The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

E >> Edward Gibbon >> The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5

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[Footnote 37: The birth, character, and first actions of Robert
Guiscard, may be found in Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. i. c. 3, 4, 11,
16, 17, 18, 38, 39, 40,) William Appulus, (l. ii. p. 260 - 262,)
William Gemeticensis, or of Jumieges, (l. xi. c. 30, p. 663, 664,
edit. Camden,) and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. i. p. 23 - 27, l.
vi. p. 165, 166,) with the annotations of Ducange, (Not. in
Alexiad, p. 230 - 232, 320,) who has swept all the French and
Latin Chronicles for supplemental intelligence.]

[Footnote 38: (a Greek corruption), and elsewhere, (l. iv. p.
84,). Anna Comnena was born in the purple; yet her father was no
more than a private though illustrious subject, who raised
himself to the empire.]

[Footnote 39: Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 2) forgets all his original
authors, and rests this princely descent on the credit of
Inveges, an Augustine monk of Palermo in the last century. They
continue the succession of dukes from Rollo to William II. the
Bastard or Conqueror, whom they hold (communemente si tiene) to
be the father of Tancred of Hauteville; a most strange and
stupendous blunder! The sons of Tancred fought in Apulia, before
William II. was three years old, (A.D. 1037.)]

[Footnote 40: The judgment of Ducange is just and moderate: Certe
humilis fuit ac tenuis Roberti familia, si ducalem et regium
spectemus apicem, ad quem postea pervenit; quae honesta tamen et
praeter nobilium vulgarium statum et conditionem illustris habita
est, "quae nec humi reperet nec altum quid tumeret." (Wilhem.
Malmsbur. de Gestis Anglorum, l. iii. p. 107. Not. ad Alexiad. p.
230.)]

[Footnote 41: I shall quote with pleasure some of the best lines
of the Apulian, (l. ii. p. 270.)

Pugnat utraque manu, nec lancea cassa, nec ensis

Cassus erat, quocunque manu deducere vellet.

Ter dejectus equo, ter viribus ipse resumptis

Major in arma redit: stimulos furor ipse ministrat.

Ut Leo cum frendens, &c.

- - - - - - -

Nullus in hoc bello sicuti post bella probatum est

Victor vel victus, tam magnos edidit ictus.]

[Footnote 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. It is no bad translation of the surname and
character of Robert.]

As the genius of Robert expanded with his fortune, he
awakened 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 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 forever 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 and execute the decrees
of the Roman pontiff. His gratitude and policy conferred on
Robert and his posterity the ducal title, ^43 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. ^44 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 labor of twenty years to deserve and
realize these lofty appellations. Such sardy 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 vigor, 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 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, a 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. ^45

[Footnote 43: The acquisition of the ducal title by Robert
Guiscard is a nice and obscure business. With the good advice of
Giannone, Muratori, and St. Marc, I have endeavored to form a
consistent and probable narrative.]

[Footnote 44: 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 Censuum of the
xiith century has been printed by Muratori, (Antiquit. Medii
Aevi, tom. v. p. 851 - 908;) and the names of Vatican and
Cardinal awaken the suspicions of a Protestant, and even of a
philosopher.]

[Footnote 45: Read the life of Guiscard in the second and third
books of the Apulian, the first and second books of Malaterra.]

The Italian conquests of Robert correspond with the limits
of the present kingdom of Naples; and the countries united by 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 forever,
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, ^48 may detain for a
moment the curiosity of the reader. I. Of the learned faculties,
jurisprudence implies the previous establishment of laws and
property; and theology may 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 Sicily; 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 a 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 to the south
of Naples, the obscure town of Amalphi displayed 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
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 owing 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. ^51
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 ^* fisherman is yet dignified by the
remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces of royal
merchants.

[Footnote 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, l. ix. x. xi and l. xvii. p. 460 - 470. This modern
division was not established before the time of Frederic II.]

[Footnote 47: Giannone, (tom. ii. p. 119 - 127,) Muratori,
(Antiquitat. Medii Aevi, tom. iii. dissert. 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.]

[Footnote 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 Republica
Amalphitana, and de Amalphi a Pisanis direpta, 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. 939,) which compare the trade and navigation of
Amalphi with that of Venice.]

[Footnote 49: Urbs Latii non est hac delitiosior urbe,

Frugibus, arboribus, vinoque redundat; et unde

Non tibi poma, nuces, non pulchra palatia desunt,

Non species muliebris abest probitasque virorum.

Gulielmus Appulus, l. iii. p. 367]

[Footnote 50: Muratori carries 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,
l. vii. c. 2) and Ducange, (Glossar. Latin.) The practice of
rhyming, as early as the viith century, was borrowed from the
languages of the North and East, (Muratori, Antiquitat. tom. iii.
dissert. xl. p. 686 - 708.)]

[Footnote 51: The description of Amalphi, by William the Apulian,
(l. 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: hac plurimus urbe moratur

Nauta maris Caelique vias aperire peritus.

Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe

Regis, et Antiochi. Gens haec freta plurima transit.

His Arabes, Indi, Siculi nascuntur et Afri.

Haec gens est totum proore nobilitata per orbem,

Et mercando forens, et amans mercata referre.]

[Footnote *: Amalfi had only one thousand inhabitants at the
commencement of the 18th century, when it was visited by
Brenckmann, (Brenckmann de Rep. Amalph. Diss. i. c. 23.) At
present it has six or eight thousand Hist. des Rep. tom. i. p.
304. - G.]

Chapter LVI: The Saracens, The Franks And The Normans.

Part III.

Roger, the twelfth and last of the sons of Tancred, had been
long detained in Normandy by his own and his father' 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 valor 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. ^52 His spirit emerged from poverty and
disgrace: from these base practices he rose to the merit and
glory of a holy war; and the invasion of Sicily was seconded by
the zeal and policy of his brother Guiscard. After the retreat
of the Greeks, the idolaters, a most audacious reproach of the
Catholics, had retrieved their losses and possessions; but the
deliverance of the island, so vainly undertaken by the forces of
the Eastern empire, was achieved by a small and private band of
adventurers. ^53 In the first attempt, Roger braved, in an open
boat, the real and fabulous dangers of Scylla and Charybdis;
landed with only sixty soldiers on a hostile shore; drove the
Saracens to the gates of Messina and safely returned with the
spoils of the adjacent country. In the fortress of Trani, his
active and patient courage were equally conspicuous. In his old
age he related with pleasure, that, by the distress of the siege,
himself, and the countess his wife, had been reduced to a single
cloak or mantle, which they wore alternately; that in a sally his
horse had been slain, and he was dragged away by the Saracens;
but that he owed his rescue to his good sword, and had retreated
with his saddle on his back, lest the meanest trophy might be
left in the hands of the miscreants. In the siege of Trani,
three hundred Normans withstood and repulsed the forces of the
island. In the field of Ceramio, fifty thousand horse and foot
were overthrown by one hundred and thirty-six Christian soldiers,
without reckoning St. George, who fought on horseback in the
foremost ranks. The captive banners, with four camels, were
reserved for the successor of St. Peter; and had these barbaric
spoils been exposed, not in the Vatican, but in the Capitol, they
might have revived the memory of the Punic triumphs. These
insufficient numbers of the Normans most probably denote their
knights, the soldiers of honorable and equestrian rank, each of
whom was attended by five or six followers in the field; ^54 yet,
with the aid of this interpretation, and after every fair
allowance on the side of valor, arms, and reputation, the
discomfiture of so many myriads will reduce the prudent reader to
the alternative of a miracle or a fable. The Arabs of Sicily
derived a frequent and powerful succor from their countrymen of
Africa: in the siege of Palermo, the Norman cavalry was assisted
by the galleys of Pisa; and, in the hour of action, the envy of
the two brothers was sublimed to a generous and invincible
emulation. After a war of thirty years, ^55 Roger, with the
title of great count, obtained the sovereignty of the largest and
most fruitful island of the Mediterranean; and his administration
displays a liberal and enlightened mind, above the limits of his
age and education. The Moslems were maintained in the free
enjoyment of their religion and property: ^56 a philosopher and
physician of Mazara, of the race of Mahomet, harangued the
conqueror, and was invited to court; his geography of the seven
climates was translated into Latin; and Roger, after a diligent
perusal, preferred the work of the Arabian to the writings of the
Grecian Ptolemy. ^57 A remnant of Christian natives had promoted
the success of the Normans: they were rewarded by the triumph of
the cross. The island was restored to the jurisdiction of the
Roman pontiff; new bishops were planted in the principal cities;
and the clergy was satisfied by a liberal endowment of churches
and monasteries. Yet the Catholic hero asserted the rights of
the civil magistrate. Instead of resigning the investiture of
benefices, he dexterously applied to his own profit the papal
claims: the supremacy of the crown was secured and enlarged, by
the singular bull, which declares the princes of Sicily
hereditary and perpetual legates of the Holy See. ^58

[Footnote 52: Latrocinio armigerorum suorum in multis
sustentabatur, quod quidem ad ejus ignominiam non dicimus; sed
ipso ita praecipiente adhuc viliora et reprehensibiliora dicturi
sumus ut pluribus patescat, quam laboriose et cum quanta angustia
a profunda paupertate ad summum culmen divitiarum vel honoris
attigerit. Such is the preface of Malaterra (l. i. c. 25) to the
horse-stealing. From the moment (l. i. c. 19) that he has
mentioned his patron Roger, the elder brother sinks into the
second character. Something similar in Velleius Paterculus may
be observed of Augustus and Tiberius.]

[Footnote 53: Duo sibi proficua deputans animae scilicet et
corporis si terran: Idolis deditam ad cultum divinum revocaret,
(Galfrid Malaterra, l. ii. c. 1.) The conquest of Sicily is
related in the three last books, and he himself has given an
accurate summary of the chapters, (p. 544 - 546.)]

[Footnote 54: See the word Milites in the Latin Glossary of
Ducange.]

[Footnote 55: Of odd particulars, I learn from Malaterra, that
the Arabs had introduced into Sicily the use of camels (l. i. c.
33) and of carrier- pigeons, (c. 42;) and that the bite of the
tarantula provokes a windy disposition, quae per anum inhoneste
crepitando emergit; a symptom most ridiculously felt by the whole
Norman army in their camp near Palermo, (c. 36.) I shall add an
etymology not unworthy of the xith century: Messana is divided
from Messis, the place from whence the harvests of the isle were
sent in tribute to Rome, (l. ii. c. 1.)]

[Footnote 56: See the capitulation of Palermo in Malaterra, l.
ii. c. 45, and Giannone, who remarks the general toleration of
the Saracens, (tom ii. p. 72.)]

[Footnote 57: John Leo Afer, de Medicis et Philosophus Arabibus,
c. 14, apud Fabric. Bibliot. Graec. tom. xiii. p. 278, 279. This
philosopher is named Esseriph Essachalli, and he died in Africa,
A. H. 516, A.D. 1122. Yet this story bears a strange resemblance
to the Sherif al Edrissi, who presented his book (Geographia
Nubiensis, see preface p. 88, 90, 170) to Roger, king of Sicily,
A. H. 541, A.D. 1153, (D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p.
786. Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 188. Petit de la Croix,
Hist. de Gengiscan, p. 535, 536. Casiri, Bibliot. Arab. Hispan.
tom. ii. p. 9 - 13;) and I am afraid of some mistake.]

[Footnote 58: Malaterra remarks the foundation of the bishoprics,
(l. iv. c. 7,) and produces the original of the bull, (l. iv. c.
29.) Giannone gives a rational idea of this privilege, and the
tribunal of the monarchy of Sicily, (tom. ii. p. 95 - 102;) and
St. Marc (Abrege, tom. iii. p. 217 - 301, 1st column) labors the
case with the diligence of a Sicilian lawyer.]

To Robert Guiscard, the conquest of Sicily was more glorious
than beneficial: the possession of Apulia and Calabria was
inadequate to his ambition; and he resolved to embrace or create
the first occasion of invading, perhaps of subduing, the Roman
empire of the East. ^59 From his first wife, the partner of his
humble fortune, he had been divorced under the pretence of
consanguinity; and her son Bohemond was destined to imitate,
rather than to succeed, his illustrious father. The second wife
of Guiscard was the daughter of the princes of Salerno; the
Lombards acquiesced in the lineal succession of their son Roger;
their five daughters were given in honorable nuptials, ^60 and
one of them was betrothed, in a tender age, to Constantine, a
beautiful youth, the son and heir of the emperor Michael. ^61 But
the throne of Constantinople was shaken by a revolution: the
Imperial family of Ducas was confined to the palace or the
cloister; and Robert deplored, and resented, the disgrace of his
daughter and the expulsion of his ally. A Greek, who styled
himself the father of Constantine, soon appeared at Salerno, and
related the adventures of his fall and flight. That unfortunate
friend was acknowledged by the duke, and adorned with the pomp
and titles of Imperial dignity: in his triumphal progress through
Apulia and Calabria, Michael ^62 was saluted with the tears and
acclamations of the people; and Pope Gregory the Seventh exhorted
the bishops to preach, and the Catholics to fight, in the pious
work of his restoration. His conversations with Robert were
frequent and familiar; and their mutual promises were justified
by the valor of the Normans and the treasures of the East. Yet
this Michael, by the confession of the Greeks and Latins, was a
pageant and an impostor; a monk who had fled from his convent, or
a domestic who had served in the palace. The fraud had been
contrived by the subtle Guiscard; and he trusted, that after this
pretender had given a decent color to his arms, he would sink, at
the nod of the conqueror, into his primitive obscurity. But
victory was the only argument that could determine the belief of
the Greeks; and the ardor of the Latins was much inferior to
their credulity: the Norman veterans wished to enjoy the harvest
of their toils, and the unwarlike Italians trembled at the known
and unknown dangers of a transmarine expedition. In his new
levies, Robert exerted the influence of gifts and promises, the
terrors of civil and ecclesiastical authority; and some acts of
violence might justify the reproach, that age and infancy were
pressed without distinction into the service of their unrelenting
prince. After two years' incessant preparations the land and
naval forces were assembled at Otranto, at the heel, or extreme
promontory, of Italy; and Robert was accompanied by his wife, who
fought by his side, his son Bohemond, and the representative of
the emperor Michael. Thirteen hundred knights ^63 of Norman race
or discipline, formed the sinews of the army, which might be
swelled to thirty thousand ^64 followers of every denomination.
The men, the horses, the arms, the engines, the wooden towers,
covered with raw hides, were embarked on board one hundred and
fifty vessels: the transports had been built in the ports of
Italy, and the galleys were supplied by the alliance of the
republic of Ragusa.

[Footnote 59: In the first expedition of Robert against the
Greeks, I follow Anna Comnena, (the ist, iiid, ivth, and vth
books of the Alexiad,) William Appulus, (l. ivth and vth, p.
270-275,) and Jeffrey Malaterra, (l. iii. c. 13, 14, 24 - 29,
39.) Their information is contemporary and authentic, but none of
them were eye-witnesses of the war.]

[Footnote 60: One of them was married to Hugh, the son of Azzo,
or Axo, a marquis of Lombardy, rich, powerful, and noble,
(Gulielm. Appul. l. iii. p. 267,) in the xith century, and whose
ancestors in the xth and ixth are explored by the critical
industry of Leibnitz and Muratori. From the two elder sons of
the marquis Azzo are derived the illustrious lines of Brunswick
and Este. See Muratori, Antichita Estense.]