Jordan Lupin (Italian : Giordano Lupino; died 1197) was the first count of Bovino in the Norman kingdom of Sicily. He played a major role in the final years of Norman rule and first years of the Staufer dynasty. Twice he was involved in opposing crusader armies passing through Sicily. In the second instance, he led a revolt, apparently in the hope of seizing the throne. He was successful in attracting significant support, and was even crowned anti-king, but was ultimately captured and executed.
Jordan was a son of Count Hugh I and Countess Clementia of the county of Catanzaro. [1] He had an elder twin brother, Count Hugh of Conversano, who later inherited Catanzaro. [2] Jordan's surname, Lupin (Latin : Iordanus Lupinus), was shared by his father and brother. It was mangled, however, by the English chronicler Roger of Hoveden into "Jordanus de Pino" or "Jordanus del Pin", whence the French historian Ferdinand Chalandon modernised it into "Jourdain du Pin". Two manuscripts of the Itinerarium Regis Ricardi of Richard de Templo, however, correctly render it Luppin, and the Norman poet Ambroise calls him "Jordanz Lupins" in the Norman dialect. [3] [4]
In Palermo in May 1183, Jordan witnessed the royal diploma permitting the marriage of Roger of Tarsia and Maria, daughter of Robert Malconvenant. [5] By the later 1180s, he was a member of the royal bodyguard. In March 1187, he was the royal seneschal (regis senescalcus) under William II. [2] [3] He was also the lord of Tavis, that is, the region around Mount Altesina in the Heraean Mountains of central Sicily. [6] In the succession dispute that followed William's death in 1189, he supported Tancred, who rewarded him with the county of Bovino. This county was a new creation, having been carved out of the south of the county of Loritello. [2] [3] [7] It also included Deliceto, Montellere and Monterisi. The historian Errico Cuozzo suggests that Jordan was only granted the county of Bovino as compensation for the loss of Messina. [6]
By the autumn of 1190, Tancred had entrusted the defence of Messina to Jordan, and he was in charge when two large armies of the Third Crusade under Philip II of France and Richard I of England arrived. According to Roger of Hoveden, while Jordan and some other Sicilian leaders were meeting with Richard in the latter's lodgings on 4 October 1190, a riot broke out and the Anglo-Norman crusaders were attacked. In response, Richard stormed the city. According to both Roger of Hoveden and Ambroise, Jordan and the Sicilian admiral Margaritus had stirred up the city against the crusaders and provoked the riots. In the end, Jordan was forced to leave Messina to Richard, who was in turn forced by Philip to place it under the nominal control of the Templars and Hospitallers until Tancred paid an indemnity. [3] [8] [9] According to Ralph of Diceto, Jordan and Margaritus fled the city in secret with their families. [10]
All the Anglo-Norman writers who deal with Jordan—Roger of Hoveden, Richard de Templo and Ambroise—were writing after Tancred's death, and after Jordan had switched his support to the emperor. They universally have a negative opinion of him. [11] They also call him a familiaris , the highest court rank, although there is no evidence Jordan held this rank. [12]
After Tancred's death in 1194, the Emperor Henry VI took over Sicily in the name of his wife, Constance, daughter of Roger II. Despite having supported Tancred's claim over Constance's, Jordan and his brother supported Henry after Tancred's death and both appear to have gained Henry's trust, for they confirmed many of the emperor's Sicilian grants and privileges. [7] Cuozzo argues that Jordan and his brother abandoned Tancred for Henry as early as the summer of 1192. [6]
In May 1197, as Henry passed through Sicily on his way to join the German crusade, a revolt broke out. Jordan and his brother were both implicated. [7] According to the Annales Stadenses , erroneously under the year 1196, the leader of the revolt was one "Jordanus de Sicilia". The historian Evelyn Jamison first proposed that this was Jordan Lupin, a proposal which has been widely accepted. [13] Nevertheless, the chronicler Richard of San Germano names the castellan of Castrogiovanni as a certain William the Monk (Guilielmus monachus), and it has been argued that he was the rebel leader later executed by Henry. [14] [15]
Henry crushed the rebellion mercilessly, inflicting terrible vengeance on captured rebels. Jordan was a pretender to the throne at this stage, having even been crowned [1] and having received a gift of jewels from Queen Constance, who had thrown her support to the rebels against her own husband. [16] He was holed up in the castle of Castrogiovanni. [17] He surrendered to Henry and was tortured and executed in June 1197 in front of the queen. According to Otto of Sankt Blasien, the emperor "ordered that a man who aspired to the royal crown [i.e. Jordan] should have a crown fixed to him by iron nails". [18] Others indicate that he was forced to sit on a red-hot throne and that the crown nailed to his head was heated until glowing. [19]
Following the crushing of the revolt, the county of Bovino was dissolved. Conversano and Catanzaro were confiscated from Hugh, who is never heard of again, and bestowed on Berardo Gentile and Riccardo di Fallucca, respectively. [6] In 1201, the house formerly belonging to Jordan in Messina was granted to Anfusus de Rota. [16]
Richard I, known as Richard Cœur de Lion or Richard the Lionheart because of his reputation as a great military leader and warrior, was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine, and Gascony; Lord of Cyprus; Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes; and was overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period. He was the third of five sons of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine and was therefore not expected to become king, but his two elder brothers predeceased their father.
Year 1197 (MCXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Tancred was King of Sicily from 1189 to 1194. He was born in Lecce an illegitimate son of Roger III, Duke of Apulia by his mistress Emma, a daughter of Achard II, Count of Lecce. He inherited the title "Count of Lecce" from his grandfather and is consequently often referred to as Tancred of Lecce. Due to his short stature and unhandsome visage, he was mocked by his critics as "The Monkey King".
Constance I was reigning Queen of Sicily from 1194–98, jointly with her spouse from 1194 to 1197, and with her infant son Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1198. She is particularly notable for her actions against her own family, the Norman kings of Sicily; she played an important role in the end of the Hauteville presence in Sicily. She was also Holy Roman Empress and later Dowager by marriage to Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.
Roger III, of the House of Hauteville, was the eldest son and heir of King Tancred of Sicily and Queen Sibylla. He was made Duke of Apulia, probably in 1189, shortly after his father's accession. In the summer of 1192 he was crowned co-king with his father. Follari were minted at Messina bearing both Tancred's and Roger's names as kings.
The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in Sicily and the south of the Italian Peninsula plus, for a time, in Northern Africa from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of the southern peninsula. The island was divided into three regions: Val di Mazara, Val Demone and Val di Noto.
Alfonso, also called Anfuso or Anfusus (c. 1120 – 10 October 1144), 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.
Tancred of Hauteville, the second son of King Roger II of Sicily and his first wife, Elvira of Castile, was the Prince of Bari and Taranto from 1132 to 1138.
Joan of England was by marriage Queen of Sicily and Countess of Toulouse. She was the seventh child of King Henry II of England and Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine. From her birth, she was destined to make a political and royal marriage. She married William II of Sicily and later Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, two very important and powerful figures in the political landscape of Medieval Europe.
Margaritus of Brindisi, called "the new Neptune", was the last great ammiratus ammiratorum of the Kingdom of Sicily. Following in the footsteps of Christodulus, George of Antioch, and Maio of Bari, Margaritus commanded the kingdom's fleets during the reigns of William II (1166–1189) and Tancred (1189–1194). He probably began as a Greek pirate and gradually rose to the rank of privateer before becoming a permanent admiral of the navy. In 1185, he became the first count palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos. In 1192, he became the first Count of Malta. He also held the titles of Prince of Taranto and Duke of Durazzo.
Sibylla of Acerra (1153–1205) was Queen of Sicily as the wife of King Tancred. After Tancred's death, she was regent in 1194 for their son, King William III. She was the sister of Count Richard of Acerra.
The House of Hauteville was a Norman family originally of seigneurial rank from the Cotentin. The Hautevilles rose to prominence through their part in the Norman conquest of southern Italy. By 1130, one of their members, Roger II, was made the first King of Sicily. His male-line descendants ruled Sicily until 1194. Some Italian Hautevilles took part in the First Crusade and the founding of the Principality of Antioch (1098).
The Crusade of 1197, also known as the Crusade of Henry VI or the German Crusade, was a crusade launched by the Hohenstaufen emperor Henry VI in response to the aborted attempt of his father, Emperor Frederick I, during the Third Crusade in 1189–90. Thus the military campaign is also known as the "Emperor's Crusade".
Henry VI, a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was King of Germany from 1169 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1191 until his death. From 1194 he was also King of Sicily.
Odothe Good Marquis, sometimes called Odobonus, was an Norman or Lombard nobleman who ruled an unknown region of southern Italy. He married Emma, a daughter of Robert Guiscard, and they had at least three sons, Tancred and William, both famous crusaders, and Robert, as well as a daughter who married Richard of Salerno. Odo is known only in connection to his wife and sons.
Hugh Lupin, called the Younger, was a baron of the Kingdom of Sicily. He was the eldest son of Count Hugh I of Catanzaro and Countess Clementia, and twin brother of Count Jordan of Bovino.
Hugh Lupin, called the Elder or Hugh I, was a nobleman of the Kingdom of Sicily. He was the count of Catanzaro from 1167 until his death.
Clementia was the countess of Catanzaro in the Kingdom of Sicily. She played a major role in the baronial rebellion of 1160–62.
The siege of Naples was a siege in 1191 during the expedition of Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor aiming to conquer the Kingdom of Sicily in name of the claim of his wife Empress Constance. It lasted three months before Henry abandoned his expedition, after suffering a heavy loss due to disease. After his retreat, the Sicilians set a counterattack that almost reconquered his conquests and captured Empress Constance. It was particularly rare in the history of war that an empress was captured in an imperial offensive campaign.