America's Founding Father James Wilson and Tamaqua, Pennsylvania

Prologue

Who?? and What??

I grew up in Tamaqua. Everyone who has grown up in Tamaqua knows about its “origin”.  The story is that, how, in 1799, one Burkhardt Moser emigrated from Northampton County over the Blue Mountain and settled near the confluence of the Panther Creek and Little Schuylkill River (then known as the Tamaqua - or Tamaguay - Creek). Here he built a sawmill and later his permanent residence in 1801 (which today remains standing, in part, at the rear of 307 East Broad St).  Moser was a lumberman and farmer and with a small cadre of family and friends, a small settlement took root.  In 1817 coal was discovered here and a railroad was built in 1831 to transport it and as they say, the rest is history.

Burkhardt Moser's original log cabin dwelling built 1801 in Tamaqua, PA

The (William) Penn Proprietorship “purchased” the land upon which the town later arose in the mid eighteenth century.  This acquisition was made under the Purchase of 1749 Treaty. What was to become Tamaqua was first assigned to Northampton County. The northern-most township in this part of Northampton County was Lynn Township and initially this land north of the Blue Mountain became part of Lynn Township. But in 1762, a township north of the Blue Mountain was created called Penns Township. Later in the first decade of the 1800s, Penns Township was further divided into East Penn (eventually becoming part of Carbon County decades later) and West Penn Townships. The area north of new West Penn Township was further sub-divided into Rush Township.

With the exception the fertile farmland immediately north of the Blue Mountain (near Lizard Creek) very little migration to the new land took place. The first reason for this was the effect of the French and Indian War in the 1750s.  Subsequently at its conclusion in 1763 and a little more than a decade later the American War for Independence began and lasted until 1783.  This was the second reason for the slow migration.  

But the lack of migration here did not mean that the land was ignored. People purchased the new land and began to establish individual ownership. There was a 5-part process to create deeds (and have individual owners buy the lands). The original and normal process for obtaining land in Pennsylvania was set up under the authority of Crown of England for the colony of Pennsylvania: 

    1) the applicant submitted an application for a land tract; 

    2) the Pennsylvania Land Office (after the payment of a fee) issued a warrant, or order, for a survey; 

    3) the next step was to pay another fee for the survey and wait until a deputy surveyor could be assigned to do the work; 

    4) the survey with a precise description and map of the tract was returned to the Land Office for issuing the final title or “patent”; and

    5) the patent (upon payment of yet another fee) was issued and a name given to the tract by the patentee. (From the years of the Penn Proprietorship until about 1810, tracts were given names to make it easier to track them when they changed ownership. Moser named his tract, "Amsterdam.")

It is estimated that approximately 70% of land within Pennsylvania was transferred from the colonial or, later, state government to private owners using this process. In the other 30% of land transfers, different processes were used. Many early settlers settled on vacant land before paying for and receiving government authorization (a warrant), often because they were beyond government offices or because Pennsylvania had not acquired the territory yet through treaties with Indians.  Rather than receiving a “warrant to survey” ordering a surveyor to come and survey the land as in the normal process, they received an “order to accept” a survey conducted after their settlement.  In this case, the survey states it was conducted on a “on a warrant to accept” and the word “accept” is noted in the relevant Warrant Register.

Sometimes, many years passed between the steps.  Moreover, the process was rife with land speculation.  Many warrantees were not interested in the land to have as their own, but would purchase the land in order to sell to those who did desire it as farmers, lumbermen or others as patentees. Furthermore they could be an additional step of land speculation in which both the warrantee and patentee would be speculators, intent on subdividing their tracts and reaping the expected profits.

The process, for example, for Burkhardt Moser's patent occurred as follows:

    1) John Burkhardt Moser applied for a Warrant in Northampton County on June 27, 1768 (A-21-253).  

    2) However, the survey was not completed and returned until November 9, 1775. Moreover, Moser did not turn the warrant into a patent before he died in 1807.  

    3) Later his son Burkhardt received a deed (accept to warrant) on June 21, 1809 (H-1-138), 41 years later. 

By this time Burkhardt (the son) had settled in Tamaqua and began a small but growing community there.  The elder John Burkhardt Moser never moved from Lynn Township and died in 1807.

Warrant of Burkhart Moser, dated June 21, 1809, Rush Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania

Other Developers of Tamaqua

Burkhardt the Elder was actually the second person to apply for ownership of land in what was to later become Tamaqua borough limits. Nine other individuals (or groups) were to purchase land (warrantees) which eventually became Tamaqua borough limits.  It is important to recognize that these warrants and patents included substantial acreage (from 200 to 400 and sometimes more, acres for each patent) and only a portion of the original deeds constituted property in the borough limits.  For example, Moser’s final deed was 221 acres, with about 50% being east of the future town limit (an area later known as Greenwood and Rahn Township).

The following is a summary of the Warrantee / Patentee records for what was to become the borough (limits) of Tamaqua:

#	Warrantee	Date of Warrant	Patentee	Date of Patent
9	John Wood	7/22/1784	John Reiner	5/9/1786
10	Peter Aston	7/10/1793	James Wilson	9/17/1794
11	Aaron Bowen	11/23/1785	Aaron Bowen	2/4/1786
25	Frederick Boller	11/18/1793	James Wilson	9/16/1794
26	Jacob Hauser	5/6/1776	Jacob Hauser	7/15/1782
27	Peter Scholl	6/2/1768	Charles Graff et al	1/4/1828
28	J. Dunn et al	8/13/1794	Aaron Winder et al	5/30/1854
29	J. Burkhardt Moser	6/27/1768	Burkhardt Moser	6/21/1809
40	Melchior Christ	8/10/1794	Thomas Armat	1/5/1798
90*	Joseph Clark	11/18/1793	Andrew Douglass	9/16/1794
* See the extreme NW corner of the Tamaqua boundary. Not IDed by number on map below.

The map below shows the relative location of the tracts of land that would constitute the area of the future borough of Tamaqua: 

Map showing the Patents/Warrants issued on land later to become the Borough of Tamaqua (see parallelogram, outlined in black); Burkhardt Moser's plot shown outlined in green. See Warrantee Maps for Rahn Township.

As points of interest, there were ten land plots that covered "Tamaqua". Only three land plots share the same family name as both warrantee and patentee. James Wilson was the only person to own two plots within "Tamaqua" (as a patentee). He was also the largest landowner by area in the future borough.  Peter Scholl was the first warrantee in 1768, Moser being the second. Jacob Hauser was the first patentee in 1782. Three warrants were not converted to patents (deeds) until the 19th Century, the last in 1854. Only three warrants were issued before the American Revolution. Only Hauser's patent was issued prior to the completion of the American Revolution. Only two warrants are fully enclosed by the future Tamaqua borough limits.

Land Speculation and James Wilson

The Founding Fathers

Land speculation was a common preoccupation among the Founding Fathers. For some it became an economic affliction. As noted by Albert J. Beveridge in his The Life of John Marshall, Volume II, p. 202,

“Hardly a prominent man of the period failed to secure large tracts of real estate, which could be had at absurdly low prices, and to hold the lands for the natural advance which increased population would bring”. 

For many, such speculation would prove a hazardous preoccupation. Virginia’s Henry Lee and Pennsylvania’s Robert Morris and James Wilson ended up in jail because of their debts from land speculation. Washington biographer James Thomas Flexner in his George Washington: Anguish and Farewell (1793-1799), p. 371, noted that land speculation was, 

“a fundamental aspect of American economic life, but it had become in the last few years an extremely tricky one. General [Henry] Knox was above the knees in financial trouble because of the new settlements he had started in Maine.”

Speculation in land became particularly rampant in the early 1790s when the stability of the new republic seemed assured. Describing the process of speculation, historian Forrest McDonald in his The Presidency of George Washington, p. 10, wrote: 

“One worked or connived to obtain a stake, then worked or connived to obtain legal title to a tract of wilderness, then sold the wilderness by the acre to the hordes of immigrants, and thereby lived and died a wealthy man. Appropriately, the most successful practitioner of this craft was George Washington, who had acquired several hundred thousand acres and was reckoned by many as the wealthiest man in America.”

So in the 1790s, there were rich speculators and there were successful farmers and businessmen who bought up large tracts of land (400 acres) with the goal of subdividing the area and sell to migrant immigrants in smaller parcels (5-10 acres). Tamaqua was no different and one man who was well known, and who was also a founding father, was James Wilson.  He owned two plots which are (in part) contained within the Tamaqua town (old) limits (see above). He owned what was to become upper Dutch Hill and part of the North Ward, as well as the southwestern part of the South Ward.

James Wilson

James Wilson was born in Leven, Fife, Scotland on September 14, 1742. He immigrated to Philadelphia in 1766 and became a teacher (Latin tutor who became an English professor) at the College of Philadelphia (later to become the University of Pennsylvania). After studying law under John Dickinson (a legendary Pennsylvania attorney and fellow Founding Father), he was admitted to the bar and set up a legal practice in Reading, Pennsylvania. He moved to Carlisle, where he operated a farm and became a founding trustee of Dickinson College. 

He wrote a well-received pamphlet arguing that Parliament's taxation of the Thirteen Colonies was illegitimate due to the colonies' lack of representation in Parliament. He was elected twice to the Continental Congress, and was a signatory of the United States Declaration of Independence. 

After some time, Wilson moved his family back to Philadelphia.  Upon holding the University of Pennsylvania’s first law lectures – which may also have been the first in the United States – James Wilson became known as the founder of what is today the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

In 1787 he was a major force in drafting the United States Constitution. Wilson served on the Committee of Detail, which produced the first draft of the United States Constitution. He was the principal architect of the executive branch (see McConnell, Michael W. (2019). "James Wilson's Contributions to the Construction of Article II". In Barnett, Randy E. (ed.). The Life and Career of Justice James Wilson (PDF). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Center for the Constitution. pp. 23–50 and p. 219) and an outspoken supporter of greater popular control of governance, a strong national government, and legislative representation proportional to population. Along with Roger Sherman and Charles Pinckney, he proposed the Three-Fifths Compromise, which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation in the United States House of Representatives. While preferring the direct election of the president through a national popular vote, he proposed the use of an electoral college, which formed the basis of the Electoral College ultimately adopted by the Convention. After the convention, he campaigned for the ratification of the Constitution, with his "speech in the statehouse yard" reprinted in newspapers throughout the country, and he opposed the Bill of Rights. Wilson also played a major role in drafting the 1790 Pennsylvania Constitution.

Lawyer, Founding Father and Supreme Court Justice, James Wilson

A leading legal theorist, he was also one of the six original justices appointed by George Washington to the Supreme Court of the United States. In his capacity as first Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania, he taught the first course on the new Constitution to President Washington and his cabinet in 1789 and 1790. 

However, Wilson was, as noted above, one of the numerous Founding Fathers who was a land speculator. During 1779 he began actively taking up the development of the country, not only in Pennsylvania and other States of the East, but in the new territories of the West, over which the States were quarreling but which was bound to become National domain. He was an owner of the combined Illinois and Oubache (Wabash) Land Companies, and later became their attorney and president, and from this time until his death it is doubtful if there was a greater individual land owner in America. Two years later he owned 300 shares in the Indiana Land Company, whose bounds covered a good part of two eventual States, Indiana and Illinois. Within a dozen years or so he had sold a half million acres to the Holland Land Company and bought over 4,000,000 acres scattered in all parts of the South from the Potomac and Ohio to the western boundary at the Mississippi.  His papers show that he was not merely a speculator, but, as he put it to certain Dutch capitalists, proposed to develop our need with their abundance of men and money. He outlined to them a plan of immigration and development imperial in its scope. (From James Wilson and the Constitution: the opening address in the official series of events known as the James Wilson Memorial by Burton Alva Konkle [Philadelphia], 1907)

As an example of this (and after he began his tenure on the Supreme Court in 1792), Robert Morris and John Nicholson incorporate the Pennsylvania Population Company with a capital of $500,000 to raise money on 500,000 acres in northwestern Pennsylvania; shares are sold at $200; John Nicholson takes 400 shares and another 100 for Robert Morris; other directors include James Wilson, Gen. William Irvine (1741-1804), Walter Stewart, Theophile Cazenove (representing Dutch investors) and Aaron Burr. The object is to sell land in small parcels to settlers. (See Arbuckle, Rappleye, Chernow.)  

He continued speculating near his adopted home in Pennsylvania. He established mills and factories in Northampton County and speculated in the Pennsylvania interior including upcountry Northampton and Berks Counties, where Tamaqua was to be born.  In 1794 Wilson owned over 6,000 acres in northern Penns Township (what was to become Rahn Township) including two parcels in Tamaqua.  Wilson had been described as owning large areas of coal lands in Northampton County, which he later sold in 1796 to Benjamin R. Morgan of Philadelphia and General Henry Lee of Virginia. (See The History of the Supreme Court, Volume 1, Gustavus Myers, p.114, Chicago, Charles H. Kerr & Co. 1912.) It is not clear that the Tamaqua parcels were part of these “coal” lands, although both parcels were certainly future collieries – parcel 10, with the LCN Number 14 and parcel 25, near the West Lehigh Colliery.

However, Wilson suffered financial ruin from the Panic of 1796–1797 and was briefly imprisoned in a debtors' prison on two occasions (while on the Supreme Court). He suffered a stroke and died in August 1798 (in North Carolina), becoming the first U.S. Supreme Court justice to die.  He was replaced on the Supreme Court by Bushrod Washington, George’s cousin (appointed by President John Adams).  His son, Bird Wilson, was still settling his vast affairs in 1852, decades after Wilson’s death.

Part 3 - The Normans in Italy: The Normans Expand in Southern Italy: The Twelve Baronies – Melfi and the County of Apulia and Calabria

 Prologue

During the 1030 and 1040s, in addition to the intrigue between the Lombards and Byzantines, southern Italy was rocked by raids from Sicilian Muslims.  The areas affected were primarily the Byzantine ruled lands in nearby Calabria (and to a lesser extent, Lucania - now Basilicata - and Apulia).  Lupus reported that in 1031 (or 1032) Pothos Argyros (the catepan of Byzantine Italy) faced an invasion by the Emirate of Sicily. [See Mense Iunij comprehenderunt Sarraceni Cassianum. Cod. Andr. in terra Hydruntina, et tertio die mensis Iulij fecit proelium (a) Potho cum Sarracenis, et ceciderunt Graeci. Annales, 57.45–46] The Italian chroniclers report that the Muslims sacked Cassano allo Ionio (in Calabria) in June, and that, hurrying to confront them Argyros was defeated and killed. [See Felix, Wolfgang (1981). Byzanz und die islamische Welt im früheren 11. Jahrhundert (in German). Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, p.202] 

It was during this period that William “Iron Arm”, one of twelve sons of Tancred De Hauteville,  journeyed to Italy with his younger brother Drogo in the first half of the eleventh century (circa 1035), in response to requests for assistance (and the possibility of money and land) made by fellow Normans under Rainulf Drengot, by then the count of Aversa. This immigration was a transformative event in Italian history. (William and Drogo's half-brothers Robert Guiscard and Roger would also later immigrate). These De Hauteville would later conquer large parts of southern Italy, the island of Sicily and their sons would create the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, in the 12th century.

Emperor Michael IV ordered one of his top generals to Italy, George Maniakes, to succeed Agyros and stabilize the situation in Italy and in addition seek to drive the Muslims from Sicily, which they had held since the ninth century.  Maniakes brought a formidable mercenary army which included the Viking hero Harald Hardrada, Italian Lombards under Arduin and the recent Norman adventurer / immigrants under William Iron Arm. These latter troops were committed by Guaimar IV of Salerno. 

Invasion of Sicily and Revolt of the Lombards and Normans

From 1038 until 1040, Maniakes' diverse group defeated Arab forces in south-eastern Sicily, where the jewel in the crown was the city of Syracuse. It was in Sicily that William earned his nickname, "Iron Arm," by killing the emir of Syracuse with a sword in single combat. George Maniakes was satisfied to conquer Syracuse, controlling it from the coastal fortress that still bears his name. He was then appointed catapan of Italy but his victory was to prove fleeting.

Maniakes publicly insulted Arduin, the Lombard leader, who decided to withdraw back to peninsular Italy. William and the Normans decided to follow the Lombards, over a dispute on the sharing of the spoils of war. Back in Apulia the two were not always on the most amicable terms with each other or with the Byzantines. 

As a final insult, Harold and most of the Vikings also abandoned Maniakes. This made it difficult for Maniakes to hold his piece of Sicily. Maniakes likewise offended Stephen, his admiral, who had important connections back in Constantinople. In Maniakes' absence, the Emperor's crown had passed to Constantine IX. The general was recalled to the capital in 1042 and Syracuse (and Sicily) once again fell into Arab hands. Adding insult to injury, when Michael Dokeianos was appointed catapan of Italy, replacing Maniakes, he appointed Arduin as the military commander of the city of Melfi in Puglia.

In 1040, the Lombards of southern Italy revolted against the Byzantines, with the support of Norman mercenaries. In March, the rebels scored a first victory and killed Dokeianos, near the Olivento. In September 1041, they defeated the new Byzantine catepan, Exaugustus, the son of Basil Boioannes, and took him captive.  In February 1042, the original nominal leader, Atenulf, brother of the prince of Benevento, defected with the catepan's ransom money to the Byzantiness and was replaced by Argyrus, the son of Meles (of the original Lombard Rebellions). After some early successes, Argyrus also defected to the Byzantines. Agyrus apparently received a bribe from Constantine IX, and travelled to Constantinople and received the title of "Duke of Italy, Calabria, Sicily, and Paphlagonia."

In September 1042, the Normans elected their own leader, ignoring Arduin. The revolt, originally Lombard, had now become Norman in character and leadership. William Iron Arm was elected by the Normans as their count. Under him the Normans essentially conquered this part of northern Puglia from the Byzantines. William and the other leaders, chief among them Drogo and Peter, petitioned Guaimar IV, Prince of Salerno, for recognition of their conquests. They received the lands around Melfi as a fief and proclaimed Guaimar "Duke of Apulia and Calabria". At Melfi in 1043, Guaimar divided the region (except for Melfi itself) into twelve baronies for the benefit of the Norman leaders.

Amatus recorded that "the Normans divided among themselves" the lands at Melfi, following their victories against the Byzantines dated to 1041, and that:

• “William received Ascoli;

• Drogo had Venosa;

• Arnolin had Lavello;

• Hugh Toutebove had Monopoli;

• Rodulf had Canne;

• Walter, Civitate;

• Peter, Trani;

• Rodulf son of Bebena, Sant´Arcangelo;

• Tristan, Montepeloso;

• Hervey, Grumento;

• Asclettin, Acerenza; and

• Rainfroi, Malarbine”

adding that “Prince Guaimar of Salerno…invested each one of them,”

Location of the Twelve Baronies of the Normans

William married Guida, daughter of Guy, duke of Sorrento, and niece of Guaimar, continuing a Norman strategy of using marriage to solidify political moves.

Melfi was the third of the Norman territories in Italy.  Melfi is located then in northern Apulia (present day Basilicata).  The lands at Melfi range from Monte Gargano near the Adriatic Sea to Monopoli (south of Bari).  Melfi gained its importance in the Middle Ages as a strategic point between areas controlled by the Byzantines – the Byzantine Themes of Lucania and Longbardia - and those controlled by the Lombards – the Duchy of Salerno, as a buffer territory, much like Ariano had been earlier.

County of Apulia and Calabria

William and Guaimar then began the conquest of Calabria (from the Byzantines) in 1044 but William was defeated near Taranto by Argyrus. He died in early 1046 and was succeeded by his brother Drogo. 

Drogo had fought on behalf of his brother in Apulia, seizing in 1045, Bovino from the Byzantines. In 1047, Drogo married Altrude of Salerno, a Lombard princess. In 1047, while the Emperor Henry III was visiting southern Italy, he received Drogo's homage and invested him with all the territory which he already controlled. After this Drogo began using the title "Duke and Master of all Italy and Count of all the Normans of Apulia and Calabria". [See Raoul Manselli. "Altavilla, Drogone d'". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 2, Alberto Ghisalberti (ed.) Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia italiana, 1960] 

In 1051, Drogo was assassinated at Monteilaro, near Bovino, the victim of a Byzantine conspiracy of the Catepan, the Lombard, Argyrus, who was planning the reconquest of Apulia. Drogo was then succeeded by his brother Humphrey.

By this time, the Norman advances in southern Italy had alarmed Pope Leo and others. First, the Norman presence in Italy was more than just a case of upsetting the power balance, for many of the Italian locals did not take kindly to the Norman raiding and wished to respond in kind. Second, the instability brought about on the Norman side by the murder in unclear circumstances of Drogo. Third, Leo met Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor in Saxony, and asked for aid in curbing the growing Norman power. This was supported by the Italian and Lombard rulers in the south - the Prince of Benevento, Rudolf, the Duke of Gaeta, the Counts of Aquino and Teano, the Archbishop and the citizens of Amalfi — together with Lombards from Apulia, Molise, Campania, Abruzzo and Latium. The Pope had also another friendly power, the Byzantines now ruled by Constantine IX. At first, the Byzantines had tried to buy off the Normans and press them into service within their own largely mercenary army. So, the Byzantine commander, the Lombard Catepan of Italy Argyrus, offered money to disperse as mercenaries to the Eastern frontiers of the Empire, but the Normans rejected the proposal, implicitly stating that their aim was now the conquest of southern Italy. 

The sum of all this led to Leo establishing a coalition army of Germans, Lombards and Italians in 1053. Argyrus also contacted the Pope, and when Leo and his army moved from Rome to Apulia to engage the Normans in battle, a Byzantine army personally led by Argyros moved from Apulia with the same plan. The Normans understood the danger and collected all available men into a single army under the command of Humphrey as well as the Count of Aversa, Richard Drengot, others of the De Hauteville family, including Robert Guiscard, and the Count of Ariano, Gerardo, Guiscard's nephew (by marriage).

The Normans defeated the Papal army with Agyrus unable to reach the battle area in time to help them in the Battle of Civitate. After this defeat, Pope Leo did eventually acknowledge the Normans as the rulers of their domains in southern Italy. The Battle of Civitate proved to be a turning point in the fortunes of the Normans in Italy, who were able to win a victory despite their differences among themselves, solidifying their legitimacy in the process. Moreover, it was the first major victory for Robert Guiscard, who would eventually rise to prominence as the leader of the Normans. [Eads, Valerie. "Civitate, Battle of," in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Medieval Warfare and Military Technology. Edited by Clifford J. Rogers. Vol. 1. Oxford: University Press, 2010. p. 204.] In terms of its implications, the Battle of Civitate had the same long-term political ramifications as had the Battle of Hastings in England and Northern Europe, a reorientation of power and influence. [Norwich, John Julius. The Other Conquest. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. p. 96.]

Humphrey died in 1057 and was succeeded by Guiscard. Soon after his succession, likely in 1058, Guiscard separated from his wife because they were related within the prohibited degrees (apparently in a concession to the Papacy). The reformist Papacy, at odds with the Holy Roman Emperor (due to the Investiture Controversy) and the Roman nobility itself, resolved to recognize the Normans and secure them as allies. Therefore, at the Council of Melfi, in 1059, Pope Nicholas II invested Guiscard as duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily.  Guiscard, now "by the Grace of God and St. Peter duke of Apulia and Calabria and, if either aid me, future lord of Sicily", agreed to hold his titles and lands by annual tribute to the Holy See and to maintain its cause.  In the next twenty years he was to undertake a series of conquests, winning his Sicilian dukedom.

Depiction of Robert Guiscard

The Drengots 

A series of deaths during the period of 1054–1056, that of Pope Leo with no immediate successor, of Constantine IX Monomachos leaving Constantinople in internal strife and Emperor Henry III leaving a child heir, gave the Normans a near free hand in Southern Italy. [G.A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (New York: Longman, 2000), p. 120] Richard (who was Guiscard's brother-in-law, took advantage of this. Richard had been constantly seeking territorial expansion through war against his Lombard neighbors, Pandulf VI of Capua and Guaimar's son and successor, Gisulf II of Salerno. [John Julius Norwich, The Normans in the South 1016-1130 (London: Longmans, 1967), pp. 108–09] He pushed back the borders of the latter until there was little left of the once great principality but the city of Salerno itself and when the (weak) prince of Capua died in 1057, he besieged Capua and took the princely title (1058) from Pandulf's brother, Landulf VIII, but left the city in Lombard hands for at least four years more, until 1062. [Norwich, 1967, pp. 108–09]

In 1059, the future Pope Gregory VII, then a high-ranking member of the Papal Curia, travelled to Capua to enlist for aid on behalf of the reforming Pope Nicholas II against the antipope Benedict X. [Norwich, 1967, p. 124] Soon, Richard was besieging Benedict and, in 1059, Nicholas convened a synod at Melfi where he confirmed Richard as count of Aversa and prince of Capua at the same time as investing Guiscard as duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily. [Norwich, 1967, p. 124] Richard and Guiscard swore allegiance to the papacy and respect for papal territory, completely transforming the political loyalties of the south of Italy and removing the few remaining independent Greek and Lombard princes and the Holy Roman emperor from the political picture. [Norwich, 1967, p. 124]

Richard I, Prince of Capua, making donation, miniature from Sant'Angelo's Register in Formis, manuscript, Italy, 12th century

Epilogue

The conquest of southern Italy thus fell into three distinct stages. First, up to the early 1040s the Normans acted as mercenaries, selling their services to almost every power in the south, except for the Muslims, “fighting for the purpose of gain” in Malaterra’s succinct phrase. (“Causa militari aliquid lucrandi”, Malaterra, i.6, p. 10.) This led to the Norman enclaves of Ariano and Aversa.

From 1042 onwards they acted in their own right, extending their operations from the Lombard zone (Ariano) into Apulia (at Melfi and elsewhere), and in the 1040s and 1050s employment turned into conquest. The capture of Capua in 1058 and the investiture of the Norman leaders Robert Guiscard and Richard I of Aversa by the pope in 1059 as, respectively, duke of Apulia and prince of Capua effectively closed this phase, even though not all of southern Italy was yet in Norman hands. The papal investiture was a sign that the Normans were there to stay, and it recognized that by then their takeover was inevitable.  

The third phase was one of consolidation on the mainland, defeating the last bastions of Byzantine rule in Apulia and Calabria, annexing the remaining Lombard led duchies and, then combined with a new enterprise, the conquest of the island of Sicily in 1061.

Side Notes: What factors led to the emigration from Normandy to southern Italy?

The first factor that encouraged many contacts between France and Italy during the last quarter of the tenth and the first quarter of the eleventh century was pilgrimage.  Italy was the crossing point of every major pilgrimage route leading to the Holy Land. Normans became familiar with southern Italy, its politics, its culture and its opportunity for advancement.

The next contributing factor to the Norman migration to the south is the over-population of Normandy, but in the sense of “inheritance”.  The best example of this period is the sons of Tancred de Hauteville, whose reasons for venturing to Italy are suggested by Amatus of Montecassino, Geoffrey Malaterra and Orderic Vitalis. According to Amatus “these people [the Normans] had increased to such a number that the fields and orchards were not sufficient for producing the necessities of life for so many” (Amatus, I. 1.), while Malaterra adds that “the sons of Tancred [Hauteville] noticed that whenever their aging neighbors passed away, their heirs would fight amongst themselves for their inheritance resulting in the division of the patrimony – which had been intended to fall to the lot of a single heir – into portions that were too small. [...] Ultimately, … they came to Apulia, a province of Italy.”(Malaterra, 1. 5) Orderic Vitalis noted this through the last “speech” he put into the mouth of Robert Guiscard on his deathbed in July 1085: “We were born of poor and humble parents and left the barren (sterile) country of the Cotentin and homes which could not support us to travel to Rome.” (Orderic Vitalis, VII, p. 32) These accounts underline the fact that the division of the family patrimony was a serious issue in eleventh century Normandy. Inheritance dashed the aspirations of many younger sons for acquiring a piece of land for themselves. The type of “joint tenure” estate, where the younger sons were given a share of the patrimony under the control of their elder brother, which would satisfy the younger members of a family and discourage emigration became standard only in the late eleventh century.  (See E. Tabuteau, Transfers of Property in Eleventh-century Norman law, Chapel Hill, London, 1988, Cahen, La Regime Feodal, pp. 88-9, and Loud, “How Norman was the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy?”, p. 18) 

Next, political factors played an important role in the decision to leave for Italy. Many who did so were exiles, victims of ducal wrath due to their military or political opposition to him, although some were later pardoned by the duke and reinstated. Exile was a common tool of punishment used by the Richard II, known as the “Ullac” (the duke’s right to exile has Scandinavian origin – ullac - and it is first documented in the 1050s: Haskins, Norman Institutions, pp. 27-30; Bates, Normandy Before 1066, pp. 166-67; E. Van Houts, “L’Exil Dans l’Espace Anglo-Normand”, La Normandie et l’Angleterre au Moyen Age, ed. P.Bouet, V.Gazeau, CRAHM, Caen, 2001, pp. 117-27), against uncooperative members of the nobility, in which someone of note would have aroused the interest of the Duke himself.  But the driving force behind the expansion of the 1020s-50s to Italy was the political and social disturbances in Normandy itself and many parts of northern France after the break-down of Robert II’s regime in 1034, and especially during William II’s minority. (See D.C. Douglas, William the Conqueror, The Norman Impact upon England, (2nd ed.), Yale University Press, London, 1999, pp. 31-80; Bates, Normandy Before 1066, pp. 46-93)  

Other Normans were escaping the bitter conflicts between aristocratic families, during the crucial decades for the rise of aristocratic power (1035-55).  These years appear in great contrast to the period of relative stability and peace of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries in Normandy, a situation which had attracted political exiles from other parts of France actually, e.g. Anjou and Brittany, who would become leading members of the Norman aristocracy. The dramatic phase of Norman expansion began when the same type of territorial fragmentation and reorganization of family structures became pronounced within Normandy itself. (See Bates, Normandy Before 1066, p. 244.) 

That Time I Was a Nuclear Spy for the US Government

Background

You never know what situation you will find yourself when you are working for the Department of Defense. I was 24 years old and a 2nd Lieutenant in the US Air Force. My first operational assignment was as a Navigator assigned to an Air Refueling Squadron (KC-135s), based at Grissom Air Force Base in Bunker Hill, IN. When I reported there in early 1973, I only flew a month or six weeks of Strategic Air Command (SAC) missions (all training, i.e. air refueling, missions) there and participated in SAC Alerts, which was the primary function of SAC. 

SAC Alert was a real mission in which aircrew and their airplanes were on 24 hour “alert” status. This means that the airplane is fully fueled, maintained and ready to launch within minutes.  The crews (on a one-week rotation) stay in a housing facility (colloquially called the “mole-hole” because it was partially constructed underground) which is located adjacent to the airplane parking apron (colloquially called the “Christmas tree” because of the manner in which the airplanes were parked in a staggered formation that from above had that shape).

The Vietnam War was in the Peace Treaty Negotiation Stage at the time of my assignment.  The Treaty itself was signed on January 27, 1973.  The last military unit withdrew from South Vietnam on March 29.  US military operations did not end then however, as intelligence and reconnaisance flights and operations continued based primarily from Kadena AB in Japan and bases in Thailand. These were extensions of Operation Bullet Shot which had been the last major bombing of North Vietnam in December 1972, which had triggered the Peace Accords. Within a month after I reported to Grissom, I was on my way with my first aircrew to Kadena Air Base in Japan for a 90-day TDY (temporary duty assignment).  We didn’t have a lot of flying to do, but (before March 29) we refueled an RC-135 (Recon Aircraft) over the Gulf of Tonkin and near Hainan Island, China.  This sortie was my one and only combat mission in Southeast Asia as after March 29 there was no longer “combat” for the United States, even though recon flights continued from Kadena and Thailand until 1975 (and probably later) after the fall of Saigon, South Vietnam.  

We returned to Grissom by the end of May (90 days) to the SAC training missions and alerts. But shortly thereafter this crew was split. I was placed with a different crew probably in June 1973.  This is when my espionage saga begins.

Drafted Into “Burning Light”

By early July my new crew was tasked with another 90 TDY, this time to U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy Air Base. We were to proceed to Hickam Air Base in Honolulu and thence to Thailand as part of an extension of the Young Tiger Mission (supplying air refueling) for the Strategic Wing based at U-Tapao. Even though the Vietnam War was over for the US, the recon mission over Laos and Cambodia (and South Vietnam- shh! it’s our little secret) was still active. Moreover, over the 1973 - 1974 time-frame we were going to support Operation Lima Mike, a tanker task force responsible for ferrying back combat fighters from their temporary bases in Thailand (e.g. Ubon, Udorn, Tahkli) back to the US (since their usefulness in Southeast Asia was now moot for the most part).

We arrived at Hickam in early July. When we got there our airplane and crew was drafted (for lack of a better term) for a new, temporary mission – Burning Light.  Burning Light was part of a nuclear collection effort (of the Defense Nuclear Agency nicknamed Hula Hoop (in 1973). The overall exercise also included Navy surface ships, drones and helicopters located near French Polynesia. The mission had one objective, to support the development of miniaturized, inexpensive, highly sophisticated system for analyzing nuclear explosions and to gather information that would improve the US’ ability to predict the effects of low-altitude nuclear weapons. France conducted its nuclear testing about 3,000 mile south southeast of Hawaii at Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia.  The tests took place in June through August window due to favorable winds and other climatic factors. 1973 and 1974 was a time of extensive nuclear testing by the French.

Relative locations of Hickam AB and Mururoa Atoll (3000 miles apart) and showing the SW coast of the USA for reference

The Mission

In 1973 the Air Force Special Weapons System Center of the Aircraft Systems Command provided two NC-135As to gather the nuclear data from the tests. One plane was under the sponsorship of the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) and the other, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The other part of the mission deployment were nine KC-135 tankers. There were four reconnaissance air crews, thirteen tanker crews and supporting aircraft maintenance personnel. These were all deployed to Hickam between July 12 and 19, 1973. Our crew was apparently “borrowed” for a mission early in the program as we were not specifically scheduled for this operation (as far as I know), i.e. a +60 day TDY at Hickam. There were apparently some difficulties with one or more of the KC-135 airplanes or crews and we (finding ourselves at Hickam for a few days rest before going to Thailand) were a convenient substitute.   Our mission was apparently the first mission on July 21.  

An NC-135A

There were five nuclear tests conducted that summer – two in July and three in August. Both NC-135s and eight tankers were launched for each mission. And while SAC still provided the NC-135A air crews, the DNA and the AEC paid for the planes’ upkeep. However, the Air Force still refueled the planes to and from their destinations.  Also serving aboard the NC-135As were personnel assigned to the DNA, the AEC, the USAF Security Service, and the Air Force Technical Applications Center, the “guys in back”.

On top of all that, all the 135s (NC and KC) relied on water augmentation — or shooting water into the plane’s jet engines during takeoff to produce more thrust. This noisy (and smoky) practice allowed the planes to take off with a full tank of fuel. But it was too noisy for Honolulu International Airport (Hickam) which had prohibited water-augmented takeoffs between nine o’clock at night and seven o’clock in the morning — every day, as its standard operating procedure. Pressure from Hawaiian politicians and environmental groups prevented the Air Force from getting an exemption from these rules. Because the usual time for the atomic tests were about 0700 or 0800 local time, give or take, this required a 0000 takeoff time (mid-night) at Hickam.

Departures from usual operational procedures and French technical difficulties had turned the Defense Nuclear Agency’s decision to launch the NC-135As largely into “guess work.”  For one, the missions had to follow a strict schedule so the planes would arrive over Polynesia, almost 3,000 miles away, at the right times. The French often delayed or completely canceled tests due to bad weather and technical problems. The Air Force couldn’t guarantee that all of the necessary tankers would be ready on such short and irregular notice. The crews would be briefed on the apron in the aircraft during a kind of stand-by alert. 

U.S. National Archives satellite reconnaissance image of the Mururoa Atomic Test Site in French Polynesia, May 26, 1967

Our mission depended on the quality of the intelligence of collateral agency sources which could identify the time and date of these French tests. Last minute postponements or delays and cancellations could affect the amount and quality of the data collected or prevent it entirely. Because the NC-135A refueled lastly before entering orbit for 2.5 hours before beginning its return to Hickam, accurate, on the scene intelligence information from these sources was critical to the mission success. 

Each mission would launch an NC-135A and four tankers (in formation).  The NC-135 would be refueled by a separate tanker over the 5.5 hour flight to the atoll orbiting area (not over the atoll). As each tanker offloaded its fuel, it would return to base. This allowed the airplanes to comply with the Water Augmentation takeoff prohibition described before and more importantly allow the NC-135A to orbit the French test zone for 2.5 hours collecting the necessary data and have sufficient fuel to return to base. A stand-by tanker (at Hickam) would be available for fuel emergencies in the case of excessive fuel use or a longer linger over the test area. The total flight time for the NC-135s was about 16 hours while the tanker sorties varied from 2 to 14 hours depending on their sequence in the refueling queue.

Our crew flew this single Burning Light Mission in July 1973, returned to Hickam AFB, and shortly thereafter were TDY in U-Tapao, Thailand and Andersen AB, Guam until October (during the Yom Kippur War (but that’s another story).

KC-135s on Flight-line at Hickam AFB, Honolulu 

Bibliography:

• Office of the Historian, Strategic Air Command. History of SAC Reconnaissance Operations, FY 1974, August 28, 1975. (Extract) Secret, Source: Freedom of Information Act Request. This extract provides information about BURNING LIGHT monitoring of French nuclear tests during the 1973/1974 fiscal year. 
• History Division, Strategic Air Command, SAC Reconnaissance History, January 1968-June 1971, November 7, 1973. Notes the role National Security Agency intercepts played in providing advance notification of tests, allowing BURNING LIGHT missions to be in the required area at the time of the tests. 
• How the U.S. Air Force Spied on French Nuke Blasts, Special tanker planes snooped on Pacific tests, by JOSEPH TREVITHICK, War is Boring, March 28, 2015
• U.S. Intelligence and the French Nuclear Weapons Program, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 184, Edited by Jeffrey Richelson
• Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea, By Jeffrey T. Richelson 

Part 2 - The Normans in Italy: The Normans Gain a Foothold in Southern Italy - The County of Ariano - The County of Aversa

And now for some history completely different. We all know about the Norman invasion of England in 1066. But there was another Norman conquest during this same time frame in southern Italy. It wasn't really an invasion; small groups of Normans, best described as soldiers of fortune, were heading to Salerno and Apulia (Puglia). They were either on their own or hired by the rulers of southern Italy - Lombards or the eastern Roman Empire of Constantinople. This is how it all began...

The First Lombard Rebellion

The story of the first Norman territory to be established in Italy actually starts circa 1010.  This was the time of the first rebellion led by Melus of Bari and his brother in law, Dattus (Lombards) against the Eastern Romas (later called Byzantines). Leone Marsicanus, in the original version of his chronicle of Monte Cassino gives a brief explanation of the original revolt of Melus and how he took refuge in Capua where he encountered forty Normans "in flight from the anger of their lord, the Count of Normandy" and persuades them to take part in his proposed rebellion. Leone listed the leaders of these Normans as Gilbert Botericus, Rodulf of Tosny, Osmund, Rifinus and Stigand.

Basil Mesardonites was the Catapan (a senior Byzantine military rank and political office) of Italy, representing the Byzantine Emperor there, from 1010 until 1016 or 1017. He succeeded the previous catapan John Kourkouas, who died fighting against Meles' rebellion. Basil and Leo Tornikios Kontoleon, the strategos (military general) of Cephalonia, besieged the rebels in Bari. The Greek citizens of the city negotiated with Basil and forced the Lombard leaders, Melus and Dattus, to flee. Basil entered the city on June 11, 1011 and re-established Byzantine authority.

Basil sent the family of Melus to Constantinople. Basil then allied to the Byzantines as many Lombard principalities as possible in an attempt to prevent future unrest. He visited Salerno in October, where Prince Guaimar III was nominally a Byzantine vassal. He then moved on to Monte Cassino, which monastery was sheltering Dattus on its lands. Basil nonetheless confirmed all the privileges of the monastery over its property in Greek territory. The abbot there, Atenulf, was a brother of the prince of Capua, Pandulf IV. The monastery then promptly expelled Dattus and he fled north into papal territory. Basil held the Byzantine rule in peace until his death in 1016 and was replaced by Leo.

Norman mercenaries were already in Italy in the early years of the eleventh century. They had been recruited by the abbots of Monte Cassino and Saint Vincent of Volturno around 1010.  The participation of Normans in Melus' first rebellion are an example of that. According to a document included in Finium agri Troiani descriptio faeta a Basilio Boiano Prol Ospdthario Catapano Italiae, a. 1019, XVIII, [in:] Syllabus Graecorum Membranarum, ed. F. Trinchera, Neapol 1865, p. 18 (Syllabus), the Byzantine general Basil Boioannes employed another group of Franks (the Byzantines always referred to Normans as Franks irrespective of their true ethnicity) and set them in the city of Troia's fortress in the year 1019. What is especially interesting is that the mercenaries must have lived in Italy for some time before they pledged allegiance to Basil, they served the counts of Ariano (ton areianiton kometon). These two events show that the Franks/Normans earned the reputation of excellent soldiers very quickly and that gave them a chance to serve under the Byzantine army. The contingent of mercenaries from Troia proved not only to be useful but also faithful. This is shown in another document concerning the same Franks/Normans, issued in 1024, by the same Basil (See Syllabus a. 1024, XX, p. 21), where the aforementioned soldiers served for considerable period of time (as mercenaries) and some of them might have been promoted. 

The Second Lombard Rebellion

The traditional story of the first Norman territory in southern Italy begins with the Normans (the Drengot family) assisting Melus and Dattus in the second rebellion of 1017. (Referred to as the Gargano Tradition).  Most of this comes from Amatus’ account of “Ystoire de li Normant” between 1071 and 1086, then borrowed from Amatus by Peter the Deacon for his continuation of the “Chronicon Monasterii Casinensis” of Leo of Ostia, written in the early 12th century.  It is also mentioned by Orderic Vitalis in his "Historia Ecclesiastica".) There he petitioned Gilbert Buatère of the Drengot family (and his brothers - Osmond, Rudolf, Rainulf and Asclettin, some similar names from the First Rebellion above) and a band of Norman exiles or immigrants to aid in his rebellion, assuring them of the ease of victory and the abundance of spoils. The identification of some of these Normans may be the same as those identified above by Leone. Of course, some appear to be different. Apparently all were agreeable and joined with the Lombard forces under Melus at Capua or Benevento and marched into Apulia immediately, trying to catch the Byzantines off-guard.

Leo was the Catapan of Italy in 1017 when Melus of Bari again rose in revolt, this time clearly with a band of Normans. Leo sent his military general, Leo Passianos, with an army against him. Passianos and Melus met on the Fortore River at Arenula. The battle was either indecisive (according to William of Apulia) or a victory for Melus (Leo of Ostia). Tornikios then took command himself and led the Byzantines into a second encounter near Civita. This second battle was another victory for Melus, though Lupus Protospatharius and the anonymous chronicler of Bar call it a defeat. A third battle, a decisive victory for Melus, occurred at Vaccaricia, near the future site of Troia. The entire Apulian region from the Fortore River to Trani had fallen to Melus and in September, Tornikios was relieved of his duties in favor of Boiannes, another Byzantine general.

Boiannes garnered a large force of reserves and a contingent of the Varangian (Royal) Guard (Vikings) from Emperor Basil II. He met the Lombard and Norman army on the Ofanto at the site of the defeat dealt to the Romans by Hannibal in 216 BCE: Cannae. This second battle of Cannae was a disaster both for Meles and the Normans, who lost their leaders, Gilbert and his brother Osmond.  Melus fled to the "Samnite lands" of the Papal States (Amatus) and Dattus to Monte Cassino. A small group of Normans (probably between 10-50) limped back towards Capua and Salerno.

Lombard areas shown in red, battles of Fortore, Civita, Vaccaricia (in black) and Cannae in black (near Barletta)

In the later revision of the chronicle (see above revised by Leone or someone else), Amatus’ account is inserted almost verbatim while the list of the Norman leaders is omitted. 

Henry II Invades Southern Italy

This time, Melus eventually fled northwards to Germany and ended up at the imperial court of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II. Though honored there (Meles was given the empty title Duke of Apulia by the emperor), he died two years later.  Meanwhile, in 1020, Boiannes, and his ally, Pandulf IV of Capua, marched on Monte Cassino and took it aided by Dattus.  However later at Bari in June 1021, Dattus was executed tied up in a sack with a monkey, a rooster, and a snake and tossed into the sea (the so-called mazzeratura, similar to the ancient Roma Poena cullei). This atrocity (and the general military successes of Boiannes) prompted a quick Western response, and a large army under Emperor Henry II who marched south to besiege the new Byzantine fortress at Troia. Troia was built by Boiannes ca. 1017 as part of a network of towers and fortifications extending from northern Apulia to the Adriatic Sea.

In the intervening years between 1018 and 1021, the Normans who survived the Battle at Cannae remained in Apulia or drifted to and in Benevento or Capua. The three other Drengot brothers, Asclettin, Rudolf and Rainulf, apparently settled near Ariano Irpino, but Rudolf eventually returned to Normandy. (Rudolph had accompanied Meles to Germany to meet Emperor Henry II). It is believed that Rudolph also met with the pope. He returned to the south with the emperor's invasion force, after Melus' death in 1022, and was installed at Comino under one of Melus' nephews, a count. Rudolph then led some Normans back to Normandy, not to be heard of again.

In 1022, as Henry II set out down the Adriatic coast for southern Italy commanding a large force to avenge the execution of Dattus, he sent Archbishop Pilgrim of Cologne ahead with a slightly smaller army along the Tyrrhenian littoral with the objective of subjugating the Principality of Capua (and Benevento), which was accomplished.  A third army, smaller still, under the command of Patriarch Poppo of Aquileia went through the Apennines to join Henry II in besieging the Byzantine fortress of Troia.  Although Pandulf IV of Capua was captured and Henry extracted oaths of allegiance from both Capua and the Principality of Salerno, all three of Henry II's armies failed to take Troia.

The contingent of Norman mercenaries from Troia (under the Byzantines) proved not only to be useful but also faithful.  Boioannes granted the town privileges for its loyalty, and the Normans acquired a reputation as Southern Europe's premier mercenaries.  See the document, concerning the same Franks, issued in 1024 (see Finium agri Troiani descriptio faeta a Basilio Boiano Prol Ospdthario Catapano Italiae, a. 1024, XX, [in:] Syllabus Graecorum Membranarum, ed. F. Trinchera, Neapol 1865, p. 21), by the same Basil Boioannes. This shows that the mentioned soldiers served for considerable period of time (as mercenaries) and some of them might have been promoted.  It is not known if other Normans allied with Henry’s armies, but this cannot be ruled out.

Rise of Independent Norman Power

County of Ariano

The period prior to (and after) this incursion by Henry II into Italy, saw the rise of independent Norman power, under Rainulf and Asclettin (both Drengot and others unknown) who had withdrawn with the remnants of the band from Apulia (from the Battle of Cannae and the siege of Troia) to Campania, where they were able to take advantage of dissension among the comparatively undisciplined Lombard lords and the weakness of the Byzantines, absent their large army. The Normans found they could play off Lombard versus Byzantine and vice versa, as well as Lombard versus Lombard. Norman reinforcements and local miscreants migrating from Normandy found a welcome there and swelled the number of soldiers of fortune at their command. Their Norman language and Norman customs welded a disparate group into some semblance of a homeland.  Normans on the winning side often used their leverage as irreplaceable allies to secure the release of their brethren on the losing side.  The Byzantines, the Pope, the Emperor, and the Lombard princes would all hire Norman mercenaries to fight against the other factions for them.

 

Ariano near Benevento in modern day Campania. There is research that indicates this was a Norman County recognized (in 1022) by Henry II after his incursion into southern Italy and after the Siege of (Byzantine) Troia (Wikimedia Commons)

The first freelance Norman gains have been identified by some as at Ariano (See Normans and the Normans’ Edge: Peoples, Polities and Identities on the Frontiers of Medieval Europe Edited by Keith Stringer, Andrew Jotischky, Copyright Year 2020, Published June 30, 2021 by Routledge, Chapter 6. South Italian Normans and the Crusader States in the Twelfth Century by Ewan Johnson and Andrew Jotischky).  During this boiling cauldron of southern Italian history, the Norman county of Ariano was formally recognized in 1022 by Henry II as king of Italy (See D’Onofrio, Mario, (a cura di), I Normanni. Popolo d'Europa 1030-1200, Roma, 28 gennaio - 30 aprile 1994, Venezia, Marsilio, 1994, pp. 177-181 and D’Amato, Raffaele,  e Salimbeti, Andrea, The Normans in Italy 1016–1194, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020, p. 7). 

Location of Ariano in blue, between Benevento (green) and Byzantine fortresses in Troia and vicinity (red). Cannae shown in black

However, the identity of these first Norman counts remains unknown, but, by 1050 Count Ubberto (Umberto) and his son Gerardo di Buonalbergo are identified (see Cuozzo, Errico, L'unificazione normanna e il regno normanno-svevo, in Storia del Mezzogiorno, II/ 1, Il Medioevo. Napoli, Edizioni del Sole, 1989, pp. 593-825, in part. pp. 618-619 and Charles Cawley's Medieval Lands, the encyclopaedia of territories in the medieval western world and the royal and noble families which ruled them). These counts were not the Drengot family but later events suggest they were related to the second De Hauteville family (not yet in Italy) or the ruling Norman Dukes in France.  In this phase the grancontea reached its maximum extent: its boundaries extended to the limits of Avellino and Benevento on the west and north to near the city of Troia on the east, becoming a buffer between Byzantine and Lombard (and Papal) territory.

The importance of these Ariano lords can only be seen in the interactions they decades later have with Robert Guiscard.  The first mention of Gerardo is in relation to a significant episode, which took place between 1047 and 1051. Gerardo introduced himself to Robert of the De Hauteville family, then in Puglia with his brother Drogo. Gerardo offered him the marriage of his (paternal) aunt Alberada and proposed to place himself at his side, with 200 horsemen "pour aquester Calabre" (to take possession of Calabria). The story is that Gerardo would have been the first to address Robert as, "quasi per iocum" (a term of endearment), with the nickname of “Guiscard” (wise or wily).  Moreover, Gerardo reveals the position of significance that he has already at that moment - 200 knights following him, on an equal footing with one of the major members of the De Hauteville clan.

Side Notes: (1) Alberada was the daughter of Alice of Normandy (and thus a granddaughter of Richard II, the Duke of Normandy) and Renaud I, the Count of Burgundy. In 1058, Pope Nicholas II strengthened existing canon law against consanguinity. Alice's sister Fressende was Robert Guiscard's mother. Thus, Alberada was Guiscard's first cousin, once removed.  Guiscard repudiated Alberada on that basis, in order to make a then-more advantageous marriage to Sichelgaita, a Lombard, the sister of Prince Gisulf II of Salerno. (2) The number of Norman knights in the Battle of Cannae (1018) has been estimated as about two hundred and fifty, of which about ten survived (according to The Rulers of the South by Francis Marion Crawford published by MacMillan & Co. Ltd. New York and London 1900, p. 133). But by the end the middle of the next decade there were hundreds (not only engaging in free-lance brigandry in Apulia, Benevento and Capua but also fighting for the Byzantines) and by the middle of their fourth decade in Italy, it is believed that about 500 troops where there (see article The Normans in Southern Italy by Georgios Theotokis, Ph.D History 2010, University of Glasgow) after another decade of conscripting mercenaries and fortune hunters from of France and Italy.

 County of Aversa

Although the County of Ariano may have been the first Norman land in Italy and somewhat successful, it was not the most recognized Norman land.  That honor belongs to the County of Aversa which was established in 1030. Aversa was considered for a millennium, the first of the Norman territories in the Mediterranean.  Aversa is located on the Tyrrhenian Sea, north the city of Naples, from which it is separated by only 5 kilometers, and south of Capua.

As noted above in the years during the Second Lombard Rebellion, Normans were also allied with Lombards. When Henry II invaded southern Italy, in 1024, Pilgrim, Archbishop of Cologne, was besieging Capua on behalf of Emperor Henry II, Sergius IV. Duke of Naples was nominally a Byzantine vassal, like his father before him.  In 1024, he submitted to Pilgrim, though his own duchy was not threatened.  By this he acquired a reputation for weakness in the eyes of Prince Pandulf IV of Capua (Wolf of the Abruzzi), who had himself been defeated by Pilgrim and taken prisoner.  

In 1026, Pandulf IV, returned from captivity, besieged his old capital, now ruled by an unrelated Pandulf V, the count of Teano.  Pandulf IV allied himself with Rainulf Drengot at this time.  Basil Boiannes, the Greek catapan of Italy, negotiated a surrender and gave Pandulf V safe conduct to Naples, where Sergius offered him asylum.  With this, Sergius further incurred Pandulf IV's enmity.  

In the next year, after Sergius' ally Boiannes was recalled, Pandulf IV attacked Naples and quickly captured it.  Pandulf V fled to Rome and Sergius went into hiding.  For Sergius, however, fortune reversed itself when Pandulf IV was abandoned by his Norman ally, Rainulf in 1029. Sergius and the Duke of Gaeta, John V, sent an embassy to the Norman to ask his assistance in regaining the Neapolitan duchy.  With Rainulf's help, Pandulf IV was ousted from Naples and Sergius reinstated.

After this series of events, in 1030, the County of Aversa was ceded to Rainulf Drengot who was invested as count by Sergius IV of Naples and confirmed by Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II in 1037. Rainulf married Duke Sergius’ sister.  In 1034, this first wife died, and Rainulf then married the daughter of the duke of Amalfi (John II), who was also the niece of Sergius' inveterate enemy, Pandulf IV.  He expanded Aversa at the expense of the abbey of Monte Cassino (lands under papal suzerainty in Benevento).

County of Aversa (arrow)

By offering a generous conditions of asylum for the persecuted, Rainulf enlarged the power and importance of his once little fief, which became one of the bases from which the Normans later forged a consolidated state in Sicily and Italy - the Kingdom of Sicily. But it was during this phase that Norman soldiers of fortune from France and joined the locals, who found a welcome in Ranulf's camp with no questions asked, swelled Ranulf's numbers. In 1035, the same year William the Conqueror would become Duke of Normandy, Tancred De Hauteville's three eldest sons (William "Iron Arm", Drogo and Humphrey) arrived in Aversa from Normandy. Meanwhile at Ariano, other Normans from France swelled the county of Ariano in a similar manner. After vanquishing the Byzantines in battle in 1038, Drengot declared himself “prince” of Capua, formalizing his independence from Naples and from his former Lombard sponsors.  He conquered his neighbor Pandulf's principality - Capua, and Conrad approved the union of the two domains, which then formed the largest polity in southern Italy. In 1039, Drengot was at the side of Guaimar IV of Salerno and the emperor Conrad.  Norman influence was further solidified when Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II formally deposed Pandulf and invested Ranulf as Count of Aversa. 

The Norman strategy for survival in this phase of their growth was summarized by the chronicler Amatus: “For the Normans never desired any of the Lombards to win a decisive victory, in case this should be to their disadvantage. But now supporting the one and then aiding the other, they prevented anyone being completely ruined.”