Richard of Capua

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Richard von Capua (also: Richard von Aversa , Richard Drengot or Richard Quarrel ; † April 5, 1078 near Naples ) was a Norman prince in southern Italy , Count of Aversa (1049-1078) and Prince of Capua (1059-1078).

Life

Richard was the son of the elder Asclettin , who was one of the first Normans to set foot on Italian soil and who was awarded the county of Acerenza in Melfi. Richard came to southern Italy in 1046, the same year as Robert Guiskard (Robert de Hauteville).

Amatus von Montecassino writes about him: "At that time Richard, Asclettin's son, came into the country, handsome and of noble, proud stature, young, fresh and of radiant beauty, so that everyone who saw him had to love him."

He was married to Fredesende von Hauteville, daughter of Count Tankred von Hauteville , with whom he had several children. Jordan of Capua, Bartholomeus of Caleno and Jonathan of Carinola. Fredesende was Robert Guiskard's sister.

Count of Aversa

As early as 1030 Richard's uncle Rainulf I , the father's brother, was enfeoffed with the county of Aversa by Sergius IV, Duke of Naples (1002-1036) .

Richard's older brother Asclettin the Younger succeeded his uncle as Count von Aversa in 1045, but died that same year. After his death, another nephew of Rainulf I, Rainulf II. Tricanocte , Aversian count (1045-1048). Rainulf II saw Richard's arrival at Aversa as a threat to his position and endeavored to get rid of him as quickly as possible, and therefore directed the interests of his rival cousin Richard to the Apulian possessions in the area around Acerenza and Genzano , which after Asclettin's death d. J. fell to Drogo from the Hauteville clan .

During this time Richard made friends with the brother and later successor of Drogo, Humfred . Genzano was the first city that Richard was able to occupy, which, however, appears to have been handed over to him by a liege of his brother. Here Richard was now able to gather a few followers around him.

When he died in 1048, Rainulf II left behind only his underage son Hermann. Therefore Drogo tried to bring the city into his possession by allied with Waimar IV of Salerno (also Gaimar) and installed a certain Wilhelm Bellabocca (also Bellbouche) as guardian of the boy and administrator of the county. Richard had already gotten into a feud with Drogo for the Apulian estates of Asclettin, with which the Drengot and the Hauteville clan, the two most powerful Norman families in southern Italy, finally clashed. In the feud fight Richard was caught and fixed by Drogo to the empowerment Aversas not to discourage. Wilhelm Bellabocca was quickly driven out by the Aversan population and Waimar IV also seems to have campaigned for Richard's release, so that in 1049 he became Count of Aversa, initially as regent for little Hermann, but soon not much was heard from.

While the Asclettin successors increasingly made Richard their leader, Robert Guiskard succeeded in advancing into the Hauteville clan. In the Battle of Civitate in 1053, the two Norman leaders fought side by side.

Prince of Capua

Since 1052 Richard had his eye on the Principality of Capua , which was founded by Pandulf IV until 1050 and then by his son Pandulf VI. had been ruled. He had little of the military strength or political ability of his foul father. After the death of Pandulf VI. In 1057 Richard immediately besieged the city. Since Capua was not prepared for a siege, the inhabitants could not withstand the Normans for long.

In the same year Richard besieged and conquered the county Aquino, which belonged to Gaeta, because the Duke Atenulf of Gaeta had refused to pay the morning gift for the planned wedding of Richard's daughter with Atenulf's son, because he was died shortly before the wedding. Without having a right, he nevertheless asked for a morning gift of 5,000 sous. While Aquino was starving, an agreement was reached through the mediation of the Abbot Desiderius of Monte Cassino, in which Richard agreed to a reduction in the demand to 4000 sous.

At the Council of Melfi in August 1059, Richard von Aversa was formally enfeoffed with the principality by Pope Nicholas II, while Robert Guiscard was installed as Duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily in order to make them vassals of Rome. Both princes swore an oath of allegiance to the Pope and assured him of their support. In this way, he ended the anti-Norman policy of his predecessors, as he was urgently looking for allies in the dispute with the German King Heinrich IV and the antipope Benedict X.

After 1061 he incorporated the surrounding smaller counties into his rule by reallocating them to his feudal people and by 1073 also brought the Duchy of Gaeta completely under his control.

Strategic alliance with the papacy

The oath was also renewed against Pope Alexander II , to whom he provided military assistance in his enthronement, on October 2, 1061 in Rome and against Pope Gregory VII on September 14, 1073 in Capua. The rapprochement with the papacy was prepared by Abbot Desiderius of Montecassino, with whom Richard had been in close contact for several years. The strategic alliance resulted in a large number of donations and transfers from churches and territories to this important center of church reform. Richard always saw papal politics as a counterweight to Robert Guiscard. The relationship between these two most important Norman leaders was tense after 1071, because Richard had supported attempts by the Apulian counts against the duke to rebel against the Supreme Court claims by Robert Guiscard. The reconciliation, mediated by Abbot Desiderius in 1075/76, then enabled joint military actions to siege Naples and Salerno. The Norman policy of expansion towards the Papal States led to the ban by the Synod of Lent in 1078, which was only dissolved shortly before Richard's death.

literature

  • J. Howe: Amatus of Montecassino, The History of the Normans. In: The English Historical Review. Volume CXXI, No. 490. February 1, 2006, ISSN  1477-4534 , oxfordjournals.org , doi: 10.1093 / ehr / cej043 , pp. 268-269.
  • Wilhelm von Giesebrecht : Annales Altahenses, a source writing on the history of the eleventh century made from fragments and excerpts. Dunker and Humblot, Berlin 1841, OCLC 557635137 , pp. 166 and 196, ( books.google.de ).
  • Alwin Sterz: Richard the First I, Count of Aversa and Prince of Capua: 1050–78. A contribution to the history of the Normans in southern Italy. (= Program of the Royal High School in Ploen. ) Plön 1879, OCLC 163065886 , pp. 1–30.
  • Lothar von Heinemann : History of the Normans in Lower Italy and Sicily. Volume 1. 1894, especially pp. 115-118.
  • John Julius Norwich : The Normans in the South 1016-1130. Longmans, London 1967. German: The Vikings in the Mediterranean. The southern kingdom of the Normans 1016–1130. Brockhaus, Wiesbaden 1974.
  • Ferdinand Chalandon : Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile. Paris 1907.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann Friedrich LeBret : History of Italy and all of the old and new states founded there. (= General World History. 40–46). Gebauer, Halle 1779, p. 292, ( books.google.com ).
  2. ↑ The conquest of southern Italy. (PDF, p. 21).
  3. ^ Wolfgang Jahn: Richard I. Quarrel, Count of Aversa, Prince of Capua († 1078). In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages. Part 7, 1995, col. 814-815.
  4. ^ Herbert Bloch: Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1986, ISBN 0-674-58655-7 , p. 1507, ( books.google.de ).
  5. ^ Amato, Prescott N. Dunbar, GA Loud: The History of the Normans. Boydell Press, 2004, ISBN 1-84383-078-7 , ( books.google.com ).
  6. ↑ Nicholas II - pope. In: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved May 9, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Richard of Capua
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Richard of Aversa; Drengot, Richard; Quarrel, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norman prince in southern Italy
DATE OF BIRTH 10th century or 11th century
DATE OF DEATH April 5, 1078
Place of death near Naples