard of Clairvaux. Before he had returned to Germany, Lothair had made it quite clear what he thought of the pope, and Bernard, a zealous guard of papal dignity, had been offended. Roger, on the other hand, was a generous patron of the Church, and his donations to the Cistercian order had swung the abbot of Clairvaux over to his side.