In 999, Atenulf was given as a hostage to Duke Ademar of Spoleto after the latter raided the Principality of Capua on behalf of the Emperor Otto III. Ademar sent his hostage back to Germany. Atenulf's stay in Germany seems to have left an impression: German architectural influence is evident in the buildings he erected while abbot. He was elected abbot in 1011, and in 1014 he received a diploma from the recently-crowned Emperor Henry II.[1] On 13 March 1014, he received a privilege listing the lands of Montecassino from Pope Benedict VIII.[2]
On 5 May 1017, Princes Pandulf II and Pandulf IV granted the "church, fortified villa and castle" (ecclesia et castrum et oppidum) of Civita di Sant'Urbano to Atenulf.[3] On 10 May, they granted the land, mountain and church of Sant'Angelo in Barrea to Atenulf, who commissioned Prior Azzo to restore it, since it had escaped destruction during Muslims raids a century earlier and was still the home of a few monks.[4]
On 13 July 1019 or 1020, Atenulf received a second diploma from Henry II, confirming the abbey's possession of Sant'Urbano and Vicalvi.[3] In August and October 1017, Atenulf acquired shares in the churches of Santa Maria and Sant'Apollinare in Casalpiano.[5] In January 1020, two abbots, Peter and Paul, gave Atenulf the monastery of Saint Benedict in the diocese of Trivento, founded in February 1002, along with two churches, Santa Lucia and Santa Maria de Cruce.[6] In May 1022, Magipertus of Aquino and his wife, Anna, gave to Atenulf the region called Limata between the Liri and the town of San Giovanni Incarico and the church of San Lorenzo in the town of Aquino.[7]
Under Atenulf, the Cassinese monk Adam acquired the neglected church of San Nazario sul Melfa. Its rebuilding was credited to Adam by the historian Leo of Ostia, but on 12 April 1032 Pandulf IV and his son, Pandulf VI, confirmed the church to the abbey and granted it a mill by the Melfa because it had been rebuilt by Pandulf's brother.[8]
Later, when Atenulf fled Montecassino, he took several charters with him. One of the charters he took, granting Monte Asprano by Roccasecca to the abbey, was rescued and is extant.[9] Prior to the rule of Atenulf, the library of Montecassino was small and there was little copying of manuscripts. Under him, the scriptorium grew and books were copied in the distinct Beneventan script. His abbacy thus begins the "golden age" of Cassinese history, and especially of its library.[10]
Politics
Remains of the fortified villa of Sant'Urbano
In February 1018, he received a privilege from the Byzantinecatepan of Italy, Basil Boioannes, confirming all the abbey's properties in the region of Apulia, which was then under Byzantine control. This privilege was granted on order from the Emperor Basil II and was probably designed to draw the abbot and his brother away from their support for the Apulian rebel Melus of Bari.[11]
After the Byzantine victory over Melus at the Battle of Canne in October 1018, some eighty Norman mercenaries escaped and entered the service of the Lombard princes and of the abbot of Montecassino.[11] Atenulf stationed some of the Normans in the castle (oppidum) of Pignataro Interamna in order to ward off the attacks of the counts of Aquino. This move apparently had the desired effect.[12] About the same time, the counts of Venafro invaded the area of Acquafondata and Viticuso intending to build illegal fortifications (castra) there. The soldiers hired by Atenulf successfully fought them off.[13] According to the Chronicle of Montecassino, the Normans "performed valiantly enough and faithfully as long as the abbot himself was alive."[14]
In 1020, Boioannes, with the help of Pandulf IV, captured the Apulian rebel leader, Dattus, along with his Norman retinue. Atenulf intervened on behalf of the Normans, either in order to employ them himself or out of consideration for the feelings of those he already employed.[11] In June 1021, Boioannes instructed the turmarcha Falcus, the inspector (episceptites) of Trani, to hand over all the property seized in and around that city from the rebel Maraldus to the abbot.[15][16]
Atenulf's support for the Byzantines was regarded in Germany as treasonous.[17][18] When the emperor decided to march south to assert his authority in 1022, he ordered Pandulf and Atenulf arrested. Archbishop Pilgrim of Cologne led an army of 20,000 against Montecassino and Capua. Atenulf fled to Otranto, in Byzantine territory, where he took a ship for Constantinople, the Byzantine capital. He died during a storm at sea on 30 March 1022. Upon learning of his demise, the emperor Henry is said to have quoted from Psalm 7: "He hath made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made."[1][19]
Bloch, Herbert (1946). "Monte Cassino, Byzantium, and the West in the Earlier Middle Ages". Dumbarton Oaks Papers. 3: 163–224. doi:10.2307/1291045. JSTOR1291045.
Bloch, Herbert (1986). Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages. Volume I (Parts I–III). Harvard University Press.
Loud, Graham A. (2000). The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Northern Conquest. Taylor and Francis.
Loud, Graham A. (2007). The Latin Church in Norman Italy. Cambridge University Press.
The Duchy of Benevento was the southernmost Lombard duchy in the Italian Peninsula that was centred on Benevento, a city in Southern Italy. Lombard dukes ruled Benevento from 571 to 1077, when it was conquered by the Normans for four years before it was given to the Pope. Being cut off from the rest of the Lombard possessions by the papal Duchy of Rome, Benevento was practically independent from the start. Only during the reigns of Grimoald, King of the Lombards and the kings from Liutprand on was the duchy closely tied to the kingdom. After the fall of the kingdom, however, it was the sole Lombard territory to continue to exist as a rump state, maintaining its de facto independence for nearly 300 years, although it was divided after 849.
Guaimar IV was Prince of Salerno (1027–1052), Duke of Amalfi (1039–1052), Duke of Gaeta (1040–1041), and Prince of Capua (1038–1047) in Southern Italy over the period from 1027 to 1052. He was an important figure in the final phase of Byzantine authority in the Mezzogiorno and the commencement of Norman power. He was, according to Amatus of Montecassino, "more courageous than his father, more generous and more courteous; indeed he possessed all the qualities a layman should have—except that he took an excessive delight in women."
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.
Rainulf Drengot was a Norman adventurer and mercenary in southern Italy. In 1030 he became the first count of Aversa. He was a member of the Drengot family.
Pandulf IV was the Prince of Capua on three separate occasions.
Melus was a Lombard nobleman from the Apulian town of Bari, whose ambition to carve for himself an autonomous territory from the Byzantine catapanate of Italy in the early eleventh century inadvertently sparked the Norman presence in Southern Italy.
Basil Boioannes, called Bugiano in Italian, was the Byzantine catapan of Italy and one of the greatest Byzantine generals of his time. His accomplishments enabled the Empire to reestablish itself as a major force in southern Italy after centuries of decline. Yet, the Norman adventurers introduced into the power structure of the Mezzogiorno would be the eventual beneficiaries.
Pilgrim was a statesman and prelate of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1016 he took charge of the chancery of the Kingdom of Italy, and became the first archchancellor in 1031. In 1021 he became Archbishop of Cologne. For his part in the imperial campaign against the South Italian principalities in 1022, the chronicler Amatus of Montecassino described him as "warlike".
Richard Drengot was the count of Aversa (1049–1078), prince of Capua and duke of Gaeta (1064–1078).
Pandulf II the Old was the prince of Benevento from 981 and prince of Capua from 1008 or 1009 to his death, the son of Landulf III who was co-prince between 959 and 968. Pandulf was first associated as co-prince in 977.
Richard III, also known as Richard of Caleno, was the Norman count of Carinola and last quasi-independent Duke of Gaeta, ruling from 1121 to his death. From 1113, he was regent of Gaeta for his cousin or nephew, Duke Jonathan; in 1121 he succeeded him. As duke he was a nominal vassal of the Princes of Capua, to whom he was related.
Pandulf III was the prince of Benevento in the Mezzogiorno in medieval Italy, first as co-ruler with his father, Landulf V, and grandfather, Pandulf II, from 1012 or thereabouts to 1014, when the elder Pandulf died. He co-ruled with his father until his death in 1033. Thereafter he was the primary ruler until his abdication in 1059.
Basil Mesardonites was the Catapan of Italy, representing the Byzantine Emperor there, from 1010 to 1016 or 1017. He succeeded the catapan John Kourkouas, who died fighting the Lombards, then in rebellion under Melus, early in 1010. In March, Basil disembarked with reinforcements from Constantinople and Leo Tornikios Kontoleon, the strategos of Cephalonia. Basil immediately besieged the rebels in Bari. The Greek citizens of the city negotiated with Basil and forced the Lombard leaders, Melus and Dattus, to flee. Basil entered the city on June 11, 1011 and reestablished Byzantine authority. He did not follow his victory up with any severe reactions. He simply sent the family of Melus, including his son Argyrus, to Constantinople. Basil's next move was to ally to the Roman Empire as many Lombard principalities as possible. He visited Salerno in October, where Prince Guaimar III was nominally a Byzantine vassal. He then moved on to Monte Cassino, which monastery was sheltering Dattus on its lands. Basil nevertheless confirmed all the privileges of the monastery over its property in Greek territory. The abbot, Atenulf, was a brother of the prince of Capua, Pandulf IV. The monastery then promptly expelled Dattus and he fled to papal territory. Basil held the Greek catapanate in peace until his death in 1016, or, according to Lupus Protospatharius, 1017. He was replaced by the aforementioned strategos of Cephalonia, Leo.
The Principality of Capua was a Lombard state centred on Capua in Southern Italy, usually de facto independent, but under the varying suzerainty of Holy Roman and Eastern Roman Empires. It was originally a gastaldate, then a county, within the principality of Salerno.
Atenulf I was the Lombard count of Aquino who rose to become Duke of Gaeta in Southern Italy during the chaotic middle of the eleventh century.
Maria of Gaeta was an Italian regent, countess of Aquino by marriage and regent of the Duchy of Gaeta for her son in 1062–65.
The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1139, involving many battles and independent conquerors.
The Landulfids or Atenulfings were a noble family of Lombardic origin in the ninth through eleventh centuries. They were descended from Landulf I of Capua, whose own ancestry is unknown and who died in 843. The dynasty produced a line of princes which ruled most of southern Italy at one time or another and even one pope, Victor III.
Ranulf I was the count of Caiazzo in the Principality of Capua from about 1078. He also brought the formerly Lombard counties of Alife, Telese and Sant'Agata dei Goti and the castles of Airola and Tocco Caudio under his control, dominating the region between Capua and Benevento. He passed this territorial lordship on intact to his heirs, and it remained in their possession until the death of his grandson and namesake, Ranulf II, in 1139.
Robert was a south Italian nobleman who ruled the counties of Airola, Alife, Caiazzo, Sant'Agata and Telese from 1088 until his death. He was the regent of Capua in 1090–93, and was effectively independent of any lord after 1105. He was a major patron of churches and abbeys, and also commissioned several books.
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