part of Apulia. Melo was defeated at the battle of Cannes in 1019. The Normans, who escaped from this action, took service under the Princes of Salerno and Capua; but having afterwards been joined by a larger body of their countrymen, they enlisted under the Emperor Henry II,, who at that time was engaged in a campaign in Apulia, but who, not having succeeded in his objects, and having been obliged to retire from the country, they quitted his service, and under Rainulphus, brother of Drago, established themselves in Aversa. The possession of this place was confirmed to them by Sergius, General of the republic of Naples, as a recompense for the assistance they had offered him in delivering that city from the usurpation of the Prince of Capua.

In 1035, a more considerable body of Normans arrived at Tarento, under three brothers of the house of Tancred, of Haute-Ville. These commanders led their troops, in the first instance, into Sicily, as a reinforcement to the Greek army, which was engaged in hostilities with the Saracens in that island; but upon their return to the continent they joined Ardoin, a Lombard chief, and in two campaigns made themselves masters in 1042 of the greatest part of Apulia. They continued their conquests in the succeeding years, and in 1047, they were invested by the Emperor Henry III., at Capua, with the government of the provinces they had taken possession of, and with the Duchy of Benevento, if they could make themselves masters of it. With the view of facilitating this object, the emperor is stated to have induced the Pope Clement the Second to excommunicate the people of Benevento, for not

having opened their gates to him, and acknowledged his sovereignty. In the year 1048, Leo IX. was elected pope: the Normans, who had by this time obtained possession of Benevento, appear to have given him some cause of complaint, in consequence of which he waited upon the emperor, and having liberated the bishopric of Bamberg from the annual payment of the one hundred marks (retaining the claim to the presentation of the hackney), he received in return the grant of the city of Benevento; and an imperial army having been placed under his orders, after having excommunicated the Normans, he marched against them. But the papal and imperial army being totally defeated on the 18th of June, 1053, near Civitella, the pope was taken prisoner, and carried to Benevento. The Normans had, in the mean time, made over the grant, which they had received of this city, to the Lombards, but they required of the pope, whom they treated with every respect and reverence, to confirm the investiture, which they had already received from the emperor, of all the conquests they had made in Apulia and Calabria. The pope, having been removed to Capua, acceded to their wishes, by granting the investiture to Humphrey, Count of Apulia and Calabria. This act became the foundation of the claims which have ever since been maintained by the popes to the sovereignty of the kingdom of Naples; it was followed up by Pope Nicholas II., who, finding the Normans too powerful to cope with, consented, in the year 1059, in a council assembled at Melfi, to invest them with the Duchies of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, which were given to Robert Guiscard; and of

Capua, which, having been taken from Landolf, a Lombard chief, was conferred upon Richard, Count of Aversa.

The mode in which this grant of an extensive dominion, which had never belonged to the See of Rome, was effected, was not unusual in the times in which it occurred. The Normans, who feared the power of the emperor, were desirous of protecting themselves by interposing the authority of the church: they therefore gave over their possessions to the See of Rome, as an offering or oblation, receiving them back upon the condition of the payment of a census or tribute to the superior lord, whom they acknowledged; the census, in this case, was the yearly payment of twelve denari, for every pair of oxen.

The Normans continued to extend their possessions, and Robert Guiscard established his authority in the Duchies of Bari and Amalfi, in the principality of Salerno, and in the greater part of Sicily. He had at one time been excommunicated by Pope Gregory VII.; but this prelate, being engaged in his well-known contest with the Emperor Henry IV., applied to Robert for assistance, who, marching to his rescue in 1084, escorted Gregory from Rome, where he was besieged by the imperial troops, to Salerno. Gregory at this place renewed the grant of investiture of all his conquests to Robert, with the exception of the principality of Salerno and the duchy of Amalfi, which the Holy See, upon the ground of their having been included in the grants of Pepin and Charlemagne, considered as a part of its temporal dominion *.

* In the course of the negociation which accompanied these

From this time the renewal of this grant was repeated by each succeeding pontiff, until the year 1139, when Roger II., count of Sicily, and nephew to Robert Guiscard, who had died in the year 1085, first declared himself king of the two Sicilies. He afterwards was confirmed in this title by the anti-Pope Anacletus, whose cause he had espoused, and on account of whom he was involved in a war with the Emperor Lothario and Pope Innocent II.

The results of this contest were at first disastrous to Roger, and he was driven from the greater part of his territories on the continent; but the emperor having returned to Germany, the king of Naples re-occupied his former possessions, and in an action near the Castle of Galluzzo, defeated the papal army, and took the pope prisoner. His holiness, under these circumstances, confirmed to Roger the grants which had been made to him by the anti-Pope Anacletus, conceding to him also the sovereignty of Capua and Naples, over neither of which, it appears, that the Papal See had to that time exercised the slightest power or authority. By this act the kingdom of the two Sicilies was first established: it was confirmed to William I., son of Roger, in 1115, by Adrian IV. (the only Englishman who has occupied the chair of St. Peter), in the treaty of Benevento. The title descended to the son of William, and in the year 1194 (after the short usurpation of Tancred) to the Emperor Henry VI., son of Frederic Barbarossa, who had married Constance, daughter of Roger, and sole heir to these kingdoms.

arrangements, the city of Benevento, which had been taken from the Lombards in 1077, was made over to the popes.