1_Introducing the Uncertain Future of Lombard Southern Italy

“Drawing forth great sighs from the depth of my heart and though knowing that the account will be succinct and rough. I will pursue this subject so that this might be an example to posterity.” [1] Looking back melancholically on the turbulent ninth-century history of Southern Italy, the Lombard monk Erchempert stated in the prologue of his late-ninth-century work The Little History of the Lombards of Benevento that the task of recounting the region’s history weighed heavy on his spirit. The area represented an arena where the Frankish, later Ottonian, emperors, their Byzantine counterparts from Constantinople, and Muslims from Sicily and Africa sought to increase their influence amidst a patchwork of local polities relatively close to the popes in Rome. After the Franks under Charlemagne conquered the Lombard Kingdom in Northern Italy in 774, the Lombard Beneventan duchy remained the single independent Lombard polity. Their duke, Arechis II, started styling himself as the prince or princeps and altered the duchy into a principality. Following Arechis, four princes would rule this united principality. The assassination of the last of these, Sicard, catapulted Benevento into a succession crisis. Loyalists of Sicard fled Benevento and installed his brother Siconolf as a rival prince in the coastal city of Salerno. Radelchis, the former treasurer at the Beneventan court, became the new Beneventan prince. After a decade of civil war between 839 and 849 and an intervention by the Frankish Emperor Louis II, Salerno became the capital of a new principality encompassing half of Benevento’s former territory. Capua followed suit by declaring itself independent from Salerno in 861. In the end, the three rival Lombard princes in Benevento, Capua, and Salerno often fought with one another and had to deal with the aforementioned outside influences. Another set of factions to add to this mix were the polities of Amalfi, Gaeta, and Naples on the Tyrrhenian coast. During the ninth century, especially Naples would prove to be a tenacious opponent of the Lombard princes, who, aside from their infighting, had to additionally deal with their Tyrrhenian neighbors and the aforementioned external Islamic, Byzantine, and Frankish/Ottonian influences. This dynamic interplay would characterize Southern Italy until the eleventh-century Normans’ arrival, involvement, and conquests reshuffled the region’s dynamics. [2]

This regional rivalry and dissension all too often materialized in intrigue and infighting. It formed the premise for Erchempert’s sadness when he penned the prologue’s words cited at the beginning of his Little History. [3] A hundred years later, the anonymous author of the Chronicle of Salerno (chronicon Salernitanum) revised this tenuous history and continued it until their own time. [4] This paper sheds light on both sources’ depiction of these turbulent times through a close reading of narrated instances of bellicose brilliance by the exemplary princes of the Lombard Mezzogiorno. The article zooms in on how these texts highlighted successful martial behavior by the few shining examples of Lombard Southern Italy, intended as exemplary narrative passages that reminded the Lombards of who they could be.

Recently, Noble cautiously argued that Erchempert hinted at an image that, after the Frankish takeover of the Lombard north, the ‘real’ Lombards were those hailing from Benevento, i.e., the south. [5] Erchempert’s text reflects what Pohl has labeled as a southern regionalization of the Lombard identity. [6] Another point made by Noble was that one does not find much glorification of the Lombards in Erchempert’s tale. [7] Indeed, Erchempert’s work was not a history primarily intending to glorify the Lombard people but one seeking to show future readers the misery that dissension would bring. However, while this lack of glorification is especially true of the monk’s treatment of most of the later princes of his divided gens, one does see glorifying tendencies in the earlier laudatory segments of Erchempert’s piece. Significantly, earlier scholarship on the source commented on the distinction between a Beneventan l’âge d’or under their first princes and the gloomy days of the Cassinese’s monk’s present. [8] The monk’s dissension‑marked time, starting from 839 onwards, formed a clear textual contrast with the days in which the Lombards were still united under one Beneventan prince—a time Erchempert marked with depictions of effective martial demonstrations by these exemplary sovereigns embodying the ideals of a specific Lombard longing for liberty. There, one sees the exact moments in which Erchempert hinted at an image of the Beneventans as the ‘true’ Lombards—in other words, of the Southern Lombards figuring as the legitimate successors of the fallen Lombard Kingdom. These specific martially adept Lombard princes served as exemplary counterpoints compared to the flailing princes of Erchempert’s days. The symbolic significance of these bellicose depictions and successes should not be underestimated. Military aptitude was a skill valued highly by the elites of Lombard society. [9] This significance opens up a line of argumentation to build on and expand Noble’s argument of Erchempert depicting the Beneventans as the ‘legitimate’ Lombards by arguing that the monk achieved this image through the glorification of these earlier princes’ military capability—an idea taken over and molded further by the author of the later Chronicle of Salerno. Even though the prologue of this text has not survived, Kreutz has argued that this later chronicle similarly depicted the Lombards as a prideful and independent-loving people. [10] Moreover, the chronicler subtly altered Erchempert’s message into one in which Salerno and its princes stood at the forefront representing this idealized Lombard independent-mindedness.

Both authors might have been inspired by Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards, in which the well-known Lombard historian expressed the dignity and power of the Lombards through their bellicose virtue and military deeds. That indirectly demonstrated the importance and admiration of these skills by the Lombard aristocracy, even after the conquest of their kingdom in 774 since Paul composed his work after the Fall of Pavia to the Franks. By highlighting their martial skills, Delogu argued, Paul expressed a certain “Lombard national consciousness.” [11] Paul’s narrative aim and audience have been widely discussed, with hypotheses that he primarily wrote for a Frankish and Northern Lombard audience, that he focused on a Beneventan readership, or that he intended his work to have an open-ended character. [12] While I do not argue for a specific Beneventan-oriented agenda in Paul’s work, it is crucial to underline that his historia’s influence on the Southern Lombard historiographical tradition was profound—both Erchempert and the Salernitan Chronicle mention the deacon, [13] whom Paul Brown aptly labeled as the pater historiae of the Lombard South. [14] Both historiographers would have been aware of Paul’s narrated form of this consciousness and, paired with the regionalization mentioned above of the Southern Lombard identity, they seem to have gained inspiration from Paul’s foundation to evolve Paul’s message of a certain Lombard consciousness into one fitting to the context of Southern Italy. Inspired by Paul the Deacon, their texts seem to evoke a particular image of the Southern Lombards as a liberty-loving gens, a sentiment labeled in this paper as their independent-mindedness that will be dealt with in greater depth in the third section. However, the exact ways in which Erchempert and the Chronicle of Salerno depicted said independent-mindedness by casting their princes in the military spotlight remains a question this article seeks to explore further. Where does this sentiment appear? What is the narrative function and form of these depictions in Erchempert and the chronicon Salernitanum in light of the uncertainty of their present futures?

This article will demonstrate that the texts reveal a distinct regional Lombard sentiment, expressed through narrative episodes evoking a sense of a fierce longing for liberty depicting successful resistance against foreign incursions. Close readings will zoom in on the exemplary martial conduct of the Lombard princes to increase our understanding of these narratives. First, the link to the journal issue’s theme of present futures will be briefly explained by clarifying the connections between the past, present, and future in medieval historiography. Further discussion focusing on the Lombards’ longing for independence will follow this. This sentiment arose during violent exchanges between Lombards and outside forces. Then, the article’s following segments will analyze how Erchempert and the Salernitan chronicler depict these instances amidst a present uncertainty for the future.

2_Present Futures and the Social Logic of Medieval Narratives

Historiography always maintains a link with its contemporary context, and written statements of past events are never set in stone. Historiographical narratives inherently possess a certain flexibility. Balzaretti and Tyler define narrative as “the principal means by which coherence or order is given to events in the act of shaping up an account of them.” [15] History-writing presupposes a particular fluidity of history—it matters who tells what story, where, for whom, with what intent, and in what context. This malleability has characterized historiography since its invention and shapes its examination. These two fundamental characteristics—a connection to a contemporary context and history’s fluidity—reveal that an in-depth analysis of narrative texts in which history is created or rewritten is crucial for a deeper comprehension of past and present societies. As Berto has implied for Erchempert, [16] medieval historiography followed the age-old proverb historia magistra vitae (history is the teacher of life), which implies that one looks to moral lessons from the past to find guidance for the future. [17] These characteristics make clear that medieval historiographers thought about time and were interested in applying this thinking to the immediate future of their present surroundings.

Crucially, the texts at issue here possessed what Spiegel famously calls the “social logic of medieval texts.” [18] This notion implies that texts were simultaneously influenced by and tried to influence the social contexts in which they were composed. Authors composed and revised their texts while influenced by their social contexts, and the resulting texts themselves were also agents at work in that world. To achieve this effectively, a source’s intended audience had to be able to understand it as a precondition for any influenceability. [19] Authors worked within a specific textual tradition, a particular social logic, which provided and limited the room for maneuver in their efforts to potentially alter their contexts. [20] In other words, texts, as entities operating in a social logic, or what Rogge labels as narrative communities, were the means through which authors signified their world, gave it meaning, and interpreted it. In turn, audiences who interacted with these works could be influenced by them or alter their content for their own purposes. [21] Crucially, a narrator’s aim and how a narrator depicts a scenario, i.e., its narrative form and function, are crucial research angles. [22] If a narrative were to have any lasting effect, it also simply had to be a good story that was considered meaningful and memorable. A memorable scenario for an audience that they could repeatedly play out in their minds while reading or listening to the tale would certainly aid any attempts at changing a social context that an author intended to influence. [23] That could be achieved in several ways, such as by attaching an emotional dimension to a text, by rhetorical passages, gestures, or by adding scenes in which one’s ruler became involved. That leaves three dimensions that characterize narrations: a memorable form, a narrative aim or function, and a source’s contemporary context. [24] They played a role during the Lombard author’s attempts to shape a discourse about their people’s independent-mindedness, to which we will turn next.

3_Southern-Italian Lombard Independent-Mindedness

The historical context introduced briefly in the first segment boosted a sentiment best described as a strong Lombard independent-mindedness in the face of the constant external threat from multiple angles. However, are these images of striving towards freedom to be viewed as reflections of an innate independent-mindedness characteristic of Lombard society that the sources drew inspiration from? Or, instead, did the authors aim to instill these feelings in a divided society characterized by present uncertainty? Both seem to be the case because the narratives reflect a sense of Lombard independent-mindedness that appears to have permeated Southern Lombard society. They also seem to try to inspire their intended readership by depicting this sentiment for which they would have found a precedent in the famous work of their Lombard precursor Paul the Deacon.

Indeed, some historical examples hint at such an independent-minded sentiment amongst the Lombards of Southern Italy. There always had been autonomic tendencies amongst the Beneventans, and tensions persisted between the northern Lombards and those of Benevento, even under the days of the Lombard Kingdom. Paul the Deacon hints at that by stating that some soldiers of the Lombard army under the seventh-century King Grimoald, the former Duke of Benevento, deserted because they believed the king would take up his former seat in the Mezzogiorno and have its palace adorned with the north’s riches when he would march there. [25] These feelings of autonomy heightened after Charlemagne conquered the Lombard North in 774. Arechis II’s adoption of the title of prince (princeps) to replace his title of duke (dux) was an unmistakable response to the Frankish takeover of the kingdom up north. It was a clear statement of his independence, that is, that he did not consider himself subjected to the now Frankish occupants of the Lombard throne, but he also did not outrightly claim to be a king himself. [26] The ninth- or tenth-century hagiographer of the Life of Barbatus of Benevento even placed the use of the title prince further back in time by referring to the seventh-century Duke Romuald I of Benevento as princeps. [27] The hagiographer created an image that the Beneventan dukes had been princes long before they actually held the title. The title allowed Arechis II to act as a king, without actually being called one, by, for example, incorporating new laws to the Lombard law code, a prerogative previously only exercised by the Lombard monarchs. [28] Also, Prince Arechis II’s marriage with Adalperga, a daughter of the last Lombard King, Desiderius, possessed a symbolic meaning that got turned upside down after his fall in 774. Whereas prior to 774, it would cement the link between Benevento and the northern Lombard court at Pavia, now it was an additional means through which Arechis, and later his son Grimoald III, could present themselves as the natural successors of the last Lombard king, as the leaders of the remaining independent Beneventan Lombards. [29] It was not solely Arechis II or his son who acted independent-mindedly. The Siconid dynasty—consisting of the princes Sico and Sicard, who ruled over Benevento between 817 and 839—advocated Benevento as not only the epicenter of Southern-Lombard Christianity but also the primary location for the entirety of Southern-Italian Christendom. This was attempted through relic translations and appropriations of competing saint’s cults, such as that of St. Januarius, the patron saint of their Neapolitan rivals. [30]

The core component of independent-mindedness was the Lombards’ love, maybe even longing, for liberty. [31] Granier labeled it a specific Lombard ethnic sentiment, a genuine feeling of a local identity that differentiated them from everyone else. [32] In other words, the portrayals the sources provide in which the Lombards and their princes express their independent-mindedness seem to be based on a feeling that might have been present in the society of Lombard Southern Italy. Thus, the region’s sources central to this discussion reflect this sentiment: Erchempert appears to be the Lombard advocate petitioning for freedom for Southern Italy’s Lombards against foreign invasions. [33] Moreover, the Salernitan chronicler similarly depicted the Lombards as a proud people vehemently defending their independence. [34] Granted, with the possible exception of the hagiography of Barbatus, the examples from the previous paragraph originate from before 839, when a civil war erupted in the once-united Lombard South. However, it might have been for this exact reason that the two later Lombard authors highlighted the freedom-longing sentiment in this particular period, since it stood in opposition to the reigns of later princes who were more concerned with infighting. As we will see in this paper, Erchempert ceased highlighting these sentiments after the Siconids came to power in Benevento in 817. Still, the Salernitan chronicler subtly altered the monk’s narrative to make Salerno and the Salernitan princes stand out amongst their peers of the divided Mezzogiorno.

Varying foreign intruders on the Southern Italian playing field kindled the flames of said Lombard fury for freedom at different stages of the ninth century. During the late eighth and most of the ninth century, Frankish incursions by Carolingian rulers such as Charlemagne, Pippin of Italy, and Louis II, proved fundamental for the heightened feelings of independence amongst the Southern Lombards and their princes. They did not regard Carolingian claims of overlordship over the South of Italy as legitimate. Byzantium figured less prominently at this earlier stage since it was only marginally present compared to the last decennia of the ninth century. [35] It all changed in the latter half of the ninth century. Then, the main impulse of this regional liberty-loving feeling was Byzantium’s increasing military success, in which they even conquered Benevento for a time. The Byzantine Empire was a “catalyst promoting a distinctive Lombard national sentiment in the south.” [36] The sources also reflect this: in different narrative scenarios depicting events at distinct points in time, various enemies could serve as the foreign adversaries instigating this ethnic sentiment. One of this article’s aims is to point out the subtle differences through which both narratives construe this image.

Erchempert’s most explicit expressions of a Lombard ethnic feeling came to prominence against Frankish threats from the early days following the Frankish takeover of northern Lombardy. [37] The Salernitan author adopted this story, embellished it further, and gave it a Salernitan twist by positing that all critical events of this conflict have purportedly taken place in Salerno. [38] However, during later episodes, the anonymous author underlined Byzantium’s increasing role as a dangerous enemy on the Apennine Peninsula. The victories of the princes of Salerno over Constantinople became the shining moments of their reigns, and the Salernitan source kept silent about more friendly diplomatic instances between the coastal city and Constantinople. [39] Contrarily, as noted by several scholars, Erchempert’s text exhibited much more ambiguity toward Byzantium; [40] still, it was a polity that he considered alien. [41] For instance, his only lackluster treatment of Byzantium’s conquest of Benevento in the 890s grants the impression that the tension created by this unfortunate event for the Lombards, contemporaneous to the moment he wrote his history, was too overwhelming to report on more vividly. [42] The Salernitan chronicler had a greater temporal distance from the late ninth century when tensions with Byzantium reached their climax. It offered more room to embellish the narrative of these earlier events. Like Erchempert, the anonymous author seems to have felt a similar unease to incorporate more contemporary events in his text, as most of this source’s chapters offer a revision of the history of the ninth century. [43] The tension accompanying the depiction of more contemporary events also reveals that these texts were not merely recollecting tales of the past. Moreover, the variety in which both authors told the stories of exemplary Lombard heroes embodying their aspirations and struggles for liberty demonstrates that such a feeling was vibrant and alive since it was constantly adapted to new contexts. [44]

Benevento’s location, relatively distant from the Carolingian sphere of influence, allowed for a regionalization of the Lombard identity. Still, at its core, it maintained strong links to the Lombard tradition. [45] The Salernitan chronicler would build upon this and, amidst this general regional feeling of Lombardness, shape an image in which the Salernitans were at the forefront of defending the Lombard identity. Pohl identified recurring topoi associated with the Lombards that the narratives might have utilized to retain a sense of Lombardness even after the fall of their kingdom. These included universal tropes such as bravery in battle and striving for liberty, feats usually seen as positive throughout the Middle Ages. [46] Still, at these exact moments, the Lombard princes embodied the ideals of Lombard independent-mindedness. They followed the ideal of a Lombard ruler who demonstrated success and courage on the battlefield. [47] Significantly, in the Middle Ages, experiencing warfare was not as far removed from daily life as nowadays. [48] Depictions of warfare in medieval historiography were omnipresent in narrative sources. [49] Their performative potential was compelling precisely because of warfare’s universality. Indeed, this reveals the merit of investigating the manifestation of the defining moments for the Lombards’ independent-mindedness in the narratives.

4_Erchempert’s Hope for Better Days

Perhaps unexpectedly, after the pessimistic prologue quoted in the introduction, the Lombard monk Erchempert starts by lauding the first princes of Benevento and represents this time as a sort of golden age compared to the gloomy days of his present. It is also the more thoroughly researched text of the two, and several scholars have noted this contrast with his depiction of the later Lombard lords. [50] While these latter princes only seldom received praise for their military valor, the earliest Beneventan sovereigns were all honorable men who defended their homeland against the, in their eyes, Frankish interlopers, Charlemagne and his son Pippin of Italy. As stated before, engagements with the Franks heightened the Southern Lombard feeling of independent-mindedness at this earlier stage. They figured as the dangerous aggressor and represented the considerable hegemonic power that the Frankish Empire had become since the middle of the eighth century. [51] All this magnified the princes’ feats since the grander the enemy, the greater the victory over such a foe.

The first two of these, Arechis II and his son Grimoald III, could even claim a dynastic link to the last Lombard monarch, Desiderius, due to Arechis’ marriage to the king’s daughter and Grimoald’s mother, Adalperga. As mentioned earlier, during the beginning of his reign, this solidified the link between the Beneventan duke and the king. However, later on, the marriage became an additional way for him to claim to be the only legitimate Lombard ruler against the, in his eyes, illegitimate Frankish intruders, Charlemagne and his son Pippin of Italy. [52] Erchempert underlined Arechis II’s marriage link as one aspect of a character portrait rendering him the ideal ruler. [53] The monk also pointed out how he, inspired by the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, founded St. Sophia in Benevento and several other Christian foundations. Furthermore, he established the coastal fortress and city of Salerno on the Campanian coast, which was more defendable than Benevento in case of a Frankish incursion. [54]

Arechis’ military response to these Frankish incursions also fits into the broader framework of his image as the exemplary prince. Alarmed by the impending Frankish invasion, he mercifully made peace with the Neapolitans, who were exhausted by the Lombards’ martial valor. Despite facing an overwhelming Frankish foe that he resisted valiantly, he made peace with them by paying tribute and offering his son Grimoald and daughter Adelchisa as hostages. He did this not out of weakness, so stresses Erchempert, but to spare his subjects from further suffering caused by the Frankish soldiers behaving like destructive locusts. The peace was a wise decision made by a caring yet valiant leader. [55] It juxtaposed the Lombards with the Franks, whose comparison to locusts destroying everything to the roots presented them in a negative Biblical light. Most famously mentioned as one of the ten plagues of Egypt in the Exodus [Ex 10: 1–20], swarms of locusts frequently appeared in war narratives because of their often unexpected and sudden arrival. [56] Allusions to animals, even insects, could serve as narrative tropes to further dehumanize an enemy. [57] This also reveals how Erchempert put the Lombard cause to the forefront: he directly juxtaposed the brave and martially able Lombards with the Frankish hordes of locusts. It was not a matter of one decisive action but the sum of all achievements that Erchempert drew on to put the Lombards and their leader Arechis on the moral high ground. Arechis’ behavior as the prince was that of a ruler who, like the brave Lombard kings of old, the Lombards should and could be proud of. Contrarily, Charlemagne and his son, Pippin of Italy, were depicted as mindless conquerors devastating the region. Their dehumanization at the hands of Erchempert automatically made the Lombards the morally superior side. Arechis, as a sort of Founding Father of Lombard Benevento, was the morally perfect sovereign of the Lombards fighting for their independence.

His son, Grimoald III, had to fill those grand shoes when he returned from Aachen to become the new Beneventan prince in 787. Immediately, the monk connected the start of his reign with the Lombard tradition via a statement regarding their physical appearance. Namely, Charlemagne let Grimoald III return to Benevento on the condition that he used the Frankish king’s name on his coinage and had his subjects’ beards shaved. While he adhered to the first rule for a while, he refused to obey the second since the long beards granted the Lombards, or langobardi in Latin, their name. [58] Indeed, during a battle in their earliest days, the Vandals outnumbered the still-pagan Lombards. The Lombard women held their hair to their chin to make their army seem more numerous. Then, Wodan asked whom all these Longbeards were, simultaneously giving them their name and granting them their victory. [59] It is unwise to take this tale for truth, but it reveals how allusions to their textual tradition were essential for the Southern Lombard ethnic sentiment. [60] While it is highly unlikely that the way the Lombards sported their beards remained unchanged over the centuries, [61] Erchempert’s depiction of Grimoald refusing to give up this sign of identity determined his future rebellious course against the Franks. [62]

The monk continued by lauding single acts of military bravery against foreign enemies. The outcomes of such acts are the moments carrying the decisive weight in medieval martial narrative scenarios. [63] For Grimoald III, this decisive action was a speech that he held during an engagement against the Franks under Pippin of Italy as part of a longer-lasting enmity against the Carolingian monarchs in which, among other feats, Grimoald III had managed to capture the Duke of Spoleto, Guinichis, and his warriors. [64] Erchempert portrays that Grimoald III and his Frankish rival Pippin, two young and warlike men, often clashed yet the Lombard always emerged victorious. Despite constantly losing, Pippin stated through his ambassadors that, as his father, Arechis II, was once the subject of Desiderius, so should Grimoald become Pippin’s subject. Grimoald responded that he, like his parents, was born free and would always remain free with God’s help. [65]

Speech scenes in martial narratives, including classical battle speeches and rhetorical exchanges such as the one between Pippin and Grimoald, were a highlight of medieval bellicose narrations. [66] They can function as implicit comments on the narrated situations since speech acts are a part of an actor’s overall behavior, i. e., the combination of their words and deeds, and give a historiographer the possibility to concretize difficult situations, heighten the atmospheric potential of narrations, and clarify the actions of the figures involved. [67] The most impressive speeches were those in which deeds and words successfully intertwined. [68] Erchempert clarifies that only one of these warlike men aligned his words with his deeds. That is, only Grimoald III backed up his words appealing to liberty with acts that protected the freedom of his people, and he even invoked God in the process, making it clear that the Lord was on their side as well.

Pippin called Desiderius the King of Italy, and Erchempert reveals how the foreigner Pippin was unaware of the Lombard tradition. The Lombard kings had never used that title, whereas he depicted Grimoald as the freedom fighter who put his trust in God. [69] The subtle expressive difference between Pippin’s wish in the Latin subjunctive mood (ita sit mihi et Grimoalt!), and Grimoald’s statement in the indicative, that he is and always will be free (liber […] natus sum […] semper ero liber) further reinforces the righteousness of Grimoald’s cause as righteous. [70] Grimoald could corroborate his words with a realistic situation, whereas Pippin could merely state his illegitimate wishes. Taking all this into account, not only did Erchempert become the spokesperson for Southern Lombard independence, [71] but he also explicitly put Grimoald III in this role.

Under the reign of the last of the princes of Benevento’s golden age, Grimoald IV, the first cracks began to appear in Benevento’s unity. This prince had no biological connection to his predecessors and was unrelated to the last Lombard king. It resulted in the aristocracy perceiving him more as a primus inter pares instead of their sovereign. Strong connections and negotiating with the Beneventan aristocracy were more essential to his rulership compared to his predecessors. [72] A possible reason for his rise to the princely throne might have been, as the chronicon Salernitanum claimed, his military successes against the Franks. [73] However, after he had dealt with the immediate Frankish threat, the infighting so lamented by Erchempert began in full swing. The monk narrates that a certain Dauferius attempted to assassinate the prince, but God prevented it, after which the plotters fled to Naples. [74] On the receiving end of divine favor, Grimoald IV besieged Naples and massacred the city’s inhabitants in a battle where he pursued them until his spear struck the gate that closed just before him. Allegedly, the deceased’s bones were still visible in Erchempert’s day. Grimoald IV only ceased his assault after being paid off by the Neapolitan duke. As a merciful and good Christian prince, he reinstated Dauferius at Benevento. Still, he was murdered by two other nobles, Radelchis, the Count of Conza, and Sico, the Gastald of Acerenza, who would become the next prince of the city. [75]

What is striking here is Grimoald’s personal participation. He was the prince who was willing to put his own life at risk to avenge injustices. Here we see another way for medieval authors to handle a scene of conflict by zooming in on the leader’s participation through concrete martial action. Medieval battles were confused, messy, and bloody affairs that, as Keegan puts it in his analysis of Agincourt in his famous The Face of Battle, “even those [battles] fought in the closest of close order, are not, in the last resort, combats of mass against mass, but the sum of many combats of individuals.” [76] It makes sense that a chronicler would zoom in or place the (former) leaders of the polities they were writing for amidst the chaos of combat to maximize the potential narrative impact of such a scenario. Fabricated or not, this trope enabled Erchempert to highlight Grimoald IV’s courage, again against a foreign enemy in a message that revealed to what lengths the prince was willing to go to protect the integrity of the Lombards of Benevento.

The passage also contains another example of a war-related speech scene. The wailing widows of the massacred Neapolitan men chastised their duke for sending their husbands to a preventable fight because the duke should have known the Lombard prince was unvanquishable in combat. [77] Such a meta-image, in which an enemy spoke of their foe’s military strength, indirectly legitimized that enemy’s cause. [78] At that time, the Lombards’ enemies were driven to desperation by their military actions. However, this cause would be the last military feat lauded by the Cassinese monk since he presented Grimoald IV as the final martially capable prince of the Beneventan Lombards. After that, Erchempert would tell the story of the Lombards’ fall into dissension, which caused him to utter the sorrowful sighs he alluded to in his prologue. Only occasionally would he highlight feats of individuals, such as that of the Capuan Lando, who fought like a lion, but these were not messages that revealed a Southern Lombard independent-mindedness from the times of Benevento’s quasi-Founding Father Arechis II, his son Grimoald III, and the latter’s successor in name and title, Grimoald IV. [79]

Erchempert showed his skill as a historiographer through the varied approaches with which he glorified each of these princes. He portrayed Benevento’s first prince, Arechis II, as a seemingly perfect prince, morally superior on all fronts against the Frankish interlopers—as a sort of Founding Father of an independent Lombard Benevento. Erchempert underlined Arechis’ son’s glory in a speech by Grimoald III against a son of Charlemagne, Pippin of Italy. Whereas the Frankish monarch could only utter wishes deemed illegitimate by the Lombard prince, the latter substantiated his freedom-fighting words with victories on the battlefield. The last of Erchempert’s glorious princes, Grimoald IV, excelled in the narrative firstly, because of his personal participation, demonstrated through his running up to the Neapolitan gates and secondly, in the indirect acknowledgment of his martial effectiveness by the wailing widows of Naples. In Erchempert’s own precarious days, the acts of these idealized princes seemed to belong to the past, and he aimed for these tales to serve as exemplary images to influence the future of his uncertain, dissension-filled present.

5_Lombard Independent-Mindedness in the Chronicle of Salerno

A century after Erchempert, in the 970s, an anonymous author composed the Chronicle of Salerno. He lived in an evolved political landscape that still saw the Lombards divided between the principalities of Salerno and Benevento-Capua. [80] The latter two were temporarily reunified under their prince, Pandulf I Ironhead, whereas Salerno stood alone under the rule of Prince Gisulf I. He was the last scion of a dynasty that had ruled the principality for four generations. The Salernitan chronicler seems to have had a close connection to his court [81] and possibly dedicated his text to him. [82] To reiterate, the vast majority of his work was a revision of the turbulent history of the ninth century. [83] The tension the author must have felt when narrating more contemporary affairs might have led him to focus more on these earlier times. The chronicle abruptly ended amidst a revolt that threatened to end this dynasty’s rule over the city and could only be quelled with the help of their Capuan-Beneventan rival, Pandulf. [84]

A recurring trope in the text is the revision of the history of the Southern Lombards into one in which Salerno was the primary city of the Lombard South. Its princes are represented as superior to the rivals from Benevento and Capua. In other words, the aforementioned regionalization of the Southern Lombard identity received a further Salernitanization at the hands of the coastal city’s chronicler in his text. As the most significant individuals in the Salernitan principality, the city’s princes embodied the external prestige of the Salernitans, a reputation that could increase through victories in war. This is why Salerno’s princes so often appeared in the forefront, akin to the military role of the earliest princes of the Beneventan principality. [85] As these earlier princes’ successors, their military successes bolstered their bellicose reputation and that of the city of Salerno and its inhabitants. It tied them to their illustrious predecessors who had ruled over a united Lombard South.

Expanding upon Erchempert’s portrayal of Arechis II, the Salernitan chronicler created an extensive foundation myth centering on this prince. [86] He also represented Arechis II as a sort of Southern-Lombard Founding Father. Crucially for the Salernitan cause, Salerno was also a city that, as we recall from Erchempert, Arechis founded because of its more defendable position in the case of Frankish incursions. [87] Crucially, the source narrates that the most significant events during Arechis’ reign would occur at Salerno. [88] In other words, the Salernitan chronicler took over Erchempert’s image of Arechis as a perfect prince. Still, he presented an image that Salerno was already the de facto capital of the united principality in the late eighth century. One example will have to suffice here: a Frankish dignitary traveled to the coastal city to meet the prince and arrange peace between Arechis and Charlemagne. Arechis prepared for the meeting by showcasing the city’s wealth: soldiers in different costumes were lined up, other men held exotic birds, and the prince sat on a golden throne. At Salerno’s gates, and upon their further route into the city, the Franks mistook another person for the prince and would repeat this mistake twice during the visit. This example reveals Arechis as a ruler of a city thriving in its independence and wealth to such a degree that a dignitary of the Franks could no longer distinguish between prince and servant. Salerno served as the de facto Lombard capital, replacing Benevento, and its wealth put the Frankish representatives in awe. The text even claimed Charlemagne himself posed as the Frankish dignitary. That would mean that the most powerful man of the Latin West was profoundly impressed by the city’s wealth and also indirectly admired Arechis’ rule over such a splendorous city. [89]

Arechis II’s son, Grimoald III, appears briefly in the text. After his release from hostageship in Aachen and festive reception in the main cities of the principality, he set to carry out the promises he had made. In the Salernitan version, Charlemagne ordered Grimoald to dismantle the fortifications of his cities upon his return. The shrewd prince obeyed but had improved fortifications built in their place. In this way, he kept his word literally but broke it in spirit. This fits into a larger category of ruses labeled as forged oaths. [90] In these situations, authors could make the protagonists seem clever and avert accusations of oath-breaking or unfaithfulness. [91] Indeed, the Salernitan chronicler depicted the shrewdness of a man described relatively briefly but unequivocally as a strong and capable prince of the Lombards who, as an astute individual, possessed a quality generally praised in the Middle Ages. [92] Significantly, the Salernitan chronicler altered the military culmination of the engagements against the Franks. Instead of positing Grimoald III in the spotlight as the spokesperson of the Lombard independent-mindedness, the chronicler shifts the attention to the military victories of his successor Grimoald IV against the Franks.

The case of Grimoald IV is marked by a complex ambiguity. The Salernitan source claimed he became the prince because of his military ability. [93] It has already been mentioned that this prince lacked a meaningful dynastic connection to his predecessors—he had to rely more on the Beneventan aristocracy, who regarded him as a first among equals, instead of their sovereign compared to the predecessors claiming dynastic descent from Desiderius. [94] Berto noted the differences between Erchempert’s positive depiction and the Salernitan chronicler’s ambivalent depiction of Grimoald IV. This discrepancy makes sense if one considers both sources’ intended audiences. Erchempert dreaded the dissension after Grimoald IV’s murder and wrote for a more traditionalist, Beneventan-oriented audience. [95] One of the main conspirators in the plot to murder Grimoald IV was his successor Sico. Sico’s son Sicard would succeed him, only to be assassinated in 839. After this latest murder, exiles and loyalists of this dynasty installed Sico’s other son, Siconolf, as the head of a new principality in Salerno. In other words, one of the men behind Grimoald’s murder was the father of the first prince of Salerno. The Salernitan text had to give a reasonable explanation for this murder that led to the rise to power of the dynasty that would create the principality of Salerno. It did so by denouncing Grimoald IV as a tyrant when it came to his management of the internal affairs of his realm to justify an assassination pivotal for the creation of the Salernitan principality that the source was writing for. [96]

Nevertheless, the Salernitan chronicler did his utmost to underline the martial capability of Grimoald IV since he had defeated the Franks on two occasions. He consulted with his men during the first clash while outnumbered by the Franks. One of them, Maio, pleaded to surrender and pay tribute to the invaders. Grimoald quickly dismissed him and took the advice of Rampho, who asserted that their ancestors preferred to die free than submit to the Vandals. Again, the reference to the clash of their Lombard forebears demonstrates another solid link to the Lombard tradition already pointed to above. Rampho would not survive the event, but Grimoald, moved to tears by Rampho’s death, had him buried honorably in Benevento. [97] Especially the emotion of grief displayed through crying indicated that something affected someone. Narrative instances where primary actors shed tears had greater potential resonance than instances where such an affectional display remained absent. [98] As the antithesis to Rampho, the coward Maio hid during the battle and was publicly humiliated by Grimoald. Grimoald appeared here as an effective leader who took the advice of a man who championed an agenda for freedom and honored him when he lost his life.

The second example hails from when Grimoald III still ruled the principality, and Grimoald IV served as his treasurer or stolesayz. The future Grimoald IV scouted the Frankish encampment disguised as a vagabond who happened to frequent the Frankish camp. With the help of the intelligence he acquired, he eliminated the Frankish threat via a nightly raid. The following day, when Pippin of Italy realized what had happened, he allegedly cried out that if the stolesayz could do such damage, the prince would be capable of even greater deeds upon which the Carolingian returned home. Here, we find a combination of a speech act, a cunning ruse, the personal participation of the leader, and a meta-image in which the enemy acknowledges Lombard valor. [99] This combination of tropes and the two victories over the Franks made Grimoald IV take over Grimoald III’s role as the central figure showcasing the Lombards’ love for freedom in the Salernitan chronicle. The source portrays Grimoald IV ambiguously as a perfectly imperfect prince. He was a capable defender of the Lombards and embodied their independent-mindedness in foreign affairs. On the internal front, though, he was an imperfect prince whose demise would be instrumental to the Salernitan principality’s ascendancy.

To reiterate, Erchempert, after portraying the first princes of Benevento favorably, pointed out only few moments of Lombard bellicose brilliance from the time in which the principalities had been divided. He remained rather laconic about the Salernitan princes. [100] On the contrary, the Salernitan source did convey an image of glorious martial princes of the dynasty of Gisulf I to make the city of Salerno and its princes stand out amongst its rivals from Benevento and Capua. Matters of space prevent a lengthier discussion here of how the Salernitan chronicler precisely demonstrated this. Still, this dynasty’s triumphs pervaded like a red line throughout the remainder of the work, also against different enemies than the Franks. The first of this dynasty’s princes, Guaiferius I, defended the city from a devastating Muslim siege. [101] In a lengthy description, the chronicler pointed out his participation and wise conduct against the Muslim danger. [102] His wife was also depicted bringing food to the men stationed on the walls. [103] The two successive princes, Guaimar I and Guaimar II, respectively, helped reconquer Benevento from Byzantine occupation and defeated the Byzantines at a dramatic battle at the Basintello River in Apulia. [104] By this time, the Greeks had replaced the Franks and Muslims as the primary opponent. Even though the ties between Byzantium and Salerno were at times amicable, the Chronicle of Salerno made the Salernitan victories over them the highlights of the reigns of these princes. [105] In both instances, another link was established with the Lombards of old, once more underlining their ethnic sentiment of defending their independence against foreign invaders.

The last prince of this dynasty, Gisulf I, carried forth the reputation of his ancestors. Pandulf I Ironhead, the rival prince of Benevento-Capua, sought to encroach upon Salernitan territory when he was campaigning against Naples. When he gathered that Gisulf I took up defensive positions against him, Pandulf refrained from encroaching upon Salerno’s borders to avoid engaging the latest scion of that successful military dynasty. [106] When the German Emperor Otto I came south, he invited Gisulf I to a banquet in Capua. On his approach to the city’s limits, the other Lombard princes escorted him honorably to the emperor, who stood up from his chair and approached Gisulf. This was a show of humility or even submission to the Salernitan prince, as it was more common practice that the lower in rank approached the higher-placed individual in such instances. Otto I temporarily set aside his imperial honor to welcome Gisulf respectfully as a quasi-equal. Moreover, Empress Adelheid, the alleged sister of Gisulf, allowed him to sit next to the imperial couple. [107] Thus, the reigning Salernitan prince had become an equal of the Emperor of the West, and the narrative even created an alleged kinship relationship between him and the emperor’s wife, Adelheid. In contrast, the other Lombard princes only served as his escorts. The episode seems similar to how the chronicle depicted that Prince Arechis II’s rule over a city as splendorous as Salerno had awed the Frankish representatives, who allegedly might have had a disguised Charlemagne amongst their members. [108] Indeed, the chronicler seems to allude that the most recent Salernitan prince had received similar recognition from Charlemagne’s tenth-century imperial counterpart Otto I. These renewed claims of imperial acknowledgments of the glory of Salerno and its princes show that the source projected an image in which the Salernitan princes embodied the ideals of the Lombard sense of independent-mindedness.

Akin to Erchempert, the Salernitan text used a wide variety of approaches to revise the history of the Lombard South. This shows the chronicler’s ability and creativity in restructuring the region’s turbulent past into a narrative that foregrounded Salerno at the cost of Benevento. Spatially relocating the focal point of Arechis’ interactions with the Frankish Empire from Benevento to Salerno was the approach the chronicle employed to adapt Erchempert’s depiction of Arechis II as the perfect prince—a perfect prince defending the Lombards’ independence in the context of his de facto capital of Salerno. Compared to Erchempert’s recollection, Grimoald III only appeared briefly and stepped out of the metaphorical spotlight that the Cassinese monk had reserved for the spokesperson of the Lombard independent-mindedness during the principality of Benevento’s earlier days. This honor would now be reserved for Grimoald III’s namesake and successor, Grimoald IV—a man depicted as an imperfectly perfect prince who ably defended the Lombard South against the Franks but faltered in the internal management of his realm. This ambiguity concerning the latter Grimoald allowed the Salernitan chronicler to legitimate somewhat the former’s murder, which was instrumental for the rise of Salerno as a princely center. By portraying the Salernitan dynasty of Gisulf I as a line of martially capable princes comparable to the earliest princes of Lombard Southern Italy, the Salernitan chronicler might have responded to the revolt against the latest prince of this line that formed the last recounted event at the abrupt end of the text. [109] The author might have suggested it was foolish to revolt against the newest scion of a dynastic line that embodied the ideals of the Lombards’ independent-mindedness and, by depicting these idealized embodiments, indicate that their rule was legitimate and the rebels were in the wrong. However, since the extant version of this text remains inconclusive on the revolt’s end, this idea can remain solely a suggestion. Yet, again, it underlines the links between past, present, and future in the narratives of Lombard Southern Italy.

6_Conclusion

This article aimed to show how both texts discussed here navigated the futures of their unpredictable present in Lombard Southern Italy. They created a didactic message in which idealized versions of their princes embodied a vibrant sense of independent-mindedness against foreign enemies. Past, present, and future appear interconnected in these stories and pervade them from beginning to end to attempt to let a contemporary audience learn from powerful examples of the past in the hopes of a better future for their present.

Erchempert sought to achieve this by juxtaposing the first three idealized Beneventan princes with the ones sowing dissension and misery in the Lombard South. He used various tropes from the toolkit of medieval historiographers to underline the grandeur of these earlier princes, such as speeches and meta-images in which the enemy described the Lombards’ martial effectiveness. The later Salernitan text adapted this fundament in three ways. The author tied the earlier princes, especially Arechis II, to Salerno to portray it as the de facto capital of the Beneventan principality. Moreover, the chronicle transformed Grimoald IV’s depiction from an ideal prince into a perfectly imperfect prince, through which the chronicler sought to explain the rise to power of the father of the first prince of Salerno. Still, despite his alleged failure to handle the internal affairs of the Lombards, he became the new embodiment of their independent spirit. He replaced Grimoald III, who played this role in Erchempert. Lastly, while Erchempert did not take up an agenda of idealizing further Lombard princes after Grimoald IV, the Chronicle of Salerno did. The Salernitan princes of Guaiferius I’s dynasty were linked to the accomplishments of the earlier exemplars as the new scions of that all-important Lombard love for liberty.

By way of an epilogue, we are fortunate enough to see a future resonance of Erchempert’s text in the eleventh-century narrative of Amatus of Montecassino. Like Erchempert, he was a Lombard monk but wrote a text lauding the gradual Norman takeover of Southern Italy. He reiterated Erchempert’s message that it was due to the Lombards’ immoral behavior that they lost their right to rule. [110] However, on some occasions, such as at a Norman siege of Lombard Capua, he did stress some certain Lombard feats of military bravery. [111] Still, whereas Erchempert hoped that his readers would learn from the grim consequences of this internal dissension, for Amatus, it formed the backdrop of his effort to underline the moral superiority of the Norman newcomers. While serving different narrative aims, both authors depict the Lombards of Southern Italy as a persistent gens, not only regarding their independent-mindedness but also with their tendency for internal dissension and rebellion.

_How to Cite

Bart Peters. “Lombard Independent-Mindedness in the Face of Uncertainty: Coping with the Unpredictable Present Future in Lombard Southern Italian Narratives (9th–10th Centuries).” On_Culture: The Open Journal for the Study of Culture 15 (2023). <https://doi.org/10.22029/oc.2023.1352>.