The Duchy of Benevento (after 774, Principality 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 papalDuchy of Rome, Benevento was practically independent from the start. Only during the reigns of Grimoald (r. 662–671) and the kings from Liutprand (r. 712–744) on was the duchy closely tied to the Kingdom of the Lombards. After the fall of the kingdom in 774, the duchy became the sole Lombard territory which continued to exist as a rump state, maintaining its de facto independence for nearly 300 years, although it was divided after 849. Benevento dwindled in size in the early 11th century, and was completely captured by the Norman Robert Guiscard in 1053.
Paul the Deacon refers to Benevento as the "Samnite Duchy" (Ducatum Samnitium) after the region of Samnium.[1]
Foundation
The circumstances surrounding the creation of the duchy are disputed. According to some scholars, Lombards were present in southern Italy well before the complete conquest of the Po Valley: the duchy by these accounts would have been founded in 571.[2] The Lombards may have entered later, around 590. Whatever the case, the first duke was Zotto, a leader of a band of soldiers who descended the coast of Campania. Though at first independent, Zotto was eventually made to submit to the royal authority of the north. His successor was Arechis, his nephew, and the principle of hereditary succession guided the Beneventan duchy to the end.
The Lombard duchies, part of the loosely-knit Lombard kingdom, were essentially independent, in spite of their common roots and language, and law and religion similar to that of the north, and in spite of the Beneventan dukes' custom of taking to wife women from the royal family. A swathe of territory that owed allegiance to Rome or to Ravenna separated the dukes of Benevento from the kings at Pavia. Cultural autonomy followed naturally: a distinctive liturgical chant, the Beneventan chant, developed in the church of Benevento: it was not entirely superseded by Gregorian chant until the 11th century. A unique Beneventan script was also developed for writing Latin. The 8th-century writer Paul the Deacon arrived in Benevento in the retinue of a princess from Pavia, the duke's bride. Settled into the greatest of Beneventan monasteries, Monte Cassino, he wrote first a history of Rome and then a history of the Lombards, the main source for the history of the duchy to that time as well.
Expansion
Under Zotto's successors, the duchy was expanded against the Byzantine Empire. Arechis, himself from the duchy of Friuli, captured Capua and Crotone, and sacked Byzantine Amalfi, but was unable to capture Naples. After his reign, Byzantine holdings in southern Italy were reduced to Naples, Amalfi, Gaeta, Sorrento, Calabria, and the maritime cities of Apulia (Bari, Brindisi, Otranto, etc.). In 662, Duke Grimoald I (duke since 647), went north to aid the King Godepert against his brother, the co-king Perctarit, and instead killed the former, forced the latter into exile, and captured Pavia. As king of the Lombards, he tried to reinstate Arianism over the Catholicism of the late king Aripert I. However, Arianism was disappearing even in the duchy, as was the distinction between the ethnic Lombard population and the Latin- and Greek-speaking one. In 663, the city itself was besieged by the Byzantines during the failed attempt of Constans II, who had disembarked at Taranto, to recover southern Italy. Duke Romuald I defended the city bravely, however, and the Emperor, also fearing the arrival of Romuald's father, King Grimoald, retired to Naples. However, Romuald intercepted part of the Roman army at Forino, between Avellino and Salerno, and destroyed it. A peace between the Duchy and the Eastern Empire was signed in 680.
In the following decades, Benevento conquered some territories from the Byzantines, but the main enemy of the duchy was now the northern Lombard kingdom itself. King Liutprand intervened several times to impose a candidate of his own on the ducal throne. His successor, Ratchis, declared the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento foreign countries where it was forbidden to travel without royal permission.
Secundum Ticinum
A map of Europe in 814 at the death of CharlemagneBenevento at its maximum extent circa 851Solidus of Grimoald III
In 758, king Desiderius briefly captured Spoleto and Benevento, but with Charlemagne's conquest of the Lombard kingdom in 774, Arechis II tried to claim the royal dignity and make Benevento a secundum Ticinum: a second Pavia (the old Lombard capital). Seeing that this was impractical and would draw Frankish attention to himself, he opted instead for the title of princeps (prince). In 787, he was forced by Charlemagne's siege of Salerno to submit to Frankish suzerainty. At this time, Benevento was acclaimed by a chronicler as a Ticinum geminum—a "twin Pavia". Arechis expanded the Roman city, with new walled enclosures extending onto the level ground southwest of the old city, where Arechis razed old constructions for a new princely palace, whose open court is still traceable in the Piano di Corte of the acropolis. Like their Byzantine enemies, the dukes linked the palace compound with a national church, Saint Sophia.
In 788, the principality was invaded by Byzantine troops led by Desiderius's son, Adelchis, who had taken refuge at Constantinople. However, his attempts were thwarted by Arechis' son, Grimoald III, who had, however, partially submitted to the Franks. The Franks assisted in the repulsion of Adelchis, but, in turn, attacked Benevento's territories several times, obtaining small gains, notably the annexation of Chieti to the duchy of Spoleto. In 814, Grimoald IV made vague promises of tribute and submission to Louis the Pious, which were renewed by his successor Sico. None of these pledges were followed up, and the decreased power and influence of the individual Carolingian monarchs allowed the duchy to increase its autonomy.
The Beneventan dukes employed seal rings to confirm documents, just like the Lombard kings, and the princes may have continued to use them into the ninth century. They indicate a continuation (or imitation) of Roman forms of administration, as well as widespread literacy (or "sub-literacy").[3]
In the following century despite the continuing hostility of the Frankish sovereigns, Benevento reached its apex, imposing a tribute on Naples and capturing Amalfi under Duke Sicard. When Sicard was assassinated in 839, a civil war broke out. Sicard's brother, Siconulf, was proclaimed prince in Salerno while the assassin Radelchis took the throne in Benevento. After 10 years of civil war, Emperor Louis II ended the conflict by decreeing that the duchy be split into two distinct principates: Benevento (with Molise and Apulia north to Taranto) and the Principality of Salerno. As a part of the partition, Capua was made part of the Principality of Salerno.
The crisis was aggravated by the beginning of Muslim ravages, the first Saracens having been called in by Radelchis and subsequently Siconulf in their decade-long war. Often spurred by rival Christian rulers, the Saracens attacked Naples and Salerno unsuccessfully.[4] The Islamic colony in southern Lazio was eliminated only in 915, after the Battle of Garigliano. At the same time, however, the Byzantine Empire reconquered a great part of southern Italy, beginning at Bari, which they retook from the Saracens in 876, and eventually elevating their themes under strategoi into a Catapanate of Italy (999), further reducing the already declining Beneventan power.
In 899, Atenulf I of Capua conquered Benevento and united the two duchies. He declared them inseparable and introduced the principle of co-rule, whereby sons would be associated with their fathers, a principle soon borrowed by Salerno. However, all Langobardia minor was unified for the last time by Duke Pandulf Ironhead, who became prince of Salerno in 978. He succeeded in making Benevento an archdiocese in 969. Before his death (March 981), he had gained from Emperor Otto I the title of Duke of Spoleto also. However, he split it between his sons: Landulf IV received Benevento-Capua and Pandulf II, Salerno. Soon, Benevento was stripped away again when Pandulf, the Ironhead's nephew, rebelled, demanding his part of the inheritance.
The first decades of the eleventh century saw Benevento dwindle to less than either of her sister duchies, Salerno, then prominent, or Capua. Around 1000, Benevento still comprised 34 separate counties. In 1022, Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor conquered both Capua and Benevento, but returned to Germany after the failed siege of Troia. The Normans arrived in the Mezzogiorno in these years, and Benevento then acknowledged to be in papal suzerainty, was only an off-and-on ally. The Beneventan duke still had enough prestige to lend his son, Atenulf, to the Norman-Lombard rebellion in Apulia as leader, but Atenulf abandoned the Normans and Benevento lost what was left of its influence.
The greatest of the Norman rulers of the south was Robert Guiscard, who captured Benevento in 1053. Guiscard, in turn, gave Benevento to his nominal suzerain, Pope Leo IX. Pope Leo IX and his successors appointed a series of minor Lombards as dukes until Pope Gregory VII appointed Guiscard Prince of Benevento in 1078. Finally, in 1081, Guiscard returned the title to the papacy with little but the city remaining of the once-great principality which had determined the direction of South Italian affairs for generations. No dukes or princes were thereafter named.
In 1806, Napoleon, after conquering Benevento, named as prince the famous Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. Talleyrand held the title till 1815 and was quite capable in administering the duchy besides his other tasks. Benevento was conquered by Joachim Murat in February 1814 and at the Congress of Vienna was restored to the Pope.
The Lombards or Longobards were a Germanic people who conquered most of the Italian Peninsula between 568 and 774.
The Duchy of Spoleto was a Lombard territory founded about 570 in central Italy by the Lombard dux Faroald. Its capital was the city of Spoleto.
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. He was an ancestor of Sancho I.
Arechis II was a Duke of Benevento, in Southern Italy. He sought to expand the Beneventos' influence into areas of Italy that were still under Byzantine control, but he also had to defend against Charlemagne, who had conquered northern Italy.
The Duchy of Gaeta was an early medieval state centered on the coastal South Italian city of Gaeta. It began in the early ninth century as the local community began to grow autonomous as Byzantine power lagged in the Mediterranean and the peninsula due to Lombard and Saracen incursions.
Richard Drengot was the count of Aversa (1049–1078), prince of Capua and duke of Gaeta (1064–1078).
Atenulf I, called the Great, was the prince of Capua from 7 January 887 and of Benevento from 899, when he conquered that principality. He also used the title princeps gentis Langobardorum: "prince of the Lombard people," an echo of the title used by the earliest prince of Benevento following the collapse of Lombard cohesion in 774.
Arechis I was the second Duke of Benevento from 591 to his death in 641.
The Principality of Salerno was a medieval Southern Italian state, formed in 851 out of the Principality of Benevento after a decade-long civil war. It was centred on the port city of Salerno. Although it owed allegiance at its foundation to the Carolingian emperor, it was de facto independent throughout its history and alternated its allegiance between the Carolingians and their successors in the West and the Byzantine emperors in the east.
The Principality of Capua was a Lombard state centred on Capua in Southern Italy. Towards the end of the 10th century the Principality reached its apogee, occupying most of the Terra di Lavoro area. It was originally a gastaldate, then a county, within the principality of Salerno.
The Duchy of Friuli was a Lombard duchy in present-day Friuli, the first to be established after the conquest of the Italian peninsula in 568. It was one of the largest domains in Langobardia Major and an important buffer between the Lombard kingdom and the Slavs, Avars, and the Byzantine Empire. The original chief city in the province was Roman Aquileia, but the Lombard capital of Friuli was Forum Julii, modern Cividale.
The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1194, 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.
Atenulf was the Abbot of Montecassino from 1011 until his death. He was a cousin of Prince Pandulf II of Capua, a younger son of Prince Pandulf III and brother of Prince Pandulf IV.
The Cesina family is an Italian family of Roman-Lombard origin.
The Lombard coinage of Benevento, part of the more general Lombard coinage, is the set of coins minted between about 680 and the end of the ninth century in the duchy and principality of Benevento. Solidi and tremisses, both gold coins that imitated those of the Eastern Roman Empire, were first minted; later followed the issuance of coins in the names first of the dukes and then of the Benevento princes. Toward the end of the 8th century alongside the gold coins were minted silver coins, which gradually took the place of the earlier ones, as moreover happened in the rest of Western Europe. Silver became the prevalent coinage metal only from the mid-9th century.
References
Everett, N. (2003). Literacy in Lombard Italy, c.568-744. Cambridge.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Krueger, Hilmar C. (1955). Setton, Kenneth Meyer; Baldwin, Marshall W. (eds.). The Italian Cities and the Arabs before 1095. University of Pennsylvania.
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