chivalrous: he was scarcely loyal: he was vain and versatile : he did not carry anger as the flint bears fire: he did not easily forgive or forget a wrong; but he never acted from mean or interested motives; he was never provoked into coarseness: he never stooped to encounter antagonists, like M. Veuillot, with their own weapons; his thrusts were made with the small sword according to the received rules of fence: he firmly upheld the honour of his calling, and in the exercise of it was uniformly fearless, independent, and incorrupt. This is no common praise. Let, then, his merits be fairly set against his demerits, his virtues against his faults; and no material deduction need be made from the high reputation of the writer by reason of the errors or weaknesses of the man.

ART. VII.-1. Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia. Scritta da Michele Amari. 3 voll. Firenze, 1854-72.

2. Storia di Sicilia sotto Guglielmo il buono. Scritta da Isidoro Lalumia. Firenze, 1867.

3. Considerazioni sulla storia di Sicilia. Da Rosario Gregorio. 5 voll. Palermo, 1805-10.

THE Sicily is a matter of congratulation, not only to

HE completion of Signor Amari's History of the Musul

the historical student, but to the learned world of Europe. It is not too much to say that it will take rank with the very first literary works of the century. Signor Amari adds another name to that distinguished list of Italian exiles who have devoted their banishment to the study of the past with a view to the illustration of the present. And he shows his pre-eminent qualifications for the task by selecting that period of his country's history (Signor Amari, we believe, is a Sicilian) which to the superficial eye may appear to be a break in its continual development. His book is a vindication of the continuity of Sicilian life and history. Not that he gives any support to the old notions of a Sicilian nationality with an existence ever since the time of the Siculi. Rather he does for Sicily the work which M. de Tocqueville has done for modern France in the Ancien Régime.' He shows that much of what it has been customary to attribute to Greek, Norman, and Aragonese origin or influence has often really been the creation of the infidel rulers of the land. What at present, however, we desire to call attention to is the subject of Signor Amari's last volume: the Norman conquest of Sicily and Southern Italy, and the Norman kingdom. Putting aside its connection with European politics, Papal and

Imperiala subject comparatively well known—we would rather illustrate the remarkable union in that state of the diverse elements of civilisation which Sicily then possessed-Greek, Arabic, Italian, and Norman. Signor Amari will himself be our principal authority, but we shall make use also of the old work of Gregorio-a work by no means superseded-and of that distinguished series of contemporary chroniclers, the most cultivated and most readable of mediæval historians, Malaterra, Falcandus, the Monk of Telesia, and others.

First of all, therefore, we shall endeavour to estimate the character of the conquerors and the nature of their conquest. We shall then proceed to illustrate the mingling of diverse civilisations and races in the state, and show what really was the condition of these subject nationalities.

The Norman conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily occupies a mean position between a barbarian inroad of Vandals in Africa or Saxons in England and a modern political conquest of Schleswig or Alsace. We cannot help comparing it with another and almost contemporary Norman conquest, that of England by William. Both were exploits of the same race, and started from the same soil. And yet in their circumstances and results there is an equally great resemblance and diversity. The armament that sailed from St. Valéry was a national enterprise commanded by the national chief. The Normans of the South were knights-errant, owing allegiance to no recognised head. William before he started for the conquest of his islandkingdom had by dint of his own energy and perseverance acquired for himself a political and military superiority in his dominions that no man dared to gainsay. Amongst soldiers of fortune, on the other hand, one man is the equal of another, and it was after the supremacy of the race had been established that the House of Hauteville had to win its hardest victory, over its own fellow-conquerors. On the field of Hastings England met Normandy, Harold met William; Harold was defeated and slain, England was conquered once for all. In the South it was far otherwise. There were divers races to contend with and to vanquish in detail. The first attempt to expel the Greeks ends. in discomfiture; thirty years elapse between the settlement at Aversa and the assumption of the ducal title by Guiscard; thirty years are necessary for the conquest of Sicily. But when the work is done the results are similar. Norman impress on the subject peoples forms firm and united nations. The conquerors adapt themselves to the conquered and become their champions. The existence of the Mediterranean kingdom was brilliant, but short-lived. It had shot forth into its brightest

bloom

bloom and was already on the point of perishing before the Northern realm had asserted its national unity.

The conquerors themselves in North and South were essentially the same men. Both are described by implication in a well-known and often-quoted passage of Malaterra. Nevertheless the Sicilian princes have a character of their own, and it is a character that appears to have risen with their fortunes. There is a distinct progress from Robert to Roger, and from Roger the Great Count to Roger the King. Here is a description of the latter by a contemporary, the Monk of Telesia :'He was a lover of justice, and most severe avenger of crime. He abhorred lying, did everything by rule, and never promised what he did not mean to perform. He was energetic, but not rash, guarded in language, and self-controlled in action. He never persecuted his private enemies, and in war he endeavoured on all occasions to gain his point without shedding of blood, and to avoid risking the lives even (sic) of his own soldiers. He tempered his affability in such a way that familiarity might not breed contempt. Justice and peace were universally observed throughout his dominions.' He possessed, too, the invariable Norman characteristic of attracting to his court men of learning and distinction of whatever race or language. His great compatriot, the first Norman king of England, may have surpassed him in the constancy of his married life, though Roger, judged by the standard of his country as well as of his age, was above the average in domestic morality. In other respects the Sicilian bears away the palm from the Englishman. The praises with which William's latest panegyrist † has loaded him apply with equal force to the King of Sicily. And his memory is not sullied by a deed of cruel vengeance for a personal affront at Alençon, nor did he receive his death-wound amid the ashes of a Mantes.

Such was the Siculo-Norman character at its best, and we have but to turn to Roger's son to see it at its worst. William, not without reason called the Bad, was at once treacherous, vindictive, and cruel. He placed unbounded confidence in unscrupulous favourites, not so much through weakness as through indolence. He disregarded all the duties of his position, and made use of it merely as affording the means for giving himself up to the pleasures of the chase and the harem. When roused by danger from his sensual seclusion he showed himself an undoubted son of the House of Hauteville in the vigour and determination with which he attacked and subdued

* Gibbon, vol. vii., chap. 56, p. 106. + Freeman, Norm. Conq.,' ii., p. 163 sq.

his enemies. But it was in his wiles alone that he resembled Guiscard, and his punishments were merciless without being just. It may perhaps safely be assumed that the average character of the Norman baron was midway between the vices of William and the virtues of Roger.

As regards the number of the conquering race Signor Amari estimates it at not more than one per cent. of the population,* and the immigrants belonged exclusively to the higher classes of feudatories and barons. An Arab chronicler describes the result of the conquest of Sicily as consisting in the establishment of the Franks and Romans' in the island beside the Mahometans.† The Norman chroniclers are generally silent as regards the important part played by these foreign auxiliaries. Yet no immigration of knights or adventurers from Normandy proper appears to have taken place subsequent to 1060. Nay, the contemporary testimony of William of Apulia is of itself conclusive. The original Norman settlement at Aversa is described by him as an asylum for all bold and lawless spirits of whatever nationality:

'Si quis vicinorum pernitiosus ad illos

Confugiebat, eum gratanter suscipiebant.'

Other states have had a not more distinguished origin, followed by a not less glorious history.

These lands which the Norman warriors conquered had ever been the debatable ground between East and West. In former ages the contest had been between Greek and Phoenician, Roman and Carthaginian, Aryan and Semite; latterly it had been between Christian and Moslem, Latin and Greek, Catholic and Orthodox. Southern Italy and Sicily had played the part of a Southern middle-rice' between the lords of the Old and the New Rome. The work of Belisarius on the mainland was speedily undone by the Lombards. Their power, weakened by the might of Charlemagne and internal dissensions, was finally broken by a combination between the Eastern and Western Emperors. The allied empires were victorious; but owing to the untimely death of Lewis the fruits of victory remained with the Greeks, and captured Bari became the capital of the restored Theme of Longobardia. Great in nominal extent, the Greek power had little reality except in the immediate neighbourhood of Bari and of the Terra di Otranto. Further Calabria had never been won by the Barbarians, but it was subject to perpetual harryings by the Arabs of Sicily. Naples and Amalfi, virtually independent republics, acknowledged the distant supremacy of the

*Arch. Stor. Ital.,' pp. 28, 29.

Storia,' iii., 218 n.

Byzantine

Byzantine Emperor rather than the protection of any neighbouring count-a protection which might too easily be converted into a tyranny. The Lombards retained their own laws and customs, but they were despised by their Greek lords, and ground down by fiscal oppression. Hence arose perpetual revolts, perpetual attempts to expel the foreigner. The Saxon emperors came to the aid of those whom they affected to consider their own oppressed subjects; but without success. The first two Othos had to retire discomfited, the third died in Campania in the bloom of youth. The Lombards now sought help from the warrior-pilgrims who had landed on their shores, and yet the first attempt of the Normans also ended in signal disaster. And when the day of deliverance came at Melfi, the natives merely underwent a change of rulers. Southern Italy was regained for the West; the new masters of the Lombards were of like race with their subjects, and the Normans, if not more liked, were perhaps less hated than the Greeks.

The previous history of Sicily had been different. Owing to its position the island remained in possession of the Greeks from the time of Belisarius till its conquest by the Arabs in the ninth century. After being subject to the African Caliphs for one hundred years, it acquired independent Emirs of its own. Under infidel dominion respect was had for the laws and customs of the previous inhabitants; art and science flourished; but political dissensions which ensued after the separation from Africa weakened the powers of defence, and the resistance which Roger encountered, though often determined, was never united.

Such being the character of the conquerors and the circumstances of the subject peoples, it is easy to understand the peculiar features of the conquest itself; and both in manner and in result the conquest of the mainland differed greatly from that of the island kingdom.

We cannot follow the chroniclers into the details of the conquest. It will suffice to call attention to the nature of the foundation at Melfi. It was based on a federative principle. Each of the twelve chiefs obtained a city and district of his own, and each a distinct quarter in the federal capital. There too all general councils were to be held, thence all general edicts promulgated. William of the Iron Hand, the eldest of the sons of Tancred, was chief of the Confederacy-chief by election of his peers. He acknowledged a titular supremacy in the Lombard Prince of Salerno, whilst his brother and successor, Drogo, four years afterwards, following the example of the early Norman counts of Aversa, received investiture from

the