Could Robert have taken Constantinople, if he had lived? What do you think the effects of that would have been? Would he have been crowned Emperor?
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"The past four years had seen both the Eastern and the Western Emperors fleeing at his approach, and one of the greatest of the medieval Popes rescued and restored by his hand. Had he lived another few months, Alexius Comnenus might have proved one of the more transitory - possibly even the last - of the Emperors of Byzantium."
"The story of the Normans in south Italy begins arounf 1015, with a group of young Norman pilgrims who were persuaded by certain Lombard leaders to serve as mercenaries against the Byzantines. Word soon got back to Normandy, and the initial trickle of footloos younger sons in search of wealth and adventure rapidly grew to the point where it became a steady immigration. Soon they began to exact payment for their services in land, and in 1053, at Civitate in Apulia, they defeated a vastly superior army raised and led against them by Pope Leo IX in person.
By this time supremacy had been assumed by the family of one Tancred de Hauteville, an obscure knight in the service of the Duke of Normandy. Of his twelve sons, eight settled in Italy, five became leaders of the front rank and one - Robert, nicknamed Guiscard ('the crafty') - possessed something very like genius. After Civitate papal policy changed: and in 1059 Robert was invested by Pope Nicholas II with the previously non-existent dukedoms of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily. Two years later ha nad his younger brother Roger invaded the island, and for the next decade they kept up the pressure both there and on the mainland. Bari had fallen in 1071, and with it the last remnants of Byzantine power in Italy; early the next year Palermo had followed, and the Saracen hold on Sicily was broken for ever. Four years later it was the turn of Salerno, the last independent Lombard principality. In all Italy south of Garigliano river, Robert Guiscard and his Normans now reigned supreme.
For many centuries already this land had been know as Magna Graecia, and this time it was still in spirit far more Greek than Italian. The vast majority of its inhabitants spoke Greek as their native language; the Greek rite prevailed in almost all the churches and in most of the monasteries. No wonder that the Guiscard should begin to harbor designs on the imperial throne - designs which were unwittingly encouraged by the Byzantines themselves. In 1074 Michael VII had suggested his own sone Constantine as the prospective bridegroom for the most beautiful - he had been careful to specify - of Robert's daughters. The Guiscard had not hesitated: the opportunity of becoming father-in-law to the Emperor of Byzantium was too good to miss. He had accepted the proposal, and shortly afterwards had bundled his daughter Helena off to Constantinople, there to pursue her studies in the imperial gynaceum until her infant fiance should be of marriageable age.
The overthrow of Michael VII in 1078 put paid to all Helena's chances of attainiung the imperial throne. The hapless princess found herself immured in a convent, with which she was doubtless far from pleased. Her father recieved the news with mixed feelings. His immediate hopes of an imperial son-in-law had been dashed; on the other hand the treatment accorded to his daughter gave him pretext for intervention. The Empire was slipping deeper and deeper into chaos; in its present condition, a well-planned Norman offensive would have every chance of success.
All through the autumn and winter the work went on. The fleet was refitted, the army increased in size and re-equipped. In an effort to stir up enthusiasm among his Greek subjects, the Guiscard had even managed to produce a disreputable and transparently bogus Orthodox monk, who appeared in Salerno at the height of the preparations and gave himself out to be none other than Michael VII in person, escaped from exile and trusting in his gallant Norman allies to replace him on his throne. Nobody believed him much; but Robert, professing to be entirely convinced by the claims, persisted in treating him with exaggerated deference throughout the months that followed.
On hearing of Alexius''s coup, he refused to change his plans. He had by now lost all interest in the imperial marriage, but the last thing he wanted was his daughter's return; he had six others, and she was serving a far more useful purpose where she was. So far as he was concerned the disreputable pretender was still the Emperor Michael, and Michael was still the legitimate Emperor. The important thing now was to embark before Alexius returned Helena to him. He had already sent his eldest son Bohemund with an advance party across the Adriatic. The sooner he could joij him the better.
The fleet sailed towards the end of May 1081. With some thirteen hundred Norman knights, supported by a large body of Saracens, some rather dubious Greeks and several thousand foot-soldiers, it moved slowly down the coast to Corfu, where the imperial garrison surrendered at once. His bridgehead now secured, Robert's next target was Durazzo across the Adriatic, from which the old Via Egnatia ran east across the Balkan peninsula to Constantinople. Soon, however, it became clear that progress was not going to be easy. Several ships were lost in a sudden tempest, and several more were destroyed by a fleet from Venice - no keener than Constantinople to see the straits of Otranto under Norman control.
But it took more than this to discourage the Duke of Apulia, whose army was still unimapired and who now settled down to besiege Durazzo. Here too the task proved harder than expected; the garisson, knowing the Emperor was himself on the way with a large relief force, resisted stoutly. Finally, on 15 October, Alexius appeared, and three days later he attacked. By this time Robert had moved a little to the north of the city and had drawn up his line of battle. He himself commanded the centre, with Bohemund on his left, inland, flank on his right his wife, the Lombard princess Sichelgaita of Salerno.
Sichelgaita needs some explanation. She was cast in a Wagnerian mould, the closest in approximation in history to a Valkyrie. A woman of immense build, she hardly ever left her husband's side - least of all in battle, one of her favourite occupations. At such moments, charging into the fray, her long blonde hair streaming from beneath her helmet, deafening friend alike with huge shouts of encouragement or imprecation, she must have looked - even if she did not altogether sound - worthy to take her place beside Brunnhilde herself.
As always when the Emperor took the field in person, his Varangian Guard was present in strength. It now consisted largely of Englishmen, Anglo-Saxons who left their country in disgust after Hastings and had taken service with Byzantium. Longing to avenge themselves on the detested Normans, swinging their huge two-handed battle-axes round their heads and then slamming into horses and riders alike, they struck terror in the hearts of the Apulian knights. The horses too began to panic, and before long, the Norman right had turned in confusion. But now, if contemporary reports are to be believed, the day was saved by Sichelgaita. The story is best told by Anna Comena:
Directly she saw the soldiers running away, she called out to them in a powerful voice an equivalent to Homer's words: 'How far will ye flee? Stand, and aquit yourselves like men!' And when the continued to run, she grasped a long spear and at full gallop rushed after the fugitives; and on seeing this they recovered themselves and returned to the fight.[/SIZE=1]
Now, too, Bohemund's left flank had wheeled to the recue, with a detachment of crossbowmen against whom the Varangians found themselves defenceless. Their retreat was cut off; they could fight only where they stood. At last the few remaining alive turned and sought refuge in a nearby chapel; but the Normans fired it and most of them perished in the flames.
The Emperor himself was still fighting bravely; but the cream of his army had been destroyed at Manzikert and when he found himself betrayed by a whole regiment of 7,000 Turkish auxiliaries, lent to him by the Seljuk Sultan, he knew that the battle was lost. Weak from loss of blood and in considerable pain from a wound in his forehead, he rode slowly back over the mountains to Ochrid, there to regroup where he could of his shattered forces.
Somehow, Durazzo was to hold out till February 1082; from there on, however, there was little resistance; Robert marched east to Kastoria, by which time he was probably congratulating himself that Constantinople was as good as won. But it was nothing of the kind. In April, messengers arrived from Italy: Apulia and Calabria were up in arms, and much of Campania as well. They also brought a letter from Pope Gregory VII. His enemy Henry IV, King of the Romans, [A purely honorary title, normally adopted by the elected Emperor of the West until he could be properly crowned by the Pope in Rome] was at the gates of Rome, demanding to be crowned Emperor of the West. The DDuke's presence was urgnetly required at home. Leaving the command of the expedition to Bohemund, Robert hurried back to the coast and took ship across the Adriatic.
Neither of these crises were as fortuitiou as they seemed. Robert's own nephew ABelard, who he had dispossessed and who had later souhgt refuge in Constantinople,l had needed little persuading to return to Italy and, with the aid of much Byzantine gold, to raise the revolt. Meanwhile Alexiu COnenus had sent an embassy to Henry IV, pointing out the dangers of allowing the Duke of APulia to continue unchecked; and Henry, in return for 360,000 gold pieces and a quantity of priceless treasure, had been happy to conclude a treaty of alliance."
*More to come as Alexius turns the tide.*
By this time supremacy had been assumed by the family of one Tancred de Hauteville, an obscure knight in the service of the Duke of Normandy. Of his twelve sons, eight settled in Italy, five became leaders of the front rank and one - Robert, nicknamed Guiscard ('the crafty') - possessed something very like genius. After Civitate papal policy changed: and in 1059 Robert was invested by Pope Nicholas II with the previously non-existent dukedoms of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily. Two years later ha nad his younger brother Roger invaded the island, and for the next decade they kept up the pressure both there and on the mainland. Bari had fallen in 1071, and with it the last remnants of Byzantine power in Italy; early the next year Palermo had followed, and the Saracen hold on Sicily was broken for ever. Four years later it was the turn of Salerno, the last independent Lombard principality. In all Italy south of Garigliano river, Robert Guiscard and his Normans now reigned supreme.
For many centuries already this land had been know as Magna Graecia, and this time it was still in spirit far more Greek than Italian. The vast majority of its inhabitants spoke Greek as their native language; the Greek rite prevailed in almost all the churches and in most of the monasteries. No wonder that the Guiscard should begin to harbor designs on the imperial throne - designs which were unwittingly encouraged by the Byzantines themselves. In 1074 Michael VII had suggested his own sone Constantine as the prospective bridegroom for the most beautiful - he had been careful to specify - of Robert's daughters. The Guiscard had not hesitated: the opportunity of becoming father-in-law to the Emperor of Byzantium was too good to miss. He had accepted the proposal, and shortly afterwards had bundled his daughter Helena off to Constantinople, there to pursue her studies in the imperial gynaceum until her infant fiance should be of marriageable age.
The overthrow of Michael VII in 1078 put paid to all Helena's chances of attainiung the imperial throne. The hapless princess found herself immured in a convent, with which she was doubtless far from pleased. Her father recieved the news with mixed feelings. His immediate hopes of an imperial son-in-law had been dashed; on the other hand the treatment accorded to his daughter gave him pretext for intervention. The Empire was slipping deeper and deeper into chaos; in its present condition, a well-planned Norman offensive would have every chance of success.
All through the autumn and winter the work went on. The fleet was refitted, the army increased in size and re-equipped. In an effort to stir up enthusiasm among his Greek subjects, the Guiscard had even managed to produce a disreputable and transparently bogus Orthodox monk, who appeared in Salerno at the height of the preparations and gave himself out to be none other than Michael VII in person, escaped from exile and trusting in his gallant Norman allies to replace him on his throne. Nobody believed him much; but Robert, professing to be entirely convinced by the claims, persisted in treating him with exaggerated deference throughout the months that followed.
On hearing of Alexius''s coup, he refused to change his plans. He had by now lost all interest in the imperial marriage, but the last thing he wanted was his daughter's return; he had six others, and she was serving a far more useful purpose where she was. So far as he was concerned the disreputable pretender was still the Emperor Michael, and Michael was still the legitimate Emperor. The important thing now was to embark before Alexius returned Helena to him. He had already sent his eldest son Bohemund with an advance party across the Adriatic. The sooner he could joij him the better.
The fleet sailed towards the end of May 1081. With some thirteen hundred Norman knights, supported by a large body of Saracens, some rather dubious Greeks and several thousand foot-soldiers, it moved slowly down the coast to Corfu, where the imperial garrison surrendered at once. His bridgehead now secured, Robert's next target was Durazzo across the Adriatic, from which the old Via Egnatia ran east across the Balkan peninsula to Constantinople. Soon, however, it became clear that progress was not going to be easy. Several ships were lost in a sudden tempest, and several more were destroyed by a fleet from Venice - no keener than Constantinople to see the straits of Otranto under Norman control.
But it took more than this to discourage the Duke of Apulia, whose army was still unimapired and who now settled down to besiege Durazzo. Here too the task proved harder than expected; the garisson, knowing the Emperor was himself on the way with a large relief force, resisted stoutly. Finally, on 15 October, Alexius appeared, and three days later he attacked. By this time Robert had moved a little to the north of the city and had drawn up his line of battle. He himself commanded the centre, with Bohemund on his left, inland, flank on his right his wife, the Lombard princess Sichelgaita of Salerno.
Sichelgaita needs some explanation. She was cast in a Wagnerian mould, the closest in approximation in history to a Valkyrie. A woman of immense build, she hardly ever left her husband's side - least of all in battle, one of her favourite occupations. At such moments, charging into the fray, her long blonde hair streaming from beneath her helmet, deafening friend alike with huge shouts of encouragement or imprecation, she must have looked - even if she did not altogether sound - worthy to take her place beside Brunnhilde herself.
As always when the Emperor took the field in person, his Varangian Guard was present in strength. It now consisted largely of Englishmen, Anglo-Saxons who left their country in disgust after Hastings and had taken service with Byzantium. Longing to avenge themselves on the detested Normans, swinging their huge two-handed battle-axes round their heads and then slamming into horses and riders alike, they struck terror in the hearts of the Apulian knights. The horses too began to panic, and before long, the Norman right had turned in confusion. But now, if contemporary reports are to be believed, the day was saved by Sichelgaita. The story is best told by Anna Comena:
Directly she saw the soldiers running away, she called out to them in a powerful voice an equivalent to Homer's words: 'How far will ye flee? Stand, and aquit yourselves like men!' And when the continued to run, she grasped a long spear and at full gallop rushed after the fugitives; and on seeing this they recovered themselves and returned to the fight.[/SIZE=1]
Now, too, Bohemund's left flank had wheeled to the recue, with a detachment of crossbowmen against whom the Varangians found themselves defenceless. Their retreat was cut off; they could fight only where they stood. At last the few remaining alive turned and sought refuge in a nearby chapel; but the Normans fired it and most of them perished in the flames.
The Emperor himself was still fighting bravely; but the cream of his army had been destroyed at Manzikert and when he found himself betrayed by a whole regiment of 7,000 Turkish auxiliaries, lent to him by the Seljuk Sultan, he knew that the battle was lost. Weak from loss of blood and in considerable pain from a wound in his forehead, he rode slowly back over the mountains to Ochrid, there to regroup where he could of his shattered forces.
Somehow, Durazzo was to hold out till February 1082; from there on, however, there was little resistance; Robert marched east to Kastoria, by which time he was probably congratulating himself that Constantinople was as good as won. But it was nothing of the kind. In April, messengers arrived from Italy: Apulia and Calabria were up in arms, and much of Campania as well. They also brought a letter from Pope Gregory VII. His enemy Henry IV, King of the Romans, [A purely honorary title, normally adopted by the elected Emperor of the West until he could be properly crowned by the Pope in Rome] was at the gates of Rome, demanding to be crowned Emperor of the West. The DDuke's presence was urgnetly required at home. Leaving the command of the expedition to Bohemund, Robert hurried back to the coast and took ship across the Adriatic.
Neither of these crises were as fortuitiou as they seemed. Robert's own nephew ABelard, who he had dispossessed and who had later souhgt refuge in Constantinople,l had needed little persuading to return to Italy and, with the aid of much Byzantine gold, to raise the revolt. Meanwhile Alexiu COnenus had sent an embassy to Henry IV, pointing out the dangers of allowing the Duke of APulia to continue unchecked; and Henry, in return for 360,000 gold pieces and a quantity of priceless treasure, had been happy to conclude a treaty of alliance."
*More to come as Alexius turns the tide.*
He's quoting John Julius Norwich "The Normans in the South". Norwich is best known for his histories of Byzantium, but he also did a two-volume work on the Norman Kingdom of Sicily ("The Normans in the South" and "Kingdom in the Sun"). Phillip V loves quoting Norwich in large doses.
I recommend Norwich's books highly. They are no doubt the best popular history on an entity of great importance but treated rather obscurely. The Normans were the last people to give the island of Sicily good government (followed by failed attempts by the Germans, French, Spanish, Austrians, and Italians) and their impact in the Mediterranean was substantial. Bohemund of Antioch was the oldest son of Robert Guiscard, Frederick II Hohenstaufen was a great great grandson of Robert's brother Roger (and inherited Sicily by virtue thereof), and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies lasted until 1860, or longer than the Kingdom of France.
Norwich intersperses a lot of architectural information; great if you're touring the island, a bit of a distraction otherwise. But he's highly readable.
Originally posted by Phillip V
Yea. I love the man.Or what he writes.
I never read anything from this guy but now several people suggested his books about Byzantium...I think I go for the "Norman" books first though...thanx guys for the tip..
I was quoting from A Short History of Byzantium, John Julius Norwich's compact version of his three-volume set on Byzantium.
Well, I recommend to you Norwich's books on the Normans in Italy. It ties in well with his Byzantium works, and gives a lot of juicy detail on Guiscard and his rambunctious relations.
Were they made before or after his Byzantium works? Right now, I'm reading his History of Venice.