Pandulf IV of Capua
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Pandulf IV (also spelled Randulf, Bandulf, Pandulph, Pandolf, Paldolf, or Pandolfo) was the prince of Capua on three separate occasions.
The first occasion was from February 1016, when he was associated with his cousin Pandulf II, to 1022, when he was captured and imprisoned. In 1018, the Byzantine catapan Boiannes utterly devastated the Lombard army of Melus of Bari and his Norman allies at Cannae. This amazing victory brought the Byzantines the recognition of all the principalites of the Mezzogiorno which had owed allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor. Among these Pandulf was most ardent in his support of the Greeks. He assisted Boiannes in capturing Melus' brother-in-law Dattus' tower on the Garigliano in 1020, but this brought a large army down from Germany on the south. A detachment of the great host, under Pilgrim, Archbishop of Cologne, marched down the Tyrrhenian coast and besieged Capua. The prince was taken and a new prince, Pandulf, count of Teano, installed. The chained Pandulf was brought to the Emperor Henry II, who almost executed him before Pilgrim intervened on his behalf. He was hauled off to Germany for a long imprisonment.
He was released on the request of Duke Guaimar III of Salerno, who was hoping for a new ally, by Emperor Conrad II in 1024. He was then joined by Guaimar and the Norman adventurer Ranulf Drengot. They immediately besieged Capua. In 1025, Boiannes, who had been busy on a Sicilian expedition, joined them with a giant force and, in 1026, the city fell and the count of Teano was given safe passage to Naples by the Greek commander. The siege had lasted 18 months. This time Pandulf lasted in power until 1038.
In 1027, he conquered Sergius IV of Naples, who was holding the exiled prince Pandulf of Teano, but Sergius was reinstalled in 1029 by a Norman army under Ranulf, Pandulf's one-time ally, who in return received the county of Aversa, the first Norman toehold in the Mezzogiorno. Pandulf then began to antagonise all his subjects. The last abbot of Montecassino, Atenulf, had fled from the imperial army in 1024 because he had supported Pandulf. The new abbot, Theobald, had been the candidate of the Emperor and the Pope. Pandulf hated him. After inviting him to Capua, he threw him in prison, where he joined the deposed archbishop of Capua. In 1032, Pandulf turned his attention to Sergius' old ally, John V of Gaeta. He conquered Gaeta and took the old consular and ducal title of its ruler. These injustices and many other outrages soon repelled his obvious ally, Guaimar IV of Salerno, the son of Guaimar III (who died in 1027). For all this, he was called by the chronicler Aimé of Monte Cassino a fortissime lupe, the Wolf of the Abruzzi, a man of "wily and wicked deeds".
At this juncture, Guaimar IV, seeing an opportunity, asked the two emperors—Eastern and Western—to come and resolve the many disputes rupturing Southern Italy. Only Conrad accepted and he came to Troia in 1038. He ordered Pandulf to restore stolen property to Monte Cassino. Pandulf sent his wife and son to ask for peace, giving 300 lbs of gold (in two installments) and a son and daughter as hostages. The emperor accepted Pandulf's offer, but the filial hostage escaped and Pandulf holed up in his outlying castle of Sant'Agata dei Goti. Conrad took Capua and gave it to Guaimar with the title of Prince. He also recognised Aversa as a county of Salerno. Pandulf, meanwhile, fled to Constantinople and his old Greek friends. However, the political dynamic had since changed and Pandulf was clasped in irons and jailed.
Guaimar became an enemy of Emperor Michael IV and, before the latter's death, Pandulf was released from captivity. He returned to Italy in 1042. For the next five years, he and his few followers threatened Guaimar. In 1047, a watershed year in the history of the Mezzogiorno and the Lombards, Emperor Henry III, Conrad's son, came down and made the Drengot and Hauteville possessions his direct vassals. At Capua, he restored the hated Pandulf for the last time. Pandulf died in his own princedom on 19 February 1049 or 1050.
[edit] References
- Chalandon, Ferdinand. Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicilie. Paris, 1907.
- Gwatkin, H.M., Whitney, J.P. (ed) et al. The Cambridge Medieval History: Volume III. Cambridge University Press, 1926.
- Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016-1130. Longmans: London, 1967.
[edit] External link
| Preceded by Pandulf II |
Prince of Capua 1016 – 1022 |
Succeeded by Pandulf V |
| Preceded by Pandulf V |
Prince of Capua 1026 – 1038 |
Succeeded by Guaimar |
| Preceded by Guaimar |
Prince of Capua 1047 – 1050 |
Succeeded by Pandulf VI |
