Last updated The ruins of the castle at Raviscanina.
Andrew (Italian: Andrea di Raviscanina), count of Rupecanina, was a Norman nobleman of the Mezzogiorno. He was a longtime adversary of the royal power.
On 22 July 1138, Pope Innocent II and his supporters, Robert II of Capua and Richard of Rupecanina, were ambushed at Galluccio. Innocent was captured, but Robert and Richard escaped to Germany, where they were received by King Conrad III. Frederick Barbarossa succeeded Conrad in 1152 and, at the Diet of Würzburg, with the Normans present, decided to fulfill the dreams of the Emperor Lothair II and bring all Italy to heel. By the time he was ready to cross the Alps, Richard had died and was succeeded, formally, by his son Andrew, raised since childhood in Germany, at the imperial court.
After Barbarossa's imperial coronation on 18 June 1155, the Germans returned to their homes and the three Normans, still in rebellion, Robert of Capua, Andrew, and Robert of Loritello continued on. On the false report that William I of Sicily was dead, the three entered the Campania and successfully recovered all of their lands. But in May 1156, William countered. He defeated the rebels at Bari by the treason of Richard of Aquila. William then moved on Benevento, where Pope Adrian IV was sheltered by Robert of Militello and Andrew.
In June 1156, an agreement was reached between king and pope—the so-called Treaty of Benevento—whereby Robert of Loritello and Andrew, among others, were granted exile. Nonetheless, after withdrawing to the Abruzzi, Andrew rejoined Robert in returning to Apulia. He invaded Capua and Fondi in 1157. The Byzantine army left, but the pope sent reinforcements. At San Germano, now renamed Cassino, in January 1158, Andrew defeated the royal troops.
Andrew abandoned his newfound hold over Montecassino to defend his city of Ancona from Reginald of Dassel and Otto of Wittelsbach, generals of Barbarossa besieging the city. Peace was made before Spring was out and Andrew accompanied Reginald and Otto north to Milan and joined the ongoing siege under Barbarossa's command. He continued there until 7 September, when the city fell.
In 1161, Andrew rejoined Robert of Loritello again in rebellion against King William. The rebels burnt Butera but were forced to abandon their cause by the king's personal intervention. Andrew fled to Constantinople to beg for men and money but received none, for peace was established between Palermo and Byzantium. Andrew only reappears in 1167 assisted by Christian of Buch with imperial troops to repossess his fiefs, including Ancona. He failed. He was present at the Battle of Monte Porzio according to Romuald of Salerno.
Lothair III, sometimes numbered Lothair II and also known as Lothair of Supplinburg, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1133 until his death. He was appointed Duke of Saxony in 1106 and elected King of Germany in 1125 before being crowned emperor in Rome. The son of the Saxon count Gebhard of Supplinburg, his reign was troubled by the constant intriguing of the Hohenstaufens, Duke Frederick II of Swabia and Duke Conrad of Franconia. He died while returning from a successful campaign against the Norman Kingdom of Sicily.
Frederick II was King of Sicily from 1198, King of Germany from 1212, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from 1220 and King of Jerusalem from 1225. He was the son of emperor Henry VI of the Hohenstaufen dynasty and Queen Constance of Sicily of the Hauteville dynasty.
Roger II was King of Sicily and Africa, son of Roger I of Sicily and successor to his brother Simon. He began his rule as Count of Sicily in 1105, became Duke of Apulia and Calabria in 1127, then King of Sicily in 1130 and King of Africa in 1148. By the time of his death at the age of 58, Roger had succeeded in uniting all the Norman conquests in Italy into one kingdom with a strong centralized government.
William I, called the Bad or the Wicked, was the second king of Sicily, ruling from his father's death in 1154 to his own in 1166. He was the fourth son of Roger II and Elvira of Castile.
Conrad, a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was the only son of Emperor Frederick II from his second marriage with Queen Isabella II of Jerusalem. He inherited the title of King of Jerusalem upon the death of his mother in childbed. Appointed Duke of Swabia in 1235, his father had him elected King of Germany and crowned King of Italy in 1237. After the emperor was deposed and died in 1250, he ruled as King of Sicily until his death.
Roger Borsa was the Norman Duke of Apulia and Calabria and effective ruler of southern Italy from 1085 until his death.
Pandulf I Ironhead was the Prince of Benevento and Capua from 943 until his death. He was made Duke of Spoleto and Camerino in 967 and succeeded as Prince of Salerno in 977 or 978. He was an important nobleman in the fight with the Byzantines and Saracens for control of the Mezzogiorno in the centuries after the collapse of Lombard and Carolingian authority on the Italian Peninsula. He established himself over almost the whole of the southern half of Italia before his death in March 981.
Robert II was the count of Aversa and the prince of Capua from 1127 until his death.
Alfonso, also called Anfuso or Anfusus, was the Prince of Capua from 1135 and Duke of Naples from 1139. He was an Italian-born Norman of the noble Hauteville family. After 1130, when his father Roger became King of Sicily, he was the third in line to the throne; second in line after the death of an older brother in 1138. He was the first Hauteville prince of Capua after his father conquered the principality from the rival Norman Drengot family. He was also the first Norman duke of Naples after the duchy fell vacant on the death of the last Greek duke. He also expanded his family's power northwards, claiming lands also claimed by the Papacy, although he was technically a vassal of the Pope for his principality of Capua.
Ranulf II was the count of Alife and Caiazzo, and duke of Apulia. He was a member of the Italo-Norman Drengot family which dominated the Principality of Capua for most of the century between 1050 and 1150. Ranulf's wife, Matilda, was the sister of King Roger II of Sicily.
Gilbert was a Norman Count of Gravina from 1159 until 1167. His father Bertrand was the illegitimate son of Rotrou III, Count of Perche. He was a cousin of Margaret of Navarre, the queen of Sicily. He arrived in Sicily sometime around 1159 and, through Margaret's influence, was created Count of Gravina in Apulia immediately.
The Treaty of Benevento, or Concordat of Benevento, was an important treaty between the papacy of Adrian IV and the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. After years of turbulent relations, the popes finally settled down to a peace with the Hauteville kings.
Robert of Bassunvilla was the count of Conversano and Loritello. His family had a long history in Vassonville, near Dieppe.
Hugh was the Archbishop of Capua in the late 1140s and Archbishop of Palermo from 1150 until his death, probably in 1165/66.
The Treaty of Mignano of 1139 was the treaty which ended more than a decade of constant war in the Italian Mezzogiorno following the union of the mainland duchy of Apulia and Calabria with the County of Sicily in 1127. More significantly, in 1130, Antipope Anacletus II had crowned Roger II king.
Bohemond II was the count of Manoppello, succeeding his father, Bohemond I, in 1156 or 1157. He was an Italian noble at the time.
The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1139, involving many battles and independent conquerors.
Wars between the Normans and the Byzantine Empire were fought from c. 1040 until 1185, when the last Norman invasion of the Byzantine Empire was defeated. At the end of the conflict, neither the Normans nor the Byzantines could boast much power as by the mid-13th century, exhaustive fighting with other powers had weakened both, leading to the Byzantines losing Asia Minor to the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century, and the Normans losing Sicily to the Hohenstaufen.
Events during the year 1156 in Italy.
Swabian Sicily denotes the period in the history of Sicily during which it was ruled by the Hohenstaufen dynasty, lasting from Henry VI's's accession to the island's throne in 1194 until Manfred of Sicily's defeat by Charles I of Anjou in 1266. It has been particularly researched by German scholars such as Ernst Kantorowicz and Willy Cohn.
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