Ranulf II, Count of Alife

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ranulf II (or Rainulf) (died 30 April 1139) was the count of Alife and Caiazzo and duke of Apulia. His parents were Robert, count of Caiazzo and Alife, and Gaitelgrima. His grandfather was Ranulf I of Alife, son of Asclettin, count of Acerenza, and brother of Richard I of Capua. Asclettin was a brother of the Ranulf Drengot, the first Norman lord in Italy. Thus, Ranulf is a member of the Drengot clan which ruled Aversa and Capua for most of the century between 1050 and 1150, as the third Ranulf in his family he is sometimes called Ranulf III. By marriage to Matilda, youngest child of Roger I of Sicily, Ranulf was the brother-in-law of Roger II.

1 Rise to influence
2 Rebel leader
3 Duke
4 Sources

[edit] Rise to influence

In 1127, Duke William II of Apulia died and the duchy passed to Roger II by will and by right. However, this was opposed almost universally by the nobility, and in this they had the support of the papacy of Honorius II. Honorius was in Capua, seat of the only other independent prince in the Mezzogiorno and a longtime papal ally, in Decemeber and he organised the resistance to Roger's claim, getting on his side both Prince Robert II of Capua and Ranulf. Robert's leadership was less than stellar and Ranulf was soon the true leader of the opposition. When Roger arrived on the peninsula with an army, the "rebels" opened negotiations which led to a truce by which Honorius invested Roger as duke in August 1128. On 12 August 1127, Count Jordan of Ariano died and Ranulf had asserted his suzerainty over that count's young successor. From this acquisition, he began to build a larger and larger base of power.

Ranulf remained loyal to Roger after his coronation as king on December 30 1130. In 1132, he and Robert even took a force of 200 knights at Roger's bequest to Rome in a show of force in support of Antipope Anacletus II. While Ranulf was away at Rome, his wife fled to her regal brother alleging marital cruelty and Roger was also forced by his vassal's contumacy and perfidy to annex the county of Avellino from Richard, Ranulf's brother. Ranulf demanded the restitution of both wife and countship. Both were denied and Ranulf left Rome, against orders. Roger gave him the opportunity to submit to a formal proceeding at Salerno, but Ranulf instead went to Robert, who also left Rome, and the two began planning another insurrection.

[edit] Rebel leader

Soon most of the peninsular baronage was behind the rebel leaders. Roger II was distracted temporarily by a rebellion in Apulia, but with the surrender of Grimoald, Prince of Bari, he could turn to face the Capuan renegades. They took Benevento, an ally of both pope and king, and turned towards Roger's royal army. Roger moved to besiege Nocera, but was met by the rebel army: Robert on the left, Ranulf on the right. On 24 July, the armies met at the Battle of Nocera. The rebels were victorious and Roger fled. An large army under Lothair of Germany was coming down, but after his coronation, which Ranulf attended, the old emperor left Italy. Their expected aid back in across the Alps, the rebels were vulnerable. In 1133, Roger returned to the peninsula and reversed much of their successes. But new revolts opened up. Ranulf supported Tancred of Conversano with men under Roger of Plenco, but otherwise, kept a lower profile, awaitng reinforcements from Pisa and Genoa. Ranulf failed to deliver Nocera from a siege and Robert of Capua fled north, by June 1134, Ranulf's own supporters had melted away and he was forced to make peace with the king. According to Alexander of Telese, the two kissed and embraced such that "those that were present were seen to be shedding tears for very joy." Ranulf's gains since the outbreak of rebellion were taken back, but his wife and son returned to him amicably (his cruelty being apparently not so egregious).

In 1135, a Pisan fleet with Robert of Capua laid anchor in Naples. With rumours of Roger's death circulating, Ranulf joined Robert and Duke Sergius VII of Naples in that old city and prepared for a siege. In 1136, the emperor and the duke of Bavaria, Henry the Proud, descended the peninsula to support the three rebels. Ranulf, with Robert and Henry, took a large contingent of troops to besiege the peninsular capital of the kingdom, Salerno. Salerno surrender and the large army of Germans and Normans marched to the very south of Apulia. Having thus left most of southern Italy under his control, Lothair decided to appoint a new duke of Apulia. Robert and Sergius being already powerful potentates, Ranulf, the lowly subvassal count, was raised to the highest honour in the Mezzogiorno. Lothair claimed the right to investiture, but so did Pope Innocent II. The former on the grounds that Emperor Henry III had appointed Drogo of Hauteville in 1047 and the latter on the grounds that Pope Nicholas II had raised Robert Guiscard to ducal status in 1059. Together, pope and emperor handed the lance of power to Ranulf in Salerno and the Germans departed for home, leaving Ranulf to defend his hard-won duchy. Ranulf accompanied the emperor as far as Aquino and received 800 knights for his fight.

[edit] Duke

On 30 October 1137, at the Battle of Rignano, Ranulf met his chief foe, Roger's son Roger, whom the king had named as duke of Apulia in 1134. Thought he younger Roger fought valiantly, the elder fled the field and their ally, Sergius of Naples, died in the fray. Rignano was the second great victory of Ranulf over Roger (after Nocera), but it, like the first, had no lasting effect. Roger's campaign of 1138 was a miserable failure and Ranulf for a moment appeared secure in his title, even without Salerno; but he was not. His greatest foe, death, divested him of his dukedom on 30 April 1139. He had fallen sick with fever at Troia, his capital, and was bled. He was buried in the cathedral of that city, whence Roger exhumed him and threw him in a ditch, only to later rebury him decently. While the modern scholar John Julius Norwich says that "the sorrow that attended his death was more than he deserved," the contemporary chronicler Falco of Benevento records that the death of this virum bellicosum et magnanimum ("bellicose and magnanimous man") was accompanied by the wailing of virgins and tearing of hair.