Guarin (died 21 January 1137) was the chaplain

Chaplain

Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...

 (magister capellanus) and chancellor

Chancellor

Chancellor is the title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the Cancellarii of Roman courts of justice—ushers who sat at the cancelli or lattice work screens of a basilica or law court, which separated the judge and counsel from the...

 of Roger II of Sicily

Roger II of Sicily

Roger II was King of Sicily, son of Roger I of Sicily and successor to his brother Simon. He began his rule as Count of Sicily in 1105, later became Duke of Apulia and Calabria , then King of Sicily...

 from about 1130 to his death, during the first decade of the Norman kingdom of Sicily. According to Alexander of Telese

Alexander of Telese

Alexander of Telese was an Italian chronicler and historian, and the abbot of San Salvatore, near Telese, in southern Italy from before 1127 to before November 1143....

, the contemporary chronicler, he was "erudite ... and most prudent in negotiations ... a cleric well-versed in letters, skillful in matters of the world, and possessed of a tenacious and cautious mind."

Guarin was a Norman

Normans

The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...

 from France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 who arrived in Italy not long before Roger was crowned king in 1130. He first appears as cancellarius (chancellor) in a diploma of 1130 and then appears in an August 1132 diploma as magister cancellarius (master chancellor). When his chancellorship proper began has been disputed, the Dizionario giving a date of 1131 and Houben of 1133.

In the winter of 1134–1135, Guarin and the Emir John were sent at the head of an army into 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....

 against the rebel trio of Robert II of Capua

Robert II of Capua

Robert II was the count of Aversa and the prince of Capua from 1127 until his death .He was the only son and successor of Jordan II of Capua...

, Sergius VII of Naples

Sergius VII of Naples

Sergius VII was the thirty-ninth and last duke of Naples. He succeeded his father John VI on the Neapolitan throne in 1120 or 1123 at a time when Roger II of Sicily was rising rapidly in power...

, and Ranulf II of Alife. The rebels had taken Aversa

Aversa

Aversa is a town and comune in the Province of Caserta in Campania southern Italy, about 15 kilometres north of Naples. It is the centre of an agricultural district, the agro aversano, producing wine and cheese...

, which the two generals set about trying to retake. Guarin also defended and fortified 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...

 against any possible assault. After the arrival of Roger II on the scene, the insurrection soon collapsed and Guarin took Alife

Alife

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 and Raviscanina

Raviscanina

Raviscanina is a comune in the Province of Caserta in the Italian region Campania, located about 60 km north of Naples and about 35 km north of Caserta...

 without opposition. Guarin joined the siege of Naples then in progress.

Having taken control of Capua for the king, he was appointed the administrator of the eponymous Principality of Capua

Principality of Capua

The Principality of Capua was a Lombard state in Southern Italy, usually de facto independent, but under the varying suzerainty of Western and Eastern Roman Empires. It was originally a gastaldate, then a county, within the principality of Salerno....

 when the king made his son Alfonso

Alfonso of Hauteville

Alfonso of Hauteville , third son of Roger II of Sicily and Elvira of Castile, was the prince of Capua from 1135 to his death.He was named after his maternal grandfather, Alfonso VI of Castile...

 prince that year (1135). For the next two years, Guarin governed Capua with the young prince.

When, in late Summer 1136, the Emperor Lothair II led a large army down the peninsula, Guarin was sent again to prepare a defence and to force cooperation out of the abbot Seniorectus

Seniorectus

Seniorectus was the Abbot of Montecassino in the early twelfth century.Seniorectus was opposed to the policy of Roger II of Sicily, who intended in the late summer of 1136 to establish a garrison in Montecassino under the chamberlain Joscelin and chancellor Guarin, as defence against the invading...

 and the monks of Montecassino. On 5 January 1137, Guarin demanded their assistance and when refused besieged the monastery in an attempt to seize its treasure and its walls (to use as a fortress against the army of Henry X of Bavaria). He contracted illness during the siege and died at 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....

 on 21 January. The Chronica monasterii Casinensis cites his death as evidence of divine justice.

Guarin was succeeded in his office briefly by his lieutenant on the scene, Jocelyn. As master chaplain he was succeeded by Thomas Brun

Thomas Brun

Thomas Brun, also le Brun or Brown, was son or nephew of William Brun , a clerk of Henry I of England. He travelled to Sicily as a child in the entourage of Robert of Selby about the year 1130...

 and as chancellor by Robert of Selby

Robert of Selby

Robert of Selby was an Englishman, a courtier of Roger II and chancellor of the Kingdom of Sicily. His name possibly indicates that he hailed from Selby. He probably journeyed to Sicily about 1130...

, both Englishmen.

Sources

• Caravale, Mario (ed). Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani: LX Grosso – Guglielmo da Forlì. Rome, 2003.
• Matthew, Donald. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Cambridge University Press
  Cambridge University Press
  Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
  
  : 1992.
• Houben, Hubert. Roger II of Sicily: A Ruler between East and West. Trans. G. A. Loud and Diane Milbourne. Cambridge University Press
  Cambridge University Press
  Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
  
  : 2002.
• Curtis, Edmund. Roger of Sicily and the Normans in Lower Italy 1016–1154. G. P. Putnam's Sons: New York, 1912.
• Alexander of Telese, translated by G. A. Loud. The Deeds Done by Roger of Sicily. Introduction and Books One, Two, Three, and Four