Sources
- Caravale, Mario (ed). Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani: LXIII Labroca – Laterza. Rome, 2004.
Pandulf III (died 1060) 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 between 1012 and 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 (except for a brief period).
Immediately after the death of Pandulf II, the citizens of Benevento led a revolt against the two princes, father and son. The rebellion failed to dislodge the princes from power. However, the citizens did force concessions of authority to themselves and the city's aristocracy. The Annales say facta est communitas prima: "the first commune is made."
Benevento was forced to make submission to the Byzantine Empire, whose Italian catepan Boioannes had built the fortified city of Troia nearby. In 1022, the Emperor Henry II joined his army with two other armies under Poppo of Aquileia and Pilgrim of Cologne at Benevento, which submitted after a quick siege. From there they marched on Troia, but failed to take it. After making submission to the Western Emperor, Landulf is not heard of again in the pages of history until his death and his son takes his place.
In August or September 1038, Pandulf associated his own son, Landulf VI, in the principality. Such co-regency was a tradition dating back to the will of Atenulf I of Capua in 910. In 1041, it was his brother Atenulf who incited a rebellion because he was not included in the regency. To the author of the meagre Annales Beneventani , this fuit [...] coniuratio secundo, the second conspiracy to remove the princes. Like the first of 1014, it failed.
In 1047, Emperor Henry III came down to secure his authority in the Mezzogiorno. The Empress Agnes visited Monte Gargano as a pilgrim and returned via Benevento, where she was accepted, but her husband denied. Henry III, angry at being denied, immediately laid siege to the city and Pope Clement II excommunicated Landulf and Pandulf and the citizenry. The siege was eventually lifted, however, the disrespect shown the imperial family and the church coupled with the principality's decline caused Pandulf's brother, Daufer (later Pope Victor III), to flee the city and take refuge with Guaimar IV of Salerno.
Beneventan matters came to a head in 1050, when Pope Leo IX went on a pilgrimage to Monte Gargano and reaffirmed the excommunication of the princes. The citizens turned on them and threw them out cum sculdays suis, "with their squire." The citizens turned the city over to the pope in April 1051 and on 5 July the pope accepted and entered his new city.
In the aftermath of the Battle of Civitate in 1053, in which the pope was imprisoned in Benevento, the city invited Pandulf and Landulf back (sometime between June 1053 and March 1054). Pandulf returned and ruled as a vassal of the pope. In 1056, he oversaw the association of his grandson Pandulf IV. In 1059, he abdicated to the monastery of Santa Sofia, the familial foundation and mausoleum of the Beneventan ruling house. He died there the next year.
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 and the kings from Liutprand 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.
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. From 1041 to 1052 the Duke of Napoli was his vassal. 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.
Pandulf IV was the Prince of Capua on three separate occasions.
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, and was the son of Landulf III who was co-prince between 959 and 968. Pandulf was first associated as co-prince in 977.
Landulf IV was the prince of Capua and Benevento from 968, when he was associated with his father, Pandulf Ironhead, and prince of Salerno associated with his father from 977 or 978. In 968, his uncle Landulf III died, which lead to his rise, as Pandulf ignored the rights of Landulf II's son Pandulf II, his nephew, and instead associated his own son with the government.
Landulf III was Prince of Capua and Benevento from 959 as co-prince with his father, Landulf II, and brother Pandulf Ironhead. In 961, he would be co-prince with only his brother after the death of his father. His mother was Yvantia.
Atenulf was the son of Prince Landulf V of Benevento and brother of Prince Pandulf III. In 1040, Benevento still had the prestige of being the first of the independent Lombard principalities of the Mezzogiorno. So, when the Lombard Arduin, topoterites of Melfi, and his Norman mercenaries rebelled against Byzantine authority, they elected the son of Pandulf as their leader, calling him "prince of Benevento."
Landulf V was the prince of Benevento from May 987, when he was first associated with his father Pandulf II, to his death. He was chief prince from his father's death in 1014.
Landulf VI was the last Lombard prince of Benevento. Unlike his predecessors, he never had a chance to rule alone and independent. The principality lost its independence in 1051, at which point Landulf was only co-ruling with his father, Pandulf III.
Pandulf IV was the co-prince of Benevento with his father Landulf VI from August 1056, when his grandfather Pandulf III was still reigning, to his own death in battle before that of his father.
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 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.
