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Noble families in the Duchy of Gaeta in the tenth century*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Patricia Skinner
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Famiglie nobili nel ducato di gaeta durante il decimo secolo

Quest'articolo indaga le origini del ducato di Gaeta durante il nono e l'inizio del decimo secolo, e la presa del potere sul territorio da parte del casato di Docibilis I. Viene messo in risalto come le fortune di questo casato fossero strettamente legate alla amicizia delle altre famiglie nobili abitanti nell'area; viene inoltre tracciata la storia di alcune di queste famiglie usando vari metodi per la ricostruzione delle loro genealogie. Le conclusioni qui raggiunte sono che Docibilis e il suo casato, mentre cercavano di sostituire la vecchia nobiltà con un proprio circolo aristocratico, non poterono superare la loro inferiorità di nascita, e furono infine estromessi dal potere poichè non poterono fare affidamento sull'appoggio delle famiglie intorno a loro.

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Articles
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 60 , November 1992 , pp. 353 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1992

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Footnotes

*

I am indebted to the British School at Rome, the British Academy and the University of Birmingham for the financial support which enabled me to spend time in Italy pursuing references and place-names. I am grateful to Chris Wickham, whose guidance has been and still is invaluable, and to Graham Loud for his comments and suggestions. Finally I would like to thank my family for their continued support and encouragement of my work.

References

1 The following abbreviations have been used: ASPN—Archivio Storico per le Provincie Napoletane; CDA—Codice Diplomatico Amalfitano, ed. di Candida, R. Filangieri, I (Naples, 1917), II (Trani, 1951)Google Scholar; CDC—Codex Diplomaticus Cajetanus I (Montecassino, 1887), II (Montecassino, 1892)Google Scholar; CMC—Chronica Monasterii Casinensis, ed. Hoffman, H., Monumenta Germaniae Historica 34 (Hanover, 1980)Google Scholar; MEFRM—Mélanges de l'Ecole Française de Rome, Moyen Age, Temps Modernes; Merores—Merores, M., Gaeta im frühen Mittelalter (Gotha, 1911)Google Scholar; MGH Epp.—Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae 7, ed. Caspar, E. et al. (Munich, 1978)Google Scholar; RN—Regesta Neapolitana, ed. Capasso, B., Monumenta ad Neapolitani Ducatus Historiam Pertinentia II.i (Naples, 1885)Google Scholar.

On the history of the duchy, Merores; see also Skinner, P., The Merchants and the Noblemen; Economic Power and Political Status in the Duchy of Gaeta, c. 800–1100 A.D (Ph.D. thesis, Birmingham, 1990)Google Scholar. On the first use of the ducal title, CDC 35.

2 CDC 5.

3 CDC 12.

4 von Falkenhausen, V., ‘Il Ducato di Gaeta’, in Galasso, G. (ed.), Storia d'Italia, iii (Turin, 1983), 348Google Scholar.

5 CDC 13.

6 Merores, 15.

7 CMC, i, 43.

8 Guiraud, J.-F., ‘Le reseau de peuplement dans le Duché de Gaèta du Xe au XIIIe siècle’, MEFRM 94 (1982), 489CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 von Falkenhausen, ‘Ducato’, 349.

10 CDC 130.

11 MGH Epp.

12 Ibid., 275.

13 CDC 130.

14 CMC, i, 40.

15 Ibid., i, 50.

16 E.g. Grossus, CDC 3(830), CDC 7(841); Mercurius, CDC 9(851), CDC 11 (862).

17 CDC 15.

18 RN 220.

19 RN 402.

20 CDA 584.

21 Gaeta: CDC 13; Naples: RN 96 (957)—heirs of John kataypatiae; RN 169(968)—John son of Stephen kata domni ypatiae; RN 287 (994)—John son of Peter ipati; RN 352 (1014)—Sergius ypatus son of John; etc.

22 CDC 10.

23 CDC 19.

24 CDC 31.

25 Delogu, P., Il Ducato di Gaeta dal IX all'XI secolo; istituzioni e socielà (unpublished 1988), 195Google Scholar. My thanks are due to Professor Delogu for making this paper available to me.

26 CDC 19.

27 CDC 10.

28 CDC 13.

29 Delogu, Ducato, 198.

30 Merores, 8.

31 CMC, i, 43.

32 Although, of course, we must take into account the fact that Leo's Chronicle was written some two centuries after the events it relates. An earlier Cassinese chronicle, the Chronica Sancti Benedicti Casinensis, does not include this particular episode, although it is clearly the source, sometimes verbatim, of other sections of Leo's work.

33 MGH Epp., 38.

34 CMC, i, 43.

35 CDC 15.

36 These families are discussed in some detail below.

37 CDC 14.

38 CDC 16.

39 CDC 138.

40 Schmid, K., ‘The structure of the nobility in the earlier middle ages’, in Reuter, T. (ed.), The Medieval Nobility (Oxford, 1979), 37–59Google Scholar.

41 CDC 1. The dating of this document, ‘in the reign of the emperor Charles’, means that the date assigned to it by the editors of the CDC, 787, cannot possibly be correct.

42 CDC 15.

43 CDC 16.

44 CDC 20.

45 CDC 24, CDC 26, CDC 42.

46 CDC 88.

47 CDC 113.

48 CDC 125, CDC 139, CDC 151.

49 CDC 163.

50 CDC 141.

51 CDC 175.

52 CDC 123-4.

53 Merores, 97ff.

54 A trip most recently discussed by von Falkenhausen, V., ‘Reseaux routiers et ports dans l'Italie méridionale byzantine (VIe—Xe s.)’, in I Kathimerini Zoi sto Byzantio (Athens, 1989), 724Google Scholar.

55 Merores, 99.

56 Skinner, P., The Mobility of Landowners between the Tyrrhenian City States of Italy, c. 850–1050 A.D. (M.Phil, thesis, Birmingham, 1988), chapter 9Google Scholar.

57 RN 32, RN 46, RN 38.

58 RN 102 (958).

59 See Cassandro, G., ‘Il Ducato bizantino’, Storia di Napoli ii.1 (Naples, 1967), 129Google Scholar; id., ‘La Liburia e i suoi tertiatores’, ASPN, n.s. 65 (1940).

60 Cassandro, ‘Ducato’, 67.

61 CDC 110.

62 CDC 88.

63 CDC 40, CDC 50. On the importance of watermills, Skinner, P., ‘Mill ownership and social status in southern Italy, c. 800-1200’, paper presented at the conference Medieval Europe 1992 (York, 21-24 September 1992)Google Scholar. That Kampulus' marriage to Matrona may have been within the prohibited canonical degrees of kinship, discussed in Goody, J., The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, does not seem to have posed a problem. The Docibilan family can be demonstrated to have contracted at least one other endogamous union in the tenth century, no doubt condoned by the bishop of Gaeta who was himself a member of the family.

64 CDC 54.

65 CDC 68, CDC 69.

66 CDC 28.

67 CDC 73.

68 CDC 84.

69 CDC 88.

70 D. Herlihy, ‘The history of the rural seigneury in Italy, 9-10’, in idem, The Social History of Italy and Western Europe, 700–1500 (London, 1978); idem, ‘The agrarian revolution in southern France and Italy, 801–1150’, Speculum 33 (1958), 33.

71 Toubert, P., Les structures du Latium médiéval I (Rome, 1973), 490–1Google Scholar.

72 Violante, C., ‘Quelques caractéristiques des structures familiales en Lombardie, Emilie et Toscane aux XIe et XIIe siècles’, in Duby, G. and le Goff, J. (edd.), Famille et parenté dans l'Occident médiéval (Rome, 1977), 107Google Scholar.

73 CDC 245.

74 CDC 135.

75 CDC 51.

76 CDC 66.

77 CDC 99.

78 CDC 16, CDC 24, CDC 19, CDC 26 respectively.

79 CDC 39.

80 CDC 68.

81 CDC 58, CDC 101.

82 CDC 73, CDC 74, CDC 76, CDC 87.

83 CDC 77.

84 CDC 100, CDC 101.

85 CDC 107.

86 CDC 121.

87 CDC 176, CDC 177.

88 CDC 237, CDC 211.

89 Genicot, L., ‘Recent research on the medieval nobility’, in Medieval Nobility, 18Google Scholar.

90 Schmid, ‘Structure’, 48.

91 Sergi, G., ‘La Feudalizzazione delle circoscrizioni pubbliche nel regno italico’, in Structures féodales et féodalisme dans l'Occident méditerranéan, (XIe–XIIIe siècles) (Rome, 1980), 252Google Scholar.

92 del Treppo, M. and Leone, A., Amalfi Medioevale (Naples, 1977), 100–1Google Scholar.

93 CDA 585.

94 See above, note 59.

95 CDC 1.

96 RN 369.

97 Tellenbach, G., ‘From the Carolingian imperial nobility to the German estate of imperial princes’, in Medieval Nobility, 207Google Scholar, stresses the need of aristocrats to be close to the ruler. Metz, Wolfgang, ‘Reichsadel und Krongutverwaltung in karolingischer Zeit’, Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 94 (1968), 11–119Google Scholar, argues that it was the ruler who benefited from this closeness, a view endorsed by Werner, K. F., ‘Important noble families in the kingdom of Charlemagne’, in Medieval Nobility, 176Google Scholar. In Gaeta both scenarios are valid; the nobility of the city supported Docibilis, and he in turn patronized a new aristocracy.