In the 970s the growing power of the prince of Capua-Benevento was
threatening to take over those parts of southern Italy not under Byzantine
rule. In 973 there was an abortive coup in Salerno in which the childless
Prince Gisulf was packed off to Amalfi as a prisoner. The ringleader of
this coup was the former lord of Conza (the son of either Atenulf II or
Atenulf III of Benevento) whom Gisulf had expelled many years earlier,
but then allowed to return. Swift and decisive action by Pandulf Ironhead
restored Gisulf to his throne. However, the price of his restoration was that
Pandulf’s son be associated with him as co-ruler, and when Gisulf died in
977 that son (also called Pandulf ) was his successor. Thus in theory at least
the unity of the old principality of Benevento, as it had existed before the
division of 849, was restored (see above, p. 560). But such unity proved
illusory, for the death of Pandulf Ironhead in 981 was the precursor to the
break-up of his empire. Despite the presence of an imperial army under
Otto II both Salerno and Benevento revolted. The Beneventans installed as
their prince Pandulf’s nephew, the son of his brother and co-ruler Landulf
III, who had died in 968/9. The Salernitans turned first to Duke Manso
of Amalfi, and then in December 983 to a palace official, John of Spoleto
(983–99), who succeeded in holding on to the principality and founding a
new ruling dynasty.40 Thus from 982 on Lombard southern Italy was once
again divided into three separate principalities.
The year 982 also saw the eclipse of Ottonian influence in the south.
Otto II had decided to abandon the peace of 969, and launched a fresh
invasion of the Byzantine provinces. His army marched first into southern
Apulia where it besieged, but failed to take, Matera and Taranto. Then
he marched south into Calabria, which was once again menaced by Arab
incursions from Sicily.Otto’s army was defeated in a pitched battle with the
Arab invaders nearReggio and the emperor himself only narrowly escaped.41
Landulf IV of Capua (981–2) and his brother Pandulf, the deposed prince
of Salerno, were among the dead.
The defeat in Calabria, followed by Otto II’s death little more than
a year later and the resultant minority, meant that there was no further
German intervention in southern Italy for some sixteen years. It also ensured
that there would remain three separate Lombard principalities and that no
ruler would dominate the non-Byzantine south with imperial assistance,
as Pandulf Ironhead had done. His rule over Spoleto and Camerino was
granted to others. The principality of Capua was left in the hands of a
minor, under the tutelage of his mother. And in both Capua and Benevento
the forces of decentralisation, of which incastellamento was a symptom,
reduced princely authority little by little. In the principality of Benevento
the development of castelli accelerated from around 1000, and the rule of
the prince became limited to little more than the immediate vicinity of
Benevento itself.
The maintenance of central authority was certainly not helped by a
fragmentation of interests within the ruling families. For a time in 985Duke
Manso of Amalfi was displaced by his brother Adelferius. More seriously,
in 993 Prince Landenulf of Capua was murdered in an uprising in Capua,
and there are some indications that this was with the connivance of his
brother Laidulf (993–9), who succeeded him as prince.42 Soon afterwards
Archbishop Aion of Capua was also murdered, and in 996 Abbot Manso
of Cassino – who was, it will be remembered, a princely kinsman – was
captured while on a visit to Capua and blinded; this came after a period of
virtually open warfare in the north of the principality between the abbey of
Monte Cassino and the neighbouring counts of Aquino. Authority within
the principality of Capua was seemingly near collapse in the 990s.43 The
intervention of Emperor Otto III (983–1002) in 999 did nothing to cure
this. He deposed Laidulf and installed his own nominee as prince. But as
soon as Otto’s army withdrew his prot´eg´e was expelled, and replaced by a
brother of the prince of Benevento (whose capital Otto had besieged but
failed to capture).
While we have no such spectacular manifestations for other areas as we
have for Capua, dissipation of authority would appear to have been a fairly
general phenomenon. Even in the minuscule duchy of Gaeta the same
fissiparous tendencies as in the Lombard principalities manifested themselves,
with cadet branches of the ducal house setting up their own, almost
independent, counties in outlying parts of the duchy, at Fondi, Traetto and
Suio. The Byzantine dominions in contrast had a strong central administration.
But the recurrence of Arab attacks in the 980s and 990s posed
serious problems, not least because imperial attention was devoted almost
exclusively to more pressing matters elsewhere: revolts in Asia Minor and
then war with Bulgaria (see above, pp. 522–7). These Muslim raids penetrated
not merely into Calabria, but also deep into Apulia. The outskirts of
Bari were ravaged in 988, Taranto attacked in 991, Matera captured after a
long siege in 994, and Bari itself besieged for nearly five months in 1003 and
rescued only by a Venetian fleet. In northern Calabria, Cosenza was sacked
in 1009. If a note of pessimism creeps into contemporary documents this
is hardly surprising; Peter, an inhabitant of Conversano, lamented in 992
that he had made suitable provision for his elder sons in a time of peace;
but now in ‘a time of barbarism’ he could not do the same for his younger
son.44
Nor indeed was the west coast exempt from attack. The duchy of Amalfi,
whose trading links had hitherto protected it, was raided in 991. And in
999 the outskirts of Salerno were the victim of a further piratical raid.
According to the chronicle of Amatus of Monte Cassino (written some
eighty years later) there was general panic before a group of forty pilgrims
fromNormandy, returning from a visit to Jerusalem, volunteered to combat
the invaders, caught them unawares and routed them. Impressed with their
prowess, Prince Guaimar III (999–1027) invited them or their relatives to
enter his service as mercenaries. So at least ran the legend, and perhaps even
the sober fact, of the arrival of the Normans in southern Italy.45 For some
years to come they were only minor players in the region’s history. But, as
the eleventh century wore on, the Normans would change its course for
ever.
World History
