Having just defied repeated sieges by Henry IV the Romans would have been confident, but so was Robert Guiscard. His army camped outside the city walls was eleventh-century Europe’s most formidable military machine, and Robert had defeated every major power in the Mediterranean, from Ibn al-Hawas of Sicily to the Venetians, to Emperor Alexius Comemnus of Byzantium. Now he had sent the Holy Roman Emperor fleeing.
As to what happened next, once again we find ourselves in the hands of highly partisan chroniclers. They even disagree on the size of Guiscard’s army. Two sources – Bishop Guido of Ferrara and William of Apulia – claim he had a huge force of 30,000 to 36,000 men, while Geoffrey of Malaterra reports, in his biography of Robert Guiscard, that he had only 4,000. Whom should we trust? Bishop Guido of Ferrara was on the imperial side of the squabble and so had good reason to exaggerate Guiscard’s strength, as it would make Henry’s flight more excusable. Besides, a force of tens of thousands seems implausible in an era when armies were rarely large, while it was even less plausible in the case of Robert Guiscard, whose main force was still on the far side of the Adriatic, battling with Alexius Comemnus’ Byzantines. Geoffrey of Malaterra’s small army seems the more likely.
As to how Guiscard’s soldiers got into Rome, there is less disagreement. Geoffrey of Malaterra tells us that Guiscard camped his army outside the San Lorenzo Gate for three days, during which time he carefully spied out the city, and for once all the sources concur. Guiscard’s forces successfully broke into the city without help from inside. It is a simple assertion yet it is also quite remarkable. All the attacks on a properly defended and walled Rome so far, from that of Alaric, to the Ostrogoths, to those of Henry IV, involved protracted and ineffectual sieges. Alaric took Rome after two years of trying, Totila after a year (twice) and Henry IV after three years. Witigis besieged the city for a full year and failed to take it at all. Alaric, Totila and Henry all managed to capture the city only with the help of those inside the walls. By contrast Robert Guiscard took Rome without any inside help, in just four days.
How did he do it? Sources and Roman tradition all agree that he camped his army to the east of Rome and then got in through one of the gates. Which gate, though, is less clear. The sources offer a series of possibilities, from the Pinciana and Flaminia gates on the north side of the city to San Lorenzo in the east, but it is almost certainly none of these. Archaeological work has uncovered both fire damage and repair work that dates from this period in a different location entirely: the Latina Gate to the south. The Porta Latina seems a highly plausible candidate. It still stands, and a glance is enough to show that the Aurelian Walls are lower here than at other locations. Geoffrey of Malaterra reports that, having left the main part of his army to the east of the city, where they would distract and pin down Roman forces, he used darkness to sneak a force of some 1,400 round the walls, which then launched a dawn attack where he ‘sensed that the guard would be weakest, with nobody expecting anything to happen in that area.’7 In the late eleventh century the Porta Latina was in a quiet spot, far from the more inhabited parts of the city. As to how the Normans got into the city, Malaterra tells us that, ‘Once the ladders had been quietly positioned, he scaled the walls.’8 Guiscard relied on the simplest tactics: darkness and surprise. Yet his strategy proved so effective that one wonders why it was never tried by Henry, or for that matter by Alaric or Totila? Having scaled the walls, the Normans opened the Latina Gate and let their comrades inside. The city lay open to them.
Robert Guiscard, a warlord whose name inspired fear across the Mediterranean, had Rome at his mercy. Did he exact a terrible revenge on behalf of his ally, Gregory VII, whom the Romans had just betrayed? Once again, chroniclers offer a series of very different accounts, though all are agreed on one point: a dose of arson was involved. William of Apulia tells us simply that Guiscard ‘fired some of the buildings’,9 then rescued Gregory VII and left. The Liber Pontificalis claims Guiscard did great damage to the area north of the Pantheon, around San Lorenzo in Lucina. Leo Marsicanus looks to Guiscard’s cunning side, claiming that he deliberately set alight the church of Quattro Coronati and then, when the Romans were distracted trying to put it out, darted across the city to free Gregory. Geoffrey of Malaterra reports that Guiscard rescued Gregory with little trouble and reinstalled him in the Lateran Palace, but then three days later the Romans treacherously rose against him, and Guiscard, in order to defend himself, damaged ‘the greater part of the city’.10 The goriest version is offered by Bishop Guido of Ferrara, who claims that Guiscard burned most of the city, destroyed churches, and violently seized many married women and simple people from the sanctuary of churches.
Once again, archaeology offers the only neutral source of information. No evidence has been found of widespread destruction, though eight important buildings were damaged, some of them wholly destroyed. All were churches and they are worth listing: San Giovanni in Porta Latina, Santa Prisca on the Aventine Hill, San Giorgio Velabro by the river, San Lorenzo in Lucina to the north of the Pantheon – the area that the Liber Pontificalis claimed was badly damaged – and Santi Quattro Coronati on the Caelian Hill.
It may seem odd that Robert Guiscard, who had come to rescue the pope, burned churches. In this era, though, they frequently had two functions: religious and military. As robust stone buildings – a rarity in eleventh-century Europe – they were natural citadels. When Guiscard entered the city his greatest concern would have been to create a safe escape route for himself so that, if things went badly wrong, he would not risk the nightmare scenario of becoming trapped in a hostile city. He could leave no enemies behind him to block his retreat and so needed to smoke out any opponents holed up in churches, by setting alight their doors or, more probably, by climbing on to their roofs, removing tiles and firing the beams below.
Rome’s burned churches mark out the likely route the Normans took. Having caught the Roman defenders by surprise on the wall they then secured their line of retreat by smoking out two groups of resisters, in the tower above the Latina Gate, and in the church of San Giovanni in Porta Latina that was just below. Next they made their way north along the Via di Porta Latina, past the ruined Baths of Caracalla to the long-abandoned chariot-racing stadium, the Circus Maximus. Here they may have linked up with some of Gregory’s allies in the city, as his nephew Rusticus was still holding out in the nearby Septizonium fortress and the Frangipani clan were just beyond in the Colosseum. Pausing to smoke out some more resisters in the church of Santa Prisca on the Aventine Hill, and some more in San Giorgio Velabro by the river, the Normans would then have linked up with the Pierleoni on the Tiber Island, before finally making their way along the river to rescue a grateful and livid Gregory VII.
The Normans had achieved their aim but they still had to get safely out. It may have been now that they damaged the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, north of the Pantheon, or the church could have been fired by a second raiding force that broke into the city through one of the northern gates, as some sources claim. But the worst damage was still to be done. On the Caelian Hill the church of Quattro Coronati was gutted. It is easy to see why. If churches were strongpoints, Quattro Coronati, whose high walls rose out of the ruins of an ancient Roman town house, was nothing less than a fortress, which dominated the northern approach to the Lateran. Quite a struggle appears to have taken place here as not only Quattro Coronati but the whole Caelian Hill area was devastated. Was it here that the Romans launched the ill-fated counter-attack on the Normans that Geoffrey of Malaterra describes? It seems unlikely. As Guiscard’s eulogist Malaterra would have wanted to show that the Romans were treacherous and deserving of punishment. It is more likely that the church was fired so the Normans could seize the Lateran area, whose capture was essential if they were to prove that Gregory had truly triumphed. Control of the Lateran would also allow them to link up with the rest of the Norman army that was still waiting outside the walls.
So it seems that of all the accounts of the at
tack, the one that gives the truest picture is probably also the briefest: that of William of Apulia, who said only that Guiscard burned certain buildings, rescued Pope Gregory and left. His words hint at what seems to have been a distinctly modern operation. Robert Guiscard set himself a clear and limited mission that he undertook with great efficiency. He broke into the city, rescued Gregory and overcame Roman resistance in a very short time, probably a matter of hours. It was a search and rescue mission worthy of a modern special forces unit.
Not for the first or the last time, Rome had got off relatively lightly as the damage it had suffered could have been far worse. It was helped by its topography. As a garden suburb city, its buildings were too low and dispersed to fuel a firestorm. It was also fortunate to have been attacked in May when the air was still relatively damp and wood less combustible. Yet the destruction should not be understated, either. The Caelian Hill, which had been a busy artisan area, was largely abandoned after the sack. There would also have been other damage that no archaeology can reveal. If Guiscard’s attack was something of a surgical strike, there was still the question of what followed afterwards. The Romans had turned against their pope and now he was back in charge. He may have shown forgiveness – the sources offer no information either way – but his allies, the Frangipani, Pierleoni and Corsi, would have felt strongly aggrieved by those who had besieged them in their fortresses. It is hard to believe there was not some score-settling.
Despite Robert Guiscard’s success, the real victor in the whole messy business was Henry IV. Not only had he succeeded in having himself crowned Holy Roman Emperor, he also kept control of the papacy. Though he hurried back to Germany, his antipope Clement III retreated only as far as the nearby hilltop town of Tivoli, where, showing his military acumen once again, he foiled all efforts by Guiscard and Gregory VII to capture him. The majority of Romans did not waver in their hostility to Gregory – they really had grown fed up with the man – who, only weeks after being rescued, was forced to flee his state. Guiscard, recognizing the usefulness of having a pope as his house guest, took him to his capital, Salerno, where he quickly put him to work, and had him consecrate the fine new cathedral Guiscard had just built in the city. All in all, the Rome attack had been a highly successful operation for him, which had enhanced his status and given him guaranteed support from the rightfully appointed pope.
• • •
Yet Guiscard’s triumph was short-lived. Within a year both Gregory and he were dead. Gregory VII, his papacy still in tatters, died in exile in Salerno in May 1085. Robert Guiscard followed him two months later, succumbing to fever on the Greek island of Cephalonia, where he was trying to restart his stalled conquest of the Byzantine Empire.
Henry and his antipope fared much better. Henry ruled for another two decades before finally being betrayed, imprisoned and forced to abdicate by his son, Henry V. As for Clement III, within months of Guiscard and Gregory abandoning Rome for Salerno, he was back in the Lateran Palace and, despite repeated challenges by rival candidates, he clung on to the papacy for another sixteen years until his death in 1100. Though he had his comeuppance in the end. After he died he received a damnatio memorie – a condemnation of memory – by his successor Paschal II, who had his bones dug up from their tomb and thrown into the Tiber.
Clockwise from top left: Henry IV and the anti-pope Guibert; Gregory being expelled from Rome; Gregory VII’s death; Gregory VII negotiates with the bishops about Henry’s excommunication; from the Chronicles of Otto Freising, twelfth century.
As to Rome, after three years of sieges and with its legitimate pope flung out, it was left in an unstable state. If papal schisms had occurred from time to time in the past, they now became so commonplace that most incumbent popes were menaced by rivals’ claims. And yet, somehow, in the city’s calmer moments, repairs were made and the churches that had been burned down by Guiscard’s troops, such as Santi Quattro Coronati, were rebuilt.
Two new churches were created thanks to the city’s instability. Both of these could be described as revenge churches, as their construction was used by one pope to obliterate the building of a hated predecessor. San Clemente, near to the Colosseum, had been closely linked with Henry IV’s antipope and military organizer, Clement III. After Clement III’s death his successor Paschal II – who threw Clement’s bones into the Tiber – had Clement’s church entombed with earth and used as the foundation for a new San Clemente. A few decades later the same fate befell Santa Maria in Trastevere, which had been the church of Anacaletus II before he became pope, and was entirely demolished and rebuilt by his successor and enemy, Innocent II. Thanks to spite, Rome gained two of its most beautiful churches.
If Roman politics were not already complex enough, in the 1140s a new element was added. As happened in other Italian cities at this time, Rome’s middle-ranking inhabitants created their own government – the Senate – as a secular answer to the papacy. That so much of early Rome has survived is partly thanks to the Senate. The new body looked back with nostalgia to Rome’s early days, meeting on the city’s old citadel of the Capitoline Hill, and reviving the ancient title SPQR. It also tried to protect the city’s surviving antiquities. It prohibited damage to Trajan’s Column on pain of death and senatorial officials, Maestri di Strade e degli Edifici, were created to protect ancient monuments. The Senate first met three years after Pope Innocent II began looting the Baths of Caracalla of stone to build his revenge church, Santa Maria in Trastevere, so its very existence may have been inspired by anger at the destruction suffered by the city’s ancient remains.
Naturally the papacy was none too happy with the new power arrangement, and emperors, popes and the Senate soon became embroiled in a shifting, triangular struggle for power. The main victim of the resulting chaos was the pilgrim trade, as pilgrims, impatient with Rome’s violent disorder and avarice, chose to go elsewhere. In the generations before 1081 Rome had gained a new rival in the form of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Pilgrims to Compostela, like those going to Rome, enjoyed an exciting journey that included the adventure of crossing high mountains, and though Compostela could not offer Peter and his keys to heaven, at least it was not infested with malaria, while successful pilgrims could buy a badge – a scallop shell – to show off when they got home. (Rome offered none.)
If Compostela were not enough, a few years after Robert Guiscard’s attack Rome had to endure a second great pilgrimage rival. A little surprisingly, this competition was largely created by the popes. In 1097 Pope Urban II, the nemesis of Henry IV’s antipope Clement III, made a reality of an idea that Gregory VII had dabbled with, and called for a crusade to the East. Two years later Jerusalem was captured from its Islamic rulers and became open to Christian visitors as it had not been for more than six hundred years. Jerusalem trumped Rome in every way. Pilgrims were forgiven all their sins. They felt they were in the presence of Jesus himself. And they could also buy a badge that depicted a palm leaf. Rome lost out as pilgrims flooded eastwards.
As Rome struggled, competition between its basilicas increased. Pilgrims were often disappointed by St Peter’s, where they found themselves kept at a distance from the saint’s remains that were buried deep beneath the basilica. Even the area above the tomb, where one could lower pieces of cloth and have them imbued with blessings, was off limits to all but VIP pilgrims. The Lateran Basilica offered itself as a more exciting alternative. It had a large collection of excitingly visible relics, which included what were claimed to be the Ark of the Covenant, milk from the Virgin’s breast, Jesus’ bodily remains and blood, his foreskin, the remnants of five of the loaves and two of the fishes he had produced and, most popular of all, the heads of both Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The Lateran Basilica also housed a very popular cloth image of Jesus – the Uronica – that was claimed to have been painted by Saint Luke and the angels. It was said to cause instant blindness to anyone who looked upon it, and so was always kept carefully covered. In mid-August it was carried round Ro
me in a grand procession, had its feet washed and was introduced to an image of Mary from Santa Maria Nova.
The priests of St Peter’s fought back. The cathedral already had a piece of the True Cross, which had been suddenly revealed to Pope Sergius I during restoration work in the seventh century. Now they discovered the chair on which Saint Peter had been enthroned as bishop (it was actually from northern France and was probably brought by Frankish ruler Charles the Bald for his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor). Most usefully of all they acquired their own image of Jesus – the Veronica – which was claimed to be on the cloth Veronica had used to wipe Jesus’ brow.
Soon there was enough pilgrim gold for both basilicas. Within decades of the Norman sack Europe was booming, gold flowed freely and Rome entered one of its greatest eras of cultural achievement. New churches were built and artists came from all over Italy to produce magnificent mosaics, frescoes and statues. Rome also offered an enticing new pilgrimage product – indulgences – which reduced the amount of time one spent in hell before reaching heaven. Best of all, in 1187, Jerusalem fell to Saladin and so Rome lost a major competitor. The dynamic Pope Innocent III, who took papal power-playing to lengths Gregory VII had only dreamed of, capitalized on Rome’s good fortune. He built a hospital for pilgrims in the Leonine City and introduced weekly processions of St Peter’s Veronica image of Jesus, which proved hugely popular. And he finally gave Rome pilgrims a badge – the Signa Apostolorum – which depicted Saint Paul with a sword and Saint Peter holding his key to heaven. Heaving with crowds, the Leonine City resembled a vast bazaar, shopping stalls sneaked their way into the very nave of St Peter’s, and innkeepers physically grabbed pilgrims from their rivals.
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