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the hands of the Western Emperor. The original conquest of Apulia, therefore, was at once feudal and federal. Not so that of Sicily. Feudal institutions and customs were introduced into the island by the conquerors for the regulation of their own political and social life, but federalism never.

Furthermore, these many masters at Melfi were a perpetual source of weakness to the Norman power. Guiscard reduced them to subjection, but on his death the minority of his children -that curse of the Norman Sicilian kingdom-undid his work. Each successive sovereign had to recover this supremacy for himself, and the desertion of the Apulian barons at the Battle of Benevento was but the last act in a long drama of treachery.

Whilst on the mainland the Normans affected to be champions of liberty against foreign oppressors, in Sicily they assumed the character of crusaders. The conquest of the island was a holy war of Christian against infidel. I would desire,' says Guiscard to his knights, 'to deliver the Christians and the Catholics from their subjection to the unbeliever. I desire much to rescue them from this oppression, and to avenge the injury done to God.' Such ever afterwards was the orthodox mode of speaking of the Conquest. Neither Robert nor Roger, it is true, wanted any fellow crusaders to join them in their enterprise. They embarked in it at their own risk, and they meant to reap the benefit of it for themselves. That the Sicilian Christians in most cases helped the conquerors against the infidel is probable; that they did not in all has been conclusively shown by Signor Amari.

Let us turn now from the conquerors to the conquered, and examine, with the help of Signor Amari, what was the social and political condition of the Greek and Musulman subjects of the Norman kingdom. We shall find that during the best period toleration, religious and political, was a reality. We shall find the Greek, the Musulman, and the Lombard (for in the country round Etna there was a large Lombard colony, then lately settled and still there resident) living peacefully side by side under the powerful protection of the Norman princes.

When Palermo was surrendered by the Musulmans to Roger, a Greek archbishop was found in the city enjoying full liberty for the discharge of his ecclesiastical functions.* The toleration which the Greeks enjoyed under the Musulman domination they enjoyed no less under their new masters. Though their form of Christianity was not re-established in the land on the overthrow of the infidel, there were ecclesiastical foundations in

* Malaterra, ii. 45.

both

both parts of the kingdom which, although no longer retaining the orthodox ritual, were Greek in character and filled by Greeks. The Greek documents from the monastery of La Cava, on the mainland, and from that of Fragalà, in Sicily, occupy the greater part of the two great collections of Trinchera and Spata. In the course of the twelfth century Latin attestations appear here and there amongst the Greek signatures to the Greek documents; they are generally those of royal officers, men of Norman or Italian origin. At Fragalà Greek attestations are found as late as 1409. The fact that Frederic published his Constitutions, both in the Greek and Latin languages is a sufficient evidence of the importance of the Greek population during his reign, if it were not already demonstrated by the prosperity of Messina and that end of Sicily which was mainly inhabited by Greeks. Nevertheless, although so retentive of their national life and language that at the present day there are communities of Greeks in the Terra di Otranto and Calabria considered by competent authority to be quite distinct from the Albanian and other colonists of the last and preceding centuries, speaking a Grecian dialect, and still possessing a ballad literature in that dialect, they never appear to have taken an active part in the politics of the kingdom. story of the priest Scholarios (Amari iii. pp. 257-9) is worth referring to as an illustration of this.

The

Greek influence is most visible in the sphere of art, but of that we cannot speak at present. Not only was mosaic a Greek art, but the sacred language in which the legends and scrolls were written was Greek. The etiquette and costumes of the Norman court were closely modelled on those of Constantinople. In the fourteenth century the instructors of Petrarch and Boccaccio were Greeks from Calabria; and a patriotic Neapolitan (Trinchera) laments, and perhaps with some justice, that the classicists of the Renaissance paid so little regard to the surviving Hellenism of Southern Italy. The Greeks may perhaps have taught the Normans the importance of naval strength in the Mediterranean-at any rate the administration of the navy was Greek, as were its best admirals; and strangely enough it was over the Greek empire that it obtained its most signal victories. In ecclesiastical affairs also there can be little doubt that the early Norman kings were strengthened in their opposition to Papal encroachments, and in their arrogating to them

* 'Syllabus Membranarum Græcarum,' &c. Napoli, 1865.

+ Pergamene Greche esistenti nel grande Archivio di Palermo. Palermo, 1861.

Sr. Pitré in the 'Canti Populari dell' Italia Meridionale.'

selves authority in things ecclesiastical as well as civil, by their knowledge of the power of the emperor in the orthodox Church. It may be worth while once more to point out the baselessness of the tradition that the manufacture of silk was introduced into the West from Greece after the sack of Athens, Thebes, and Corinth in 1149. Greek operatives may for the first time have been employed after that event, but the 'tiraz,' or silk manufacture, was an appendage of the palaces of all Musulman princes, at Cordova, at Kairoan, and at Palermo. The Arabic . inscription on the imperial mantle at Nüremberg furnishes itself conclusive proof, for it tells us that the mantle was made for King Roger at Palermo in 1133, in the royal manufactory, 'the dwelling-place of happiness, of light, of glory, of perfection,' &c. A representation of the mantle and a translation of the inscription is to be found in Bock's 'Kleinodien des Heiligen Römischen Reichs.'

If toleration of Greeks was remarkable at this period, toleration of Musulmans was still more so. The condition of the Musulman subjects of the Norman kingdom, and their relation to and influence upon their rulers, constitute one of the most interesting studies in mediæval history. As the conquest of Sicily was gradual and diverse, so the treatment of the vanquished was various. At Messina the Saracen inhabitants were massacred with the connivance and probably at the instigation of the Greek populace. Greek fanaticism was always sanguinary, and Messina retained its bad name throughout the Norman epoch, and not without reason, for the treachery of Greece and the fickleness of pirates' (Falcandus). A fugitive Musulman puts his own sister to death with his own hand that she may not have to forswear her religion and fall into the hands of Christian ravishers. In the north-eastern part of Sicily, the Val Demone, the Saracens were practically exterminated. We find them at

Petralia and at Traina (Malaterra ii. 14 and 29), but the bulk of the population of that division was Greek, just as the bulk of the population of the Val di Noto and almost the entire population of the Val di Mazarà was Saracen. At Girgenti, for instance, the infidels were so powerful that the Bishop was obliged to build himself a castle in self-defence, and he made use of the ancient temples of Agrigentum as a quarry for its construction. May the earth lie heavy on his bones,' is Signor Amari's imprecation. We say, Amen.

6

We are fortunate in possessing a contemporary testimony of an enlightened Musulman traveller with regard to the condition of his co-religionists in Sicily during the reign of William the Good. Ebn Grobhair, a native of Valencia in Spain, on his

return

return from a pilgrimage to Mecca landed at Messina. Thence sailing to Cefalù and Termini, he proceeded by land through Palermo to Trapani, from which port he eventually sailed for Spain. The narrative of his journey, which took place in the winter of 1184-5, was translated by Signor Amari in the 'Archivio Storico Italiano' for 1847.

From that narrative we gather that there was a very great difference in position between the Saracens of the cities and those in the country. The latter, the poorer cultivators of the soil and agricultural labourers, with the introduction of feudal tenure, were reduced to a state of villeinage, and shared the life of the lowest serfs. Thus a large gift of Musulman serfs was made by Roger to the church of Cefalù, and in such cases oppression would be aggravated by religious fanaticism. Much land, however, was still held by Musulman proprietors, and on these estates the Islamite labourer would be well treated. Of this class of proprietors Abu 'l Cassem was a distinguished member. Possessed of large estates in the island, a domain which had descended to him from first-born to first-born, and of many houses in Palermo itself, houses, says the traveller, 'which resembled magnificent and extensive palaces,' a patron of poets, a Musulman Mæcenas, as Lalumia has termed him, he is denounced as holding a treasonable correspondence with his countrymen in Africa, subjected to a large fine, and deprived of his property. Subsequently restored to favour, he is entrusted again with office under the government. Reinstated though he was, he found life amongst Christians so irksome, surrounding circumstances so eminently calculated to induce him to forsake Islam or to drive him from the country, that he resolved to sell all that he possessed and migrate to Africa. 'Consider, therefore,' says our author, in what a wretched condition a man of such wealth and authority must have found himself when he determined to abandon the home of his forefathers with sons and daughters and all his property.' Those of the upper class of Musulmans who did not leave their country, like Abu 'l Cassem, held aloof from politics, while the unprincipled madeoutward profession of conversion to Christianity, remaining all the while Musulman at heart. Christian churches were open as sanctuaries to unbelievers, but the unbeliever by taking sanctuary ipso facto renounced Islam.

This religious toleration was entirely the work of the Norman kings themselves, and it was only under compulsion that they ever succeeded in inducing their subjects to observe the principle. The rational judgment pronounced by Falcandus upon the 'Kaid' Peter, and the still more remarkable championship of

the

the cause of that fallen statesman by the Count of Molisé, are almost the only exceptions to the rule.* The King found in the Mahometans his most faithful soldiers, his most cultivated companions, and his best officials. The palace and court of Palermo were almost completely officered by Mahometans in fact, if not always in name. But with the growth of stability in the realm national feelings were created. The patriotic party demanded that the young King William should be brought up as a Sicilian. A new nobility of office arose, and daily increased in power. At first, whilst the feudal baronage was still to be dreaded, this official nobility protected the Saracens, many members of it themselves professing Islam. After, however, the coalition of the feudal baronage, the nationalists, and the officials had brought about the fall of Stephen of Perche, young William's foreign tutor, the two latter parties obtained the chief share in the government, and united were strong enough to do without direct Saracen help, whilst the ecclesiastical element in the council was always eager for persecution. The Saracens had still the King to defend them. And as long as William lived his protection was sure. With his death dissension between Christian and Saracen begins, and dissension prepares the way for the German. Tancred, the elect of the nation, is again the Saracens' friend. He brings them back to Palermo from their hiding-places and fastnesses in the mountains. His work is cut short by death. Again during the minority of Frederic persecutions break out, again the persecuted flee to the mountains. Frederic in 1223 reduces the greater part of them to subjection, and transfers a large body of them to Luceria in Apulia. The palace and court of Palermo still derive their lustre from Oriental luxury and culture, and in this respect Frederic is a true successor of the Norman kings. The anarchy and persecution, however, of the intervening period had converted a wealthy, peaceful, and cultivated population into Italian mercenaries and Sicilian brigands.

A clear idea of what toleration was in Sicily whilst it lasted, and of the general condition of the Musulman inhabitants, will best be obtained from Grobhair himself:

'The road' (from Termini to Palermo), says he, 'looked like a market, it was so much trodden and full of people coming and going. The bands of Christians that we met saluted us immediately, and treated us with politeness and familiarity; so much so that we saw that the mode of government and the mildness of the treatment of the Musulmans were sufficient to tempt the minds of the ignorant. May

*See Muratori vii., pp. 303 D, and 308 D. E.

God

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