THE NORMANS COME TO ITALY
[930-1053 A.D.]
When the Northmen, or Normans, had embraced Christianity, in their attachment to pilgrimage to the Holy Land, they surpassed all the European people. This was consistent enough with the habits of men, the most enterprising, courageous, and valiant on earth. Two motives appear to have directed their route to Naples; Mounts Cassino and Gargano were illustrious for miracles; and from Naples, Gaeta, Amalfi, or Bari, parts which maintained a constant intercourse with the East, a passage to Syria might easily be obtained.
Early in the eleventh century, while forty of these adventurers were at Salerno, on their return from the Holy Land, a Saracen fleet anchored off the coast, and demanded heavy contributions as a reward for sparing the city. The Normans instantly asked Guiomar III, prince of the place, for arms. To the astonishment of the inhabitants, they mounted their steeds, caused the gates to be opened, and plunged into the midst of the misbelievers, many of whom they slew, the rest they forced precipitately to embark.[9] Guiomar, with the hope of retaining them at his court, offered them riches and honours as the condition; and when he found them resolved to revisit their homes, he brought them to proclaim his offers among their kindred and friends. It appears, however, that the Normans had no great reason to be dissatisfied with their own country; one knight only, Drengot by name, who, from a deadly feud with a noble of his nation, was not averse to foreign adventure, resolved to collect his kindred and dependents and sail for Italy.
On his arrival there with about one hundred followers, he found the yoke of the Greeks no less detested than the depredations of the Saracens; that the pope, emperor, and feudatory were alike prepared to reduce the maritime places and the mountain forts. For some time their success was thwarted by obstacles which valour could not surmount. On one occasion they were defeated by a greatly superior force, and their leader slain; and the emperor, Henry II, whose army they had joined, was compelled by a pestilence to abandon the north of Italy. But under Rainulf, the brother of Drengot, they resolved to establish a sovereignty for themselves; and in this view they reduced Aversa, a fortress belonging to the duchy of Naples, which they fortified in opposition to the wish of that republic. That city, however, they had soon an opportunity of conciliating. When Pandulf IV, prince of Capua, took Naples by surprise, where open force would have failed, Sergius, master of the soldiers, and head of the commonwealth, fled to Aversa, implored the succours of the strangers, and with their aid expelled the garrison of Capua. The grateful chief erected Aversa into a fief, with which he invested the Norman leader as Count Rainulf. But this leader was not destined to lay the foundation of Norman sovereignty.
About this time and allured by the same hope of distinction, there arrived three sons of Tancred of Hauteville, an illustrious house of Normandy. In the war which ensued, both Greeks and Saracens were worsted, until all Apulia was wrested from the former, when the new conquests were partitioned among twelve counts, each with a town and territory. At the head of these adventurers was Guillaume Bras de Fer, eldest son of Tancred. But they acknowledged no subordination; they committed on churches and monasteries, Christians and infidels, friends and foes, excesses which neither Greek nor Saracen could have exceeded, until the pope, justly regarding them as the greatest curse of the country, formed a league to expel them.
At the head of a motley army of Romans, Germans, Greeks, Campanians, and Apulians, Leo IX himself took the field. Guillaume was dead, but his brother Humphrey (or Humbert) filled his place; Humphrey was assisted by Robert Guiscard [or Wiscard] another son of Tancred, and by the count of Aversa.[i]