It was, in fact, this vigorous personality of William which proved the chief safeguard of his throne. “Stark he was,” says the English chronicler, “to men that withstood him. Earls that did aught against his bidding he cast into bonds; bishops he stripped of their bishoprics, abbots of their abbacies. He spared not his own brother; first he was in the land, but the king cast him into bondage. If a man would live and hold his lands, need it were that he should follow the king’s will.” But, stern as his rule was, it gave peace to the land. Even amid the sufferings which necessarily sprang from the circumstances of the Conquest itself, from the erection of castles, or the inclosure of forests, or the exactions which built up the great hoard at Winchester, Englishmen were unable to forget “the good peace he made in the land, so that a man might fare over his realm with a bosom full of gold.” Strange touches of a humanity far in advance of his age contrasted with the general temper of his government. One of the strongest traits in his character was his aversion to shed blood by process of law; he formally abolished the punishment of death, and only a single execution stains the annals of his reign. An edict yet more honorable to him put an end to the slave-trade which had till then been carried on at the port of Bristol. The pitiless warrior, the stern and awful king was a tender and faithful husband, an affectionate father. The lonely silence of his bearing broke into gracious converse with pure and sacred souls like Anselm. If William was “stark” to rebel and baron, men noted that he was “mild to those that loved God.”
ROBERT GUISCARD.
By EDWARD GIBBON.
[Born about 1015, died 1085. This Norman adventurer, the sixth son of a small baron, became Duke of Apulia and Calabria in Italy by conquest, and founded the Kingdom of Naples, which existed till 1860. Equally distinguished by personal prowess, generalship, and diplomatic astuteness, he filled a large figure in the affairs of his time, and was one of the stoutest bulwarks against Saracenic aggression.]
The pedigree of Robert Guiscard is variously deduced from the peasants and the dukes of Normandy—from the peasants, by the pride and ignorance of a Grecian princess; from the dukes, by the ignorance and flattery of the Italian subjects. His genuine descent may be ascribed to the second or middle order of private nobility. He sprang from a race of valvassors or bannerets, of the diocese of Coutances, in the lower Normandy; the castle of Hauteville was their honorable seat, his father Tancred was conspicuous in the court and army of the duke, and his military service was furnished by ten soldiers or knights. Two marriages, of a rank not unworthy of his own, made him the father of twelve sons, who were educated at home by the impartial tenderness of his second wife. But a narrow patrimony was insufficient for this numerous and daring progeny; they saw around the neighborhood the mischiefs of poverty and discord, and resolved to seek in foreign wars a more glorious inheritance. Two only remained to perpetuate the race and cherish their father’s age; their ten brothers, as they successively attained the vigor of manhood, departed from the castle, passed the Alps, and joined the Apulian camp of the Normans.
The elder were prompted by native spirit; their success encouraged their younger brethren, and the three first in seniority—William, Drogo, and Humphrey—deserved to be the chiefs of their nation and the founders of the new republic. Robert was the eldest of the seven sons of the second marriage, and even the reluctant praise of his foes has endowed him with the heroic qualities of a soldier and a statesman. His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army; his limbs were cast in the true proportion of strength and gracefulness, and to the decline of life he maintained the patient vigor of health and the commanding dignity of his form. His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair and beard were long and of a flaxen color, his eyes sparkled with fire, and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress obedience and terror amid the tumult of battle. In the ruder ages of chivalry such qualifications are not below the notice of the poet or historian. They may observe that Robert at once, and with equal dexterity, could wield in the right hand his sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of Civitella he was thrice unhorsed, and that in the close of that memorable day he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of valor from the warriors of the two armies. His boundless ambition was founded on the consciousness of superior worth; in the pursuit of greatness he was never arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the feelings of humanity. Though not insensible of fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was determined only by his present advantage. The surname of Guiscard[21] was applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too often confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and Robert is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning of Ulysses and the eloquence of Cicero. Yet these arts were disguised by an appearance of military frankness; in his highest fortune he was accessible and courteous to his fellow-soldiers, and, while he indulged the prejudices of his new subjects, he affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient fashion of his country.
He grasped with a rapacious, that he might distribute with a liberal hand; his primitive indigence had taught the habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not below his attention, and his prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty to force a discovery of their secret treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed from Normandy with only five followers on horseback and thirty on foot; yet even this allowance appears too bountiful. The sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim, and his first military band was levied among the adventurers of Italy. His brothers and countrymen had divided the fertile lands of Apulia, but they guarded their shares with the jealousy of avarice; the aspiring youth was driven forward to the mountains of Calabria, and in his first exploits against the Greeks and the natives it is not easy to discriminate the hero from the robber. To surprise a castle or a convent, to ensnare a wealthy citizen, to plunder the adjacent villages for necessary food, were the obscure labors which formed and exercised the powers of his mind and body. The volunteers of Normandy adhered to his standard; and, under his command, the peasants of Calabria assumed the name and character of Normans.
As the genius of Robert expanded with his fortune, he awakened the jealousy of his elder brother, by whom, in a transient quarrel, his life was threatened and his liberty restrained. After the death of Humphrey the tender age of his sons excluded them from the command; they were reduced to a private estate by the ambition of their guardian and uncle, and Guiscard was exalted on a buckler and saluted Count of Apulia and general of the republic. With an increase of authority and of force he resumed the conquest of Calabria, and soon aspired to a rank that should raise him forever above the heads of his equals. By some acts of rapine or sacrilege he had incurred a papal excommunication, but Nicholas II was easily persuaded that the divisions of friends could terminate only in their mutual prejudice; that the Normans were the faithful champions of the Holy See, and it was safer to trust the alliance of a prince than the caprice of an aristocracy. A synod of one hundred bishops was convened at Melphi, and the count interrupted an important enterprise to guard the person and execute the decrees of the Roman pontiff. His gratitude and policy conferred on Robert and his posterity the ducal title, with the investiture of Apulia, Calabria, and all the lands, both in Italy and Sicily, which his sword could rescue from the schismatic Greeks and the unbelieving Saracens. This apostolic sanction might justify his arms, but the obedience of a free and victorious people could not be transferred without their consent, and Guiscard dissembled his elevation till the ensuing campaign had been illustrated by the conquest of Consenza and Reggio. In the hour of triumph he assembled his troops, and solicited the Normans to confirm by their suffrage the judgment of the vicar of Christ; the soldiers hailed with joyful acclamations their valiant duke, and the counts, his former equals, pronounced the oath of fidelity with hollow smiles and secret indignation.
After this inauguration Robert styled himself, “by the grace of God and St. Peter, Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and hereafter of Sicily”; and it was the labor of twenty years to deserve and realize these lofty appellations. Such tardy progress in a narrow space may seem unworthy of the abilities of the chief and the spirit of the nation, but the Normans were few in number, their resources were scanty, their service was voluntary and precarious. The bravest designs of the duke were sometimes opposed by the free voice of his parliament of barons; the twelve counts of popular election conspired against his authority, and against their perfidious uncle the sons of Humphrey demanded justice and revenge. By his policy and vigor Guiscard discovered their plots, suppressed their rebellions, and punished the guilty with death or exile; but in these domestic feuds his years and the national strength were unprofitably consumed. After the defeat of his foreign enemies—the Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens—their broken forces retreated to the strong and populous cities of the sea-coast. They excelled in the arts of fortification and defense; the Normans were accustomed to serve on horseback in the field, and their rude attempts could only succeed by the efforts of persevering courage. The resistance of Salerno was maintained above eight months; the siege or blockade of Bari lasted nearly four years. In these actions the Norman duke was the foremost in every danger; in every fatigue the last and most patient. As he pressed the citadel of Salerno a huge stone from the rampart shattered one of his military engines, and by a splinter he was wounded in the breast. Before the gates of Bari he lodged in a miserable hut or barrack, composed of dry branches, and thatched with straw—a perilous station, on all sides open to the inclemency of the winter and the spears of the enemy.
The Italian conquests of Robert correspond with the limits of the present kingdom of Naples, and the countries united by his arms have not been dissevered by the revolutions of seven hundred years.