Free The Kingdom in the Sun by John Julius Norwich Page A

situated on the very border of the Papal State—was left in the hands of an unrepentant champion of Anacletus and under the imperial rather than the papal colours, is not recorded in any of the chronicles. Perhaps it is just as well. 1
    As Duke Henry led his troops south across the Garigliano he may have congratulated himself on a technical victory, but he cannot have cherished any delusions about its real significance. The imperial flag flying over the monastery might temporarily affect Roger's prestige in the area, but in the absence of a garrison there was nothing to stop its being hauled down the moment the German army had disappeared from sight. At Capua, however, the next stage of his journey, better things awaited him. Immediately on his arrival the two local barons whom Roger had appointed to defend the city transferred their allegiance and opened the gates; and Prince Robert, who had accompanied the army from Cremona onwards, was replaced
    1 According to the Kaiserchronik, a long and rambling piece of Bavarian doggerel composed around 1150, the abbey was actually taken by a party of Henry's men, who gained admission by disguising themselves as pilgrims, hiding their swords beneath their robes. But this story, in one form or another, is almost de rigueur in mediaeval accounts of monastic sieges—see The Normans in the South, pp. 77-8. The only surprising thing is that Bernhardi, the punctilious (if tendentious) biographer of Lothair, should have taken it seriously. (Lothar von Supplinburg, pp. 700-1.)
    on his old throne. The citizens accepted him willingly enough. The majority had always felt him to be their rightful lord, with a stronger and more ancient claim on their loyalties than the King of Sicily could ever boast; and the remainder, seeing him supported by so large a force, bowed to the inevitable. Robert, it is true, had to pay Henry four thousand talents not to turn his men loose on the city; but at such a price he must have considered his restoration cheap indeed.
    Now it was the turn of Benevento. This time the populace stood firm, but were unwise enough to launch what they hoped would be a surprise attack on the imperial camp. It proved a disaster. They fled back to the city; the pursuers passed through the gates on the heels of the pursued; and the following morning—it was Sunday, 23 May—the Beneventans too made their submission, merely stipulating that their city should remain inviolate and that the erstwhile supporters of Anacletus should not be made to suffer. Their conditions were agreed; only Cardinal Crescentius, the Anacletan Rector who had already suffered one expulsion five years before, was seized by an old enemy and delivered over to Innocent, who condemned him to live out the rest of his days in the obscurity of a monastic cell.
    Cheered by its successes—though possibly a little disappointed at having been once again cheated of a good day's pillage—Henry's army threaded its way over the mountains into Apulia, joining up with Lothair at Bari just in time to participate in the Whit Sunday thanksgiving. The Emperor indeed had a lot to be thankful for. His progress down the peninsula had been smoother than his son-in-law's. Ravenna had welcomed him. Ancona had resisted but had paid the price. Lothair's savage treatment of it had served as a warning to others and brought out many of the local barons to offer him homage and often material assistance. This pattern had continued as he marched south. The towns tended to be hostile, though after the fate of Ancona they generally managed to commute their hostility into a policy of sullen acceptance; but in the country districts most barons had rallied willingly enough.
    Once over the Apulian frontier, the Emperor met with no resistance till he reached the spur of Monte Gargano. There Robert
    Guiscard's old castle of Monte Sant' Angelo held out for three days against Gonrad of Hohenstaufen and submitted only when Lothair arrived with the main