Lombards in Sicily

[Hwid]

Did the Lombard tribe every frequent into Sicily? Were they ever employed
to drive out the Saracens from Sicily around the 13th century? Perhaps this
tribe is confused with another that did?

PS I ask this because a genealogist has implied such. Perhaps a clue is
that a certain "generale Cristofaro Piazza" headed a regiment into Sicily
in the late 13th century.

[Fleur40]

>Did the Lombard tribe every frequent into Sicily? Were they ever employed
>to drive out the Saracens from Sicily around the 13th century? Perhaps this
>tribe is confused with another that did?

All worthy questions with the former the most intriguing. There seems to be
some evidence that a Longobard trace can be found in Sicily but it seems
subject to further need of research. In the meantime I would recommend Neil
Christie's, "The Lombards."
Rowena

[Hwid]

fle...@aol.com (Fleur40) wrote in
news:20010816163624...@mb-fa.aol.com:

Thanks for the reference.

I also did some reading on the subject. Apparently, in the 1160s, Roger
Sclavus (or Scalvo), a Lombard, launched a series of programs against the
Saracens in Sicly driving them west to safe places between Palermo,
Girgenti and Trapani. At that time Lombards were streaming into Sicily from
Genoa and Savona.

Granted, these weren't the same Germanic tribesmen who invaded Italy during
the dark ages hundreds of years before. But they are still a mystery to me.
What could it have meant to be a Lombard in 12th century Italy? What was
driving the Lombards out of northern Italy at that time?

[David C. Pugh]

Hwid wrote in message ...

(...)

>Granted, these weren't the same Germanic tribesmen who invaded Italy during
>the dark ages hundreds of years before. But they are still a mystery to me.
>What could it have meant to be a Lombard in 12th century Italy?

Well, in something written by a Byzantine, for example, "Lombard" would not
have meant either a descendant of the original tribe or an inhabitant of the
area we *now* call Lombardy. For example, when describing Robert Guiscard's
rise to power, Anna Comnena seems to use "Lombardy" for Apulia: "After
leaving his native land, he spent his time amid the mountain peaks and caves
and hills of Lombardy, at the head of a band of pirates, attacking
wayfarers...... While he loitered in the districts of Lombardy, he did not
escape the notice of Gulielmus Mascabeles, who at that time happened to be
ruler of most of the territory adjacent to Lombardy." She then makes
Guiscard "Duke of Lombardy", and then: "he drew away the whole of Lombardy
when he occupied Salerno, the capital city of Amalfi." Nothing, as you see,
to do with the valley of the Po.

There was or had been a Lombard duchy at Benevento, of course, which might
be inspiring her terminology -- but this is the writer, remember, who calls
the English and the French "Kelts". Byzantines loved to use obsolete
classical terminology, I'm only surprised that Anna doesn't call Robert a
Sybarote or something..... ;-)

What was >driving the Lombards out of northern Italy at that time?

Nothing that I know of. Maybe someone was selling Sicilian timeshares on the
streets of Genoa? ;-)

David

[Hwid]

"David C. Pugh" <davi...@online.no> wrote in
news:R64f7.88$hc7...@news1.oke.nextra.no:

>
> Hwid wrote in message ...

> Well, in something written by a Byzantine, for example, "Lombard" would
> not have meant either a descendant of the original tribe or an
> inhabitant of the area we *now* call Lombardy. For example, when
> describing Robert Guiscard's rise to power, Anna Comnena seems to use
> "Lombardy" for Apulia: "After leaving his native land, he spent his
> time amid the mountain peaks and caves and hills of Lombardy, at the
> head of a band of pirates, attacking wayfarers...... While he loitered
> in the districts of Lombardy, he did not escape the notice of Gulielmus
> Mascabeles, who at that time happened to be ruler of most of the
> territory adjacent to Lombardy." She then makes Guiscard "Duke of
> Lombardy", and then: "he drew away the whole of Lombardy when he
> occupied Salerno, the capital city of Amalfi." Nothing, as you see, to
> do with the valley of the Po.

>> What was driving the Lombards out of northern Italy at that time?

>
> Nothing that I know of. Maybe someone was selling Sicilian timeshares
> on the streets of Genoa? ;-)

Hehe. Very funny, but considering the number of occupants in Sicily at any
given time, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case. :)

I'm doing all this research on Lombards as part of an effort to
triangulate. A genealogist puts my family in Erice, close to Trapani, when
a certain general of "Lombards" arrived to "control" the Saracens in Erice.
On the one hand, I'm looking at when the Saracens occupied western Sicily
(probably right up until Frederick II's deportation of them all from
Sicily to Lucera in 1223) and on the other I've been trying to determine
when Lombards pushed into that part of Sicily.

In the 1160s, Roger Sclavus may likely have been behind the Lombard push
westerward. I thought that Markward von Anweiler may have been responsible
considering how he tried to control Sicily starting with his landing at
Trapani in 1199. But Markward was apparently an ally of the Saracens - the
pope even invoked a crusade against him for that reason.

So here I am conjecturing (call it fantasizing if you will) - but this is
fun to me! I think I need a good book that describes what was going on in
Italy and Sicily during the 12th century, maybe 13th. I can't find squat on
this guy Sclavus (or Sclavo) anywhere.