Matthew (Archbishop of Capua)

Matthew (died 1199) was an Archbishop of Capua, succeeding Alfanus of Camerota in 1183. He was a supporter of the claims of Constance and her husband, the Emperor Henry VI, against those of Tancred of Lecce to the Sicilian kingdom. Under Henry, he became a royal advisor and imperial familiaris at the court in Palermo. He might have persuaded the cities of Aversa and Capua to surrender without a fight to Henry and briefly rebel against Tancred in 1191.[1] In 1198 Constance granted Matthew the royal protection of the Jewry of Capua as a reward for his loyalty.[2] He was also praised by Henry's panegyrist Peter of Eboli in his Liber ad honorem Augusti.[3]

Notes

  1. ^ P. Oldfield, City and Community in Norman Italy (Oxford, 2009), 125, 230. For his account of Capua during Henry's invasion of Sicily, cf. 127–28.
  2. ^ G. A. Loud, The Latin Church in Norman Italy (Cambridge, 2007), 319.
  3. ^ Loud, 389, citing vv. 344–51 and 410–17.