The Kingdom in the Sun (38 page)

The instrument by which the Pope accepted these conditions was drafted in equally flowery terms. It is addressed to

William, glorious King of Sicily and dearest son in Christ, most brilliant in wealth and achievement among all the Kings and eminent men of the age, the glory of whose name is borne to the uttermost limits of the earth by the firmness of your justice, the peace which you have restored to your subjects, and the fear which your great deeds have instilled into the hearts of all the enemies of Christ's name.

Even when allowance is made for the traditional literary hyperbole of the time, it is hard to imagine Adrian putting his signature to such a document without a wince of humiliation. He had been Pope only eighteen months, but already he had learnt the bitterness of desertion, betrayal and exile; and even his shoulders were beginning to bow. He appears now in a very different light from that in which we saw him when he placed Rome under an interdict or pitted his will against that of Frederick Barbarossa just twelve short months before.

It was in the church of S. Marciano, on the banks of the river Calore just outside Benevento, that William received at the papal hands the three pennoned lances by which he was invested with his chief dominions—the Kingdom of Sicily first, next the Duchy of Apulia and finally the Principality of Capua. The investitures were sealed by the Kiss of Peace; then, after bestowing appropriate gifts of gold, silver and precious silks on the Pope and all his retinue, he rode back by slow stages through Naples
¹
to Salerno. In July he

¹
When he ordered the building of the Castel Capuano (now the Law Courts) and, by enlarging a small island just off the shore, laid the foundation for the future Castel dell'Ovo.

took ship for Sicily, where the ringleaders of the insurrection who had fallen into his hands were now awaiting sentence. One of the captives, Count Geoffrey of Montescaglioso, who had played a prominent part in both the Sicilian and the Apulian revolts, was blinded; many more were imprisoned, including the King's two young nephews William and Tancred, sons of Duke Roger of Apulia; others, if we are to believe Falcandus, were cast into pits full of vipers, while wives and daughters were sent to the harems or forced into prostitution. But there were rewards, too, for those who had given loyal service—in particular Maio's brother Stephen and his Sicilian brother-in-law Simon, the royal seneschal, who were both appointed master captains of Apulia. With his two closest relatives in positions of such authority, the Emir of Emirs thus became more powerful than ever; while William for his part had demonstrated, in a manner that could not possibly be misunderstood, his continuing trust in his chief minister and his contempt for the opinions of those who dared to set themselves up against him.

Later, he would have cause to regret this arrogance. For the moment, however, he was determined to enjoy his triumph, and the humiliation of his enemies, to the full. Not without reason had he caused to be inscribed, around the royal cypher with which the Treaty of Benevento was sealed, the words which his grandfather, the Great Count, had had engraved on his sword in 1063, after the battle of Cerami:

dextera
domini
fecit
virtutem; dextera
domini
exaltavit
me.
¹

¹
The right hand of God gave me courage; The right hand of God raised me up

11

REALIGNMENTS

For
I call on the Lord Adrian to witness than no one is more miserable than the Roman Pontiff, nor is any condition more wretched than his. . . . He maintains that the papal throne is studded with thorns, that his mantle bristles with needles so sharp that it oppresses and weighs down the broadest shoulders . . . and that had he not feared to go against the will of God he would never have left his native England.

John of Salisbury,
Polkratkus,
VIII, xxiii

T
he
news of the Apulian
debacle
was received with horror in Constantinople. The unfortunate Ducas, unable to defend himself from his Palermo prison, made a convenient scapegoat; but though it was he who took much of the blame the ultimate responsibility was clearly the Emperor's, and Manuel was determined to recover his honour. This recovery was made even more necessary the following summer, when a Sicilian fleet of a hundred and sixty-four ships, commanded by Maio's brother Stephen—now promoted Admiral— and carrying nearly ten thousand men, swooped down on the prosperous island of Euboea, sacking and pillaging all the villages and towns along its coasts. From there they sailed on to Almira on the Gulf of Volos, which received similar treatment; and then, if we are to believe Nicetas Choniates, sped up the Hellespont and through the Marmara to Constantinople—where a hail of silver-tipped arrows was loosed upon the imperial palace of Blachernae.
¹

¹
This story bears such a resemblance to that of George of Antioch's similar raid in 1149 that several scholars have suggested that Nicetas is confusing the two. He may be; but surely there is no reason why Stephen should not have been tempted to repeat his predecessor's famous exploit, nor why his sailors should not have felt equally quiver-happy under the palace walls. An odder feature of this second account, and one which no other commentator seems to have raised, is the reference by name to Blachernae. This palace stood at the north-west corner of the city; to have reached it, the Sicilians would have had either to launch a land expedition of several miles along the well-defended land walls, or to sail right up the Golden Horn and then scale a steep hill. Here Nicetas surely nods; their target is much more likely to have been the old palace of the Emperors on the Marmara, near Seraglio Point.

And so, some time during the summer of
1157,
Manuel Comnenus sent a new emissary to Italy—Alexis, the brilliant young son of his Grand Domestic, Axuch. His ostensible orders were much the same as those given to Michael Palaeologus—to make contact with such rebel barons as were still at liberty, hire mercenaries for a new campaign along the coast, and generally stir up as much disaffection and discord as he could. But he had also been entrusted by his Emperor with a second task; to establish secret contact with Maio and discuss terms for a peace. Until that peace was concluded there could be no cessation of hostilities; the fiercer the fighting, the more favourable to Constantinople William's conditions were likely to be. For a year already, however, it had been growing ever clearer to Manuel Comnenus that the time had come for a radical change in his foreign policy. He now knew that he could never hope to reconquer Apulia by force of arms. His best hope lay in close ties with the Pope, and in trying to play him off against Barbarossa; and since the Treaty of Benevento this must inevitably involve some accommodation with the King of Sicily.

Alexis discharged both parts of his mission with equal success. Within a few months of his arrival he had Robert of Loritello again ravaging Sicilian territory in the north and Andrew of Rupecanina driving down through the Capuan lands and seriously threatening Monte Cassino beneath which, in January
1158,
he even defeated a royalist army in pitched battle. Meanwhile, although his support for these operations debarred him from undertaking peace talks in person, he was able to call on the services of the two most distinguished of the Greeks who were still held captive in Palermo, John Ducas and Alexius Bryennius; and through their mediation, some time in the early spring, a secret agreement was concluded. Alexis, having fooled his Apulian supporters into thinking that he was going to fetch more men and supplies, left them in the lurch and slipped off to Constantinople; William, though still understandably suspicious of Byzantine motives, sent off a diplomatic mission to Manuel
¹
and returned all his Greek prisoners—except the indispensable ladies from the
Tira%
; and the Counts of Loritello and Rupe-canina, suddenly bereft of funds, had no course but to abandon their new conquests and to ride off in search of another champion. They found one in Frederick Barbarossa.

Frederick's relations with the Eastern Empire had deteriorated sharply during the last three years. He had always mistrusted the Greeks; and reports of the Apulian campaign, which he saw as a typically underhand attempt on their part to slip in as soon as his back was turned with the object of snatching away territories which were rightfully his, had alarmed and infuriated him. To add insult to injury, they had set up their headquarters at Ancona, a city which lay under direct imperial control; and had even had the audacity, if reports were true, to forge letters purporting to issue from his chancery, in order to obtain the submission of certain strategic towns. His initial reaction was to break off all relations with Manuel. When, in June
1156,
an embassy arrived from Constantinople to discuss his projected marriage to a Byzantine princess (he had divorced his first wife, in somewhat discreditable circumstances, three years before) he refused even to receive it—marrying instead, after the shortest possible preliminaries, the rich and exceedingly attractive Beatrice of Upper Burgundy. Later, when he heard of the Greek defeat at Brindisi, he had relented to the point of resuming formal contacts with his brother-Emperor; but the damage was done and both of them knew it.

Frederick was equally angry with the Pope. Had not Adrian given him a personal undertaking not to enter into any private

¹
At the head of this mission went William's sometime tutor and close friend, Henry Aristippus. He returned with a valuable present from the Emperor to the King—a Greek manuscript of Ptolemy's
Almagest.
This tremendous work, a synthesis of all the discoveries and conclusions of Greek astronomers since the science was born, was hitherto known in the West, if at all, only through Arabic translations.

communications with either the Eastern Emperor or the King of Sicily? Was it not a fact, none the less, that he was in constant correspondence with the one, while with the other he had actually signed a treaty of peace and friendship—a treaty, moreover, by which he not only recognised William's claim to a spurious crown but, in ecclesiastical affairs, allowed him privileges more far-reaching even than those enjoyed by the Emperor himself? By what right, in any case, did Adrian so graciously confer imperial territories on others ? Did the Empire count for nothing in his eyes ? Was there no limit to papal arrogance?

It was not long before his worst suspicions were confirmed. In October
1157
he held an imperial Diet at Besancon. The location had been carefully selected; Besancon was the capital of Upper Burgundy—later to be known as the Franche-Comte—and he was anxious that no effort should be spared to impress his wife's family and his own newly-acquired subjects with the power and magnificence of his Empire. Ambassadors converged on the town from all sides, from France and Italy, from Spain and England—and, of course, from the Pope. The effect of all Frederick's careful arrangements was, however, slightly spoilt when, in the presence of the assembled company, the papal legates read out the letter they had brought with them from their master. Instead of the customary greetings and congratulations that everyone had expected, the Pope had chosen this of all moments to deliver himself of a strongly-worded complaint. It appeared that some time previously the aged Archbishop of Lund, while travelling through imperial territory, had been set upon by bandits, robbed of all he possessed and held to ransom. Such an outrage was in itself serious enough; but, the Pope went on, it was further aggravated by the fact that although the Emperor had already been furnished with full details of all that had occurred, he appeared as yet to have taken no steps to bring to justice those responsible. Turning to more general topics, Adrian began recalling his past favours to the Emperor—reminding him in particular of his coronation at papal hands and adding, more than a little patronis-ingly, that he hoped at some future date to bestow still further benefices upon him.