Chapter 6

Epilogue

Naples and the Abruzzi

Having unified, with the support of the ‘anti-pope’ Anacletus II (r. 1130–8), the majority of the often-competing lordships of the mainland and Sicily into a kingdom in 1130, Count Roger I’s son of the same name spent the first years of his reign fending off foreign attacks, in addition to seizing by force the regions of the mainland that refused to submit to him: namely, the duchy of Naples and the principality of Capua. It all came to a head in 1135–36, for despite receiving the formal submission of the rebels Duke Sergio VII of Naples, Prince Robert II of Capua and Count Rainulf of Alife in 1134, on 24 April 1135 the exiled prince arrived at Naples with a fleet of twenty ships carrying 8,000 Pisan troops. Joined by Roger II’s brother-in-law Count Rainulf of Alife – scion of the Drengot dynasty and cousin of Robert II of Capua – and his force of 400 knights, Sergio and Robert besieged and captured the historic town of Aversa, which had been granted by Sergio’s ancestor and fourth Neapolitan ruler of the same name to Rainulf Drengot in 1030, thus creating the first Norman lordship on Italian soil. Advancing north, the attempt to secure the surrender of Capua by intimidation was unsuccessful. The Pisan troops were suffering owing to the lack of food, and the arrival of the royal army in the vicinity forced Robert and Sergio to return to Naples and Rainulf to Aversa. Meanwhile, King Roger II (r. 1130–54) called for a general mobilization of forces throughout his kingdom, subsequently marching on Aversa with ‘innumerable knights and infantry’. Knowing that his small garrison could not resist a siege by Roger’s sizable army, Rainulf fled to Aversa. Much like Alexander the Great’s response to the rebellion of Thebes (335 BC), the furious king decided to make an example of Aversa: not only the town but also its suburbs were destroyed by fire. Soon afterwards the suburbs of Naples suffered the same fate and, as a contemporary monk related, the entire region between Naples and Aversa was reduced to a wasteland. The fortified towns still faithful to Count Rainulf (Alife, Sant’Agata and Caiazzo) were captured with little trouble, after which Roger returned to Naples to besiege it. As Guiscard and Richard of Capua had discovered in 1076–77, the strongly fortified city was seemingly impregnable; the king accordingly prepared for a lengthy investment. Strangely, unlike his predecessors of 1076–77 and the king himself in May 1134, Roger did not blockade Naples by land and sea, only by land.¹

The army encamped on the eastern side of the city, thereafter erecting a lofty siege fort. Roger’s intention was that, if left sufficiently garrisoned, the fort could be used to maintain the siege in his absence. Yet the earth on the chosen site proved to be unsuitable; the structure kept collapsing. Also undermining the siege was the searing summer heat: inadequate water supplies meant horses began dying, and morale rapidly declined. Not immune to the sufferings of his men, the king ordered a partial abandonment of the siege after just nine days, ‘distributing’ – or billeting? – the majority of his troops in the towns surrounding Naples. Roger ordered his men to keep a constant watch on the movements of the rebels. The Neapolitans and their allies simply continued their rebellion by sea, and with the assistance of forty-six Pisan galleys sacked Amalfi. Roger’s response to the sack of the maritime city was to return to Naples and have his troops destroy all vines in the vicinity. He also finally sent a fleet to assist with the blockade on 8 September, but en route it was scattered by a tempest and forced to retire to safer waters near Pozzuoli (15km west of Naples).²

Prince Robert of Capua, encouraged by Anacletus’ rival for the papal tiara, Innocent II (r. 1130–43), went to Germany to seek military assistance from the western emperor Lothar (r. 1133–37). The latter agreed to help, but did not arrive in southern Italy until 1137. In 1136 Duke Sergio of Naples appealed to Innocent II – who in June of the previous year had called for a crusade against Roger (as had Honorius II in 1127) – and the Pisans for military aid, but despite receiving a positive response to the appeal, the assistance he so desperately required was delayed. The duke and his people continued to hold out regardless, but many citizens of all ages began to die from starvation. Falco of Benevento, whose patron was Roger’s enemy Innocent II, opined that the Neapolitans nonetheless ‘preferred death by famine, rather than submission to the servitude of the impious king’s rule’. Greatly aiding the resolve of the Neapolitans in this calamitous situation, was the receipt of letters informing them that the western emperor Lothar was on his way. He marched into northern Apulia in May 1137 with ‘a mighty army’, capturing Monte Gargano and Siponto on 8 May. News of Lothar’s early successes spread throughout Apulia, and the region’s principal towns and cities all the way to Bari willingly surrendered to the emperor. While the Bariots were said to have welcomed Lothar, the garrison within the royal fortress did not. As he was an excommunicate in the eyes of the papal-imperial coalition, evidently Roger had earlier been concerned about the loyalty of his garrisons, fearing that they could be potentially swayed by the enemy’s spiritual propaganda. This could be the reason why Bari’s fortress (Fig. 19) was predominantly garrisoned by Muslims from Sicily, who were summarily hanged after a successful forty-day siege. Either that, or these unfortunate men were the same ‘Saracens’ assigned by Roger to build the fortress in 1132 (Falco thankfully clarified that the ‘citadel’ mentioned by other sources was the recently built one).³

Word of the capitulation of the great Apulian city spread like wildfire throughout southern Italy, resulting not only in the surrender of all the coastal strongholds of Apulia, but also those as far south as Reggio. (William of Tyre figuratively specified Punta del Faro [north-east Sicily], which faces Reggio on the other side of the Strait of Messina, whereas Falco simply stated ‘and Calabria [too]’). Moreover, when Innocent and Lothar subsequently marched into central Apulia, all of the inland towns renounced their fealty to King Roger, and the Beneventans once again chose to recognize papal authority. Meanwhile, the Pisans finally sailed into the harbour of Naples, reportedly with a fleet of 100 ships. All that remained subject to Roger’s authority on the mainland was the capital Salerno and its environs. Lothar accordingly called for the city to be besieged by land and sea, respectively by Robert of Capua and Sergio and by the Pisans. Joining the besiegers was a force of 1,000 western imperial troops led by Rainulf of Alife, and together the allies began the siege in July. Salerno possessed a garrison of 400 knights, who offered determined resistance to the besiegers; at one point risking a battle during which a sizable number were captured. But the defenders continued to resist attempts to capture the city, and the frustrated Pisans chose to erect a large siege tower. This threatening structure presumably persuaded the leading Salernitans to change their minds, for on 8 August 1137 they surrendered to the emperor, although Roger’s remaining garrison continued to hold out in the fortress overlooking the city, known as the Torre Maggiore or castello di Arechi (Fig. 13).⁴

Lothar’s southern Italian campaign was notable for two reasons: not only was it the most successful of a long line going back to Charlemagne, but it was almost entirely bloodless. Clearly the Hauteville dynasty and its monarch were unpopular on the mainland, and its most ardent opponents, with Pisan and western imperial help, were able to exploit this animosity to their own advantage. However, while the self-styled ‘king of Sicily, of the duchy of Apulia and of the principality of Capua’ had now been effectively reduced to king of the former territory, his relentlessness ensured that Lothar’s relatively easy ‘conquest’ of the other two regions of the recently formed kingdom was ephemeral. Wisely, Roger waited until the ailing sexagenarian departed southern Italy in September, after which he managed to recapture around a third of what he had lost in less than a month: e.g. Salerno, Capua (sacked), and Benevento (technically returned to Anacletus’ authority). Presumably unwilling to have his city subjected to another protracted siege, Sergio of Naples threw in his lot with Roger. The king now turned his attention to Apulia, whose citizens remained defiant. Championing their cause was Rainulf of Alife – recently named ‘Duke of Apulia’ by Lothar – who with 1,500 knights and other troops collected from Bari, Melfi, Troia and Trani, sought to crush the king in pitched battle. Rainulf did not seek this goal in vain, for on 2 October 1137 his army inflicted a humiliating defeat on the king’s forces at Rignano near Monte Gargano (northern Apulia), killing 3,000 of them in addition to capturing many of the rest. One of the royal knights killed was none other than Duke Sergio of Naples, whose lack of a successor enabled Roger to incorporate the ancient independent duchy into his kingdom. Such was the quiet end to the last mainland city of southern Italy to be formally annexed by Tancred of Hauteville’s descendants.⁵

As related in Chapter 3, in the 1060s Normans led by Geoffrey of Hauteville and his son Robert gained a foothold in the Abruzzi – specifically at Loritello (Rotello, Molise) – the region to the north of the Capitinata. Located in east-central Italy, the Abruzzi bordered with Capuan (south-west), papal (west), and Hauteville (south) territories. Subject to Lombard counts theoretically under the rule of the western emperor, in 1074–75 Guiscard’s nephew Robert I of Loritello ravaged the valley of Pescara (155km north-east of Rome). Having started out with eighty cavalry, towards the end of the 1070s Amatus noted that Robert had amassed 500. With such a force he was able to launch bolder northern incursions, and by 1078 had raided as far as Spoleto (for this attack and the earlier one against Pescara, Pope Gregory VII rewarded him with a sentence of excommunication). Despite being a Hauteville, Robert I refused to acknowledge the overlordship of Duke Roger Borsa, styling himself as ‘count of counts’. Expansion further north had ceased by 1100, after which another lordship was established at Manoppello (26km south-west of Pescara) by a lord from Normandy called Richard, whose relative Robert would be deposed by Roger II in 1140. Norman control, however, was largely restricted to the coast; the Lombard princes continued to hold their traditional lordships throughout much of the interior (for example at Corfinio, 49km south-west of Pescara). But the local aristocracy was not without power within the Norman-held areas of the Abruzzi, for Robert I granted former Lombard counts lands and fortresses, in return for cavalrymen. Nonetheless, as Loud notes, while a ‘degree of coexistence seems to have evolved in the Abruzzi … the region remained unstable’.⁶

In 1140, Roger II decided to annex the Abruzzi to his kingdom, a decision that naturally exacerbated existing tensions with the western empire and papacy. In March the king’s son Prince Alfonso of Capua, as Beneventan chronicler Falco put it, ‘was sent with a great army of knights and infantry beyond the city of Pescara, so that he might subjugate that province to his [Roger’s] rule’. Alfonso managed to capture numerous fortresses and villages, pillaging some and sacking others. Despite the prince’s success, the king evidently determined that a larger force was required to conquer the Abruzzi, accordingly sending another son, Duke Roger, to assist his brother a few days later. The duke, ‘with 1,000 knights and a plentiful band of infantry’ rendezvoused with his brother, probably near Pescara, and by instilling ‘much fear’ into the inhabitants of the Abruzzi, together they subjected the province by the end of the same year. Falco unfortunately did not elaborate on exactly what this ‘fear’ campaign consisted of, but given that Alfonso had already set fire to fortresses and villages, a particularly brutal campaign of destruction can be imagined. Despite the annexation, the Abruzzi, never fully conquered, would remain restive and, as will be narrated below, was subjected to a series of successful attacks by the Byzantines in the 1150s.⁷

Ifrīqiya

The last region of the Mediterranean to be conquered by the Hauteville dynasty was north-central Africa. Strangely, these substantial but ultimately transitory conquests received little attention from contemporary southern Italian chroniclers, and thus the historian has to rely predominantly on the letters of Jewish travellers and the observations of Muslim historians to piece events together. Prior to becoming king, Roger II cast an acquisitive eye in the direction of Zirid Africa, which in a weakened state had aligned itself with his father (who afterwards refused to assist the Pisans in an attack on the capital Mahdiyya in 1087). The first foray was launched in 1123, when an unsuccessful assault was made on Mahdiyya (in response to an attack on Nicotera, Calabria in the previous year). However, twelve years later the island of Djerba (185km south-west of Mahdiyya), notorious for the piratical activity of its mariners, was captured. A letter written in c. 1140 recorded that ‘it is no longer possible to travel to Egypt directly from Ifrīqiya’. Hence the Hauteville naval presence in the region effectively cut off the emirate from its all-important trade route to Egypt and, since the Zirids had increasingly come to rely on Sicilian corn, they were now faced with a difficult situation indeed. Seizure of this strategically valuable island seems to have contented the king for eight years, for the next report of royal naval activity in Africa is dated to 1143. Disgruntled citizens from Tripoli (Libya) offered to surrender the city to the king if he provided them with military assistance, but a fleet ferrying 300 cavalry was subsequently unable to take the target by force. Roger’s resolve was stiffened by this setback, for the Chronicle of Ferraria noted that the king remained determined to conquer the Zirid kingdom. He would not have to wait too long: in 1145 Kerkennah was seized. With its northern tip situated 77km south-east of Mahdiyya, the island was clearly intended to be used as a base from which the major ports of Ifrīqiya could be captured (e.g. Sfax, 32km west of the island’s centre). Tripoli fell in June of the following year – a notable prize given its connection to Saharan trade routes – followed by Mahdiyya, Sfax, and Sousse (53km north-west of the former) in June 1148. The mastermind and commander of the African campaigns was George of Antioch, a Byzantine from Syria who had served the Zirids prior to entering into Roger’s service, where he later became ammiratus ammiratorum (‘admiral of the admirals’ [c. 1127–51]). By the late 1140s, then, Roger was quite literally the master of the central Mediterranean, although the African possessions, exploited for tribute and not ruled directly, had all fallen to the powerful Almohad dynasty of Morocco within six years of the king’s death in 1154.⁸

Byzantium

In 1147 emperor Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143–80) was presented with the same daunting political and logistical task faced by his grandfather Alexios in 1096–7; French and German crusaders began traversing his lands on their way to the Holy Land. Given Roger’s ongoing problems with the western empire vis-à-vis the legitimacy of his seventeen-year-old kingdom, the ‘good question’, as Loud notes, is whether the raids launched deep into Byzantine territory in 1147–48 should be held more as a campaign of aggressive diplomacy than of outright conquest. Roger, in the early 1140s, had twice attempted to secure a Byzantine bride for his son without success, so threatening imperial provinces could potentially force Manuel not only into formally recognizing the controversial kingdom, but also allying himself with it. On the other hand, Roger might have wanted to extend his eastern frontier with a network of strongholds that would serve to both protect and enhance his Calabrian and Apulian provinces. There is, however, another possibility, one that rests in the grey area between the two possible motives. Indeed, aggressive diplomacy could be refashioned as calculated economic aggrandizement, if the seizure of specialist silk workers at Thebes is anything to go by. Silk, the prerogative of Byzantine emperors since Justinian (r. 527–65), was a highly lucrative economic commodity, a sort of ‘medieval oil’ which Amalfitan traders since the tenth century had imported to southern Italy, where well into the following century the product was eagerly bought by prominent princes and prelates, respectively for formal attire and ecclesiastical ceremonies. While the centres of imperial silk production were located at Corinth, Thebes, Athens and Constantinople, the Hauteville family nonetheless gained access to the prized commodity, albeit on a much smaller scale, when conquering Byzantine Apulia and Calabria (where the mulberry trees required for silk production were grown). Hence, while Roger could already produce silk, he evidently wanted to both improve and increase production in his kingdom, earning profits that would go straight into his coffers, just like the Byzantine emperors he aspired to resemble (see Fig. 16). This point could be extrapolated to include the possibility that Roger intended to weaken the empire – then in alliance with Roger’s arch-rival Conrad III – by striking at its economic heart. Yet, while not impossible, it would perhaps be pushing the theory too far. At any rate, with the western emperor (technically king) Conrad III’s participation on the Second Crusade, Roger was free from the potential threat of an attack from the north, and hence could attack the eastern empire with confidence while it was occupied with the large numbers of crusaders passing through it (Manuel had earlier removed garrisons from southern coastal cities to forestall plundering by these troops closer to the capital).⁹

Commanded by George of Antioch, the fleet departed from Otranto in autumn 1147 and first attacked the Ionian island Kerkyra (107km southeast). Given the island’s position at the entrance to the Adriatic, it was clearly of strategic importance. Kerkyra’s capital of the same name surrendered, and was subsequently garrisoned with 1,000 knights. The campaign culminated with attacks on the cities of Thebes, Athens and Corinth, the former city, as observed by a Jewish itinerant writer in the same century, containing Jewish workers who were ‘the best in the land of Greece at making garments of silk and of purple cloth’. George captured these artisans, and then amazingly managed to seize Corinth’s precipitous, impregnable fortress known as Akrokorinthos (Fig. 17), although according to a Byzantine source the feat owed more to the incompetence of the garrison commander than to the siege capabilities of the Hauteville troops (who had previously been unable to capture the great fortress of Monemvasia on the south-eastern coast of the Peloponnese [Fig. 18]). In addition to the ‘silken cloths’ mentioned by a southern Italian source, conceivably textile workers were also ‘taken away’ from Corinth. In the spring of 1148, Manuel Komnenos responded by mobilizing a large fleet consisting of both Venetian and imperial galleys. However, on account of a serious raid by Turkic Cumans on the Danubian frontier, the emperor was forced to deal with the matter himself, sending his brother-in-law Stephan Kontostephanos ahead with much of the fleet, and John Axouch with the infantry. Stephan’s fleet reached the harbour of Kerkyra in the autumn, and was immediately presented with a difficult task: the fortress was perched on a rocky outcrop flanked by the sea and a lofty cliff face. Moreover, the walls were protected by catapults, in addition to missile troops. Having attached a ladder to the deck of one of the imperial galleys, Stephan’s troops scaled it and came within sight of the battlements. However, Kinnamos observed that a particularly ‘large’ stone fired from a catapult smashed the ladder, the shrapnel from which killed Kontostephanos. Meanwhile, the emperor’s fleet was prevented from assisting the besiegers by a storm, forcing him to winter near Thessaloniki (1148/9). However, by February 1149 Manuel had arrived at Kerkyra, and in April the besiegers launched an assault on the stronghold from the sea with a large ladder in ‘the form of a tower’ created from planks and masts. The garrison managed to repulse the assault, but faced with impending starvation and the incessant pounding of imperial catapults, it chose to surrender in early August. Towards the end of the siege, Roger dispatched a fleet towards the Greek mainland, hoping that it would force Manuel to abandon the siege. Not so easily fooled, the emperor sent a squadron of imperial and Venetian ships to engage the Sicilian marauders, which secured a decisive victory near Cape Maleas in the southern Peloponnese. As the victory was recorded by both Byzantine and Venetian chroniclers, Stanton’s view that the Sicilian fleet ‘would have easily defeated’ its adversary is not only wide of the mark, but is based on a single, clearly confused source: that is, the work attributed to Romuald of Salerno which, as Houben observes, conflated this battle with one at the same location in 1154 (see below). Defeated but undeterred, a royal fleet of either forty or sixty ships then audaciously sailed towards Constantinople, where the daring mariners set dockyards on fire, seized ‘a few Roman galleys’, and even fired arrows at the windows of the imperial palace.¹⁰

The daring Sicilian raids, while economically beneficial and undoubtedly a formidable demonstration of Sicilian naval tenacity and power, simply ensured an imperial invasion of the kingdom. Given the weaknesses on the mainland exposed by Sergio of Naples, Robert of Capua, Rainulf of Alife and King Lothar in the previous decade, a large invasion force commanded by Manuel, who like his father (John II) and grandfather (Alexios I) was very much a solider emperor, stood every chance of success. It was not to be, however, for in the summer of 1149 his ships were variously wrecked and scattered when attempting the crossing to Italy from Avlona (Illyria/Albania). The emperor was, for the next few years, waylaid by campaigns in modern-day Serbia, Albania and Hungary, but having brought them to a successful conclusion, his desire to reincorporate Longobardia into his empire once again came to the fore in 1154. Soon after King Roger’s death in February, his son William I (r. 1154–66) attempted to prevent the invasion by coming to terms with Manuel, offering to return the silk workers and other citizens captured during the raids of 1147–48. The emperor was not receptive to this overture, and hence the new king was faced with a situation alarmingly familiar to that encountered by his father in the 1130s, especially since Manuel was able to secure the support of the nephew of Roger II, Count Robert III of Loritello, and of Alexander of Conversano (living in exile at Constantinople). Ordering the mobilization of an army and fleet, Manuel prepared to invade Italy. In the summer of 1154, the advance fleet gathered at the redoubtable Monemvasia (Fig. 18) in the Peloponnese which, like Ortigia (Syracuse), was an island fortress connected to the mainland by a causeway. Word reached the commander of the naval vanguard, Constantine Angelos (Manuel’s uncle), that a Sicilian flotilla commanded by admiral Salernus was in the vicinity. Clearly not lacking confidence in the abilities of his fleet, Angelos chose to intercept the larger enemy flotilla south of the abovementioned Cape Maleas (31km south-east of Monemvasia). According to the twelfth-century Byzantine chronicler John Kinnamos, the imperial ships, aided by a favourable tailwind, forced the Sicilians to retreat but, when the advantageous breeze changed to a headwind, the more numerous royal ships were able to pounce on and outmanoeuvre the immobilized imperial galleys. That the abovementioned Italian chronicle confused this naval engagement with the one in 1149 is undeniable, for it, like the accounts by Kinnamos and Choniates, related the capture of Constantine Angelos. In 1155 Michael, scion of the preeminent Palaiologos family, along with John Doukas, was sent to Italy with troops and a large sum of money, the latter for the purposes of hiring mercenaries at Ancona (207km north-east of Rome). Soon after his arrival at this city, Michael, to use the words of early thirteenth-century Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates, secured a contingent of ‘strong lance-bearers’. Roger II had always feared the armies of both emperors invading southern Italy, and at Ancona this possibility almost reached fruition. Yet luckily for King William I, the emperor Frederick I (r. 1155–80), exhausted from a yearlong campaign in northern and central Italy, chose not to assist his imperial colleague.¹¹

Landing at Vieste (291km south-east of Ancona) in late August 1155, Michael Palaiologos, having captured the town, met with Robert III of Loritello (Rotello, Molise, south Abruzzi). While the fleet was sailing to Vieste, John Doukas campaigned in the Abruzzi. Kinnamos did not know the name of the fortified town successfully besieged by Doukas, but it was probably Pescara (captured by Alfonso in 1140), especially since the chronicler noted that Palaiologos arrived there with the fleet at around the same time. Kinnamos also related that the inhabitants of San Flaviano surrendered when news reached them of the unnamed town’s capture. Charles Brand, who corrected Chalandon’s mistaken speculation that San Flaviano was north of Ancona, identified it as the modern town of Giulianova (103km south-east of Ancona). This may well be the case for, as Kinnamos observed, the town was named after a saint (Patriarch Flavianos of Constantinople, d. 449). However, there was also a town presumably named after the same saint 14km inland (southwest) of Pescara, and hence it remains possible that Kinnamos was referring to this place rather than the one much further to the north. Whatever the case, Doukas advanced south, and when he arrived at the frontier of the county of Loritello he was met by Robert’s brother William. Together they rendezvoused with Robert and Michael Palaiologos at Vieste, where oaths were exchanged. The army then sailed to Trani, where it immediately became apparent that the citizens had no intention of surrendering. Bari was approached next, and after some skirmishing, Alexander of Conversano managed to get access to the city by means of imperial gold. The stronghold built by Roger II’s Muslim troops in 1132, however, resisted capture, as did the fortress-like Basilica San Nicola di Bari located a few hundred metres to the north-east (Figs 19 and 20). The church fell to a ruse the Normans would have been proud of: imperial troops disguised themselves as monks, drawing their concealed swords once the gates had been opened to let them in. Seven days after entering the city, Robert of Loritello arrived with his army, the sight of which prompted the defenders of the fortress to capitulate. Since the citizens had loathed its presence since construction in 1132, they, much to the chagrin of Palaiologos who attempted to buy it from them, chose to demolish it. Events at Bari prompted Trani and Giovinazzo, both to the north-west of Bari, to capitulate. Asclettin, King William’s chancellor, and Count Richard of Andria then advanced on Trani with 2,000 knights and a large body of heavy infantry. The skeletal garrison appealed to Doukas, who swiftly rode to their assistance with a force of imperial and Anconan cavalry. On his way to Trani, the inland town of Ruvo (31km west of Bari) willingly surrendered to Doukas. Afterwards, when riding in the vicinity of Barletta, the imperial commander came upon a detachment of Asclettin’s army consisting of 300 knights and ‘a phalanx of infantry’. Doukas evidently led a couched-lance charge, driving back the enemy and, according to Kinnamos, the commander managed to fell thirty himself. Losses were substantial among the royal troops, but only one of Doukas’ mercenary cavalrymen was killed.¹²

Having relieved the garrison at Trani, Doukas rendezvoused with Palaiologos, and in September 1155 they subsequently advanced on Richard’s position at Andria with 600 cavalry. Kinnamos, following the usual trend of medieval chroniclers, again gave no numbers for the unmounted troops, merely noting that they were significantly outnumbered by their Andrian counterparts, who were supported by 1,800 knights. Luckily the Byzantine chronicler gave a relatively detailed account of the ensuing battle, relating that the imperial force formed in three lines: the first consisted of archers, both mounted and unmounted; the second of 300 cavalry commanded by Robert of Loritello; and Doukas held the rear with 300 heavy cavalry and an unspecified number of Turkic horse archers. Presumably arrayed behind his infantry, Richard of Andria evidently decided to bring the battle to a speedy conclusion with his more numerous cavalry forces. As the first line of the imperial enemy possessed no heavy infantry, Richard’s cavalry ploughed through them, subsequently crashing into Robert’s troops. So forceful was the charge, or series of charges, that it soon reached Doukas’ rearguard, and the commander himself was unhorsed by a lance thrust. Close-quarters fighting followed, and Richard’s men were disadvantaged by a debilitating salvo of arrows fired by the Turkic horsemen – that is, until a detachment charge drove them back. Rarely for the age, the outcome of the fiercely contested battle was decided by infantry. Seeing that their commander had been beaten back to an unmortared stone wall marking the town’s outer limits, the re-formed imperial infantry rushed to Doukas’ assistance and, using the wall as a makeshift armoury, ‘discharged stones all around Richard’. The latter retaliated by charging towards them with thirty-six knights, but was unhorsed by the impetus of a large stone striking him on the knee. The stone-thrower, a priest from Trani, followed with another weighty projectile that struck Richard in the neck, and despite the Andrian’s pleading, the clergyman finished him off with a dagger thrust to the stomach. Witnessing the death of their commander, the Andrians surrendered themselves and their town to the Byzantines, who after this battle now effectively controlled the coast and part of the hinterland from the middle of the Abruzzi to central Apulia.¹³

After recuperating at Bari, Doukas marched south with a siege train, more than 200 cavalry, 1,000 infantry and, interestingly, ‘a countless mass of slingers’, whose first mention means that they were locally recruited (probably Bariots). The army advanced on a fortified town Kinnamos regrettably failed to name. Doukas seems to have hoped that the masonry could be breached, for the town’s walls were subjected to an unrelenting barrage of shot fired from stone-throwers, but the walls held firm (indicating that Doukas did not have counterweight trebuchets – discussed below). One evening Doukas chose to abandon the siege, arriving shortly afterwards at Monopoli, therefore suggesting that the unnamed town besieged was Polignano a Mare (8km north-west). Evidently cognisant of Doukas’ arrival in the region, a force was sent out from Monopoli. While the Monopolitan infantry engaged the imperial vanguard, the knights fled back to the town, and most of the former were captured. Doukas then sent a detachment to ravage the hinterland, while he himself camped before the town’s walls, later crushing a sally from the town’s garrison with thirty cavalry. The Monopolitans refused to capitulate, but were granted a one-month armistice, during which, if no help was received from King William, they were obliged to surrender to the Byzantines. At this time Robert of Loritello, experiencing difficulty against the king’s troops, requested assistance from Palaiologos and Doukas. But he was reminded, as per their treaty with him, that they were in Longobardia to reclaim it for the emperor; they would only help if his goal matched theirs. The relationship with Robert seems to have soured a little by this stage, for it was rumoured that he had considered throwing in his lot with Richard of Andria prior to the battle that claimed the latter’s life. Based on these events, Birkenmeier believes that Palaiologos and Doukas ‘mismanaged’ their ally. While that may be true of Palaiologos, Doukas, as noted presently, did his best to provide Robert with the funds required to protect his holdings. Regardless, the commanders met with Robert at Bitteto near Bari, where oaths were repledged. At around the same time, a fleet arrived at Bari bearing reinforcements of unmentioned numerical strength under the command of John Angelos, son of the aforementioned Constantine captured by the Sicilian fleet near Cape Maleas in 1154.¹⁴

While the Byzantines were busy reconquering Apulia, in the words of a Sicilian chronicler, Roger II’s old rival Richard II of Capua – an exile at the western imperial court since 1137 – took the opportunity to seize the territory ‘pertaining to him by the law of inheritance’. In 1155, as the Annals of Montecassino recorded, he ‘seized the principality of Capua all the way to Naples and Salerno’. Accordingly, King William’s slow response to the Byzantine problem in Apulia is understandable. Moreover, at the time of the rebellion and imperial invasion, he was reported to have been afflicted by a malady so serious that rumours spread to the mainland of his death. Nevertheless, Kinnamos related that soon after the imperial commanders met with Robert of Loritello at Bitetto, William advanced with the royal army to Molfetta (25km north-west of Bari). The Byzantines meanwhile besieged a fortress previously belonging to Richard of Andria, which Kinnamos called ‘Bosco’. Its precise location is difficult to determine, but evidently it was situated either within or near a forested region given Bosco’s meaning in Italian: a likelihood affirmed by Kinnamos, who noted the area had been used by Richard for hunting. Indeed, it is tempting to suggest that the fortress was located at or near the site of the commanding Castel del Monte (16km south-west of Andria), built during the 1240s, for the existence of a twelfth-century fortress in the vicinity is implied in a charter from 1269. Moreover, some have suggested that Frederick II – grandson of Roger II, western emperor, and king of Sicily (r. 1198–1250) – intended Castel del Monte to serve as a hunting lodge and, while others have observed that there is no explicit evidence for this view, the area was nonetheless regarded as being suited to the sport.¹⁵

Having encamped before Bosco with a small force, Doukas had his engineers bombard the walls with catapults, while the archers targeted the defenders on the battlements. The garrison, however, offered fierce resistance and, while the walls were damaged by incessant artillery fire, a breach could not be created. Accordingly, a unit of infantry advanced towards Bosco’s gate in a tortoise-shell formation with the aim of burning it, but the attempt failed; the gate was made of iron. When news reached King William of the siege, he dispatched Chancellor Asclettin to Andria with a force consisting entirely of knights ‘brandishing long lances’. The Byzantines, whom Kinnamos plausibly suggested were outnumbered, formed their battle lines and engaged Asclettin’s army, which appears to have been strengthened on arrival by infantry from Bosco’s garrison. Both sides fought at close quarters with great ferocity, and Doukas noted that the royal troops were using their greater numbers to envelop the troops in front of him. Accordingly the able commander launched a charge into the middle of the enemy, the sight of which buoyed the spirit of his soldiers; following suit, they forced the enemy to flee. The defeat inflicted was decisive, for Kinnamos noted that 300 royal cavalry were killed, in addition to a sizable number of infantry. Left without men to defend it, the fortress was seized without trouble, and the triumphant Doukas returned with considerable plunder to Bari. Soon afterwards the fortified town of Montepeloso was taken, where the Lombardo-Norman coalition inflicted a crushing defeat on the Byzantines in 1041. Next, presumably with the aid of Alexander of Conversano, Gravina (51km southwest of Bari) was captured, a town belonging to him prior to his exile. Other towns and fortresses were secured, in addition to some fifty villages. Kinnamos did not specify where these villages and towns were, but they must have been deeper in the Apulian hinterland as the campaign had hitherto been generally focused on the northern and central coast.¹⁶

Michael Palaiologos, having contracted an unspecified disease, died soon after the capture of Gravina. John Doukas now decided to focus on southern Apulia, advancing with his entire army on Brindisi, where he planned to rendezvous with Robert of Loritello. The latter had earlier fallen out with Palaiologos over the terms of a loan, which was probably needed to increase the ranks of his army, or to pay wages in arrears. However, Robert managed to secure 10,000 gold coins from Doukas, after which the two departed with their troops to Massafra (18km north-west of Taranto). Here they learnt of the presence of one of William’s commanders, Fleming, at nearby ‘Polymilion’, a town convincingly identified by Brand as Palagiano (7km south-west of Massafra). Upon the army’s approach, Fleming fled to Taranto, after which Palagiano was subsequently stormed and its hinterland ravaged. Doukas then marched on Mottola which, as noted in Chapter 2, was a formidable hilltop fortress built by the katepano Basil Voioannes in 1023. Since it was virtually impregnable and possessed a commanding view of the gulf of Taranto, Mottola, known in Italian as la spia dello Ionio (‘the spy of the Ionian [sea]’), was of great strategic importance. Given that access to the fortifications was prevented by precipitous ravines on one side, and a river on the other, quite amazingly it fell quickly. Noting that some defenders were cockily congregated outside the gates, Doukas sent a force to charge up the steep hill. Catching the amazed, ill-prepared garrison by surprise, the imperial troops stormed into the town before there was time for the gates to be closed. Given the string of successes up to this point, Kinnamos was probably not exaggerating when he noted that the Byzantines had acquired an invincible reputation throughout Italy. They were certainly known as such from Hungary to the principality of Antioch. William’s kingdom was clearly beginning to unravel, but given that imperial forces seem never to have exceeded a few thousand in total, one decisive victory could end the threat once and for all. The king clearly knew this, but morale was evidently low, for while the royal troops constantly shadowed the enemy forces, they remained reluctant to engage them.¹⁷

Marching on Taranto, Doukas encountered a royal force led by Fleming. While part of his army was beaten back by the more numerous enemy, Doukas’ cavalry routed those led by Fleming, who once again fled to Taranto. Evidently returning to royal rule, the Byzantines marched to Massafra and recaptured it. Despite subsequently routing a sally led by Fleming at Taranto, Doukas determined that the formidable port could not be captured. The army then marched to the abovementioned Monopoli, a town protected by a circuit of two walls, where it was met by the fleet from Bari. Despite a series of assaults made on their town, the hardy men of the garrison refused to capitulate. Having successfully appealed to Taranto for help, the Monopolitans were subsequently disappointed by the size of the force sent to them by Fleming: 100 knights. Although the Tarentine commander promised to come to their assistance at the head of more substantial forces, the Monopolitans chose to surrender to Doukas. This time there would be no four-week ‘cooling’ period; the Byzantine commander insisted that the town accept a garrison. The Monopolitans reluctantly accepted the terms, but their hopes must have risen when news reached them that Fleming was finally on his way. Doukas’ response was characteristically decisive. He picked his best cavalry and told them to engage the Tarentines; they did so successfully, killing a sizable number in addition to capturing 100 knights. Said to have possessed a particularly speedy horse, Fleming evaded the fate of his knights, managing to flee to the safety of Taranto’s walls for the fourth time. Not one to rest on his laurels, Doukas sat down to compose a letter to Manuel Komnenos. Noting that King William was in the process of mobilizing a great army in Sicily, Doukas informed the emperor that while the campaign had been greatly successful to date, especially given the small size of the forces available to him, substantial reinforcements were urgently required.¹⁸

From Monopoli Doukas marched south-east to Ostouni, whose citizens promptly surrendered to him. At long last Kinnamos provided a date, noting that from Ostouni the imperial forces advanced on Brindisi, arriving there on 14 April 1156. As it was Easter, the Byzantines were reluctant to fight, but an Antiochene named Thomas, growing weary of inaction, rode up to Brindisi’s walls. Managing to convince a knight called Angelo[s] to face him in single combat, the two charged at each other with their lances couched. Both cavalrymen pierced each other’s shields with their spears, but neither was unhorsed. When both had returned to their comrades, the Byzantines readied their catapults and began bombardment of Brindisi’s formidable masonry. But a breach could not be created, so the engineers began targeting buildings within the city. Fortuitously, an elderly woman was crushed by a stray shot from one of the catapults, after which the citizens began to fear that the same fate would befall them. In the face of continuing bombardment, the gates were opened, although some of the garrison retreated to the citadel. Doukas had half of his army lay siege to the keep, sending the rest to forage in the vicinity. The latter did as ordered, and an attempt to ambush them by some cavalrymen Kinnamos called ‘Kelts’ (i.e. French/Normans) was not only repulsed, but most were also captured. Meanwhile, hearing of the fall of Brindisi, the leading citizens of nearby Alitzion (Alezio, 64km south-east of Brindisi) informed Doukas of their desire to surrender, meaning that effectively all of Apulia (bar Melfi and Troia) was now in imperial hands. After a while, a deserter from William’s army arrived at Brindisi, where he informed the Byzantines that the Sicilian fleet would soon be upon them. At the ensuing council of war, it was decided that John Angelos and Robert of Loritello would command the land forces and Doukas the fleet. While the latter was preparing to board his flagship, the Sicilian fleet arrived, which was so large that it could not enter into the rowlock-shaped harbour at once, accordingly having to sail in ten at a time. Doukas, with only fourteen ships, was therefore presented with a seemingly insurmountable obstacle: his marines were reluctant to sail to certain death. He managed to resolve the problem by showing them a quickly forged letter, purportedly in Manuel’s hand, informing his commander that the relief fleet would be there by midday. The expedient worked; the sailors boarded their ships and prepared for battle.¹⁹

Bombarded by missiles fired from the ships and by troops positioned on the cliffs overlooking the harbour’s narrow entrance, the Sicilian fleet was forced to retreat, losing 1,000 men and four ships. Losses seem to have been substantial on the Byzantine side as well, although Kinnamos neglected to provide a figure. With landing prevented for the time being, Doukas turned his attention to the capture of the keep, having his engineers construct a ‘tortoise’, a siege shelter armed with a battering ram. The defenders ridiculed the besiegers, declaring that the wall surrounding their stout donjon could not be brought down with such a device. However, its appearance deceived them, for the siege engine was not deployed for its ram, but for the shelter it provided to the sappers beneath it. At night the workmen dug down to the foundations, propped them up with beams and set fire to them, and thus the targeted section of the wall collapsed. Despite this success, the defenders, protected by the keep, continued to resist. Doukas was then faced with a series of vexing issues: firstly, claiming that he would return with reinforcements, Robert of Loritello abandoned Brindisi, followed by the knights from Ancona whose demands to receive double pay were sternly refused. Moreover, while a fleet of unknown size had just arrived under the command of Alexios I Komnenos’ grandson – son of the historian Anna Komnene – who bore the same name, Kinnamos related that Manuel had ordered him to organize an army to transport across to Italy but, for reasons not clearly explained, Alexios chose to ignore this directive. As it did not transport the sizable army envisaged by Manuel, Alexios’ fleet cannot have consisted of many ships, and hence an Italian chronicler’s claim that Doukas possessed a ‘great army and navy’ at Brindisi was a little exaggerated. Indeed, if a Pisan chronicle was correct, the total size of the imperial navy at Brindisi was just ‘30 galleys’ (meaning that Alexios arrived with sixteen).²⁰

King William’s fleet had meanwhile refitted and departed from Messina, and he later disembarked somewhere to the south of Brindisi with his land forces, while the fleet proceeded to dock at an unnamed islet – either isola la Chiesa or the isole Pedagne Grandi – to the north-east of the harbour’s mouth. Kinnamos opined that Doukas should have engaged the fleet immediately, as he now had to defend against an assault by both land and sea. Yet, as the chronicler himself conceded, Doukas was probably hoping for the promised reinforcements to arrive – from both Manuel and Robert of Loritello – deciding that a battle in the open sea against a larger fleet would be folly. Using the harbour’s bottleneck entrance to his advantage had worked well previously, but with relatively few troops and ships, this tactic would only have worked for so long. A detachment of imperial cavalry was sent to attack the rearguard of the Sicilian army encamped around 10km from the city, and it managed to inflict substantial casualties, capture horses and seize a battle standard. But this audacious sortie was little more than the sting of a gadfly, for the royal army was large and hence suffered little from the raid. As Kinnamos had earlier observed, ‘fortune’, increasingly a stranger to Doukas, now abandoned him completely. The ‘Kelts’ (those previously captured?) now decided to enter William’s service, prompting the king to launch a general assault before the reinforcements arrived. Choosing to risk a pitched battle rather than endure a lengthy siege, on 28 May 1156 Doukas marched onto the plain and drew up his battle lines. Greatly outnumbered, the Byzantines nonetheless managed to hold their own for a considerable time, until inevitably they were overwhelmed. Alexios Komnenos and John Doukas were captured, and King William triumphantly retook possession of Brindisi. Assessing the campaign and its abrupt end, Kinnamos criticized Doukas’ ‘thoughtlessness’. Yet he clearly failed to appreciate the commander’s formidable achievement: after all, in the previous century it took the Normans three decades to complete the conquest of Apulia, whereas Doukas, with a generally smaller force, managed to achieve much the same feat in a single year.²¹

In June 1157 a Sicilian fleet of 140 galleys and 24 dromons, commanded by Admiral Stephen, raided the island of Evvia (Euboea) and the coast around Athens. An imperial fleet of unknown size was burnt and captives were taken. Manuel’s response was to threaten the kingdom again by sending men to Ancona, where more troops were hired. In both cases, the rulers were merely rattling their sabres, and it would not be until 1185 that the Hauteville dynasty launched its final assault on the eastern empire. This invasion was reminiscent of the first one, for while Manuel Komnenos was the wealthiest and most powerful monarch in Europe and the Near East, his death in 1180 was followed by a time of great political instability and civil war. Like Guiscard before him, King William II (r. 1166–89), also in possession of a pretender to the imperial throne, determined that it was the perfect time to strike. William was very well informed about the anarchic situation in the empire, for his court featured various exiles who had managed to escape the proscriptions of Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos (r. 1183–85), who ascended to the throne by deposing and subsequently executing the legitimate emperor, Alexios II (r. 1180–83). According to the Byzantine eyewitness chronicler, Archbishop Eustathios of Thessaloniki, William II’s invasion fleet consisted of 200 galleys. He also later conversed with the Sicilian commanders, who informed him that the army consisted of heavy cavalry, ‘horse archers’ (clearly the ‘Saracens’ he mentioned elsewhere), and unmounted ‘light troops’, presumably archers, javelineers, and slingers recruited from the Lombard and Greek-speaking populations. Some of these troops, perhaps a considerable number, were correctly called Rizikoi by Eustathios, a rendering in Greek of the Italian word for ‘risk’ (rischio). As the archbishop explained, these men fought for plunder, unlike those who received pay, and hence were ‘risk-takers’. The fleet was led by Count Tancred of Lecce, and the land forces were commanded by Tancred’s brother-in-law Count Richard of Acerra and by Count Alduin, who seems to have been the royal seneschal. Landing at Dyrrachion in Illyria, as Guiscard had done 104 years earlier, the Sicilian army invested the city. Owing to the hatred of Dyrrachion’s citizens for their unscrupulous governor Romanos (Andronikos’ son-in-law), in addition to the fact that the city was protected by a small garrison, they submitted quickly on 24 June. The land forces subsequently marched on Europe’s second-largest city, Thessaloniki, where its commanders had arranged to rendezvous with the fleet. No doubt traversing the via Egnatia, which extended from the Illyrian capital to Constantinople, the army encountered no resistance on its march to the Thessalonian metropolis, arriving there on 6 August 1185 and followed by the navy nine days later.²²

The city was besieged from both the north-western and eastern sides, providing the Sicilian army with the chance to demonstrate its impressive siege capabilities. On the eastern side of Thessaloniki, the fortifications were bombarded by ‘small rock-throwers’. Noted to have been the weakest section of the city’s walls, the aim was to clear the battlements in order to allow a team of sappers to undermine them. However, on the north-western side a relatively newer engine was deployed: the counterweight trebuchet. Relying solely on gravitational power to sling weightier stone shot with much greater force than earlier engines, an Arab source noted that three were used by the Hauteville army at Alexandria in 1174. In a penetrating article (2000), Paul Chevedden argued that the Byzantines developed this technology in the final decade of the eleventh century. As the imperial army had for centuries been well known for its great skill with heavy artillery – e.g. tenth- and eleventh-century stone-throwers were noted for the ability to hurl shot weighing well over 100kg – Chevedden’s theory rests on solid ground. To provide an idea of the great power of counterweight trebuchets, Usama ibn-Munqidh’s eyewitness report of Emperor John II Komnenos’ 1138 siege of Shaizar (see previous chapter) is worthy of quotation:

the Romans … [had] some terrifying mangonels that they had brought with them from their country for hurling heavy payloads. Their stones … could be launched a distance greater than any arrow could fly. One time they hurled a piece of a millstone at the house of a companion of mine … levelling the house from top to bottom with one stone.²³

According to Eustathios, two large stone-throwers were prepared before the stronger walls on the north-western side, evidently for the purpose of creating a breach. One of the counterweight trebuchets was fittingly called ‘the earthquake’s daughter’, and the stone shot fired from it was said to have been almost too heavy for a man to carry. Adding to the artillery barrage was the unrelenting salvo of arrows fired from small siege shelters affixed to the masts of the Sicilian galleys, which were moored in the harbour on the eastern side of the city. Clearly the defenders of the redoubtable city were hard pressed, and they were further disadvantaged by the ineffective command of their duke, David Komnenos. According to the eyewitness Eustathios, David’s indecision and inattentiveness failed to inspire confidence in, let alone raise the morale of, the city’s garrison. He consistently failed to launch sallies at opportune times, missing at one point a chance to burn both the enemy fleet and the smaller rock-throwers. Word finally reached Andronikos I of David’s gross dereliction of duty, and the irate emperor accordingly signed the duke’s death warrant. Realizing that his life was in danger, on the eighteenth day of the siege David left a gate open and fled to the citadel. The besiegers, many of whom were fighting for plunder rather than a wage, subjected Thessaloniki to a thorough and brutal sack; up to 7,000 Thessalonians were massacred.²⁴

At Constantinople, Andronikos imprisoned David Komnenos’ relatives and ordered another round of executions. One of the intended victims, Isaac of the preeminent Angelos family, responded by launching a successful coup (11 September). Now emperor, Isaac II (r. 1185–95) began immediate preparations for a counter-attack. As rivalry and disunity among the various generals of Europe had allowed the invaders to march into Macedonia unopposed, Isaac II wisely gave sole command of his army to the trustworthy general Alexios Vranas. Advancing on Constantinople, the Sicilian army broke into separate divisions and began raiding throughout Thrace. Vranas could not believe his luck, variously using his mounted troops to shadow and assault the ill-disciplined bands of raiders. Having driven back one division of the Sicilian army to Mosynopolis (Komotini, 214km north-east of Thessaloniki), Vranas’ troops stormed the city and inflicted substantial casualties. Those lucky enough to escape the slaughter fled to the southern bank of the River Strymon, where a sizable portion of the army remained. Encamped with the river to their rear near Demetritzes (168km south-west of Mosyn), counts Alduin and Richard, hoping that another contingent based at Serres (12km north-east) would soon join them, bought themselves time by concluding a truce with Vranas. Cognisant of the enemy’s temporizing, Vranas allowed the Sicilian troops to rest while he secretly prepared for a surprise assault. This was launched on 7 November 1185, and while the Sicilians initially stood their ground, they soon fled towards Thessaloniki, although many were killed in the process. Moreover, Alduin and Richard of Acerra were captured, as was the pretender to the imperial throne, Alexios, known as ‘the cupbearer’. When the garrison at Thessaloniki witnessed the return of their defeated comrades, they also chose flight; some on ships, while others fled to the safety of Dyrrachion. All did not escape, however, for some were put to the sword by Thessalonian forces eager to avenge the sack of their city.²⁵

Quite plausibly, given the smaller size of Guiscard’s invasion force in 1081 (i.e. up to 15,000), Choniates asserted that 10,000 of William’s troops were killed and another 4,000 were captured. The outcome of the campaign, then, was clearly humiliating for the king, although luckily for him the fleet did not suffer the same fate. Waiting for the land forces to reach Constantinople, the Sicilian armada was docked at a small island near the capital in the Sea of Marmara, and when news reached Count Tancred of the decimation of the land forces, he retreated south through the Dardanelles. Attempts by Tancred’s marines to land to the south-east of the strait were vigorously opposed by missile troops on the cliffs and beaches, and his fleet was later harried by enemy squadrons totalling more than 100 ships. Forced to retreat to Sicily, Tancred nonetheless managed in November to secure a small consolation prize by devastating Kalymnos, an island off the coast of modern Bodrum (southwest Turkey). Yet the fleet encountered a tempest afterwards, which evidently wrecked a substantial number of ships. Nevertheless King William II, the last legitimate Hauteville ruler of the southern Italian kingdom, did not reel for long. Probably in response to Isaac II’s successful recapture of Dyrrachion in 1186, William ordered Admiral Margaritone to attack the Ionian islands. The admiral successfully completed the king’s mission, managing to capture Zakynthos, Kephallonia and Ithaka.²⁶

So pleased was the king with the outcome of the campaign that he granted the islands to his victorious admiral. The last Hauteville campaign against the empire occurred in 1187, when William II sent Margaritone to assist the rebel Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus against the fleet sent from Constantinople to bring him to heel. While Isaac defeated the imperial forces on land, Margaritone overcame them at sea. King William died two years later, and was succeeded by the abovementioned Tancred of Lecce who, as an illegitimate son of Duke Roger III (King Roger II’s son), would not enjoy his new title unopposed (r. 1189–94). Roger II’s daughter Constance, wife of western emperor Henry VI (r. 1191–97), enjoyed the support of much of the nobility, but Tancred was nonetheless able to remain king until his death in February 1194. Margaritone remained faithful to Tancred, rigidly opposing Henry VI’s attempts to conquer the kingdom. However, when Palermo fell to Henry in November, the formidable admiral was imprisoned. The final outcome of the various clashes between the Hauteville and Komnenos dynasties (1081–1185) in the Balkans and Italy was effectively an expensive draw, resulting in no permanent loss of territory on either side, in addition to claiming the lives of many thousands of soldiers and civilians. Of the brief clashes between the Hauteville and Angelos families, Zakynthos, Kephallonia and Ithaka were the only territorial gains secured by the former and, while the islands would change hands several times until the fifteenth century, they would never be returned to Byzantine rule.²⁷