Читать книгу The Empire and the Papacy, 918-1273. Investiture Contest, Crusades & The Famous Conflicts онлайн

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Early in the eleventh century, southern Italy and Sicily were still cut off from the rest of Europe, and, as in the days of Charlemagne, were still outposts both of the Orthodox and Mohammedan East. ⁵⁶ Sicily had been entirely Saracen since the capture of Syracuse in 877 [see Period I. pp. 460–461]. Though the predatory hordes, which landed from time to time on the mainland of Italy, had failed to establish permanent settlements, the various attempts of the Eastern Emperors to win back their former island possession had proved disastrous failures. In southern Italy the Catapan or governor of the Greek Emperors still ruled over the ‘theme of Lombardy’ from his capital of Bari, but in the tenth century, the Lombard Dukes of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua won back much of the ground that had been lost by their ancestors. The transient successes of Otto II. (981–2), had done something to discourage Greeks and Saracens alike, despite the ignominious failure that ultimately led to his flight [see pages ssss1–39]. In the early years of the eleventh century, southern Italy was still divided between Greeks and Lombards, and the growing spirit of Catholic enthusiasm made the Orthodox yoke harder to bear by those subjects of the theme of Lombardy who were Italian rather than Greek in their sympathy. Between 1011 and 1013 Meles, a citizen of Bari, a Catholic of Lombard origin, took advantage of a Saracen inroad to revolt against the Eastern Emperor. Driven into exile by the failure of his attempt, he sought all over southern Italy for allies to recommence the struggle. ⁵⁷ The fame of the Normans as soldiers was already known in the south of Italy, and chance now threw Meles in the way of some Norman warrior-pilgrims, whom devotion to the Archangel had taken to the sanctuary of St. Michael, in Monte Gargano, in imitation of which a Neustrian bishop had some generations before set up the famous monastery of St. Michael in Peril of the Sea. Meles proposed to the pilgrim leader, Ralph de Toeny, that he should join with him against the Greeks. Pope Benedict VIII. encouraged the enterprise, and the adventurous Normans greedily welcomed the opportunity. In 1017, Meles and his northern allies won a victory over the Greeks at Civitate in the Capitanata. ‘This victory,’ sang the Norman rhyming chronicler, William of Apulia, ‘mightily increased the courage of the Normans. They saw that the Greeks were cowards, and that, instead of meeting the enemy face to face, they only knew how to take refuge in flight.’ ⁵⁸ Other Normans flocked from their distant home on the report of rich booty and fair lands to be won on easy terms in Apulia. But they despised their enemy too much, and in 1019 a battle fought on the historic field of Cannæ annihilated the little Norman band. Meles and Ralph hastened over the Alps, in the hopes of interesting Henry II. in their cause. Even the death of Meles was not fatal to the fortune of his allies. Some survivors from Cannæ took service with the princes of Capua and Salerno, and the abbot of Monte Casino. They were mere mercenaries, and willingly sold their swords to the highest bidder. When Henry II. made his transient appearance in southern Italy in 1022 [see page ssss1], he found his chief obstacle in the new Greek fortress of Troja, obstinately defended by some valiant Normans in the pay of their old foe the Catapan.