Duchy of Benevento - Decline Through Division and Conquest

Decline Through Division and Conquest

In spite of the unceasing hostility of the Frankish sovereigns, in the following century Benevento reached its apex, imposing a tribute on Naples and capturing Amalfi under Duke Sicard. When the latter was killed by a plot, a civil war broke out. Sicard's relative, Siconulf, was proclaimed prince in Salerno while the assassin Radelchis was acclaimed in Benevento itself. This ended with the division of the duchy, by order of the Emperor Louis II, into two distinct principates: Benevento (with Molise and Apulia north to Taranto) and the Principality of Salerno. Several local gastalds and counts, like that of Capua, profited from the chaotic situation and declared independence.

The crisis was aggravated by the beginning of Saracen ravages, the first Saracens having been called in by Radelchis and subsequently Siconulf in their decade-long war. Often spurred by rival Christian rulers, Saracens sacked Naples, Salerno, and Benevento itself. The Saracen colony in southern Lazio was eliminated only in 915, after the Battle of Garigliano. At the same time, however, the Byzantine Empire reconquered a great part of southern Italy, beginning at Bari, which they retook from the Saracens in 876, and eventually elevating their themes under strategoi into a Catapanate of Italy (999), further reducing the already declining Beneventan power.

In 899, Atenulf I of Capua conquered Benevento and united the two duchies. He declared them inseparable and introduced the principle of co-rule, whereby sons would be associated with their fathers, a principle soon borrowed by Salerno. However, all Langobardia minor was unified for the last time by Duke Pandulf Ironhead, who became prince of Salerno in 978. He succeeded in making Benevento an archdiocese in 969. Before his death (March 981), he had gained from Emperor Otto I the title of Duke of Spoleto also. However, he split it between his sons: Landulf IV received Benevento-Capua and Pandulf II, Salerno. Soon, Benevento was stripped away again when Pandulf, the Ironhead's nephew, rebelled, demanding his part of the inheritance.

The first decades of the eleventh century saw Benevento dwindle to less than either of her sister duchies, Salerno, then prominent, or Capua. Around 1000, Benevento still comprised 34 separate counties. In 1022, Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor conquered both Capua and Benevento, but returned to Germany after the failed siege of Troia. The Normans arrived in the Mezzogiorno in these years and Benevento, then acknowledged to be in papal suzerainty, was only an off-and-on ally. The Beneventan duke still had enough prestige to lend his son, Atenulf, to the Norman-Lombard rebellion in Apulia as leader, but Atenulf abandoned the Normans and Benevento lost what was left of its influence.

The greatest of Norman rulers of the south was Robert Guiscard, who captured Benevento in 1053. He gave it to its technical suzerain, the pope, who appointed a series of minor Lombards as dukes until he gave it to Guiscard in 1078. It was finally returned to the pope in 1081, with little but the city remaining of the once-great principality which had determined the direction of South Italian affairs for generations. No dukes or princes were thereafter named.

In 1806, Napoleon, after conquering Benevento, named as prince the famous Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, but the title had no significance and it left with Napoleon in 1815.