John III (died 1008 or 1009) was the consul and duke of Gaeta from some time between October 984 and January 986 until his death.
Consul was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city states through antiquity and the Middle Ages, then revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic. The related adjective is consular, from the Latin consularis.
He was the eldest son of Marinus II, who succeeded his brother Gregory in 978 and immediately appointed John as co-duke in order to assure his inheritance, as the precedent of fraternal inheritance had been set by the sons of Docibilis II. John's reign began with his father's death. In 991, John appointed his own son co-ruler as John IV.
Marinus II was the son of Docibilis II of Gaeta and Orania of Naples. He was made dux of Fondi by his father and his elder brother John II recognised this title. After his brother Gregory, who succeeded John, died, Marinus succeeded to the duchy of Gaeta and gave Fondi to his son Marinus. He was succeeded by his son John III and is the father of the Caetani family.
Gregory was the Duke of Gaeta from 963 until his death. He was the second son of Docibilis II of Gaeta and his wife Orania. He succeeded his brother John II, who had left only daughters. Gregory rapidly depleted the publicum of the Duchy of Gaeta by doling it out to family members as grants. Gregory disappears from the records in 964 and was succeeded by his younger brother Marinus of Fondi over the heads of his three sons. It is possible that there was an internal power struggle between factions of the Docibilan family and that Gregory was forced out. On the other hand, perhaps he died and his sons fought a losing battle for their inheritance to Gaeta.
Docibilis II was the ruler of Gaeta, in one capacity or another, from 906 until his death. He was the son of the hypatus John I, who made him co-ruler in 906 or thereabouts.
The territory of the duchy had been parcelled out to many brothers. John's brother Leo inherited the duchy of Fondi in 992. Another brother, Marinus, was associated as dux in Fondi in 999. Also in 992, John's brothers Gregory and Daufer appeared as counts in Castro d'Argento and Traetto. In 997, another brother, Bernard, became bishop of Gaeta. John was able to maintain peace between himself and his powerful brothers and other relatives throughout his reign.
Fondi is a city and comune in the province of Latina, Lazio, central Italy, halfway between Rome and Naples. As of 2017, the city had a population of 39,800. The city has experienced steady population growth since the early 2000s, though this has slowed in recent years.
In January 998, he sojourned in the monastery of Saint Nilus the Younger. In 999, Emperor Otto III confirmed the independence of the various appanages of Gaeta (Fondi, Traetto, etc.). Despite this great reduction to direct Gaetan power, his brothers remained faithful to John and even treated him as the first among equals. On 15 October, Otto granted him the castle of Pontecorvo in recognition of his loyalty (he seems to have become a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire) and his participation in Otto's campaigns against Naples and Capua.
An appanage, or apanage, is the grant of an estate, title, office or other thing of value to a younger male child of a sovereign, who would otherwise have no inheritance under the system of primogeniture. It was common in much of Europe.
Pontecorvo is a town and comune in the province of Frosinone, Lazio, Italy. Its population is c. 13,200.
The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic complex of territories in Western and Central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. The largest territory of the empire after 962 was the Kingdom of Germany, though it also came to include the neighboring Kingdom of Bohemia, the Kingdom of Burgundy, the Kingdom of Italy, and numerous other territories.
John last appears in the documentary record in August 1008, and presumably died not long thereafter. He was succeeded by his son and namesake. His wife, Emilia, later held the regency for his grandson, John V.
Emilia was the duchess of Gaeta first as consort of John III (984–1008) and then as the regent for her grandson John V (1012–1032) until at least 1029.
John V was the consul and duke of Gaeta from 1012 to 1032. He was the son of John IV and Sichelgaita, sister of Sergius IV of Naples. He was either very young when he succeeded his father or perhaps he was even born posthumously.
The Ottonian dynasty was a Saxon dynasty of German monarchs (919–1024), named after three of its kings and Holy Roman Emperors named Otto, especially its first Emperor Otto I. It is also known as the Saxon dynasty after the family's origin in the German stem duchy of Saxony. The family itself is also sometimes known as the Liudolfings, after its earliest known member Count Liudolf and one of its primary leading-names. The Ottonian rulers were successors of the Germanic king Conrad I who was the only Germanic king to rule in East Francia after the Carolingian dynasty and before this dynasty.
Otto III was Holy Roman Emperor from 996 until his early death in 1002. A member of the Ottonian dynasty, Otto III was the only son of the Emperor Otto II and his wife Theophanu.
Boleslaus II the Pious, a member of the Přemyslid dynasty, was Duke of Bohemia from 972 until his death
Caetani, or Gaetani, is the name of an Italian noble family which played a great part in the history of Pisa and of Rome, principally via their close links to the papacy.
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.
Docibilis I was the Hypatus of Gaeta from 867 until his death.
John II was the duke of Gaeta, associated with his father Docibilis II and grandfather John I from 933 and sole ruler from the former's death in 954. His mother was Orania, of Neapolitan extraction. In 934, he was ruling alone with his father, his grandfather having died in the interim.
The Dukes of Naples were the military commanders of the ducatus Neapolitanus, a Byzantine outpost in Italy, one of the few remaining after the conquest of the Lombards. In 661, Emperor Constans II, highly interested in south Italian affairs, appointed a Neapolitan named Basil dux or magister militum. Thereafter a line of dukes, often largely independent and dynastic from the mid-ninth century, ruled until the coming of the Normans, a new menace they could not weather. The thirty-ninth and last duke, Sergius VII, surrendered his city to King Roger II of Sicily in 1137.
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.
John IV was the mostly absentee duke of Naples from 997 to after 1002. He was the son and successor of Sergius III. John IV originally recognised the suzerainty of the Byzantine Emperor.
Leo I, sometimes called the Usurper, was the regent of the Duchy of Gaeta from 1017 until 1024. He was a younger son of Duke John III and Duchess Emilia. After the death of his brother, John IV in 1008, his mother took over the regency for her grandson, Leo's nephew, John V. Leo challenged his mother for the regency, successfully displacing her by 1017.
John III was the longest-reigning Duke of Naples (928–968). He was the son and successor of Marinus I.
The Ardennes-Verdun dynasty was one of the first documented medieval European noble families, centered on Verdun. The family dominated in the Duchy of Lotharingia (Lorraine) in the 10th and 11th centuries. All members descended from Count Palatine Wigeric of Lotharingia and his wife Cunigunda of France, a granddaughter of the West Frankish king Louis the Stammerer. The House of Ardennes was closely tied to the Counts of Verdun, Bar, and Luxembourg as well as to the House of Salm.
Marinus I was the Duke of Naples from 919 to his death. He was the second son of Gregory IV and successor of his brother John II. The Chronicon ducum et principum Beneventi, Salerni, et Capuae et ducum Neapolis calls him Marianus. According to that document, he reigned eight years, nine months, and fifteen days.
Marinus II was the Duke of Naples from 968 to his death. He was the son and successor of John III and brought Naples back into the Byzantine fold, receiving the title eminentissimus consul et dux, atque imperialis anthipatus patricius. In 970, Marinus did homage for his duchy to the Byzantine patrician Eugene after the imprisonment of Pandulf Ironhead. He then participated in the siege of Capua. He devastated the surrounding countryside and took an enormous booty before an army of Otto the Great forced the Greeks to retreat. In 974, Marinus allied with Manso I of Amalfi and Landulf of Conza to depose Gisulf I of Salerno. They were defeated, however, by the intervention of Pandulf Ironhead. On 4 November 981, the Emperor Otto II was in Naples, probably with the permission of Marinus, who was moving away from his pro-Byzantine policy. He died in 997 and was succeeded by his son Sergius III.
Bernard was the Bishop of Gaeta for fifty years from his appointment in 997 until his death. He was a member of the Docibilan dynasty which ruled the Duchy of Gaeta from 867 to 1032. During his long episcopate he achieved the economic security of his see in the face of labour difficulties, annexed the diocese of Traetto to his own in or soon after 999, and witnessed the decline and replacement of his family in Gaeta.
