Emirate of Bari
Encyclopedia
Saracen
Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...
state (emirate
Emirate
An emirate is a political territory that is ruled by a dynastic Muslim monarch styled emir.-Etymology:Etymologically emirate or amirate is the quality, dignity, office or territorial competence of any emir ....
) centred on the south Italian city of Bari
Bari
Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
from 847 to 871. It was the most lasting episode in the history of Islam in peninsular southern Italy
History of Islam in southern Italy
The history of Islam in southern Italy begins with the Islamic conquest and subsequent rule of Sicily and Malta, a process that started in the 9th century. Islamic rule over Sicily was effective from 902, and the complete rule of the island lasted from 965 until 1061...
.
Bari first became the object of Arab or Berber
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
raids in late 840 or early 841, when it was briefly occupied. According to Al-Baladhuri, Bari was conquered from the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
by Kalfün
Kalfun
Kalfun was the first Emir of Bari during the Islamic control of that Apulian city. He was of Berber descent.Kalfun came from the Aghlabid emirate in North Africa...
, a mirwah—perhaps a servant or escaped slave—of the Aghlabid
Aghlabid
The Aghlabids were a dynasty of emirs, members of the Arab tribe of Bani Tamim, who ruled Ifriqiya, nominally on behalf of the Abbasid Caliph, for about a century, until overthrown by the new power of the Fatimid.-History:...
Emir of Africa. Kalfün (Khalfun) was probably of Berber
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
stock, possibly from the Emirate of Sicily
Emirate of Sicily
The Emirate of Sicily was an Islamic state on the island of Sicily , which existed from 965 to 1072.-First Arab invasions of Sicily:...
originally. The conquest was seen by contemporary Muslims as unimportant, having been carried out by a minor figure without the support of any other Muslim state. Requests were sent, however, by Kalfün's successor, Mufarrag ibn Sallam, to the Abbasid caliph, al-Mutawakkil
Al-Mutawakkil
Al-Mutawakkil ʻAlā Allāh Jaʻfar ibn al-Muʻtasim was an Abbasid caliph who reigned in Samarra from 847 until 861...
, in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
, and his provincial governor of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
for recognition of the conquest with the title of wali
Wali
Walī , is an Arabic word meaning "custodian", "protector", "sponsor", or authority as denoted by its definition "crown". "Wali" is someone who has "Walayah" over somebody else. For example, in Fiqh the father is wali of his children. In Islam, the phrase ولي الله walīyu 'llāh...
, a prefect
Prefect
Prefect is a magisterial title of varying definition....
ruling over a province of the Caliphate
Caliphate
The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...
, which was granted. Mufarrag expanded Muslim influence and enlarged the territory of the emirate.
The third and last emir of Bari was Sawdan, who came to power around 857 after the murder of his predecessor Mufarrag. He invaded the lands of the Lombard
Lombards
The Lombards , also referred to as Longobards, were a Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin, who from 568 to 774 ruled a Kingdom in Italy...
Principality of Benevento, forcing Prince Adelchis
Adelchis of Benevento
Adelchis was the son of Radelchis I, Prince of Benevento, and successor of his brother Radelgar in 854.It was given to Adelchis to preserve the ancient principality and its independence in the face of repeated assaults by the Saracens from the south, the Emperor Louis II from the north, and...
to pay tribute
Tribute
A tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Various ancient states, which could be called suzerains, exacted tribute from areas they had conquered or threatened to conquer...
. In 864 he finally obtained the official investiture requested initially by Mufarrag. In the middle of the 860s, a Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
monk named Bernard and two companions stopped in Bari on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They successfully petitioned Sawdan for letters of safe-conduct
Safe-conduct
Safe conduct is the situation in time of international conflict or war where one state, a party to such conflict, issues to a person, usually an enemy state's subject, a pass or document to allow the enemy alien to traverse its territory without harassment, bodily harm, or fear of death. Safe...
all the way through Egypt and the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
. According to the Itinerarium Bernardi, Bernard's record of the event, Bari, the civitatem Sarracenorum, had formerly belonged to the "Beneventans".
The Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
Chronicle of Ahimaaz records that Sawdan, the last emir of Bari, ruled the city wisely and was on good terms with the eminent Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
scholar Abu Aaron. Christian monastic chronicles, however, portray the emir as nequissimus ac sceleratissimus: "most impossible and wicked". Certainly Muslims raids on Christians (and Jews) did not cease during Sawdan's reign. There is evidence for high civilisation in Bari at this point. Giosuè Musca suggests that the emirate was a boon to the regional economy, and that during this time the slave trade, wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
trade, and trade in pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
flourished. Under Sawdan the city of Bari was embellished with a mosque
Mosque
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word is likely to have entered the English language through French , from Portuguese , from Spanish , and from Berber , ultimately originating in — . The Arabic word masjid literally means a place of prostration...
, palace
Palace
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word itself is derived from the Latin name Palātium, for Palatine Hill, one of the seven hills in Rome. In many parts of Europe, the...
s, and public works
Public works
Public works are a broad category of projects, financed and constructed by the government, for recreational, employment, and health and safety uses in the greater community...
.
In 859, Lambert I of Spoleto
Lambert I of Spoleto
Lambert I was the duke and margrave of Spoleto on two occasions, first from 859 to 871 and then from 876 to his death.Lambert was the eldest son of Guy I of Spoleto and Itta, daughter of Sico of Benevento...
joined Gerard, count of the Marsi
Marsi
Marsi is the Latin exonym for a people of ancient Italy, whose chief centre was Marruvium, on the eastern shore of Lake Fucinus, drained for agricultural land in the late 19th century. The area in which they lived is now called Marsica. During the Roman Republic the people of the region spoke a...
, Maielpoto, gastald
Gastald
A gastald was a Lombard official in charge of some portion of the royal demesne with civil, martial, and judicial powers. By the Edictum Rothari of 643, the gastalds were given the civil authority in the cities and the reeves the like authority in the countryside...
of Telese
Telese
Telese Terme, called simply Telese until 1991, is a city and comune in the Province of Benevento, in the Campania region of southern Italy. It is located in the valley of the Calore, well known for its hot sulfur springs.-History Telesia:...
, and Wandelbert, gastald of Boiano, to prevent Sawdan from re-entering Bari after a campaign against Capua
Capua
Capua is a city and comune in the province of Caserta, Campania, southern Italy, situated 25 km north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. Ancient Capua was situated where Santa Maria Capua Vetere is now...
and the Terra di Lavoro
Terra di Lavoro
Terra di Lavoro is the name of a historical region of southern Italy. It corresponds roughy to the modern southern Lazio and northern Campania regions of Italy....
. Despite a bloody battle, the emir successfully entered his capital.
The emirate of Bari lasted long enough to enter into relations with its Christian neighbours. According the Chronicon Salernitanum
Chronicon Salernitanum
The Chronicon Salernitanum, or "Salerno Chronicle", is an anonymous 10th century chronicle of the history of the Principality of Salerno. It was probably written around 990 and has been attributed to Radoald of Salerno, Abbot of San Benedetto, by Huguette Taviani-Carozzi...
, ambassadors (legati) were sent to Salerno
Salerno
Salerno is a city and comune in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....
where they stayed in the episcopal palace, much to the dismay of the bishop. Bari also served as a refuge for at least one political rival of the Emperor Louis II, a man of Spoleto
Duchy of Spoleto
The independent Duchy of Spoleto was a Lombard territory founded about 570 in central Italy by the Lombard dux Faroald.- Lombards :The Lombards, a Germanic people, had invaded Italy in 568 and conquered much of it, establishing a Kingdom divided between several dukes dependent on the King, who had...
who fled to it during a revolt. In 865 Louis, perhaps pressured by the Church, always uncomfortable with a Muslim state in Italy's midst, issued a capitulary
Capitulary
A capitulary was a series of legislative or administrative acts emanating from the Frankish court of the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties, especially that of the first emperor, Charlemagne...
calling upon the fighting men of northern Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
to gather at Lucera
Lucera
Lucera is a town and comune in the Province of Foggia, in the Apulia region of southern Italy.-Ancient era and early Middle Ages :Lucera is an ancient city founded in Daunia, the centre of Dauni territory . Archeological excavations show the presence of a bronze age village inside the city boundaries...
in the spring of 866 for an assault on Bari. It is unknown, from contemporary sources, whether this force ever marched on Bari, but in the summer of that year the emperor was touring the Campania
Campania
Campania is a region in southern Italy. The region has a population of around 5.8 million people, making it the second-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km² makes it the most densely populated region in the country...
with his empress, Engelberga
Engelberga
Engelberga was the wife of Louis II, Holy Roman Emperor, from 5 October 851 to his death on 12 August 875. As empress, she exerted a powerful influence over her husband. Her family, the Supponids, prospered during Louis's reign...
, and receiving strong urging from the Lombard princes—Adelchis of Benevento
Adelchis of Benevento
Adelchis was the son of Radelchis I, Prince of Benevento, and successor of his brother Radelgar in 854.It was given to Adelchis to preserve the ancient principality and its independence in the face of repeated assaults by the Saracens from the south, the Emperor Louis II from the north, and...
, Guaifer of Salerno
Guaifer of Salerno
Guaifer was the Prince of Salerno from 861. The son of Daufer the Mute and grandson of Daufer the Prophet, he was the first of the Dauferidi to sit on the Salernitan throne which his family dominated unobstructed until 977.Guaifer's sister, Adelchisa, married Sicard of Benevento and when Sicard...
, and Landulf II of Capua
Landulf II of Capua
Landulf II was Bishop and Count of Capua. He was the youngest of four sons of Landulf I, gastald of Capua. As a young man, he entered the church. When his father died, his eldest brother, Lando, succeeded him....
—to attack Bari again.
It was not until the spring of 867 that Louis took action against the emirate. He immediately besieged Matera and Oria
Oria, Italy
Oria is a town and comune in the Apulia region, in the province of Brindisi, in southern Italy. It is the see city of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oria.- History :...
, recently conquered, and burnt the former. Oria was a prosperous locale before the Muslim conquest; Barbara Kreutz thus conjectures that Matera resisted Louis while Oria welcomed him: the former thus was razed. This may have severed communications between Bari and Taranto
Taranto
Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....
, the other pole of Muslim power in southern Italy. Louis established a garrison at Canosa
Canosa
Canosa di Puglia is a town and comune in Apulia in southern Italy, between Bari and Foggia, located in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani, not far from the position on the Ofanto River where the Romans found refuge after the defeat of the Battle of Cannae...
on the frontier between Benevento and Bari, but retired to the former by March 868. It was probably at about this time that Louis entered into negotiations with the new Byzantine emperor, Basil I
Basil I
Basil I, called the Macedonian was a Byzantine emperor of probable Armenian descent who reigned from 867 to 886. Born a simple peasant in the Byzantine theme of Macedonia, he rose in the imperial court, and usurped the imperial throne from Emperor Michael III...
. A marriage between Louis's daughter and Basil's eldest son, Symbatios Constantine, was probably discussed in return for Byzantine naval
Byzantine navy
The Byzantine navy was the naval force of the East Roman or Byzantine Empire. Like the empire it served, it was a direct continuation from its imperial Roman predecessor, but played a far greater role in the defense and survival of the state then its earlier iterations...
assistance in the taking of Bari. The Chronicon Salernitanum inconsistently attaches the initiative for such talks to Louis and then Basil.
The joint attack was projected for late in the summer of 869 and Louis remained at Benevento
Benevento
Benevento is a town and comune of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento, 50 km northeast of Naples. It is situated on a hill 130 m above sea-level at the confluence of the Calore Irpino and Sabato...
planning as late as June. The Byzantine fleet—of four hundred ships if the Annales Bertiniani
Annales Bertiniani
Annales Bertiniani, or The Annals of St. Bertin, are late Carolingian, Frankish annals that were found in the monastery of St. Bertin, after which they are named. Their account is taken to cover the period 830-82, thus continuing the Royal Frankish Annals , from which, however, it has circulated...
are to be trusted—arrived under the command of Nicetas with the expectation that Louis would hand over his daughter immediately. This he refused to do, for no known reason, but perhaps because Nicetas had refused to recognise his imperial title, since Louis later refers in a letter to the commander's "insulting behaviour". Perhaps, however, the fleet simply arrived too late in autumn.
In 870 the Bariot Muslims stepped up their raids, going so far as to ravage the Gargano Peninsula including the Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo
Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo
The Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo sul Gargano, sometimes called simply Monte Gargano, is a Catholic sanctuary on Mount Gargano, Italy, part of the commune of Monte Sant'Angelo, in the province of Foggia, northern Apulia....
. The Emperor Louis organised a response, fighting his way deep into Apulia
Apulia
Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...
and Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
but bypassing major population centres like Bari or Taranto. A few towns were apparently freed of Muslim control and the various Muslim bands encountered were universally defeated. Probably encouraged by these successes, Louis attacked Bari with a ground force of Franks and Lombards and aided by a Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
n fleet (of Sclavini). In February 871 the citadel fell and Sawdan was captured and taken to Benevento in chains. The report found in the De Administrando Imperio
De Administrando Imperio
De Administrando Imperio is the Latin title of a Greek work written by the 10th-century Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII. The Greek title of the work is...
of Constantine Porphyrogenitus that the Byzantines played a major role in the city's fall is probably a concoction.