SOUTHERN ITALY has been largely ignored by most historians of medieval Europe. Since the region was both prominent and prosperous in antiquity, one might have expected more curiosity. In fact, however, most non-Italian historians have abandoned Italy altogether after the sixth century and the arrival of the Lombards, not to return (so to speak) until the eleventh or twelfth century. And even then they typically have glanced south only briefly, to consider the Normans, and thereafter have largely concentrated on developments from Rome northward.

This study focuses on mainland southern Italy in the centuries immediately preceding the Normans: in particular,...

AS JULES GAY NOTED LONG AGO, the lower half of the Italian peninsula, the portion lying below Rome, first became a separate and distinct geopolitical region in 774, with the Carolingian conquest of northern Italy.¹ It is true that it was not politically unified until the late eleventh century, under the Normans. From 774 on, however, southern Italy mostly pursued its own separate destiny, and indeed, as the Kingdom of Naples, it continued to do so until the unification of Italy in the nineteenth century.

The events of 774 not only drew a new boundary and set southern Italy apart;...

DURING THE FIRST HALF of the ninth century, southern Italy, almost entirely free of any Byzantine presence and seemingly more or less forgotten by the Carolingians, began to slide within the orbit of Islam. The real role of the Arabs in south Italian history has had little attention. General histories of medieval Europe, hurrying on from Charlemagne to the twelfth century, typically treat the Arab impact in the ninth and tenth centuries as the Mediterranean equivalent of Viking incursions in the north and the Magyar thrust farther east. Sometimes there is a map, with arrows, depicting Europe as a sort...

WITH THE LOMBARD CIVIL WAR settled by the Divisio and the Lombards’ Arab mercenaries dispersed, Louis, in 849, must have gone back north with a genuine sense of accomplishment. A more stable southern Italy should offer less temptation to the Arabs.

He had, however, done little more than shift the locus of the threat—and only temporarily at that. There was still a hostile Arab presence in southern Italy, and it would become even more widely diffused (and even more threatening) over the next few decades. The rest of Europe, which tended to glance toward southern Italy only when there...

NO DECADE BETTER DEMONSTRATED ambivalence toward the Arabs than the 870s. Events illustrating this began with a seemingly minor incident in Salerno, probably in the spring of 871—just after Louis had taken Bari.

According to the Chronicon Salernitanum, Prince Guaifer was striding through the city of Salerno, heading back to his palace from the local baths, when as he passed through the forum an Arab hailed him, saying he much admired Guaifer’s handsome head covering. Guaifer, apparently in one of his rare good moods, tossed the cap or bonnet to the Arab. The tale is intriguing because it suggests...

BY THE BEGINNING OF THE TENTH CENTURY southern Italy’s autonomous states had achieved political equilibrium. From this point on, we can therefore devote less attention to political events; the chief issue becomes the use to which those states put their newfound stability. To investigate this, a good place to begin is Amalfi, for Amalfi’s connections with the wider Mediterranean world were significant for developments throughout the region.

To put Amalfi’s rise in perspective, we must look first at two tenth-century happenings far from the Amalfitan peninsula. Like so many south Italian events of the ninth and tenth centuries, both involved...

TO CONSTANTINOPLE, southern Italy in the tenth century must still have seemed a gray world, merely one more troubled frontier zone. Yet in at least some segments of the region, the tenth century brought bright prospects. One excellent example is the Lombard principality of Salerno. Through most of the century, Capua and Benevento would be far better known beyond southern Italy. But this was to Salerno’s advantage; Capua-Benevento in effect served as a buffer, shielding Salerno from the major power struggles. Confrontations with Byzantium, for instance, usually involved Beneventan territory. Salerno was for the most part left alone, to the...

IT IS TIME NOW TO MOVE FROM the particular (Amalfi and Salerno) to the general and to consider the south Italian scene as a whole as the tenth century drew to a close. This chapter will focus chiefly on the structures of the society, its institutions and patterns of behavior. Although evidence is far more profuse for some areas than others, it is possible to reach at least a few broad conclusions.

In the preceding chapter, the term “development” was on occasion used in relation to tenth-century Salerno and its economy. But as J. D. Gould has suggested, one should...

IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, the term “structures” was used to characterize the institutions and demographic characteristics of south Italian society in the tenth century. The focus of this chapter is culture, particularly in that portion of southern Italy not under Byzantine control. This means primarily Campania, and the emphasis is not only on intellectual or aesthetic trends but also on culture in its broader sense: how individuals lived and acted from day to day. It is, of course, impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line between “structures” and “culture.” Incastellamento, for example, was not a totally impersonal force; individuals decided whether...

BY THE LAST QUARTER of the eleventh century the Normans held virtually all of southern Italy. It had happened very quickly; and since Sicily was speedily taken too, and the Crusades provided additional distraction, it is no wonder that few, then or now, have looked back. Pre-Norman southern Italy seemed forgotten in the rush of events.

Yet that is where it had all begun. Fully to understand the variegated splendors of the Norman Regno and the comparative ease with which the Normans would exercise control over the mainland, a backward glance is essential. The southern Italy that has been the...