Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Master's Theses Graduate College 6-2011 "Videbantur Gens Effera": Defining and erP ceiving Peoples in the Chronicles of Norman Italy Jesse Hysell Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses Part of the European History Commons Recommended Citation Hysell, Jesse, ""Videbantur Gens Effera": Defining and Perceiving Peoples in the Chronicles of Norman Italy" (2011). Master's Theses. 394. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/394 This Masters Thesis-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. "VIDEBANTUR GENS EFFERA": DEFINING AND PERCEIVING PEOPLES IN THE CHRONICLES OF NORMAN ITALY by Jesse Hysell A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty ofThe Graduate College in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the Degree of Master ofArts Department of History Advisor: Luigi Andrea Berto, Ph.D. Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, Michigan June 2011 "VIDEBANTUR GENS EFFERA": DEFINING AND PERCEIVING PEOPLES IN THE CHRONICLES OF NORMAN ITALY Jesse Hysell, M. A. Western Michigan University, 2011 The goal ofthis project is to analyze the ways different cultural groups in Sicily and southern Italy were depicted in a set ofhistorical texts associated with the Norman takeover ofthose regions in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. To achieve that aim, I consider social vocabulary applied to three distinct peoples (native Italians, Greeks, and Muslims) in five sources written by Amatus ofMontecassino, Geoffrey Malaterra, William ofApulia, Alexander ofTelese, and Hugo Falcandus. Although recent scholarship has posited that medieval identity was often felt through a "selfversus other" or "Christian versus non-Christian" dichotomy, I have not found that the actual language contained in my sources ever devolved into such simplistic, binary terms. On the contrary, the images these medieval historians constructed were informed, contingent, and rational. The highly nuanced depictions ofoutsiders were informed by the style and content oftheir texts, contingent upon the demands oftheir patrons and audiences, and rational in that the authors made politically prudent choices about what to write. Though the perceptions and definitions applied to these groups ofpeople were, admittedly, sometimes based on uninformed stereotypes, they were more often deliberately constructed images that were highly dependent on the cultural milieu in which they were created. Copyright by Jesse Hysell 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1 Preliminaries: Statement of Thesis and Outline ofMethodology 1 Historiography 12 Sources 22 II. PRAGMATICS AND HOSTILITY IN DEFINING THE MUSLIMS 31 Introduction: Terms ofReference 31 Anti-Islamic Rhetoric among the Chroniclers 32 Treachery, Pride, and Greed: Non-Religious Denigration of Muslim Characters 48 Positive and Ambivalent Portrayals of Muslims 61 Conclusions 78 III. THE LOMBARDS: EMPATHY AND ODIUM 82 Introduction: Terms ofReference 82 Hostile Vocabulary in the Eleventh-Century Texts 85 Three Interpretations of Civitate 88 The Princely Lombard Family of Salerno 93 Twelfth-Century Interpretations ofthe Lombards 99 Calabrians 107 Bari Ill Pisa and Venice 115 n Table ofContents—continued CHAPTER Conclusions 122 IV. CONTEMPT FOR THE GRAECI 127 Introduction: Terms ofReference 127 Stereotypes ofthe Byzantines 131 The "Greeks" ofSicily 143 William ofApulia and the Byzantines 148 Conclusions 151 V. GENS, NATIO, AND POPULUS 155 Introduction 155 Geoffrey Malaterra, William ofApulia, and Alexander ofTelese 156 Gens and Populus in the Liber de Regno Sicile 163 Conclusions 174 VI. CONCLUSION 176 Preface 176 The Image ofthe Saracens 177 The Image ofItalians 182 The Image ofthe Greeks 185 Gens, Natio, and Populus 188 Concluding Remarks 189 BIBLIOGRAPHY 190 in CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Preliminaries: Statement ofThesis and Outline of Methodology "At first Gisulf spurned Robert's offer, not because he might have joined his sister with a greater or nobler man, but because the Gauls seemed a savage people, barbarous, dreadful, ofinhuman mind (quia Galli I esse videbantur gens effera, barbara, dira,I mentis inhumanae"1 Thus William ofApulia recounted the initial reaction Robert Guiscard faced in his marriage proposal to Sichelgaita, sister ofGisulf II, the last Lombard prince ofSalerno. In this passage, the author has made a maximum statement about human relations through a minimal use oflanguage. The words, written at the end ofthe eleventh century, highlight the fierce tension present in a land of cultural contact, where diverse groups ofpeople were constantly interacting and, at times, competing. Here, the author has underscored the hostility with which the natives ofthe medieval Mezzogiorno perceived the region's latest arrivals, the Normans. Such a deeply prejudicial attitude toward these newcomers, expressed through four highly charged pejorative adjectives, reveals several important points. It suggests, to begin with, that the Lombards considered the Normans not only violent, but brutal in the extreme. Barbara emphasizes their foreignness, while effera, dira, and inhumana seem almost to imply that they were unthinking beasts rather than people. Yet even so, the fact that they constituted a gens makes it apparent that they were indeed one ofthe various 1William of Apulia, Gesta Roberti Wiscardi, 11.424—428. All translations mine. 1 "peoples" who inhabited the earth, albeit possessing certain unsavory characteristics that set them apart from the rest. All of these adjectives, of course, hinge upon the word "seem," expressed with the passive form ofvidere. William was supplying his readers with an impression, an appearance from the point of view ofa Lombard observer, and simultaneously taking great care to distance himself from such attitudes. These are, nevertheless, stereotypes in the truest sense ofthe word, in that they refer to the image, or fixed impression, that the prince of Salerno held ofthe Normans. Based on Germana Gandino's work on the writings of Liutprand ofCremona and Luigi Andrea Berto's analysis of John the Deacon's Istoria Veneticorum, the chief aim of this ethnographic study is to analyze the social vocabulary applied to peoples in the chronicles ofsouthern Italy and Sicily from the eleventh and twelfth centuries.2 During this so-called Norman period, these lands represented the quintessential frontier region of the central Mediterranean, where Latin Christian, Greek Christian, and Muslim influences collided and overlapped.3 Successive waves oftransalpine migration added a new element to this already complex dynamic, led to the eventual establishment ofa monarchy, and inspired a series oftexts chronicling the area's tumultuous history. 2Germana Gandino, // vocabolario politico e sociale diLiutprando diCremona (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, 1995); Luigi Andrea Berto, // vocabolario politico e sociale delta "Istoria Veneticorum" di Giovanni Diacono (Padua: II poligrafo, 2001). In particular see chapter eight ofGandino's study and chapter six of Berto's. As their titles indicate, both ofthese works covered a wide range of political and social terms and were not restricted to ethnography, as mine is. 3Foranoverview ofthe history of southern Italy prior to theNorman arrival, seeBarbara M. Kreutz, Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991); Vera Von Falkenhausen, La dominazione bizantina nell'Italia meridionale dal IXall'XI secolo (Bari: Ecumenica Editrice, 1978); G. A. Loud, "Byzantium and Southern Italy (876- 1000)," in The Cambridge History ofthe Byzantine Empire, ed. Jonathan Shepard (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 560-582. Finally, Jakub Kujawinski assessed the potential that medieval southern Italy offers for students ofcultural interaction in Jakub Kujawinski, "Le immagini dell'"altro" nella chronachistica del Mezzogiorno longobardo," Rivista Storica Italiana 118, no. 3 (2006): 768-815. 4Ontherise oftheNormans in southern Italy, seeHuguette Taviani-Carozzi, La terreur du monde. Robert Guiscard et la conquete normande en Italie (Paris: Fayard, 1996); G. A. Loud, TheAge of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (New York: Longman, 2000); Pierre Bouet, Assessing how the authors of these sources used language to define the "Saracen," "Lombard," and "Greek" inhabitants ofthis area represents an important step in better understanding cultural interaction in the High Middle Ages.5 The following sources6 will be used: Amatus ofMontecassino's L'Ystoire de li Normant, completed around 1080, which portrayed the Norman arrival in the Mediterranean as the unfolding ofdivine providence;7 William ofApulia's Gesta Roberti Wiscardi, finished probably in 1099 and composed as an epic poem focusing on the life ofRobert Guiscard;8 Geoffrey Malaterra's De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducisfratris eius, which was written at about the same time as William's Gesta, but as a prose narrative concerned mainly with the deeds of Robert Guiscard's younger brother, Roger;9 the Ystoria Rogerii regis Sicilie Calabrie atque Apulie, written by Alexander, abbot ofthe Benedictine monastery ofthe Holy Savior in Telese, Italy in the mid-twelfth century and meant to