Emirate of Taranto

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The state structure in southern Italian Apulia , which was often incorrectly referred to as the emirate of Taranto and previously not uniformly designated , was a power structure in the vicinity of the city of Taranto that existed with interruptions from 839/840 to 880, but was conquered by Muslim but non-Arab units but by Berbers . As an emirate, unlike Bari , it was probably never recognized. Nevertheless, the state often appears under this name.

At least three fleets of Venice were defeated in the first few years - a series of pirate voyages led to the northernmost Adriatic - until the city came to the Longobards of Benevento . Although Taranto was conquered again by Saracens in 851/852 , Bari was now probably the more expansive of the Saracen metropolises in Apulia. While Bari was conquered in 871 by an army under the leadership of the Frankish emperor, in the case of Taranto this was not achieved until 880 by a Byzantine general.

Conquest by Saracens (839), victories over Venetians, raids as far as Istria (841/842)

The chronological order and the actors of the first conquest of Taranto by Muslim units is marked by contradictions. According to Konstantin Porphyrogenitus , Saba from Taranto also took part in the 15-month siege of Ragusa by the Aghlabids in addition to Sawdan and Kalfūn from Bari . Constantine places the siege in the 860s, but Taranto (and Bari) were conquered more than two decades earlier, so there can be no connection here. It is possible that there are two sieges of Ragusa, which the chronicler does not tell apart. Perhaps the renewed conquest of Taranto by the Saracens around 851/52 moved into the author's view.

Apparently the Muslim conquerors who had also ruled Taranto since about 840 and remained there until about 880 did not combine with those of Bari. Under the three emirs of Bari there were raids to Capua (841), Naples (856) and other cities, the Abbey of Montecassino was forced to pay tribute. In contrast, Taranto appeared as a surprisingly powerful sea power.

The Saracens there exerted so much pressure in the Adriatic that the Byzantine emperor tried to organize an alliance with Venice shortly after conquering the city. To this end, he sent the Patricius Theodosius in 840 with the request for a naval expedition against Taranto to the Doge Peter . The Doge gladly ("libenter") took on the title of Spatharius and, according to the chronicler Johannes Diaconus , sent a fleet of 60 ships ("sexaginta bellicosas naves") to the southern Adriatic. But in the Ionian Sea the Tarentines succeeded in completely crushing this fleet. Almost all Venetians were killed or captured. In return, the winners sailed to the northern Adriatic and attacked Istria . On March 30th they burned Ossero , then attacked Ancona , which they set on fire. They took many prisoners with them in order to attack Adria at the mouth of the Po without being able to cause any major damage. In the Otranto Canal they brought up another Venetian fleet that was on its way back to Venice. Also in 842 the Saracens sailed northwards and again defeated a fleet of Venice at Sansego . In 843 the Aghlabids, which had been operating in Sicily since 827, succeeded in conquering the important port of Messina . This happened, in contrast to a long series of pirate voyages in the western Mediterranean, which first appeared in the Imperial Annals in 798, when the Saracens attacked Mallorca with the aim of a permanent conquest. As early as 835, there is a first reference to recruited Muslim mercenaries in southern Italy. Presumably such units had set fire to Brindisi in 838 on behalf of Naples .

Taranto apparently attracted Saracens from different regions, such as Crete , which at that time was also subject to Islamic invaders, so that a pool of mercenaries was created in Taranto. The warring Lombard parties in Benevento, above all Radelchis , made use of this , as reported by the Chronicon Salernitanum (chap. 81, p. 80). A "Massari" played an essential leading role, as reported by the Latin sources.

Apparently certain diplomatic relations existed between Bari and Taranto. According to the Itinerarium Bernardi , the report of Franconian monks who wanted to travel to the Holy Land as pilgrims, the emir of the “civitas Saracenorum”, meaning that of Bari, issued them a letter of safe conduct . From the letters of safe conduct they promised themselves protection in Egypt, where they set off from Taranto. This is also an indication that Taranto was the more important naval port. Apparently, Siconolfo of Salerno, who, like all the pretenders in the dispute over the Lombard territories of southern Italy, used Saracen mercenaries to incorporate Taranto into his territory for a few years, evidently succeeded. In any case, Ibn al-Athir reports that a fleet had succeeded in re-conquering the city for the Saracens, while Bari was still controlled by Radelchis, who had installed a Pandone as Gastalden.

After the Saracens attacked Ostia in 846 , Emperor Lothar felt compelled to intervene to protect Rome with a new city wall west of the Tiber , and in the same year to send his son Ludwig to lead an army to the Longobard region. There, in the capital Benevento, the Saracens had established themselves. They plundered cities and monasteries or forced them to pay tribute.

Second Saracen phase (from 851/52), conquest of Bari under the leadership of Emperor Ludwig II (865–871)

Apparently the Saracens succeeded again in 851/52 to recapture Taranto from the Longobards. But now Bari played the more important role. In 865, Ludwig asked the men of northern Italy to assemble in Lucera in the spring of 866 to attack Bari. Both Erchempert and Lupus Protospatharius report on the battles for Matera . The conquests are likely to have made communication with Taranto at least difficult. Ludwig probably entered into negotiations for a dynastic marriage with the Eastern Roman Emperor Basil I in 868 , but the alliance did not materialize. When Bari resumed his raids in 870, Ludwig responded with a counter-campaign through Apulia and Calabria , albeit without attacking the urban centers of Bari and Taranto. Encouraged by his successes, he finally attacked Bari with the support of Frankish and Longobard units and a Slavic fleet. In February 871 the citadel fell .

Taranto was the last bastion of the Saracens for almost a decade. Tributes, but above all income from the slave trade , had benefited the local economy of Taranto, as had the trade in wine and pottery . The Franconian monk and pilgrim Bernardus reports on the trade in Christian slaves who were shipped from the port.

But Byzantium increasingly went on the offensive to recapture the southern Italian territories. In 880 the general Leon Apostyppes conquered the city for Constantinople . At that time there was an Uthman in the city. The Berber population was enslaved.

swell

In addition to the Chronica Sancti Benedicti Casinensis , the Chronicon Salernitanum and Erchempert's work as well as the pilgrims' report by Bernard and the Jewish chronicle of the 11th century, i.e. the works from Christian or Jewish pens, it is above all Al-Balādhurīs "Book of Conquests" that the Represents events from a Muslim point of view. He died in Baghdad around 892 . His information found its way, partly literally, into the important historical work of Ibn al-Athīr .

literature

  • Giosuè Musca: L'emirato di Bari, 847-871 , Edizioni Dedalo, Bari 1964, especially pp. 20-22, 25-28 and 130-132.
  • Pasquale Corsi: Taranto . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 8, LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-89659-908-9 , Sp. 470-474.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Alex Metcalfe: The Muslims of Medieval Italy , Edinburgh University Press, 2009, p. 17.
  2. ↑ Marco Di Branco, Kordula Wolf: Berbers and Arabs in the Maghreb and Europe, medieval era , in: Immanuel Ness (Ed.): The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration , Vol. 2, Chichester 2013, pp. 695-702, here : P. 700: “Taranto and Amantea most probably were not emirates.” (Quoted from academia.edu , p. 6). For example with Umberto Eco : Il Medioevo. Barbari, cristiani, musulmani , Encyclomedia Publisher, Milan 2010, p. 166; also (despite the above-mentioned objections) Andreas Obenaus: "... They have devastated the Moorish pirates". Islamic piracy in the western Mediterranean during the 9th and 10th centuries , in: Andreas Obenaus, Eugen Pfister, Birgit Tremml (eds.): Terror of the traders and rulers. Pirate communities in history , Vienna 2012, pp. 33–54, here: p. 41.
  3. ↑ Alex Metcalfe: The Muslims of Medieval Italy , Edinburgh University Press, 2009, p. 20.
  4. ^ Barbara M. Kreutz: Before the Normans. Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries , University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991, Paperback 1996, p. 37.
  5. ↑ Giosuè Musca: L'emirato di Bari, 847–871 , Edizioni Dedalo, Bari 1964, pp. 20–22 (quoted after that, p. 21, note 13).
  6. ↑ Andreas Obenaus: "... They have devastated the Moorish pirates". Islamic piracy in the western Mediterranean during the 9th and 10th centuries , in: Andreas Obenaus, Eugen Pfister, Birgit Tremml (eds.): Terror of the traders and rulers. Pirate communities in history , Vienna 2012, pp. 33–54, here: pp. 40 f.
  7. ↑ Giosuè Musca: L'emirato di Bari, 847-871 , Edizioni Dedalo, Bari 1964, p. 25
  8. ↑ Giosuè Musca: L'emirato di Bari, 847-871 , Edizioni Dedalo, Bari 1964, p 27 et seq.
  9. ^ Barbara M. Kreutz: Before the Normans. Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries , University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991, Paperback 1996, p. 40.
  10. ↑ Giosuè Musca: L'emirato di Bari, 847-871 , Edizioni Dedalo, Bari 1964, pp 130-132.
  11. ↑ Alex Metcalfe: The Muslims of Medieval Italy , Edinburgh University Press, 2009, p. 19.