Robert of Lauro (died 1183) was the Count of Caserta, a powerful nobleman and administrator in the Kingdom of Sicily, "effectively the king's viceroy on the mainland" between 1171 and his death. [1] He was a close colleague of Count Tancred of Lecce, the future king. His influence helped his cousin Roger become Archbishop of Benevento (1179–1225). [2]
Caserta is the capital of the province of Caserta in the Campania region of Italy. It is an important agricultural, commercial and industrial comune and city. Caserta is located on the edge of the Campanian plain at the foot of the Campanian Subapennine mountain range. The city is best known for the Palace of Caserta.
The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in the south of the Italian peninsula and for a time the region of Ifriqiya from its founding by Roger II 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; 'val' being the Arabic word meaning 'district'.
In 1168, when Count Bohemond II of Manoppello accused Count Richard of Molise of a conspiracy against the Chancellor Stephen du Perche, it was Robert who prevented the case from being settled by judicial duel when he alleged that Richard had also illegally acquired the town of Mandra and others near Troia from the crown. [3] Robert was made the first master constable and master justiciar of the Duchy of Apulia and the Terra di Lavoro (in Latin, magister comestabulus et justitiarius Apuliae et Terra Laboris) in 1171, when a new system for governing the mainland territories of the kingdom was instituted following the restoration of royal authority in 1169 after years of unrest and open rebellion. [4]
Bohemond II was the count of Manoppello, succeeding his father, Bohemond I, in 1156 or 1157.
Stephen du Perche (1137/8–1169) was the chancellor of the Kingdom of Sicily (1166–68) and Archbishop of Palermo (1167–68) during the early regency of his cousin, the queen dowager Margaret of Navarre (1166–71).
Mandra, is a town and former municipality in West Attica, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Mandra-Eidyllia, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 205.770 km2. The population of the municipal unit was 12,888 at the 2011 census.
In 1171 Robert convened a curia (court) in Capua, outside his jurisdiction, with two royal justiciars, Matthew de Venabulo and John de Valle. In 1172 King William II ordered Robert and Count Richard of Gravina with the chamberlain (camerarius) of the Terra di Lavoro to determine whether the monastery of Sora had been gifted by William's predecessor, Roger II, with the rents of four churches. [4] In 1173 he, two royal justiciars, and a chamberlain were in Capua to adjudicate a case relating to the abbey of Santa Sofia of Benevento. [5] In 1176 Tancred of Lecce succeeded Richard of Gravina as constable and justiciar in the same district as Robert. While Tancred generally held court at Bari, Barletta and Troia, Robert was generally at Caserta, Capua or Aversa. The equal competence of either is illustrated by Robert's advice to the monks of Casauria that they could seek justice from either him or Tancred (1182). [4]
Capua is a city and comune in the province of Caserta, in the region of Campania, southern Italy, situated 25 km (16 mi) north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain.
William II, called the Good, was king of Sicily from 1166 to 1189. William's character is very indistinct. Lacking in military enterprise, secluded and pleasure-loving, he seldom emerged from his palace life at Palermo. Yet his reign is marked by an ambitious foreign policy and a vigorous diplomacy. Champion of the papacy and in secret league with the Lombard cities he was able to defy the common enemy, Frederick I Barbarossa. In the Divine Comedy, Dante places William II in Paradise. He is also referred to in Boccaccio's Decameron.
Sora is a town and comune of Lazio, Italy, in the province of Frosinone. It is built in a plain on the banks of the Liri. This part of the valley is the seat of some important manufacturing, especially of paper mills. The area around Sora is famous for the costumes of its peasants.
In the autumn of 1176, Robert accompanied Richard Palmer and Alfanus of Camerota with twenty-five galleys to Saint-Gilles to take custody of Joan, daughter of Henry II of England, who was betrothed to William II. [6] In 1182, following royal orders, Robert and Tancred of Lecce were in Aversa to pass judgement in the case of the Bishop of Marsia, who was unable to enforce his rights over the monastery of San Bartolomeo di Avezzano, which was supported by Gentilis de Palearia. [5] The high standing of the litigants probably necessitated joint action by the justiciars. A list of those plaintiffs who required both justiciars to adjudicate during Robert's career suggests this: the Bishops of Teano and Sessa in 1171, the monastery of La Cava in 1171, 1177 and 1182, the Bishop of Venosa in 1176, the monastery of Montecassino in 1180, the Bishop of Benevento in 1180 and 1185, the Bishop of Bari in 1181, and the Bishop of Troia in 1183. [4]
Alfanus of Camerota was the Archbishop of Capua from 1158 until his death around 1180. He was a very close friend to Pope Alexander III.
Saint-Gilles or Saint-Gilles-du-Gard is a commune in the Gard department in southern France.
Joan of England was a queen consort of Sicily and countess consort of Toulouse. She was the seventh child of Henry II, King of England and Eleanor, Duchess 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.
While at Aversa in 1182, Robert gave orders to the chamberlain of the Principality of Salerno "as though he was his normal superior". Robert was succeeded after his death by Count Roger of Andria. [4]
The Lombard Principality of Salerno was a South Italian state, formed in 851 out of the Principality of Benevento after a decade-long civil war.
Roger, count of Andria and Great Chamberlain of Sicily, was a claimant for the Sicilian throne after the death of William II in 1189. He is claimed by some to have been a great-grandson of Drogo of Hauteville, but this cannot be proven.
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".
The Province of Caserta is a province in the Campania region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Caserta, situated about 36 kilometres (22 mi) by road north of Naples. The province has an area of 2,651.35 square kilometres (1,023.69 sq mi), and a total population of 924,414 as of 2016. The Palace of Caserta is located near to the city, a former royal residence which was constructed for the Bourbon kings of Naples. It was the largest palace and one of the largest buildings erected in Europe during the 18th century. In 1997, the palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Richard Drengot was the count of Aversa (1049–1078), prince of Capua and duke of Gaeta (1064–1078).
Jordan I, count of Aversa and prince of Capua from 1078 to his death, was the eldest son and successor of Prince Richard I of Capua and Fressenda, a daughter of Tancred of Hauteville and his second wife, also named Fressenda, and the nephew of Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. He, according to William of Apulia, "equalled in his virtues both the duke and his father."
Alfonso, also called Anfuso or Anfusus, 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.
Ranulf II was the count of Alife and Caiazzo, and duke of Apulia. He was a member of the Italo-Norman Drengot family which dominated the Principality of Capua for most of the century between 1050 and 1150. Ranulf's wife, Matilda, was the sister of King Roger II of Sicily.
Richard of Mandra was a Norman nobleman in the Kingdom of Sicily appointed count of Molise and chancellor by the queen regent Margaret of Navarre.
Richard, count of Acerra was an Italo-Norman nobleman, grandson of Robert of Medania, a Frenchman of Anjou. Brother of Sibylla, queen of Tancred of Sicily, Richard was the chief peninsular supporter of his brother-in-law during his claim for the throne in 1189.
Dipold, known in German as Diepold von Schweinspünt, was a German ministerialis who was raised to the Duchy of Spoleto in 1209. Of Bavarian origin, he was a reputed younger son of Berthold II of Vohburg and Adelaide of Ballenstedt. He was originally a vassal of the count of Lechsgemünd. His career in the Mezzogiorno was marked by continual raids and sieges, battles, and sacks recounted in exhaustive detail by Richard of San Germano, a monk of the abbey whose lands were especially hard hit.
Terra di Lavoro is the name of a historical region of Southern Italy. It corresponds roughy to the modern southern Lazio and northern Campania and upper north west and west border area of Molise regions of Italy.
The Italo-Normans, or Siculo-Normans when referring to Sicily and Southern Italy, are the Italian-born descendants of the first Norman conquerors to travel to southern Italy in the first half of the eleventh century. While maintaining much of their distinctly Norman piety and customs of war, they were shaped by the diversity of southern Italy, by the cultures and customs of the Greeks, Lombards, and Arabs in Sicily.
Casaluce is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Caserta in the Italian region Campania, located about 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of Naples and about 13 kilometres (8 mi) southwest of Caserta.
The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1139, involving many battles and independent conquerors. In 1130 these territories in southern Italy united as the Kingdom of Sicily, which included the island of Sicily, the southern third of the Italian Peninsula, the archipelago of Malta and parts of North Africa.
Florius of Camerota was a royal justiciar of the Kingdom of Sicily who worked an itinerant circuit throughout the Principality of Salerno, across different local jurisdictions, between 1150 and 1189. He hailed from Camerota in the Principality, and was a nephew of Alfanus, Archbishop of Capua. He was forced into a temporary exile in the Kingdom of Jerusalem (c.1165), but the intervention of the pope restored him. He moved in the highest circles in the kingdom and in Europe, serving as a diplomat to the Kingdom of England in 1176.
Matthew was the Archbishop of Capua from 1183, when he succeeded Alfanus of Camerota. He supported the claim to the Sicilian kingdom of Constance and her husband, the Emperor Henry VI, against that of the reigning monarch, Tancred of Lecce. Under Henry, he became a royal advisor and imperial familiaris (courtier) at the court in Palermo. After the cities of Aversa and Capua briefly rebelled against Tancred in 1191, it was probably Matthew who persuaded them to surrender without a fight to Henry. In 1198 Constance placed the Jewry of Capua, thitherto under royal protection, under the protection of the archbishop as a reward for Matthew's loyalty. He was also praised by Henry's panegyrist, Peter of Eboli, in his Liber ad honorem Augusti.
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.
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.
The Siege of Naples was a siege in 1191 during the expedition of Emperor Henry VI aiming to conquer Kingdom of Sicily. It lasted three months before Henry withdrew.