Read Online The Kingdom in the Sun by John Julius Norwich - Free Book Online
Authors: John Julius Norwich
Tags: History, Non-Fiction
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been nauseating to recall. This was treason at its blackest and most shameless; and it would not be forgiven.
We should remember, in fairness to the Count of Alife, that he may have genuinely believed the stories of the King's death. Brother-in-law or not, however, he knew that he could expect no further mercy. He must play for time. Pope Innocent from his Pisan exile was maintaining the pressure on the northern sea-republics— especially on Genoa, whose men and ships, also promised for 11 34, had still not arrived; while beyond the Alps the Abbot of Clairvaux was thundering from every pulpit against the schismatic Pope in Rome and his creature-King, vowing that he would never rest until he had launched a new Crusade against them. Even now, if the rebels could hold out long enough, they might still be saved. With his four hundred remaining followers, Rainulf hurried to Naples. Robert of Capua, ignoring the King's offers of a separate peace, accompanied him; and Duke Sergius, more fearful than either, received them with alacrity and began to prepare his city for a siege.
To the average observer of the South Italian scene in 1135, possibly even to King Roger himself, the events of that summer must have seemed merely a continuation of the struggle for power which had been continuing almost uninterruptedly for the past eight years. In fact, from the moment that the King's three principal Campanian adversaries barricaded themselves in Naples, the whole complexion of that struggle was changed. Hitherto it had been fundamentally an internal, domestic issue, a trial of strength between a King and his vassals. The fact that that King was largely responsible for the continued existence of an Anti-Pope in Rome, and thus for a schism which threw the whole foundation of European political and religious stability into jeopardy, was incidental. No foreign state had actually taken up arms against Roger—unless we count a body of unpunctual and remarkably ineffective Pisan mercenaries—and when Lothair himself had made his long-awaited descent into Italy he had been able to see no further than his own coronation.
The retreat to Naples marks the point at which the leadership of the opposition to Roger passes out of the hands of his vassals and on to the international plane. Pope Innocent and Bernard had long since accepted that Anacletus could never be dislodged from Rome while the King of Sicily remained able to protect him. Clearly, Roger must be eliminated; equally clearly, the Emperor was the man for the job. And St Bernard made sure that Lothair knew it. Towards the end of 113 5 we find him writing to the Emperor:
It ill becomes me to exhort men to battle; yet I say to you in all conscience that it is the duty of the champion of the Church to protect her against the madness of schismatics. It is for Caesar to uphold his rightful crown against the machinations of the Sicilian tyrant. For just as it is to the injury of Christ that the offspring of a Jew should have seized for himself the throne of St Peter, so does any man who sets himself up as King in Sicily offend against the Emperor.
At about the same time a similar exhortation, though made for very different reasons, reached Lothair from a less expected quarter.
In Constantinople the Emperor John II Comnenus had been watching developments in South Italy with concern. The Apulian seaports—themselves until less than a century earlier part of the Byzantine theme of Langobardia, to which the Eastern Empire had never renounced its claim—were only some sixty or seventy miles from the imperial territories across the Adriatic; and the rich cities of Dalmatia constituted a temptation to a little gentle freebooting which, in recent years, Sicilian sea-captains had not always been able to resist. Other raids, on the North African coast, had indicated that the King of Sicily would not long be content to remain within his present frontiers and, if not checked, might soon be in a
We should remember, in fairness to the Count of Alife, that he may have genuinely believed the stories of the King's death. Brother-in-law or not, however, he knew that he could expect no further mercy. He must play for time. Pope Innocent from his Pisan exile was maintaining the pressure on the northern sea-republics— especially on Genoa, whose men and ships, also promised for 11 34, had still not arrived; while beyond the Alps the Abbot of Clairvaux was thundering from every pulpit against the schismatic Pope in Rome and his creature-King, vowing that he would never rest until he had launched a new Crusade against them. Even now, if the rebels could hold out long enough, they might still be saved. With his four hundred remaining followers, Rainulf hurried to Naples. Robert of Capua, ignoring the King's offers of a separate peace, accompanied him; and Duke Sergius, more fearful than either, received them with alacrity and began to prepare his city for a siege.
To the average observer of the South Italian scene in 1135, possibly even to King Roger himself, the events of that summer must have seemed merely a continuation of the struggle for power which had been continuing almost uninterruptedly for the past eight years. In fact, from the moment that the King's three principal Campanian adversaries barricaded themselves in Naples, the whole complexion of that struggle was changed. Hitherto it had been fundamentally an internal, domestic issue, a trial of strength between a King and his vassals. The fact that that King was largely responsible for the continued existence of an Anti-Pope in Rome, and thus for a schism which threw the whole foundation of European political and religious stability into jeopardy, was incidental. No foreign state had actually taken up arms against Roger—unless we count a body of unpunctual and remarkably ineffective Pisan mercenaries—and when Lothair himself had made his long-awaited descent into Italy he had been able to see no further than his own coronation.
The retreat to Naples marks the point at which the leadership of the opposition to Roger passes out of the hands of his vassals and on to the international plane. Pope Innocent and Bernard had long since accepted that Anacletus could never be dislodged from Rome while the King of Sicily remained able to protect him. Clearly, Roger must be eliminated; equally clearly, the Emperor was the man for the job. And St Bernard made sure that Lothair knew it. Towards the end of 113 5 we find him writing to the Emperor:
It ill becomes me to exhort men to battle; yet I say to you in all conscience that it is the duty of the champion of the Church to protect her against the madness of schismatics. It is for Caesar to uphold his rightful crown against the machinations of the Sicilian tyrant. For just as it is to the injury of Christ that the offspring of a Jew should have seized for himself the throne of St Peter, so does any man who sets himself up as King in Sicily offend against the Emperor.
At about the same time a similar exhortation, though made for very different reasons, reached Lothair from a less expected quarter.
In Constantinople the Emperor John II Comnenus had been watching developments in South Italy with concern. The Apulian seaports—themselves until less than a century earlier part of the Byzantine theme of Langobardia, to which the Eastern Empire had never renounced its claim—were only some sixty or seventy miles from the imperial territories across the Adriatic; and the rich cities of Dalmatia constituted a temptation to a little gentle freebooting which, in recent years, Sicilian sea-captains had not always been able to resist. Other raids, on the North African coast, had indicated that the King of Sicily would not long be content to remain within his present frontiers and, if not checked, might soon be in a
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