Not long after it had been sacked by
Totila and its walls razed (545), Benevento became the seat of a powerful
Lombard duchy.
[2] The circumstances of the creation of
duchy of Benevento are disputed. Lombards were present in southern Italy well before the complete conquest of the
Po Valley: the duchy would have been founded in 576 by some soldiers led by a
Zotto, autonomously from the Lombard king.
The Principality of Benevento as it appeared in 1000 AD.
Zotto's successor was
Arechis I (died in 640), from the
Duchy of Friuli, who captured
Capua and
Crotone, sacked the Byzantine
Amalfi but was unable to capture
Naples. After his reign the
Eastern Roman Empire had left in southern Italy only Naples, Amalfi, Gaeta, Sorrento, the tip of Calabria and the maritime cities of
Apulia.
In the following decades, Benevento conquered some territories to the
Roman-Byzantine duchy, but the main enemies was now the northern
Lombard reign itself.
King Liutprand intervened in several times imposing a candidate of his own to the duchy's succession; his successor
Ratchis declared the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento foreign countries where it was forbidden to travel without a royal permission.
With the collapse of the Lombard kingdom in 773,
Duke Arechis II was elevated to Prince under the new empire of the
Franks, in compensation for having some of his territory transferred back to the
Papal States. Benevento was acclaimed by a chronicler as a "second Pavia"—
Ticinum geminum— after the Lombard capital was lost. The unit of this principality was short-lived: in 851,
Salerno broke off under
Siconulf and, by the end of that century,
Capua was independent as well. Benevento was ruled again by
Byzantines between 891-895.
The so-called
Langobardia minor was unified for the last time by Duke
Pandolfo Testa di Ferro, who expanded his extensive control in the
Mezzogiorno from his base in Benevento and
Capua. Before his death (March 981), he had gained from Emperor
Otto I the title of Duke of Spoleto also. However, both Benevento and Salerno rebelled to his son and heir,
Pandulf II.
The first decades of the 11th century saw two more German-descended rulers to southern Italy:
Henry II, conquered in 1022 both Capua and Benevento, but returned after the failed siege of
Troia. Similar results obtained
Conrad II
in 1038. In these years the three states (Benevento, Capua, and
Salerno) were often engaged in local wars and disputes that favoured the
rise of the
Normans from mercenaries to ruler of the whole southern Italy. The greatest of them was
Robert Guiscard, who captured Benevento in 1053 after the
Emperor Henry III had first authorised its conquest in 1047 when
Pandulf III and
Landulf VI
shut the gates to him. These princes were later expelled from the city
and then recalled after the pope failed to defend it from Guiscard. The
city fell to Normans in 1077. It was a papal city until after 1081.
Papal rule
Papal Benevento in the 18th century.
Benevento passed to the Papacy peacefully when the emperor
Henry III ceded it to
Leo IX, in exchange for the
Bishopric of Bamberg (1053).
Landulf II, Archbishop of Benevento,
promoted reform, but also allied with the Normans. He was deposed for
two years. Benevento was the cornerstone of the Papacy's temporal powers
in southern Italy. The Papacy ruled it by appointed rectors, seated in a
palace, and the principality continued to be a papal possession until
1806, when
Napoleon granted it to his minister
Talleyrand
with the title of Sovereign Prince. Talleyrand was never to settle down
and actually rule his new principality; in 1815 Benevento was returned
to the
papacy. It was
united with Italy in 1860.
[2]
Manfred of Sicily lost his life in 1266 in battle with
Charles of Anjou not far from the town, in the course of the
Battle of Benevento.
[2]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Benevento". Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 727–728.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed. (1854–1857). "article name needed". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray.
