GUISCARD
73
GUISCARD
ruddy complexion, and deep voice, he owed to his
crafty shrewdness the soubriquet of " Guiscard " (Wiseacre). He encountered difficulties on his first entrance into Italy. His brother Drogo, who had been elected Count of the Normans, repulsed him. Having wandered about for a time he returned to en- ter the service of Drogo and assisted him to conquer Calabria. He established himself at the head of a small troop on the heights of San Marco, which domi- nated thevalleyof the Crati, whence he practised actual brigandage, surprising the Byzantine posts, pillaging monasteries, and robbing travellers. But subsequent to his marriage with Aubree, a kinswoman of a Nor- man chief of the territory of Benevento, he renounced this manner of life and had two hundred horsemen under his command. Drogo having been assassinated in 1051, his brother Humphrey succeeded to his pos- sessions and the title of Count of the Normans, and Guiscard remained in his service. In 1053, he took part in the battle of Civitella, in which Pope Leo IX was vanquished and taken prisoner by the Normans. In 1055, he took possession of Otranto. On the death of Humphrey in 1057, Robert Guiscard caused himself to be elected leader of the Normans to the detriment of the two sons of his brother, whose inheritance he appropriated. At this juncture the Normans aimed openly at taking possession of southern Italy. Richard of Aversa, who had just taken Capua, was after Guis- card the most powerful leailer. Through energy of character and skilful policy, Robert Guiscard suc- ceeded in inducing the Norman chiefs to submit to his authority and in accomplishingwith them the conquest of Italy. He established his young brother Roger in Calabria in 1058. In 1059, Hildebrand, the chief councillor of Pope Nicholas II, desiring to shield the papacy from the attacks of the adversaries of ecclesias- tical reform, entered into an alliance with the Nor- mans. At the Council of Melfi (August, 1059), Guis- card declared himself the vassal of the Holy See, pledged himself to bring about the observance of the decrees of the Council of Lateran with regard to the election of popes, and received in exchange the title of Duke with the investiture of his conquests in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. He at once began to make war on the remaining Byzantine possessions, took possession of Reggio (10(30), despatched his brother Roger to begin the conquest of Sicily, took Brindisi (1002), and finally, in 10(58, laid siege to Bari, the capital of Byzantine Italy, which he entered after a siege of three years on 16 .A.pril, 1071. In the fol- lowing year, the capture of Palermo, besieged at once by Robert and Roger, left the Normans masters of all Sicily. Roger retained the greater part of the coun- try, but remained his brother's vassal.
These conquests would have been but of ephemeral duration, had Guiscard not devoted all his energy to consolidating them. The Norman chiefs who had be- come his vassals were not too readily disposed to sub- mit to his authority, and revolted while he was in Sicily. In 1073 Guiscard besieged and reduced to submission all the rebels in succession. The great commercial republic of Amalfi yielded voluntarily to him. At this juncture, however, Gregory VII, alarmed by Guiscard's aggressions on the papal terri- tories, excommunicated him. At the same time, Guiscard having wished on the occasion of his daughter's marriage to raise the usual feudal aid, his vassals once more revolted (107S). Having put down this revolt, Guiscard was once again all-powerful, and Gregory VII, threatened by the intrigues of Emperor Henry IV, became reconciled to him (1080). In the interval Salerno had fallen under his sway, and, save for the Norman principality of Capua, which re- mained independent, and the city of Naples, all south- em Italy obeyed him.
Having now reached the height of his power, Guis- card conceived the ambition, at the age of sixty-four,
to undertake the conquest of the Byzantine empire,
whose civilization exercised over him a powerful at-
traction. As the master of Byzantine Italy, he con-
sidered himself the heir of the emperors, caused him-
self to be depicted on his seal in their costume, and
thus inaugurated a tradition which nearly all sov-
ereigns of the Two Sicilies down to Charles of Anjou
sought to follow. In May, 1081, Robert and his son
Bohemond set out for Otranto, captured the island of
Corfu, and disembarked before Durazzo, the possession
of which would assure them access to the Via Egna-
tia, which led through Macedonia to Constantinople.
But the emperor Alexius Comnenus had formed an alli-
ance with Venice, whose fleet won a great victory over
that of the Normans (July). Alexius came himself to
the assistance of Durazzo, but Guiscard, who had
burnt his ships in order to inspire courage in his
troops, put the imperial army to flight (18 October).
Despite this victory, the Normans, being still incapa-
ble of laying siege in the regular manner, could not
have entered into the place, if Guiscard had not con-
trived that it should be delivered to him by treason
(21 February, 10S2). Guiscard was now master of
the route to Constantinople, and had advanced as far
as Castoria when he received a letter from Gregory
VII recalling him to Italy. Henry IV, with whom
Alexius Comnenus had formed an alliance, had come
down into Italy an<l was threatening Rome. At his
approach the Lombard vassals of Apulia and the
Prince of Capua had revolted. Guiscard resigned the
command of his expedition to his son Bohemond, who
abandoned the march on Constantinople to ravage
Thessaly. Guiscard returned to Italy and profited by
Henry IV's short delay in Lombardy to subdue his
rebellious vassals, capturing their cities one by one
(1083). During this time Henry IV returned and laid
siege to Rome. On 2 June, 1083, he took possession
of the Leonine City, and compelled Gregory VII to
seek refuge in the castle of Sant ' .\ngelo. 'The emperor
made his entry into Rome on 21 March, 1084, and, on
the following 31 March, he was crowned at St. Peter's
by the antipope Clement III. Gregory VII, who all
the time was confined to the castle of Sant' Angelo, sent
a message to Robert Guiscard. On 24 May, 30,000
Normans camped beneath the walls of Rome. On the
27 May, Guiscard captm-ed the Porta Flaminia, gave
battle on the Campo Marzio, tlelivered Gregory VII,
and installed him in the Lateran while the imperial
troops beat a retreat. But the Romans, exasperated
by the pillaging of the Normans, revolted. The city
was sacked, and the inhabitants massacred or sold as
slaves. On the 28 June, Guiscard left Rome and con-
ducted Gregory VII as far as Salerno. Thanks to hia
intervention the projects of Henry IV had been baf-
fled and the cause of ecclesiastical reform had tri-
umphed.
But Robert Guiscard thought only of resuming his expedition against Constantinople. Beaten by the troops of Alexius Comnenus, Bohemond had been compelled to retire with his army to Italy (1083). Guiscard made fresh preparations, and, at the end of 1084, embarked at Otranto. After having defeated the Venetian fleet , he recovered Corfu and was prepar- ing to capture Cephalonia, where he had just disem- barked, when he died after a short illness, 17 July, 1035. Having come into Italy forty years previously as a mere soldier of fortune, he had since founded a sovereign state and become one of the most important personages of Christendom. Two emperors had had to reckon with him. From one of them he had taken Rome, from the other he had been on the point of tak- ing Constantinople. In 1058, he had repudiated Aubree, the mother of Bohemond, to wed the Lom- bard Sykelgaite, sister of Gisulf, Prince of Salerno. She gave him three sons and seven daughters, and ap- pears to have been actively associated in all his under- takings, accompanying him in his expeditions and
