Norman Kingdom of Sicily

Analisi critica dei quattro diplomi normanni e del diploma di Enrico VI del 1195 (BB. 412). L'unico da considerare autentico è quello di Enrico benché la norma sul diritto di pascolo illimitato non rientra nella norma ed è attestato soltanto un'altra volta nella stessa data per Sant'Angelo di Montevulture.  I documenti di Ruggero II sarebbero del 1137 e del 1140, quelli di Guglielmo II del 1170 e del 1189. Tutti risultano falsi costruiti su diversi modelli, per Guglielmo II si può constatare l'utilizzo di un documento autentico perduto, in larga misura serviva anche il diploma di Enrico per l'elaborazione dei testi. Un secondo diploma di Enrico VI, sempre emesso a Bari il 30 marzo 1195 è conosciuto soltanto attraverso copie cinquecentesche, è pure un documento spurio.

In Late Antiquity, ethno-religious diversity emerged as a defining feature of the Mediterranean, a region set at the conjunction of Europe, Africa and Western Asia, and home to Hellenism and the Abrahamic religions. As a consequence of environmental, geographic, and historical factors, societies developed in which an array of dominations of Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together. While ideological currents mitigated for the marginalization and segregation of minorities, pragmatism demanded flexibility in ethno-religious relations. In the common Mediterranean environment minority and majority groups in both Christian and Islamic developed similar strategies and approaches vis-à-vis ethno-religious, and whereas repression and violence against minorities occurred in certain circumstances, generally accommodation of subject out-groups was the rule. These conditions persisted into the early Modern Period, when the emergence of notions of race and national identity provoked a reconfiguration of ethno-religious relations through much of the region.

Analisi dei documenti normanni e svevi per la cattedrale o l'arcivescovo di Palermo, da Roberto il Guiscardo e Ruggero I a Ruggero II, Guglielmo I e Guglielmo II. Non ci sono documenti di Tancredi ed il diploma di Guglielmo III non ha nessuna trasmissione manoscritta. Tre diplomi sono emessi da Enrico VI e si aggiunge una donazione congiunta di Costanza e Federico II del 1198. Più cospicuo è il numero di documenti emessi dal re Federico dopo la morte della madre fino all'incoronazione ad imperatore. Dopo troviamo documenti soltanto nel 1233 e nel 1247.  Sono da notare due falsi a nome di Ruggero II.

Garantire la comunicazione in territori dove si parlavano lingue diverse da quella dei nuovi sovrani era un compito centrale: con la loro capacità di integrazione di diverse etnie e lingue e la scelta di collaboratori adatti i Normanni riuscirono a creare il loro regno. L'articolo analizza la realtà territoriale e la situazione etnica, la legittimità e la concezione del potere, la simbologia del potere (sigilli e monete), l'organizzazione ecclesiastica e il controllo del territorio, il ruolo del monachesimo greco e latino, le strutture amministrative (amministrazione finanziaria, cancelleria, legislazione e norme giuridiche) e le risorse umane. In appendice vengono pubblicati due diplomi di Ruggero I : la concessione del casale Butah alla cattedrale di Messina (1087) e il documento di "fondazione" della diocesi di Troina (1082). Entrambi documenti risultano falsificazioni posteriori.

I propose a relational approach for the study of the social structures in the kingdom of Sicily under the Hauteville dynasty (12th c.). The central object of the analysis is the compendium known as the Catalogus Baronum, a listing of land-tenancies and obligations in the principality of Capua and the duchy of Apulia.  I present how I coded the Catalogus and constructed datasets by recording both the different societal attributes as well as the different types of relations attested in the document. These datasets come together into a relation database, which is a list of social characters with their respective prosopographical information that correlates with a series of lists of linkages. The latter are divided by the social nature of the relation into two primary categories: tenancy and military service. I contrast the obtained relational information against the attributional data (i.e. titles of comes and comestabulus) in order to understand how in the Sicilian administrative compendium the influence of socially powerful individuals and the social roles built-up by the interaction between the regional aristocracy and royal functionaries was conceived.

This article focuses on the Italo-Greek elite of the Sicilian kingdom in the 12th century —an elite which owed its social status to the court offices it held — and examines how it constructed a collective identity to ensure the prosperity and continuity of its socio-cultural group. Since proximity to the king was the prime reason for the existence of this elite, the courtier role is the only facet of its identity that is represented in the sources. Therefore, the poems of two Italo-Greek courtiers, the so called Anonymous Poet of Malta and Eugenius of Sicily, offer insights into how the Italo-Greeks perceived and represented their role as royal courtiers and thus came to forge a distinct collective identity. The Vita of Bartholomew of Simeri is considered to be part of the same identity construction strategy, since the saint is invested with traits of an Italo-Greek royal courtier.

La situazione in Puglia prima e dopo l'arrivo dei Normanni, Bari - Canosa, Venosa e Salerno, rito greco e latino, le fondazioni di Ruggero I in Calabria e Sicilia, Palermo multiculturale, ed in appendice la cultura scrittoria a Montecassino, Vivarium ed esempi di scritture greche nel meridione d'Italia.

Hugo Falcandus, the author of the Liber (or Historia) de Regno Siciliae (1154–69), is a contentious figure among historians of the twelfth century. Often disgruntled and embittered, he wrote about the reigns of two Sicilian kings, William I and II, in a text rife with classicising references and personal judgements. Most unusually for a medieval writer from this period, his Liber appears free of any religious elements or framework. This article conducts a search for God in Falcandus’s work and challenges the view that the divine element is entirely ignored by this author. By doing so and through a comparative approach, it also aims at re-contextualising his writings within the production of texts on secular power and authority taking place in the twelfth century. It will show that the apparent lack of a religious framework is a result of the author’s political vision and that Falcandus is a product and a representative of broader ideological changes sweeping through medieval Europe during his time.

Abstract (ENG):
From religious, political, socio-economic and administrative perspectives, the church of Monreale played key roles from the Norman period to the modern day in establishing and organising its ‘rule’ in western Sicily and beyond. Under William II, Monreale reached its height with rich and extensive endowments to its diocese, allowing both the crown and the Church to gain mutual benefit from this. While the king found “consilium” and “auxilium” in his high-ranking Latin-rite prelates, ecclesiastical co-operation helped to assure the internal cohesion within the realm, during a formative period of state and Church organization.
Under the Norman King William II of Sicily, the new foundation of the church of Santa Maria Nuova at Monreale received vast endowments of lands and men in the 1170s and 1180s. As one of the largest in the kingdom, the church played key political, economic and administrative roles in overseeing the wealthy lands of western Sicily.
From time immemorial the history of Monreale and the Sicily has always been at the center of very strong (social, cultural, economic and religious) tensions between the key-concepts of “isolation” and “connectivity”: the Norman period, in fact, is the result of these tensions. The proposed paper (that refers to an ongoing research) resumes this cultural context by the particular point of view of the “new” Benedictine monasticism.
William II’s foundation of the Benedictine abbey of Santa Maria Nuova at Monreale (c.1174) and the grants made between 1178 and 1183 conceded vast areas of wealthy crown lands, inhabited largely by Muslims to a single, new church which was located only a few kilometres from of the archbishopric of Palermo itself. This exceptional foundation it was one of the defining acts of William II’s reign, shaping political rivalries at Palermo as well as serving to qualify royal-papal relations. It is possible studying the original concessions of these landed properties through the 14th
century Liber Privilegiorum which is kept at the “Ludovico II de Torres Library” of the Archiepiscopal Seminary of Monreale. This cartulary demonstrates the willingness to perpetuate the memory and the value of the legal documents of the chancery for future posterity to ensure the rights and privileges it had been granted in the past. This memory remained keenly alive from the Norman period to the 19th century.

Normanska kraljevina je bila mediteranska država XII veka sa snažnim uticajima vizantijskog Rimstva u svom političkom identitetu. Ona je nastala na prostoru poslednjeg vizantijskog uporišta u Italiji i na Siciliji gde su uprkos dvovekovnoj arabljanskoj vladavini tradicije Rimstva još bile žive. Stoga se ovaj geografski prostor, u samom središtu srednjevekovnog Mediterana gde su vladali normanski plemići, može posmatrati i kao postvizantijski. Postvizantijski Mecođorno svakako nije isti kao klasični postvizantijski period nakon pada Vizantije pod osmansku vlast, najpre jer je Carstvo i dalje postojalo i Normanska kraljevina je bila deo vizantijskog Mediterana u svakom smislu. Danas se u nauci najviše ističu kulturni uticaji na normansku umetnost koji je očigledan u zadužbinama normanskih vladara, u diplomatici, dvorskoj i provincijalnoj administraciji i slično. Međutim, kada je reč o percepciji vladarske idologije, kao da se previđa uticaj Rimstva. S obzirom na činjenicu da su Normani pripadali zapadnom/latinskom hrišćanskom obredu, svrstavaju se, ili bolje rečeno razvdavaju od istočnomediteranskih obrazaca. Uz to, Normani se češće upoređuju sa svojim severnim srodnicima u Francuskoj i Engleskoj, a u spoljnopolitičkim pitanjima njihov odnos sa Rimom i Nemačkim (drugim rimskim) carstvom. Rimstvo Normanske kraljevine na Mediteranu se upravo posmatra kroz prizmu uticaja iz Rima i Nemačke, iako su kulturni uticaji kao što je opštepoznato vizantijski. Ovo razilaženje dolazi od slabog poznavanja vizantijskih izvora i njenih obrazaca u svetskoj istoriografiji, barem u pogledu preispitivanja ranijih tumačenja. Cilj ovog rada je da razmotri uticaje (vizantijskog) Rimstva na percepciju legitimiteta u Normanskoj kraljevini Sicilije, tako što će analizirati narative opata Alesandra iz Telezea (prvog biografa prvog sicilijanskog kralja) i Uga Falkanda (biografa drugog sicilijanskog kralja i njegovog maloletnog naslednika). Postaviće se pitanje legitimiteta sicilijanske kraljevine u njihovom tumačenju i upotreba termina tiranin, kao i kakve su njihove sličnosti sa vizantijskim izvorima istog perioda kao obrasca za vladarske ideologije na Mediteranu u XII veku.

"Iustitia" è una virtù principale del sovrano medievale. L'articolo analizza l'uso del termine iustitia e di termini affini nel linguaggio retorico di documenti normanni e svevi e nelle assise di Ariano e nel Liber augustalis. Inoltre si tratta la discussione alla corte normanna di Palermo (1157) di cui riferisce il cardinale Laborante, in quei tempi canonico a Capua, nel suo trattato De iustitia e iusto, opera dedicata a Maione di Bari, primo ministro di Guglielmo I di Sicilia. In conclusione si analizza l'applicazione pratica della giustizia tramite lo strumento della giurisdizione delegata.

Abstract (ITA):
La cittadina medievale di Monreale, la casata dei Normanni, la magnifica architettura del Duomo, i monaci benedettini: questi sembrano essere i protagonisti della suggestiva trama di un romanzo storico, oppure di un’avvincente fiction sul Medioevo. Invece, come molto spesso accade, sono realmente i protagonisti della storia e, in questo caso, i protagonisti della storia di Monreale, importante centro della Sicilia normanna.
La storia, magistra vitae, sa essere più affascinante della finzione, ammantandosi, a volte, di una magica aura di leggenda...

Il saggio tratta il rapporto tra le cronache di Casauria e Carpineto e le fonti documentarie, manoscritti abruzzesi fuori sede, in modo particolare il clm 28193 con il Formularium Pennense, e le fonti prodotte dalla curia romana: gli atti della Camera Apostolica e i Registri della Cancelleria, inoltre le notizie relative all'area abruzzese in manuali della cancelleria e informazioni su abruzzesi operanti alla curia come scrittori o procuratori.

An aggiornamento of Camerota's Historical Memory.  All published lists of the first Lords of Camerota  omit the only known founder of the Norman dynasty of lords of Camerota , Sarulus of Camerota and even exclude the most famous of the Norman lords of Camerota, Florius, from the narrative of their historic origins. This brief statement of the state of research with bibliography hopefully brings the local historians  up to date.

How were Sicily's various artistic traditions preserved by Roger II's tolerant cultural policy? Multiculturalism and religious pluralism are much discussed phenomena in today’s society. Nonetheless, if we look back into the past, it is easy to find various historical examples of heterogeneous populations worldwide. Notably, the society of twelfth-century Sicily and Southern Italy had been flourishing in the era of the Norman Kingdom (1130 -1198), especially under its first crowned king, Roger II (1130-1154). The Norman conquest of the formerly Muslim territories was followed by the incorporation of Islamic culture with the Western Christian and Byzantine civilisations. Roger’s royal court became a diverse intellectual hub of numerous traditions. I would like to show you some examples of treasures which demonstrate the cultural interactions between Christians and Muslims. How can we explain the origins of these treasures and their significance?

Blog post:
https://www.leidenartsinsocietyblog.nl/articles/a-medieval-multicultural-court

Seit Justinian gehörte die Nennung des Herrschers in den Urkunden zu den Requisiten für deren Gültigkeit. Welchen Mustern die Fremdaussage dabei folgt, vermittelt Einblicke in das Verständnis von Herrschaft und ihrer territorialen Dimension, wie es außerhalb des Hofes gesehen wurde. Unter den normannischen Herrschern gab es eine Reihe lokal gebräuchlicher Varianten, unter den Staufern setzte sich dann letztlich die Anwendung des kanzleimäßigen Titels durch.

This thesis focuses on papal overlordship of monarchs in the middle ages. It examines the nature of alliances between popes and kings which have traditionally been called ‘feudal’ or – more recently – ‘protective’. Previous scholarship has assumed that there was a distinction between kingdoms under papal protection and kingdoms under papal overlordship. I argue that protection and feudal overlordship were distinct categories only from the later twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Before then, papal-royal alliances tended to be ad hoc and did not take on more general forms. At the beginning of the thirteenth century kingdoms started to be called ‘fiefs’ of the papacy. This new type of relationship came from England, when King John surrendered his kingdoms to the papacy in 1213. From then on this ‘feudal’ relationship was applied to the pope’s relationship with the king of Sicily. This new – more codified – feudal relationship seems to have been introduced to the papacy by the English royal court rather than by another source such as learned Italian jurists, as might have been expected. A common assumption about how papal overlordship worked is that it came about because of the active attempts of an over-mighty papacy to advance its power for its own sake. But the people who gained from papal overlordship were those outside the papal curia who could instrumentalize papal power for their own ends. It was up to kings, regents and their councillors to decide when and whether to use papal overlordship and protection. Papal overlordship was a tool of royal more than of papal power.

Apulia in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily presents a unique opportunity with which to investigate how the typology of miracles can reveal the contemporary context in which the collection was written. During the twelfth century Apulia was a thriving and lively avenue of pilgrims and crusaders travelling along the pilgrimage route between Rome and Jerusalem. Additionally the region also hosted some of the leading shrines in the Christian world. Simultaneously there was a flourishing of local saint’s cults in Apulia which witnessed the production of an extensive body of hagiographical texts. Using three understudied miracle collections, two pertaining to the life of Nicholas of Trani and the final collection relating to the Bisceglie saints Maurus, Panaleone and Sergius, this paper aims to explore how the miraculous cures celebrated can reveal the local context in which the collections were written and allow us the discern the motives of the author in producing the collection. It will examine how the dominance of therapeutic miracles in Adelferius’ account of Nicholas of Trani demonstrates the contemporary rivalry between the two coastal cities of Trani and Bari. It will then move on to consider how preponderance of specific ailments in Amandus’ accounts of Nicholas of Trani and the Bisceglie saints reveals that the production of the miracle collection at that specific point in time was a response to the political context.