The Kingdom in the Sun (37 page)

William's treatment of Asclettin epitomised his whole attitude to the coming campaign. This would be in no sense a continuation, however intensified, of last year's pathetic performance. It would be a new operation, offensive rather than defensive, freshly conceived and planned; a blow struck by the combined military and naval power of the Sicilian Kingdom at the enemy's weakest point—the heel of Apulia. In the last days of April, the army crossed to the mainland and set off through Calabria, while the fleet sailed down through the straits and then turned north-east towards Brindisi.

For three weeks already Brindisi had been under siege. The Byzantines, relying as always on bribes and treachery, had managed to gain entrance to the outer town; but the royalist garrison in the citadel was putting up a determined resistance to them and their progress in Apulia had come, at least temporarily, to a stop. It was only the last of several reverses they had suffered in recent months. First, thanks to the increasing arrogance of Michael Palaeologus, they had gradually lost the confidence and goodwill of the Norman rebels until Robert of Loritello had ridden off in disgust. Then Palaeologus himself had died, after a short illness, in Bari. For all his overbearing ways he had been a brilliant leader in the field, and his death had been another blow to his countrymen. His successor John Ducas had eventually got the army moving again and had even achieved a reconciliation with the Count of Loritello; but the old confidence between the allies was never quite restored, the momentum of
11
55
never quite regained.

And now news was brought to the Byzantine headquarters that the Sicilians were advancing in formidable numbers and strength, led by King William himself. Once again, the Greeks saw their fellow-fighters begin to fall away. The mercenaries chose, as mercenaries will, the moment of supreme crisis to demand impossible increases in their pay; meeting with a refusal, they disappeared
en masse.
Robert of Loritello deserted for the second time, followed by his own men and most of his compatriots. Ducas, left only with the few troops that he and Palaeologus had brought with them, plus those which had trickled over the Adriatic at various times during the past eight or nine months, found himself impossibly outnumbered.

It was the Sicilian fleet that arrived first, and for another day or two he was able to hold his own. The entrance to Brindisi harbour is by a narrow channel, barely a hundred yards across. Twelve centuries before, Julius Caesar had blocked it to Pompey's ships; and now Ducas, by placing the four vessels at his command in line abreast across its mouth and stationing well-armed detachments of foot-soldiers along each bank, followed similar tactics. But when a day or two later William's army appeared to the west, Byzantine hopes were at an end. Attacked simultaneously from the land, the sea and the inner citadel, Ducas could not hope to hold the walls; he and his men were caught, in Cinnamus's words, as in a net.

The battle that followed was short and bloody; the Greek defeat was total. The Sicilian navy had occupied the little islands that circled the harbour entrance and effectively prevented any possibility of escape by sea. Ducas and the other Greek survivors were taken captive. On that one day, 28 May
11
56,
all that the Byzantines had achieved in Italy over the past year was wiped out as completely as if they had never come.

William treated his Greek prisoners according to the recognised canons of war; but to his own rebellious subjects he was pitiless. This was another lesson he had learnt from his father. Treason, particularly in Apulia where it was endemic, remained the one crime that could not be forgiven. Of those erstwhile insurgents who fell into his hands, only the luckiest were imprisoned. The rest were hanged, blinded or tied about with heavy weights and cast into the sea. It was the first time since his accession that the King had shown himself in Apulia, and he was resolved that the Apulians should not forget it. From Brindisi he moved to Bari. Less than a year before, the Bariots had readily thrown in their lot with the Byzantines; now they too were to pay the price for their disloyalty. Slowly they filed from their homes, to prostrate themselves at the feet of their ruler and to implore his mercy; but their prayers were unavailing. William merely pointed to the pile of rubble where until recently the citadel had stood. 'Just as you had no pity on my house,' he said, 'so now I shall have no pity on yours.' He gave them two clear days in which to salvage their belongings; on the third day Bari was destroyed. Only the Cathedral, the great church of St Nicholas and a few smaller religious buildings were left standing.

'And so it came about that of the mighty capital of Apulia, celebrated for its glory, powerful in its wealth, proud of the nobility of its citizens and admired for the beauty of its architecture
by
all who saw it, there now lies nothing but a heap of stones.' Thus Hugo Falcandus salutes, a trifle pompously, the city that was a city no more. The Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela, writing of it a year or two later, was more succinct: 'From Trani it is a day's journey to Bari, that great city which King William of Sicily destroyed. In consequence of its destruction, neither Jews nor Christians now dwell therein.'

It was the same old lesson—a lesson that the history of South Italy alone should have made self-evident, yet one that the princes of mediaeval Europe seemed to find impossible to absorb: that in distant lands, wherever there existed an organised native opposition, a temporary force could never achieve permanent conquest. Whirlwind campaigns were easy, especially when backed by bribes and generous subsidies to the local malcontents; the difficulties arose when it became necessary to consolidate and maintain the advantage gained. For such a purpose no amount of gold was of any avail. The Normans had succeeded in establishing themselves only because they had arrived as mercenaries, and remained as settlers; even then, the task had taken them the best part of a century. When they embarked on foreign adventures—such as the two invasions of the Byzantine Empire by Robert Guiscard and Bohemund—even they were doomed to failure. In North Africa, admittedly, they fared a little better—though the days of the North African Empire were numbered. But where South Italy was concerned there was no exception to the old rule. Its truth had been demonstrated, unpleasantly, to five of the eight men who had occupied the imperial throne of the West during the past century and a half—most recently to Lothair and Frederick Barbarossa himself. Now it was the turn of the Eastern Empire, and Manuel Comnenus.

But the Greeks and the Bariots were not the only sufferers. As William marched his exultant army westward across the Apennines, his approach caused a general panic among those vassals who had recently returned, in the wake of Pope Adrian, from exile. Some fled back precipitately to the papal court; others like the Count of Loritello escaped to the Abruzzi, where they might be able to carry on a sporadic guerrilla warfare for some time to come. Their leader, however, Prince Robert of Capua, was less fortunate. He too fled, hoping to reach the Papal State; but just as he was crossing the Garigliano into safety he was seized by Count Richard of Aquila and delivered up to the King. By this treachery—for he was one of the Prince of Capua's own vassals and had long been his companion in exile—Count Richard managed to save his own skin. Robert, on the other hand, was sent in chains to Palermo, where his eyes were put out by command of the King.

He was lucky to have escaped with his life—a life which for thirty years he had devoted to subversion and revolt. The chief vassal of the Kingdom, who, in one of his rare bursts of loyalty, had laid the royal crown on the head of Roger II more than a quarter of a century before, the richest and most powerful prince in the
Regno
after the King himself, he might have been the mainstay of the monarchy. He, if anyone, could have brought to the peninsula the stability and peace it so badly needed. But he chose the other course. Twice he had been forced to capitulate; twice he had been offered the King's pardon. It was enough. If the days of the last Prince of Capua ended in darkness, he had only himself to blame.

One lonely figure remained to face the coming storm. All Pope Adrian's allies were gone. Frederick Barbarossa was back in Germany; Michael Palaeologus was dead and his army annihilated; the Norman barons were either in prison or in hiding. Adrian himself, unable to return to Rome since Frederick's coronation, had spent the winter with his court at Benevento. Now, as the Sicilian army drew near, he sent most of his Cardinals away to Campania—mainly for their greater safety but also, perhaps, for another reason. He knew now that he would have to come to terms with William. Die-hard cardinals had wrecked too many potential agreements in the past; if he were to save anything from the disaster, he would need the utmost freedom to negotiate.

As soon as the vanguard of the Sicilian army appeared over the hills, the Pope sent forth his Chancellor, Roland of Siena, with two other cardinals who had remained at Benevento, to greet the King and bid him, in the name of St Peter, to cease from further hostilities.
¹
They were received with due courtesy, and formal talks began. The going was not easy. The Sicilian negotiators, led

¹
William of Tyre suggests—and Chalandon, surprisingly, accepts his word without question—that the Sicilians were forced to lay siege to Benevento and starve the Pope out before he would have any dealings with them. For Adrian, anxious now to obtain the best terms he could, such a course would have been ridiculous; and William of Tyre is in any case contradicted by Boso, who was in the city at the time.

by
Maio, Archbishop Hugh and Romuald of Salerno, were in a position of strength and drove a hard bargain, but the papal side fought every inch of the way. It was not until
18
June that agreement was finally reached.

The original manuscript of the Treaty of Benevento still exists in the Vatican Secret Archive. It was drawn up by one of Maio's
proteges,
a bright young notary called Matthew of Ajello,
¹
and the prevailing mood of victorious exaltation, bordering even on truculence, shows through every line of his neat, crabbed handwriting. The King, we read, 'having defeated and put to flight those enemies, Greek and barbarian, who had infiltrated, not by strength but by treachery, into his Kingdom', had consented to abase himself before the Pope merely in order not to appear ungrateful before the Almighty, from whom he expected continued cooperation in the future. The political terms of the agreement are then set out in detail. William had obtained from the Pope everything he wanted—more than had ever been granted to his father or grandfather. His kingship was recognised not only over Sicily, Apulia, Calabria and the former Principality of Capua, together with Naples, Salerno, Amalfi and all that pertained to them; it was also now formally extended, for the first time, to that whole region of the northern Abruzzi and the Marches which King Roger's elder sons had claimed and fought for during the previous decade. An annual tribute was agreed for all these lands, amounting to the six hundred
scbifati
in respect of Apulia and Calabria which had already been settled by Roger and Pope Innocent at Mignano seventeen years before, plus another four hundred for the new territories to the north.

In mainland ecclesiastical affairs William was prepared to be rather more accommodating. Henceforth all disputes within the Church might be submitted to Rome for arbitration; the Pope's consent would be sought for all transfers; he would have free right of consecration and might send legates at will into the
Regno
so long as they did not impose too heavy a burden on the local churches. But where Sicily was concerned, nearly all the King's traditional privileges were preserved. Adrian was obliged to confirm the Apostolic

¹
I use the name by which he is generally known. In fact he was from Salerno; Ajello was the county later bestowed on his son by King Tancred.

Legateship, renouncing the right to send special envoys or to hear appeals. He might summon Sicilian clerics to Rome, but they could not obey without first obtaining the King's permission. Ecclesiastical elections were subject to a similar control. Theoretically they were the responsibility of the clergy, proceeding by secret ballot; but they too could be vetoed by the King if the chosen candidate did not meet with his approval.