The Golden One - June 23, 2023


The Factions of Southern Italy During the 1100s. Excerpt From The Greatest Podcast Episode 33.


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11 minutes

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140.91

Word count

1,578

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79

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Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I discuss the role of the Lombards, the Byzantine Empire, and the Papal forces in the Middle Ages. I also discuss the schism between the Eastern and Western Roman Empires and the fall of the Roman Empire.

Transcript

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00:00:00.200 Now, I suppose most of you have listened to my episode titled The Gothic Heirs of Rome.
00:00:08.160 Now, I didn't have the heart to tell you what happened after Theoderic's death during the 500s.
00:00:17.160 So basically, his glorious kingdom, his empire, his successor state to the Western Roman Empire,
00:00:25.180 it fell to the blasphemous Byzantines. 1.00
00:00:30.300 They launched a reconquest, or rather conquest, campaign against Italy.
00:00:35.860 And yeah, they shattered the flourishing Austro-Gothic kingdom to my great sorrow and lament.
00:00:44.680 But it is what it is. That is how history goes.
00:00:47.540 So anyway, the Gothic kingdom there, it didn't survive the centuries to come.
00:00:55.380 Now, of course, they did flourish more in Spain until they got conquered by the Moors. 1.00
00:01:01.700 And I would say, though, that the Gothic spirit, it survived in the Spanish nobility,
00:01:06.900 and they ultimately reconquered the Iberian Peninsula,
00:01:11.740 and both Portugal and Spain would embark on a great Faustian conquest and exploration spree,
00:01:21.220 which I will detail in another episode, or many different episodes, I suppose,
00:01:26.260 because those adventures and stories, they deserve to be retold.
00:01:30.480 Now, anyway, back to Italy.
00:01:33.580 The Byzantines, they established control there for a while.
00:01:37.440 But then another Germanic tribe, the Lombards, came down and conquered much of Italy.
00:01:43.760 And usually, of course, if you hear the name the Lombards,
00:01:47.340 you think of Lombardy in northern Italy.
00:01:49.420 And it's true that the northern Italians, they have more Germanic blood in general,
00:01:54.840 and Lombard blood in particular, especially in that area, of course, in Lombardy.
00:02:00.480 But they also ventured south and established some dukedoms of their own,
00:02:06.900 thus creating an ethnicity which we can call what the author of the book,
00:02:12.940 John Julius Norwich, he calls Italo Lombard.
00:02:16.220 So that is one of these players at a stage of southern Italy at the time.
00:02:24.860 So those are the local nobility.
00:02:27.820 So Lombards, Germanic people, travel down to Italy, 1.00
00:02:31.700 establishing themselves as an aristocracy ruling caste there.
00:02:37.280 So that is one of the players that the Normans will encounter.
00:02:42.880 Then, of course, you still have the Byzantines, 1.00
00:02:46.060 which, you know, they still have some holdings left in Italy at this stage.
00:02:51.540 Now keep in mind that the Byzantines,
00:02:53.700 they embarked upon their conquest of Italy almost 500 years earlier.
00:02:59.220 So a lot of things have happened since then.
00:03:01.940 But the Byzantines, even during the 11th century,
00:03:05.060 still a force to be reckoned with,
00:03:06.940 although things are going worse for them after this time,
00:03:11.100 especially after the defeat at Manzikert by the Seljuk Turks.
00:03:14.820 But that is another story.
00:03:17.060 So two of the players there,
00:03:18.740 Italo Lombards, local nobility,
00:03:20.680 and Byzantines still wanting to be an influential player in that part of Europe.
00:03:27.940 Then you have the papacy, the papal forces,
00:03:31.220 of course, based in Rome.
00:03:33.380 And I'm going on a tangent now,
00:03:35.220 but this will be important for this story as it unfolds.
00:03:39.400 So during this time in 1054,
00:03:43.480 the great schism between Constantinople and Rome,
00:03:47.480 in terms of Christianity I'm talking about,
00:03:49.360 so the split between Catholicism and Orthodoxy,
00:03:52.960 it occurs during this time.
00:03:55.620 And as the author notes in this particular book I'm referencing,
00:03:59.640 that was an inevitable split.
00:04:03.080 Then there were some intrigues that made it happen then and there,
00:04:06.600 but I am very much inclined to agree that it would happen sooner or later,
00:04:10.680 because you can't really have two poles of great power,
00:04:15.220 so Rome and Constantinople.
00:04:16.900 And, of course, this split,
00:04:18.720 it goes back to the split of the Eastern and Western Roman Empire itself.
00:04:24.180 And then, of course, it continues with the papacy in Rome
00:04:26.440 and the patriarch in Constantinople.
00:04:29.360 So this happens at least,
00:04:30.660 and, of course, makes the Byzantine Empire
00:04:33.580 and the Latins of the West go different ways.
00:04:36.960 And this would be very important for later crusades.
00:04:40.060 During the Fourth Crusade,
00:04:42.680 the Latins, under the influence of the mischievous Venetians, 1.00
00:04:47.740 they sack Constantinople and establish a kingdom there. 0.98
00:04:50.860 But, yeah, I am going on a proper tangent now.
00:04:54.240 I just wanted to have that said
00:04:55.660 so you understand the difference between Christian forces.
00:04:59.960 So you have the Orthodox Byzantines 0.85
00:05:02.080 and the Catholic Latin powers.
00:05:05.320 So then we have the Italo-Lombards, 1.00
00:05:07.860 we have the papal forces,
00:05:09.760 and we have the Byzantines.
00:05:11.400 And then, of course, we have, in the north,
00:05:14.280 the great empire of Charlemagne.
00:05:17.500 Now, this empire has been split by this stage,
00:05:20.400 so you have what would be France
00:05:22.160 and what would be Germany
00:05:23.540 and what would be Germany,
00:05:25.560 the Holy Roman Empire.
00:05:26.520 That is the main player in Italy during the Middle Ages.
00:05:31.060 And something interesting here as well
00:05:33.020 is that during this time,
00:05:35.160 so the 11th century,
00:05:37.300 the Pope,
00:05:38.320 so the papal forces of Rome
00:05:39.720 and the German Emperor,
00:05:42.300 they were actually allied.
00:05:44.580 And this is interesting
00:05:45.400 if you are an astute disciple,
00:05:47.860 if you are an enjoyer of this podcast
00:05:50.700 and an enjoyer of my book reviews,
00:05:52.980 and if you are also an enjoyer of Julius Evola,
00:05:55.780 you will remember that
00:05:56.920 one of the main conflicts
00:05:59.580 during the Middle Ages
00:06:00.680 was that between the Holy Roman Emperor
00:06:03.320 in Germany and the Pope.
00:06:06.140 So at this stage,
00:06:07.380 they had a still sound relationship,
00:06:09.540 but this relationship would soon turn sour,
00:06:13.000 as we shall discover later on.
00:06:15.780 Anyway, in setting the stage
00:06:17.700 for the Norman conquest of Italy,
00:06:21.080 the Emperor and the Pope,
00:06:22.540 they were still friends.
00:06:23.660 So we are continuing the count of factions
00:06:27.460 in this cauldron
00:06:28.880 that was southern Italy back in the day.
00:06:32.280 So we have the Italo-Lombard nobility,
00:06:36.120 we have the papal forces,
00:06:38.440 we have the Byzantine forces,
00:06:39.880 we have the,
00:06:41.120 we can call them Germans,
00:06:43.240 so the forces of the imperial forces.
00:06:45.780 And then, of course,
00:06:47.780 we have not to forget
00:06:49.460 the very same forces
00:06:50.840 that I just mentioned,
00:06:52.460 that so viciously conquered
00:06:55.880 the glorious Visigothic kingdom of Iberia.
00:07:00.060 We have the Saracens.
00:07:01.300 Now, of course,
00:07:01.760 there are different types of Saracens.
00:07:04.300 The Moors that conquered Iberia, 1.00
00:07:06.940 they were at this stage
00:07:08.020 not the same entity
00:07:10.040 as the ones who raided Sicily
00:07:13.520 in southern Italy,
00:07:14.400 but still global south Muslims.
00:07:17.040 So these Arabs, 1.00
00:07:17.940 they had embarked upon,
00:07:20.480 had I been Muslim,
00:07:21.660 had I been Arab myself,
00:07:23.100 I would have said
00:07:24.140 a heroic and epic conquest campaign.
00:07:27.180 That I can reluctantly admit
00:07:29.680 that for them,
00:07:30.900 it was, of course,
00:07:31.620 for the other players in the area,
00:07:34.060 it was a catastrophic defeat.
00:07:36.780 So you can take in the East,
00:07:38.560 the Eastern Roman Empire,
00:07:40.160 the Byzantine Empire,
00:07:41.520 when the Muslims,
00:07:43.660 they exploded onto the world scene
00:07:46.080 with the Arab conquests of the 600s.
00:07:50.400 So the Byzantine Empire 0.87
00:07:52.240 and the Persian Empire
00:07:53.340 had spent many centuries
00:07:55.360 fighting each other.
00:07:56.500 They were exhausted.
00:07:57.540 And then in that vacuum of power,
00:07:59.720 the Arabs come to conquer. 0.99
00:08:01.940 And as already noted twice now,
00:08:05.660 I don't want to blackpill you 1.00
00:08:06.940 by reminding you of it,
00:08:08.140 but they did conquer Spain
00:08:09.360 and they did conquer Sicily
00:08:11.320 and they raided the southern coasts
00:08:15.700 of Europe for many centuries.
00:08:17.920 They would continue to do so
00:08:19.200 and for the purpose of setting the stage here
00:08:22.340 for the Normans,
00:08:23.320 they did raid Italy quite severely
00:08:26.400 and thus the Saracens,
00:08:28.720 they constitute the last
00:08:30.540 of the major players
00:08:31.800 of this particular drama.
00:08:34.260 So now that we have introduced
00:08:35.980 both the different factions
00:08:39.460 and the landscape itself,
00:08:41.540 we can introduce the Normans themselves.
00:08:44.580 So basically,
00:08:45.940 southern Italy at this time
00:08:47.520 was a cauldron,
00:08:49.160 a place of total chaos and war
00:08:51.220 where no strong authority
00:08:54.560 could keep the peace
00:08:56.120 because these Lombard princes,
00:08:58.560 they weren't strong enough
00:08:59.600 to stave off influence from abroad.
00:09:02.280 So they sort of had to,
00:09:04.300 you know,
00:09:04.540 make deals,
00:09:05.340 alliances and,
00:09:06.680 of course,
00:09:07.540 other entities,
00:09:08.780 they wanted to expand
00:09:09.880 their influence there as well.
00:09:11.620 So in a similar way,
00:09:12.980 as I've talked about before,
00:09:14.520 similar way as Wallachia,
00:09:16.160 during the time of Vlad Dracula,
00:09:18.100 they were stuck between
00:09:19.580 the Hungarians and the Ottomans.
00:09:21.380 They sort of had to
00:09:22.360 wheel and deal
00:09:23.380 to get the best
00:09:25.600 out of a bad situation.
00:09:27.700 And now on a last note
00:09:29.400 regarding the ethnic composition
00:09:31.780 of the southern Italians.
00:09:34.220 They were Greek.
00:09:35.400 Always had been,
00:09:36.560 well,
00:09:36.960 almost always.
00:09:38.280 Southern Italy and Sicily
00:09:39.540 were colonized by Greeks
00:09:41.500 during the heyday
00:09:43.800 of ancient Hellas.
00:09:45.380 So both Sicily
00:09:47.240 and southern Italy,
00:09:48.160 they had been under
00:09:49.000 Roman rule
00:09:50.560 for many centuries,
00:09:52.220 but the culture
00:09:53.060 was still
00:09:53.540 a bit distinct.
00:09:54.960 And this is something
00:09:55.700 I've talked about
00:09:56.440 many times before
00:09:57.760 that you have in
00:09:58.660 southern Italy
00:09:59.800 and northern Italy,
00:10:01.160 stemming back from
00:10:02.040 even before
00:10:03.240 the Germanic
00:10:04.260 invasions
00:10:05.100 of
00:10:05.500 the later stages
00:10:06.960 of the Roman Empire,
00:10:07.840 you have still
00:10:08.580 a difference between
00:10:09.520 the more Greek
00:10:11.260 south
00:10:11.880 and the more
00:10:12.800 Latin north.
00:10:14.900 So even though
00:10:15.660 the ruling caste,
00:10:18.160 the nobility
00:10:19.260 of southern Italy
00:10:20.500 at the time,
00:10:21.120 they were
00:10:21.440 the aforementioned
00:10:22.700 Lombards,
00:10:23.520 Italo-Lombards, 0.75
00:10:24.920 the general population
00:10:26.260 for the most part
00:10:27.500 were still Greek.
00:10:29.420 So yeah,
00:10:30.100 that's something
00:10:30.620 I thought to mention
00:10:31.600 as well.
00:10:32.620 Of course,
00:10:33.040 the population's
00:10:34.560 attitude towards
00:10:35.760 greater powers
00:10:36.800 also come into play
00:10:38.520 whenever we're
00:10:39.180 talking about
00:10:39.920 this.
00:10:40.720 and speaking
00:10:42.400 of which,
00:10:43.240 I will get into
00:10:44.180 this later as well,
00:10:45.080 but the Normans,
00:10:46.080 they were quite
00:10:46.620 heavy-handed
00:10:47.220 and this resulted
00:10:48.460 in resentment
00:10:49.860 by the local
00:10:50.980 population,
00:10:51.980 so the regular
00:10:52.740 Greeks.
00:10:53.680 But now,
00:10:55.020 anyway,
00:10:55.700 I have introduced
00:10:56.720 the main players
00:10:58.420 on the scene.
00:10:59.540 I will go out
00:11:00.260 and Sunmax,
00:11:01.440 take a music break
00:11:03.080 and then we'll get
00:11:03.800 back and I will
00:11:05.000 elaborate.
00:11:06.520 I will share
00:11:07.020 the great story
00:11:08.580 of how the Normans
00:11:09.900 first came to be
00:11:11.080 in Italy.