11
In the Abbey of Santissima Trinità (‘the Most Holy Trinity’) in Venosa, a modest Apulian town about 20 km (12 miles) south east of Melfi, lies the Hauteville family tomb. An imposing monument of the Baroque style of the sixteenth century, this brings together the remains of William Ironarm, his brothers Drogo (d. 1051) and Humphrey (d. c.1057), and their younger half-brothers, Robert Guiscard (d. 1085) and another William (d. 1080). Agostino Barba, the early modern sculptor responsible for the tomb, wanted to underline the degree to which the Norman settlement of southern Italy was a familial affair, directed and overseen by the Hautevilles. He also wished to emphasise the role of Venosa, the family’s favoured monastery, in this endeavour. In doing so, however, Barba obscured as much as he revealed. For in the eleventh century, the Hautevilles were just as much rivals as allies; and it was, to a large extent, fraternal competition which drove Norman expansion in the south.
Frustratingly for modern historians, Barba’s interventions destroyed almost all evidence for the original Hauteville tombs. We know that Santissima Trinità was indeed a family mausoleum in the Middle Ages. But each brother was originally buried separately, as befitted their distinct interests and careers. Only the tomb of Robert Guiscard’s first wife, Alberada (in the left aisle opposite the new sepulchre), escaped Barba’s ‘improvements’. Thankfully, William the Conqueror’s jealous interest in the exploits of his southern countrymen has ensured that some details of the most important of these lost tombs, that of his rival Guiscard, have not been lost. For William of Malmesbury, in recounting the Conqueror’s rivalry with Guiscard, reports that the latter’s tomb bore the following inscription:
· Here lies Guiscard, terror of the world.
· He drove from the City [Rome] the king of the Ligurians, Romans and Germans.
· Neither Parthians, Arabs nor the army of Macedon could save Alexius,
· Only flight; and neither flight nor the sea could save Venice.1
This is a eulogy, and we must naturally allow for a degree of poetic licence. Nevertheless, the sentiments are not out of place. Of all the Hauteville clan, Robert did most to establish Norman rule in the south; and more than once, his enemies were indeed left quivering before him.
The 1040s had seen the Hautevilles come to prominence in Italy. In Melfi, they’d gained an essential toehold in the south, and by the middle years of the decade, the family and their associates were extending control over ever larger swathes of Apulia. Here Drogo, the second of the brothers (who’d been assigned Venosa in 1042), picked up where Ironarm had left off. William had received a personal mandate to lead the Apulian Normans in 1042; yet it was far from certain they would accept the succession of his brother. The fact that Drogo had been involved in recent conquests certainly helped. But there were plenty of others with equally strong credentials. Foremost among these was Peter, son of Amicus, one of the most powerful of the lords created in 1042. Peter increasingly saw the Hautevilles as a threat to his own interests, and William of Apulia reports that conflict broke out between Peter and Drogo soon after Ironarm’s death. However, while Drogo prevailed, the centrifugal tendencies within the new Norman polity remained undiminished.
During Drogo’s half-decade at their head, the Normans made steady, but unspectacular, progress in Apulia. More important were new developments in Calabria. For it was in this period that Drogo’s younger half-brother Robert appeared on the scene. Malaterra reports, plausibly enough, that Robert had been drawn south by tales of his elder siblings’ exploits. Robert was the eldest of Tancred’s second set of sons. With six younger brothers of his own, Robert could expect little more by way of an inheritance than William or Drogo, so the appeal of such ventures for him was unsurprising.
Yet if Robert had hoped for a warm welcome, he was soon disappointed. In part, this was a matter of internal family dynamics. William, Drogo and Humphrey – Humphrey being the younger brother of William and Drogo – had grown up together and come south as a team. They were a tight-knit band. By contrast, Robert was a decade or so younger. He would have shared little by way of childhood experiences with his half-brothers; moreover, as a son of Tancred’s second wife, Robert was a potential competitor as well as ally.
Robert’s timing did little to help his cause. He came to Apulia shortly after William’s death (probably c.1046–7), when Drogo’s own position was far from secure. Even if Drogo had wished to grant his younger half-brother lands and titles – and he probably didn’t – he was in no position to do so. So initially Robert’s fraternal entreaties were rebuffed. Soon thereafter, he was sent packing to Calabria. William and Drogo had started to make inroads here in recent years. The problem for Robert was that without land he could not establish a substantial following; and without men, he stood little chance of securing land. Robert could expect little help from Drogo, who had his own work cut out for him in Apulia (and who, in any case, was wary of Robert’s motives). Robert was understandably frustrated by this catch-22. According to Amatus, he soon returned to Drogo and told him of his poverty, begging for support. But Drogo and his household demonstrably turned their backs on Robert.2
In later years, Robert’s exploits in Calabria became the stuff of legend. Amatus reports that the turning point came when Robert arranged a meeting with Peter, one of the leading men of the town of Bisignano. At the time, Robert’s base was S. Marco Argentano, an elevated site just west of the Crati Valley in northern Calabria. Bisignano lay to the south and east, about equidistant from the Crati. The men met on the east bank of the river, slightly nearer the settlement. Having lured Peter away from the town walls, however, Robert now dragged him from his steed and forcibly took him back to S. Marco to await ransom. The result was a substantial financial windfall, which enabled the cash-strapped young Hauteville to expand his operations considerably.3
As important as the material rewards was the reputation Robert was beginning to win for himself. When he next came to request forces from Drogo, his half-brother was no more inclined to support Robert than he had been previously, but others now flocked to Robert’s banner. Foremost among these was Gerard of Buonalbergo, the leader of a group of Normans who’d established themselves at Telese (Terme Telese), about 30 km (20 miles) north west of Benevento. Gerard brought with him some 200 knights, probably more than doubling Robert’s force. Gerard was to prove a staunch ally, and the alliance was formalised when Robert took Gerard’s aunt Alberada (a younger sister of Gerard’s father) as his wife, a union to which Drogo only grudgingly consented. According to Amatus, it was Gerard who gave Robert his famous moniker, ‘Guiscard’, meaning ‘the cunning’ or ‘the crafty’, when he heard of Robert’s exploits at Bisignano.4
Suitably reinforced, Robert began to make more headway. But just as things were looking up, clouds gathered. Many of the local Lombards were starting to resent their new Norman overlords, while the popes in Rome looked on with growing dismay. The papacy had a long-standing interest in the Lombard principalities of the south, which bordered on papal lands. By the 1040s, the Normans were becoming a menace. No longer satisfied with carving out lands from Byzantine Apulia, they’d begun to threaten their erstwhile Lombard employers in Campania. A decisive moment came in the spring of 1051, when the citizens of Benevento expelled their own prince and submitted to Pope Leo IX, in the hope that he would be able to offer better protection against the Normans.
Leo came to the Benevento region in July, where he encountered Drogo and Guaimar IV of Salerno. Both agreed that attacks on Beneventan territory would cease. But implementing such promises was really not in their powers. And in the case of Drogo, whose loose overlordship had been contested from the start, any attempts to carry out such promises were negligible. Attacks from Apulia therefore continued unabated. Leo and the Beneventans were not the only ones concerned by recent Norman encroachment. The local Lombard population of Apulia who had once welcomed the Normans as liberators, now found them no more accommodating than their erstwhile Byzantine governors. Drogo himself would feel the full brunt of this resentment when he came to stay at Monte Ilaro (near Bovino) in the summer of 1051. On the morning of 10 August, Drogo went to pray in church, as was his custom. One of his supposedly loyal companions, Riso, however, lay in wait for the unsuspecting count. And as Drogo entered the church, Riso struck him down. Many of Drogo’s men were also killed in the ambush.5 This was but one of a series of assassinations of high-profile Normans.
A broad anti-Norman alliance was emerging. The Byzantine emperors had long been looking for suitable allies against the northern interlopers. And with Pope Leo now on the side of the Lombard princes (and keen to build bridges with the Byzantine Church in the East), there was the chance to build a wider coalition. The process took time, in part because Guaimar IV – who still maintained close ties to the Apulian Normans – was hesitant to join. But Guiamar and his brother were killed in 1052, opening the way for a grand alliance. By early 1053, the German emperor Henry III, Pope Leo, the Lombard princes of Capua and Benevento, and the Byzantine emperor had all committed to the cause. Things were starting to look grim for the Normans.
With their backs to the wall, the Normans chose to fight. The various Norman forces now united under the banner of Humphrey, the youngest of the older branch of the Hautevilles, who’d succeeded Drogo as count of Apulia in 1051. The Norman strategy was clear: prevent the papal army from combining forces with the Byzantine expedition in the south east. William of Apulia reports that Humphrey’s Normans comprised 3,000 knights, supported by a smaller band of foot soldiers. If these figures are to be believed – and they sound plausible – it was a respectable force. This was, however, far smaller than Leo’s army. For although German support proved minimal – a few hundred infantry from Swabia had been all that Henry III could spare – the pope marshalled an impressive army from the Lombard principalities, which had suffered so sorely from the Normans in recent years. Leo now led this in person.
The papal and Norman armies met near Civitate, a small town overlooking the River Fortore. Noting their numerical inferiority, the Normans sought to parley. They offered to hold their lands as dependents of the pope, much like the Beneventans. But efforts to placate Leo failed; and the Normans, left with little room to manoeuvre, chose to fight. This was a high-risk strategy, but a sen-sible one. The Normans were short on supplies and time was on Leo’s side. The longer they waited, the greater the chances that papal and Byzantine forces would join. Battle, by contrast, was a most unpredictable affair, in which a determined force might prevail against superior numbers.
So it proved at Civitate. The Norman army was drawn up with Humphrey and the Apulian Normans on the left flank and Richard (Rainulf of Aversa’s cousin) and his knights on the right. The former met stiff resistance in the form of Leo’s Swabian infantry, but Richard managed to put the Lombards to flight, then circled around to attack the Germans from the rear.6 The result was annihilation – a victory every bit as complete as that at Hastings. Its consequences were no less momentous. Pope Leo fell into the hands of the Normans. And while they did not immediately press their advantage, efforts to revive the alliance were hindered by internal divisions within the Byzantine camp and by Leo’s death soon thereafter.
In the aftermath of victory, Norman advances were rapid, and nowhere were they quicker than in Calabria.7 The heart of Byzantine power in Italy lay on the opposite coast in Apulia, those regions closest to the imperial heartlands of Greece. Here, resistance remained fierce. By contrast, Calabria – the doorway to Sicily – was left vulnerable. By 1056, Robert was securely in control of the entire province north of the Crati; he was also receiving tribute from important centres further south, including Bisignano, Martirano and Cosenza. The following year, Humphrey died and Robert was able to make good his claim to overall leadership of the Apulian Normans.
With new resources at his disposal, Robert was able to make quick work of the rest of Calabria. By the early summer of 1057, he was already leading a daring raid as far as Squillace. Thereafter, he proceeded along the east coast up to Reggio, the Byzantine capital of the region. A revolt by Peter, son of Amicus, required Robert’s return to Apulia for the rest of the summer. But by the autumn of 1057, Robert was back in Calabria, where he launched an abortive attack on Reggio.
At this point, division began to dog the Norman advance once more. Robert had recently been joined by his younger brother Roger, who took to deputising for him in Calabria. In a repeat of Robert’s own experiences, however, Roger was now disappointed by the lack of rewards on offer. Malaterra is our only source for these grievances, and he writes from the perspective of Roger’s later Sicilian court. Not surprisingly, he accuses Guiscard of jealously and stinginess. But like Drogo before him, Robert had little to give. Major gains had been made in Calabria, but the situation remained extremely precarious. Robert also had to balance interests in Apulia, where the Byzantines continued to hold out and where Peter, son of Amicus, had recently challenged his authority.
These divisions, combined with a serious famine in Calabria, served to bring the Norman advance to a standstill. Late in 1058, a solution was found. Robert promised Roger half of Calabria, but the half still under Byzantine control. This prevented any diminution of the count’s own resources, while giving Roger an active stake in future conquests. Robert also married the Lombard princess Sichelgaita. She was the daughter of Prince Guaimar IV, who’d been responsible for the establishment of the first Norman outpost at Aversa. Salerno itself had weathered the storm of the early eleventh century better than most of its neighbours, thanks in part to Guaimar’s firm leadership. Following Guaimar’s death and the battle of Civitate, however, the principality had entered a phase of rapid decline. As in Capua and Benevento, the ultimate causes were internal, but the situation was not helped by the ascendancy of the Normans.
A marriage alliance had much to offer both sides here. For the Salernitans, it provided support and security from the new lords of the south. For Robert, it served to legitimise recent gains and integrate him into the local aristocratic scene (much as Cnut’s marriage to Emma had for the Danes in England). The importance of the match is revealed by Robert’s willingness to set aside his first wife, Alberada, in order to achieve it. The latter was still alive and well, and had borne Robert an heir, Bohemond of Taranto. She was also the aunt of one of Robert’s closest allies, Gerard. Evidently it was worth risking a great deal for Sichelgaita’s hand.8
With domestic issues settled, Robert and Roger were able to make swift progress in Calabria.9 A Byzantine attack was seen off by Roger in early 1059, and by early 1060 Reggio itself had fallen to a joint strike by the two brothers. Byzantine resistance now crumbled; and the last remaining garrison, at Squillace, fled upon Roger’s approach. Similar gains were now being made elsewhere. Most notably, Richard of Aversa took Capua and secured control of the Lombard principality of this name.
These successes explain another important development of these years: rapprochement with the pope.10 Although Leo IX and his successors had tried to revive the anti-Norman alliance of 1053, their efforts failed in the face of Byzantine weakness and German lack of interest. In 1058, a papal schism loomed, as the reform party in Rome backed Nicholas II, while the urban aristocracy sought to enthrone Benedict X.11 If the pope was to maintain any influence in the south, he would have to work with the region’s new masters. Moreover, if he wanted allies – and Nicholas II certainly did – there were few other places to turn.
The decisive moment came in 1059. That spring, the papal archdeacon Hildibrand – the archdeacon being the pope’s deputy – travelled to newly conquered Capua, where he secured the support of Richard, who sent 300 knights north to help Nicholas II re-establish himself in Rome. In exchange, Hildibrand recognised Richard as the legitimate prince of Capua, accepting his oath of fidelity on behalf of the pope. This new relationship offered significant benefits to both parties.12 Nicholas gained the military support he so desperately needed, while Richard received formal papal acknowledgement of his status as prince of Capua. So successful was the alliance that Nicholas soon made contact with Robert. In August 1059, the pope travelled south in person, holding an important council at Melfi. Here Robert swore fealty to Nicholas before being formally invested as ‘by the grace of God and St Peter duke of Apulia and Calabria and, in the future, with the help of both, of Sicily.’13
As this august title indicates, the pact was not simply a matter of acknowledging Robert’s gains; Nicholas also now provided papal approval for future conquests. Sicily remained Muslim territory and Nicholas evidently hoped Robert and Roger would help win this back for western Christendom. Scarcely had Robert taken Calabria, than plans were being laid for Sicily. This was not the only speculative element of the title. For though Nicholas had invested Robert, matter-of-factly, with the title ‘duke of Apulia and Calabria’, significant parts of the former still lay in Byzantine hands, while recent gains in the latter had yet to be consolidated. Much like the original settlement of 1042, the oaths of Melfi gave Robert rights he would now have to assert, often at spear point.
Still, this pact was a milestone in the Norman conquest of Italy. It acknowledged that Robert and his men were here to stay and accorded them complete authority south of Capua and Aversa. It also tells us much about Robert’s ambitions. Robert was already thinking well beyond Calabria, where the last Byzantine outposts at Reggio and Squillace would only fall the following year. There were doubtless pragmatic reasons for extending his authority further south into Sicily, not least, the need to secure lands with which to reward his younger brother Roger. But one suspects there was a deeper reason for this interest. Apulia, Calabria and Sicily comprised the traditional regions of Byzantine authority in Italy, and Robert seems to have been increasingly committed to recreating the Eastern Roman Empire in his own image.
After the dramatic successes of the late 1050s, the 1060s saw Norman progress slow once more. The parameters of activity were largely set by the oaths of Melfi. And once Reggio fell in early 1060, Robert and Roger began making plans for Sicily, as we might expect. The Kalbid amirate on the island, established over a century earlier, had been dissolving for some time. Out of the resulting chaos had emerged two main factions, those of Ibn al-Ḥawwās and Ibn al-Thumna. The former had recently started to get the upper hand; and in early 1061, Ibn al-Thumna (whose base lay in the east, nearest to the mainland) appealed to Robert and Roger for assistance. The Hauteville brothers were only too happy to oblige. A full invasion was launched that May. This soon secured Messina, the most important city in the north east of the island. Thereafter, however, progress stalled.
Robert’s problems were much as they had been in the previous years. He had two fronts on which to fight – Sicily and Apulia – yet only the resources to dedicate to one at a time. Moreover, the Norman camp itself remained deeply divided. The problem here was not so much the relationship between Robert and Roger – though this remained fraught at times – as that between the Hautevilles and the other Apulian Normans. Robert may have been the fourth successive brother to take on the mantle of leader, but the family’s elevation remained a recent development, still resented by others. Both of these problems converged when revolt broke out in Apulia in 1067. This was financed by the Byzantines, who were keen to sow seeds of discord among their enemies, and involved Robert’s own nephews. The threat was considerable and much of late 1067 and early 1068 was spent supressing it. Rebellion would break out again in 1072, further undermining Robert’s efforts to consolidate control of the mainland and support operations in Sicily.
Between risings, however, action remained possible. And if the conquest of the south took longer than one might have predicted it would in 1059, revolts and resistance largely delayed the inevitable. An important moment was marked by the long and hard-fought siege of Bari, starting in the autumn of 1068. A populous and heavily for-tified city on the eastern coast of Apulia, Bari was the centre of Byzantine operations in the region. The Normans had repeatedly struggled to take well-defended cities in the past, so Bari posed a real test. This was not the only difficulty. As a port, Bari could be supplied by sea. And once it became clear that force alone would not suffice to take the town, Robert had to contemplate a blockade. The Normans were even less experienced at sea than they were with siege craft. However, Robert recruited ships in Calabria, then sat down for a long blockade.
The Byzantines faced a desperate situation. Turkish pressure was building on the empire’s eastern frontier, with raids now penetrating deep into Asia Minor. And defensive efforts were hampered by a major revolt, spearheaded by the Norman mercenary, Robert (Roger) Crispin and his followers. Thanks to this Norman connection – Crispin had served in Sicily under Roger before entering Byzantine employ – Guiscard almost certainly knew of these problems. The upshot was that few resources (and even fewer men) could be spared for Apulia. The men of Bari would have to fend for themselves.
And fend for themselves they did. Despite the difficulties, they held out for over two and a half years. Byzantine messengers were able to escape early on and an attempt to raise the blockade proved partially successful in 1069, ensuring that much-needed supplies reached the defenders. A second attempt was made in early 1071, by which point the city was on its knees. This was led by Joscelin of Molfetta, one of the Norman rebels of 1067, who’d fled east to Constantinople as a political exile. In the end, however, it was the cunning count who had the last laugh. Joscelin tried to run the blockade under cover of night. But he was intercepted by Roger, who’d recently brought naval reinforcements from Sicily. The result was a rout, in which Joscelin himself was captured. With all prospect of supplies and relief lost, the city soon submitted. The importanceof this victory went beyond the fate of Bari itself. To defeat anestablished sea-power on its own turf (or rather, surf) was a major accomplishment, one which inspired a new-found confidencein Norman seafaring capabilities. As William of Apulia notes, ‘the Norman people had known nothing of naval war up till now.’14
Much as with the fall of Reggio in Calabria, the fall of the provincial capital of Apulia led to the collapse of further resistance. The one other Byzantine outpost, Brindisi, had fallen shortly before this. And with the exception of the Lombard principalities of Capua and Salerno (the former now under the control of Richard of Aversa) and the small city-state of Amalfi, all of the south was now Robert’s.
Robert was quick to take advantage of the situation, relocating his navy to Sicily. In Robert’s absence, Roger had been making slow but steady progress here. He’d won set-piece battles at Cerami (1063) and Msilmeri (1068). The north-east was now securely in Norman hands, as was the north coast as far as Palermo. Like Bari, however, Palermo was proving a hard nut to crack. An early attempt on the town had foundered in 1064. And since then, Roger had been laying the foundations for a more concentrated effort. Fresh from victory and with a navy at hand, the time had come for a second siege.
Bari surrendered in April, and by late summer Robert and Roger were in a position to invest Palermo. The resulting siege was another protracted affair, though notably swifter than that at Bari. The combined naval and land forces of Robert and Roger were able to establish an effective blockade, repulsing at least one relief attempt by Sicilian and North African ships. The blockade soon started to take effect, and in January 1072 Robert and Roger decided to risk an assault. The latter led the main force, which sought to storm the walls by land. This was, however, a decoy, intended to distract the defenders from the smaller force with which Robert made for the walls on the seaward side. The ruse worked. Roger was repulsed, but while the defenders were occupied with his force, Robert and his men managed to scale the walls and open the gates. The defenders then retreated to the city’s inner walls (those of the Old City or al-Kazar). But realising the game was up, they surrendered to Robert the following day, on agreement that their lives be spared and they be allowed to continue practising the Muslim faith.
Shortly thereafter, Robert entered the Old City with much pomp. His men removed all features of the Islamic faith from the main mosque, which was transformed (back) into a Christian cathedral – a symbolic act of regime change. The ruling elite would henceforth be Christian, so the main place of worship was also to be Christian. But much of the population remained Muslim, and were free to continue practising their faith. Nothing better underlines the pragmatism of Robert and Roger. They were happy to parade their Christian credentials when convenient (and their new papal allies certainly cheered on their successes), but this was not a holy war. Like Duke William’s conquest of England, it was an opportunistic land-grab under papal licence. And if William of Apulia and (in particular) Geoffrey of Malaterra were later to play up the religious element in these conflicts, it’s because they were writing after the First Crusade had been launched.15 Holy war was now all the rage, so it was natural to recast Robert and Roger’s conquests in such terms.
After the capture of Palermo, it was a matter of time till the Normans secured the rest of the island. Yet as in Apulia, the process dragged on.16 The challenges were similar. Norman numerical superiority remained slight; and Robert’s attentions now shifted back to the mainland, where his own domains lay. Sicily had always been Roger’s prize. And since it was now clear the island would (eventually) fall, Robert had little to gain from further engagement. Roger’s own efforts were complicated by continuing upheaval on the mainland. In 1075, Roger was called back to help put down a rebellion by his cousin Abelard, who as the son of Humphrey was frustrated to find himself locked out of the corridors of power (and line of succession) within the nascent duchy.
When Roger returned to Sicily in 1076, he was able to make better headway. In 1077, he secured Trapani and with it control of the west of the island. In 1078, the fortress at Castronovo (in the centre of the island) followed, which had been a thorn in Roger’s side in recent years. Such progress was maintained the following year, which saw Taormina surrender after a six-month siege. Taormina lies on the eastern coast of Sicily, some 50 km (30 miles) south of Messina. With it, the conquest of the island north of Etna was complete. At Trapani and Taormina, the Norman navy played an essential part in siege operations, revealing Roger’s growing confidence in seaborne operations. Yet just as everything seemed to be going Roger’s way, events elsewhere again conspired to slow his advance. The year 1079 had seen a major Muslim revolt in the west of the island, which kept Roger busy following his success at Taormina. In 1080, Roger was then recalled to the mainland to help hold the fort while Guiscard tried his hand in the Balkans. In 1084, Roger had to return to cover for his brother once more. He also began to experience some of the same problems Robert had encountered. During his absence from the island in 1084 and 1085, Roger’s own son rebelled, apparently in frustration at the limited rewards on offer.17
Robert’s death in 1085 required further absences from Roger, who now helped shore up the ducal regime on the mainland under Robert’s son, Roger Borsa. Only in 1086 could Roger focus his attentions fully on Sicily, resuming the conquests of the later 1070s. His first move now was to strike at Syracuse on the south-eastern coast, one of the largest remaining cities in Muslim hands. As previously, Roger’s fleet proved essential to the operation, driving off the navy of the Islamic amir. Four months later, the city surrendered. The following spring saw the fall of Agrigento, another important centre on the south coast. And this paved the way for the submission of Castrogiovanni (modern Enna), a well-fortified city in the centre of the island.
Muslim resistance was beginning to crumble. Only the south-east corner was still securely in Islamic hands, and this was under threat. Roger spent much of the campaign season in 1088 on the mainland, assisting Roger Borsa in putting down a revolt by Bohemond, Guiscard’s son with Alberada. The following year, however, he succeeded in capturing Butera, near the coast on the far south-west of the island. The remaining Muslim enclaves were now under intense pressure. Finally Noto, the last outpost, just inland of the eastern coast, some 30 km (20 miles) south of Syracuse, surrendered in early 1091.
The Hautevilles had now secured the south. For while Roger had been busy in Sicily, Robert made one final conquest on the mainland: Salerno. Robert had been extending his influence into the principality for some time, and his marriage to Sichelgaita in 1058 had been made with an eye to this prize. After victory at Bari in 1068, Robert was initially kept busy putting down revolts. But once he was in a position to campaign again in 1076, Salerno was his first target.
Later chroniclers go to considerable efforts to justify Robert’s invasion of the principality, claiming that he was responding to prior attacks by the local prince Gisulf II (his own brother-in-law). In reality, this was an act of naked aggression. The city-state of Amalfi had submitted to Robert in 1073, so Salerno now stood isolated. It withstood the resulting siege valiantly, but over the night of 12/13 December 1076 a turncoat opened the gates. Awaking to find a section of the walls in Guiscard’s hands, the citizens finally submitted. Between them, the sons of Tancred de Hauteville had won the south.
It had been a slow, piecemeal process, but we should not underestimate the Hauteville achievement. For the first time in almost half a millennium, all of southern Italy stood under a single banner. The Hauteville successes did not, however, stand alone. For Norman influence was also being felt in other parts of the Mediterranean.