ANGLO-NORMAN STUDIES XXVII PROCEEDINGS OF THE BATTLE CONFERENCE 2004 Edited by John Gillingham THE BOYDELL PRESS NORMANDY AND NORMAN IDENTITY IN SOUTHERN ITALIAN CHRONICLES Ewan Johnson In Book Eleven of his Ecclesiastical History Orderic Vitalis records the feelings of Robert of Montfort, who was in Italy after fleeing Normandy in 1106, upon discov- ering the presence of others from the duchy in the entourage of Bohemond, prince of Antioch (1098-1111): `there to his joy [Robert] discovered some of his own fellow countrymen. Hugh of Le Puiset and Simon of Anet, Ralph of Pont-Echanfray and Walchelin his brother, and many others from North of the Alps were there with Bohemond'. ) The suggestion is that those Normans from north of the Alps formed a separate group of countrymen to those of Norman descent now based in the South. The suggestion is all the more striking because it talks of Robert's feelings, suggesting that he was comforted by the presence of those familiar to him whilst in a strange land, and uses language, the word compatriotas, which Orderic often used to denote not just that two or more individuals shared a place of residence or ethnic origin, but specifically that they felt friendship and obligations to one another as a result of these link-s.2 Orderic therefore suggests that Robert felt some sense of shared identity with those from north of the Alps, but not to those of Norman descent then living in Italy. 3 Orderic is not a writer often credited with drawing a distinction between the different parts of the Norman world: 4 Although we should question the extent to which Orderic was informed about southern Italy, he was clearly interested in the deeds of those who went from the duchy to Italy in the eleventh century, and wove their adventures into a more general picture of Norman expansion.5 By the mid-1130s, when these passagesof the Ecclesiastical History were written, Orderic could, however, write as if these links were no longer perceived as sufficient to sustain a sense of shared identity between the inhabitants of the two regions when they Orderic, indeed, is happy break had actually met.6 to suggest that such a 1 Orderic vi, 100-1. Le Pulset is not in Normandy, perhaps suggesting that Robert felt closer the north- ern French generally than to the southern Normans. 2 Orderic ii, 68-9 (on feelings of the Norman Ansgot towards Abbot Thierry); Orderic ii, 222-3,258-9, 322-3.348-9 (on English loyalty to one another). 3A similar suggestion, making southern Italian Normans a group distinct in terms of kinship and home- land, occurs at Orderic v, 278-9. 4 As Marjorie Chibnall notes in her discussion of Orderic's technique and influence, the rediscovery of the text influenced both Haskins and Douglas in their portrayals of a unified Norman world: M. Chibnall, The Nonnarrs, Oxford 2000,114-17; C.H. Haskins, The Normans in European History, Boston and New York 1915; D. C. Douglas, The Norman Achievement, London 1969. Ralph Davis saw Orderic's influence as great but entirely distorting: R.H. C. Davis, The Normans and their Myth, London 1976,14-15. 5 On the limits of Orderic's information see G.A. Loud, `The Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of England', History 88,2003,540-67, at 546-8; Davis, Norman Myth, 63-4. 6 The two passageswere composed in their final form between 1135 and 1137. Orderic i, 47. 86 Anglo-Nonnan StudiesXXVII occurred as early as 1106 and, since he had been resident in Normandy for over 7 twenty years at that point, we might wish to believe him This break is not wholly due to the fact that Normans in the South had forgotten their origins in Normandy. The Normans in the South did indeed intermarry with existing elites, and by doing so enabled themselves to work alongside members of the Lombard aristocracies they had partially displaced. 8 Yet Italian charters from throughout the eleventh and twelfth centuries record a continual stream of individ- uals who refer to their Norman ancestry, albeit in diminishing numbers once the first immigrants die It is therefore Orderic Robert generation of .9 unlikely viewed of Montfort as isolated from southern Italian Normans simply because they had no knowledge of their Norman past, or because none of them could have described themselves as Norman. What I would instead argue is that what was understood to constitute Norman identity in the South had diverged from what was understood in the North, in much the same way as the Irish of Brooklyn have a fundamentally different ethnic identity to those of Dublin. This article concentrates on the construction of Norman identity within the two extant Latin histories of early Norman activity in Italy: William of Apulia's Gesta Roberti Wiscardi and Geoffrey of Malaterra's De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae cornitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius. 10 Both have featured in previous work on Norman identity, but always as texts in comparison with others from the corpus of Norman historical writing. The result has been that the similarities between them and texts from Normandy have implicitly been suggested as the central points in their portrayal of Norman identity. " On the other hand Kenneth 7 Orderic arrived at St Evroult in 1085: Orderic i, 5; vi, 552-3. 8 On intermarriage see: L. Buisson, 'Le piü antiche forme dell'organizzazione politica normanna', in I Normanni in Italia, ed. P. Delogu, Naples 1984,223-34; E. Cuozzo, 'Quei Maledetti Nonranni'. Cavalieri e organizzazione militare nel Mezzogiorno nonnanno, Naples 1989; V. D'Alessandro, 'Il nobile', in Condizione umana e ruoli social nel Mezzogiorno nonnanno-svevo,ed. G. Musca, Bari 1991,405-21; J. Drell, Kinship and Conquest: Family Strategies in the Principality of Salento during the Norman Period, 1077-1194, Ithaca, NY, 2002; G.A. Loud, 'How "Norman" was the Norman Conquestof Southern Italy? ', Nottingham Medieval Studies25,1981,13-34, at 23; G.A. Loud, 'Continuity and Changein Norman Italy: the Campania during the Eleventh Century', JMH 22,1996,313-43, at 325-32. V. von Falkenhausen 'I ceti dirigenti prenormanni al tempo della constitutzioni degli stati normanni nell'Italia meridionale a in Sicilia', in Forme di potere e stnrttura sociale in Italia nel Medioevo, ed. G. Rossetti, Bologna 1977, 321-77, at 326. On co-operation and mixed retinues see E. Cuozzo, ' "Milites" et "festes" nella contea normanna di Principato', Bullettino dell'Instituto storico italiano per it Medio Evo 88,1979,121-63; Loud, 'Continuity and Change', 332-3; G.A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard, Harlow 2000,288-9. 9 For summaries of the evidence from the documents of La Cava seeJ. Drell 'Cultural Syncretism and Ethnic Identity: The Norman 'Conquest' of Southern Italy and Sicily', JMH 25,187-202, at 198-200; gen- erally L: R. Manager, 'Inventaire des families normandeset franques 6migrees en Italic meridionale et en Sicile (Xle-XIIe siecles)', in Relazioni e communicazioni Helle Prime Giornate Nonnanno-Svevo del Centro di Studi normanno-svevi,Bari 1973, Roberto Guiscanlo e it suo tempo, Rome 1975,259-390. 10 M. Mathieu, ed. and trans., La Geste de Robert Guiscard, Palermo 1961. E. Pontieri, ed., De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardifratris eins auclore Gaufredo Malaterra, Bologna 1927. Graham Loud's extremely useful English translations of theseand other key texts are avail- able at http: //www. leeds.ac. uk/history/webleaming/MedievalHistoryTextCentrelmedievalTexts. html. 11 Graham Loud and Laetitia Boehm use them to draw out common characteristics in descriptions of the Normans: G.A. Loud, 'The Gens Nonnannorum: Myth or Reality? ', ANS 4,1980 (1981), 104-16; L. Boehm, 'Nomen gentis Normannorum: Der Aufsteig der Normannen im Spiegel der normannischen Historiographie', in I Normanni e for expansione in Europa nell'alto medioevo, Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studia sull'alto medioevo 16,1969,623-704. Emily Albu views the pessimism with the Norman character she claims they share with other texts as critical: E. Albu, The Nonnans in their Histo- ries: Propaganda, Myth and Subversion,Woodbridge 2001,106-44. Marjorie Chibnall sees'essential ele- ments' of the broader Norman myth in the two texts: Chibnall, Normans, 117-19. Normandy and Norman Identity 87 Wolf's study of the Normans in these texts is to my mind overly cautious about relating their constructions of Normanness to the societies in which they were produced. 12It is an explanation of how Normanness is constructed in these texts, and what this might suggest about the portrayal of Norman ethnicity and political power in southern Italy, that this article seeks to offer. William ofApulia's Gesta Roberti Wiscardi The Gesta Roberti Wiscardi is an epic poem written in dactylic Latin hexameters, which relates the history of eleventh-century Italy and its Norman conquerors in five books, the last two of which concentrate on Norman campaigns across the Adriatic. Its author was connected to the court of Roger Borsa, whom William acknowledges as patron and whose position as duke of Apulia (1085-1111) the poem defends against the rival claims of his half-brother Bohemond. 13Although there is as yet no scholarly consensus, the internal evidence from the text suggests that William, whether a native of or immigrant to southern Italy, had spent considerable time there before writing his poem. '4 Internal evidence suggests the poem was being written in the summer of 1097, and was completed soon after that of 1099.15 The poem contains no description of Normandy, but rather sets out from the start its intention to concentrate on how the Norman people used their military skills against the Greeks to capture southern Italy from them.