Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  At this time the Saracens of Africa sent over a fleet and an army to drive out the Normans, and there was a fight near Castrogiovanni. Roger sent his nephew, Serlo, who afterwards died a gallant death, to draw out the Arabs with a handful of men, and the Arabs rode so swiftly that only two of Serlo’s squadron escaped unwounded; but the enemy fell into the ambuscade, and Roger rode back to Troina with much spoil. The Saracens were not checked by so small a loss, however, and before long a great battle was fought by Cerami. There the whole Moslem host was drawn up in order of battle, and the Normans had never faced such odds before; but while Roger and his chiefs spoke words of comfort to their men, says the chronicle, one suddenly rode before them on a milk-white charger, and clothed in steel from head to heel, bearing on his lance a white pennant, whereon there was a blood-red cross, for Saint George himself had come down to fight against the infidels; and all that day the Normans slew and slew, till the bodies of fifteen thousand Saracens were heaped up like great ramparts on the earth, and the Normans slept in their armour on the slippery field, and on the next day they pursued the flying foe far and wide through the valleys and ravines of the mountains.

  In gratitude to God and Saint Peter for this great victory over the Africans and Saracens, Roger sent to Pope Alexander the Second four camels, and the Pope thereupon sent his benediction and a general absolution for past sins to Roger and to all those who were fighting, or should fight, to free Sicily from the Moslems; but the Pope added that this pardon could be of no avail unless the Christians felt some real repentance for their sins and made an effort to lead better lives in future.

  At this time the merchants of Pisa, whose commerce with Sicily had suffered greatly under the Mohammedan rule, sent out a fleet with a sort of general commission to do as much damage to the Saracens as possible; and finding Roger in Sicily, the admiral sent messengers to him at Troina, proposing a joint attack upon Palermo. But Roger was busy with other matters, and requested a short delay before making the attempt, and the Pisans sailed on without him. The description of their attack is very vague, but it is clear that they made no real attempt to storm the capital, and contented themselves with filing the chain which the Saracens had drawn across the harbour, and carrying it back to Pisa as a trophy.

  After this, as it was summer, and the weather in the plains was too hot for fighting, Roger projected another visit to his brother the Guiscard in Apulia. Before setting out he made his usual preparations for a journey, which consisted in sacking a few towns, whence he collected enough booty and ready money to stock Troina with provisions and to provide for his own necessities on the way. He left his countess in command and returned as soon as the great heat was over, bringing with him a hundred men lent him by Duke Robert. An expedition that he made against Girgenti about this time very nearly led to his destruction; for on his return his advance guard fell into an ambush, and in something like a panic dashed up the side of a hill, leaving the train of animals that carried the booty at the mercy of the enemy, who killed the driver. It was with the greatest of difficulty that Roger prevailed upon his men to come back and fight, and though they ultimately did so, and cut their way through with the plunder, they lost one of their best men in the action. Reflecting upon this skirmish, Roger began to see that it would be impossible to maintain the position of a mere marauder forever. The strength of the Saracens in the centre and west of Sicily was unshaken, for it seems that the great majority of those slain in the battle of Cerami were Africans, and the Saracens of Palermo had not yet brought their real forces into the field. Roger therefore now made a serious treaty with his brother Robert, and the time was favourable for a joint attempt, as the Greeks had not caused the Normans much anxiety since the defeat of Abul Kare, and the Greek city of Bari had at last made an agreement with Robert by which he was allowed to enter the walls. The so‑called Duke of Italy had been obliged to return to Durazzo, whence he was intriguing with a few discontented Normans to produce a rising in Italy, a danger to which the Guiscard seems to have been indifferent. He therefore turned his attention to Sicily, and in 1064 the two brothers crossed the straits with an army of five hundred Normans, traversed Sicily without opposition, and encamped upon a hill before Palermo. Here the chronicler says that they were tormented by tarantula spiders. This statement has caused some controversy among historians, who were possibly unacquainted with the spider in question. From personal knowledge I am able to say that the bite is extremely painful and irritating, but not fatal in any known case, and that tarantulas really are common enough all over the south. No one has been able to say with certainty which elevation it was that the Normans selected for their first encampment. I am inclined to think that it was Monreale, because that point is the one by which they would naturally have reached Palermo on the march from the interior, and because they afterwards returned to it and built the famous abbey on the site. Be that as it may, they were obliged to give way to the tarantulas and to encamp in lower ground, where they remained during three months, and made futile attacks upon the city, which they were unable to blockade by sea. They retired discomfited, and after a long raid through the country the Guiscard returned to Calabria with the conviction that for the conquest of Sicily a fleet was as necessary as an army. Soon after Guiscard’s return a civil war broke out between one of the African chiefs and Ibn‑al‑Hawwas, who was, however, soon slain, thereby leaving the African Arabs in power. The Sicilian Moslems soon began to revolt against their exactions, and being well informed of the situation, the wily Guiscard resolved to let internal discord do its work.

  Meanwhile he proceeded with the final conquest of Calabria, destroyed the city of Policastro in the gulf of that name, reduced the neighbourhood of Cosenza to subjection, failed in the siege of Ajello, but got possession of the place in the end by a treaty with the inhabitants, and then finally turned his attention to Apulia. The conspiracy planned and fostered in Durazzo by Perenos, the Duke of Italy, had reached dangerous proportions. Many Normans were now jealous of Duke Robert’s increasing power, and more than one owed him vengeance for some deed of violence and cruelty. The son of Humphrey, who was supposed to be Robert’s ward, but to whom the Guiscard paid no more attention than if he never existed, joined the malcontents, and Perenos exacted hostages from them in order to be sure of their good faith, and in return obtained for them large sums of money from Constantinople. Having learned wisdom from the Guiscard himself, his enemies avoided battle, and declined to lay siege to his cities, but ravaged his lands in all directions and when he, on his part, attempted to retaliate by attacking Perenos in Durazzo, on the other side of the Adriatic, a strong Greek fleet under the Admiral Mabrica put his vessels to flight. Mabrica now landed, and Bari, forgetful of its promises, opened its gates. The Greeks possessed the valuable aid of the Scandinavian Varanger guard, and gained more than one advantage in hand-to‑hand fight, and it looked as if the fruit of a long and laborious conquest were to be snatched from Robert’s hands; but gathering his tremendous energy, as he always could in any extremity, he at last got the upper hand, the Greeks fell back before him, the chief of the Norman conspirators fled in panic to Constantinople, and the duke brought the insurrection to an end when he got possession, by treachery, of Monte Peloso, the fortress on the hill overlooking the often-disputed plains of Cannae. This was in 1068. Robert immediately set about effacing the impression produced in the south by this revolution, and, rather than endanger his returning popularity by vengeance, however just, he consented to be reconciled with those of the conspirators who had not fled.

  It was at this time that the Seljuks became the south of serious anxiety to Constantinople, for they had advanced as far as Antioch and threatened the capital itself. The Greek emperor was therefore unable to turn his attention to Italy, and at the same time the Greek cause suffered a serious loss by the death of Argyros, the son of the patriotic Meles. After many vicissitudes, after suffering exile and imprisonment, he had returned to spend the last four years of his life in
Bari, and though at the end he entertained friendly relations with the Normans, he nevertheless remained the representative of the Greek-Italians until his death. It is surmised that he left his personal possessions to Robert Guiscard, for soon after his death the duke appeared before Bari with a fleet and demanded that all the houses which had belonged to Argyros should be handed over to him at once; and as they were a group of buildings resembling a castle rather than a palace, and dominating the city, it is not surprising that the Greeks should have refused haughtily to give them up. By way of adding insult to injury, however, they collected together a vast quantity of precious objects of gold and silver, and carried them in procession upon the ramparts under the blazing sun, so that Robert might be dazzled by the sight of the wealth which was refused him. But he, from his ship, answered smilingly that all he saw was his, and that he was much bounden to the people of Bari for taking such good care of his possessions.

  Thereupon he began a siege which lasted two years and eight months, and might have lasted longer had not Count Roger lent his assistance at the last. Robert determined to blockade the city by land and sea, in order to starve it to submission, and while his cavalry encamped on the land side, he shut in the harbour by anchoring before it a number of vessels lashed together with chains; and as the shelving shore would not allow the close approach of ships of such draught, he built out two wooden piers from the beach to the two ends of the line. Meanwhile, the patrician of the city, Bizanzio, went to Constantinople and appealed to the emperor, though Robert made an unsuccessful attempt to intercept him. He returned with a number of ships and a quantity of provisions, and though the Normans sank twelve of the vessels, the remainder succeeded in forcing his blockade, to the great joy of the inhabitants. They made a heroic defence, but within the city there was a strong party in favour of the Normans, under the leadership of Argirizzo, who maintained a correspondence with the duke, and served his end in every way. The siege had lasted two years when Argirizzo caused Bizanzio to be assassinated, and his partisans fired a number of houses belonging to the patriotic party. The latter retorted by an attempt to murder the Guiscard, which only failed by the merest accident. For a sum of money a certain soldier, who had a private grudge against the duke, and had formerly served under him, agreed to do the deed. Slipping out of the city unobserved, and armed with his sling and pike, he turned, when he was at a little distance from the rampart, and slung a few stones towards the city, as if he belonged to the besieging army. Then, entering the Norman camp without difficulty, for it was already dusk, he soon found the duke’s quarters, a mere hut made of branches so loosely fastened together that the murderer could see through them into the interior. The great Norman was seated at a low table alone, with the remains of his simple supper before him. He was overcome with fatigue, and as he sat there resting, he nodded, half asleep. The man watched some time by the light of the small oil lamp, and then, taking careful aim, he hurled his pike at the duke’s head with all his might, and instantly fled through the darkness. But at that instant the tired man had fallen forward upon the table, his face upon his arms, sound asleep, and the dart had passed harmlessly above his bent neck. It was found on the following day, and the Normans at once built their leader a stone house.

  During the long siege Robert had made more than one expedition, and had attempted to take Brindisi back, but had lost there a hundred of his men by a piece of frightful treachery. The Greek governor pretended to treat secretly with him for the betrayal of the city, and at the appointed hour and place the Normans were admitted, one by one, by a ladder. As each one then passed through a door, he was silently killed by the Greeks, and so a hundred perished before those behind knew what was happening. But before Bari fell, Robert took final possession of Brindisi.

  During all this time Roger was in Sicily, gradually strengthening his position, and now determined to advance upon Palermo by slow and sure steps. It was in 1068, in the first year of the siege of Bari, that he won the decisive battle of Misilmeri. The Moslem, exasperated by his unceasing ravages, had resolved to face him at last, and to stop his advance at the castle called in Arabic Manzil-al‑Emir, corrupted into Misilmeri. It is the very spot at which, in 1860, Garibaldi joined the Sicilian revolutionaries before seizing Palermo, and is only •nine miles from the city. We know not how many Moslems came out to meet the Normans, but it is told that all were slain. Now the Saracens reared carrier pigeons, feeding them on cornº and honey, and took them in baskets when they went out to war to carry back news of victory or defeat; and some of these were found among the booty. Then Roger indeed sent the news to Palermo, for he took slips of white parchment and dipped them in Saracen blood and fastened them to the birds’ necks, and let the pigeons fly. And when the people of Palermo saw them, they knew the worst, and the air was full of the lamentations of women and children.

  But Roger did not attempt to take the city itself, for he now fully understood that both an army and a fleet would be necessary for such an undertaking, and the signal defeat he had inflicted upon the Saracens at the very gates of their capital had inspired a wholesome terror of the Normans throughout the island, so that he was more free than heretofore to go and come at his pleasure.

  Meanwhile, the siege of Bari proceeded. After the murder of Bizanzio, Argirizzo redoubled his efforts in favour of the Normans, and the people cried out for bread before the doors of the Greek general’s palace, bidding him capitulate with the duke unless he could feed them. In reply, he made one last desperate appeal to Constantinople; a messenger was found who dared to run the blockade, and who bore to the emperor the tale of suffering. Then the emperor was moved, and commanded that a fleet should be got ready at Durazzo, under the command of a certain Norman who seems to have been one of the conspirators against Robert’s life, who had fled to the East after their failure. The messenger got back into the city unhurt, and he bade the citizens light many torches upon the ramparts at night to guide the rescuing fleet.

  But at this time, and at his brother’s request, Count Roger had sailed up from Sicily with many good ships; and when the Normans understood what was meant by the torches lighted every night on the city walls, Roger set a lookout to watch for the coming enemy. At last, on a certain night, in the mid-watch, many lights hove in sight, like a constellation of stars which men-of‑war carried in those days, and the admiral’s ship carried two. Then Roger sailed out with his fleet, and a great sea-fight was fought in the dark. Roger himself attacked the admiral, recognizing his ship by its lights, and took him prisoner; the ships of the Greek fleet were almost all destroyed or captured, and the torches that were to have guided a rescuing army to Bari lit up the return of a triumphant foe. The last hope of assistance was gone, and Argirizzo now treated almost openly with Robert for the surrender of the city, sending his own daughter as a hostage of his good faith. He immediately seized one of the principal towers of defence, and the negotiations were carried on without further concealment. Yet even now the patriotic inhabitants would have held out; men and women, children, priests, and monks came in throngs to the foot of the tower where Argirizzo was, and lifting up their hands, implored him with many tears not to betray them to the terrible Normans. But Argirizzo turned a deaf ear to their supplications, and would not even look out and see the people; and on the eve of Palm Sunday, in the year 1071, Robert made his triumphal entry into the city.

  With the wisdom born of long experience, the great duke disappointed the expectations of a terror-struck people; he neither took from them the rich treasures which they had tauntingly exposed to his gaze, nor exacted satisfaction for an insult that had brought a smile to his lips; he restored to the citizens the lands occupied by the Normans in the neighbourhood during the siege; he allowed no bloodshed nor violence, and treated the Greek garrison as prisoners of war; the only conditions that he imposed upon the city were that Argirizzo should be governor, and that the tribute formerly paid to Constantinople should now be paid to himself. In order that these conditions
should be faithfully executed, he established a Norman garrison in the fortifications. To such a degree had a long career of conquest civilized the wild freebooter of San Marco.

  The fall of Bari was the end of all Greek claims in Italy, and it had been brought about by the rapid development of the Norman naval power. Up to the year 1060 no mention is found of any Norman navy; ten years later the Norman fleets were more than a match for those of Constantinople, and from their victory at Bari they sailed almost directly to the final capture of Palermo. Bari was taken on the sixteenth of April, and in the first week of August fifty-eight Norman men-of‑war, of which ten were of the largest size, were ready to sail down upon Sicily from the harbour of Otranto, with an army numbering between eight and ten thousand men. Robert had collected not only Normans, but Lombards, Apulians, and Calabrians, and he had taken or forced into his service the soldiers of the Greek garrison taken prisoners. Under his iron hand these men of many nationalities fought with unbroken discipline throughout a campaign that lasted six months. He was not joined by all the Norman princes. Gisulf of Salerno, his own brother-in‑law, Richard of Capua, the Count of Trani, and many smaller lords stood sullenly aloof, expecting to witness his destruction, and one, if not more, took advantage of his absence to invade his dominions; but nothing could turn the sons of Tancred from their purpose, and while Robert marched a part of his forces from Otranto to reggio, the rest pursued their way to the same port by sea.