Sawdan

For twenty four years in the 9th century an Arab Emirate existed in southern Italy.  In 847 the seaport of Bari, on the Adriatic Coast, was seized by Saracens and held until 871.  For the final 14 years of its existence it was ruled by Emir Sawdan Al-Mawri, a figure of whom we know little, but the little we know indicates he was a remarkable figure of his time.  While other cities and towns in southern Italy came under Arab control in the 9th and 10th centuries, including Taranto and Otranto in Apulia and Reggio in Calabria, Bari was the only emirate recognized by the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad.

A word on terminology.  The raiders and conquerors of Muslim faith who dominated the Mediterranean in those centuries go under many names in Christian chronicles and documents, including Arabs, Saracens, and Moors.  We will use Arab for simplicity sake, though most of those involved with the events described were not from the Arabian peninsula.  In fact, many were Berbers, native to North Africa and recent converts to Islam, descendants of those who invaded Spain in the early 8th century, or natives of those lands who had converted. 

In 698 the Arabs captured Carthage, the last outpost of the Byzantine empire in North Africa.  By early in the next century raids were being conducted on Sicily and Italy but it was not until in the early 9th century that the nature of the threat changed.  In 812 Arab raiders plundered the island of Ischia (near Naples), while in 827 a full scale invasion of Sicily began.  Within 20 years much of the island was controlled by Arabs, who made Palermo their capital; in 877 Syracuse fell, and the last Byzantine outpost surrendered in 902.

Italy was vulnerable. Relatively poor compared to the Arab states, its main asset were people who could be captured and sold as slaves.  The peninsula was also politically fragmented with the area around Rome ruled by the Papacy while further south there were multiple polities.  Gaeta was a small city-state to the north of the Duchy of Naples, nominally subordinate to the Byzantine Empire but, in reality, autonomous.  Northwest of Naples was Capua, under Lombard rule (a Germanic tribe which entered Italy in 568),  eventually combined with Benevento.  There were two remaining Lombard principalities, the Duchies of Benevento and Salerno, usually antagonistic to each other, while Amalfi, tucked away on the coast which now bears its name, had carved out an independent (and prosperous) seafaring existence.  Since the time of Charlemagne, late in the prior century, all of these entities owed allegiance to the Carolingian dynasty which ruled what is today France, the Low Countries, Germany and North Italy, but it was an allegiance mostly honored in the breach.

In 846 an Arab fleet landed in Ostia, raiders marched a dozen miles to Rome, sacking those parts of the city outside the ancient Aurelian walls, and looting relics from the original St Peter's Church.  Marching down the coast, they wintered near Naples before leaving in spring.  Three years later the Arabs returned in another attempted raid on Rome, but were defeated in a naval battle.  That did not end the depredations.  For the next century, hamlets, villages and small towns were at the mercy of these raiders.  Even religious sanctuaries were not spared.  The famous abbey at Monte Cassino was sacked and the surviving monks did not feel safe to return for a half century.  All along the coast "Saracen" towers were built to provide early warning to communities.

                                                   (Saracen Tower on Amalfi Coast near Praiano; photo by me)
(From Wikipedia; includes some inaccuracies, such as missing Duchy of Naples, between Amalfi and Capua, and showing Byzantine territory not conquered until the 10th century but close enough)

While South Italy was under constant threat by the Arabs, the relationship between Christians and Muslims was not always antagonistic.  Neapolitan merchants sold slaves to the Arabs and imported Arab mercenaries to protect the Duchy from the neighboring Christian Lombard (Benevento, Capua and Salerno) principalities.  The relationship of the Duchy of Naples with the Arab states, and the numerous Arab residents of the city led the Carolingian Emperor Louis II, while campaigning in the area, to complain that Naples was a "second Palermo [the Arab capital of Sicily] or Africa".  For many years, an Arab band was encamped on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius at the invitation of Naples, being tolerated until they became indiscriminate in selecting targets for their raids. 

When civil wars broke out between the Lombard principalities each hired large bands of Arab mercenaries who were allowed to plunder the area during the "down time" between fighting.  In 842 the city of Capua was sacked and burned by Benevento's Muslim mercenaries eventually prompting its inhabitants to build a new city, in a less vulnerable location a few kilometers away (which became the modern city of Capua).  For the remainder of the century Arab bands used the ancient Roman amphitheater in the old city as a base from which to stage raids.  At one point, the ancient Greek temples of Paestum, south of Salerno, were also used as a base by raiders.  When Gaeta, a coastal city-state between Naples and Rome, felt threatened by its neighbors it imported an Arab band which carved out a territory from which it launched raids for three decades.  The Duchy of Amalfi grew rich on its trade with North Africa and Egypt and when the Pope and the Byzantines attempted to form a Christian alliance to drive the Muslims from the region it failed because Salerno, Naples and Amalfi entered into a peace treaty with the Arabs.  Moreover the limited documents available from that period show that individual Muslims lived in some of these principalities and even owned land.

It was during this period that Arab raiders attempted to permanently seize footholds on the peninsula. Reggio, at the toe of Italy, was seized in the early 10th century and held for many decades.  A band of Arab raiders seized the small town of Cetera, halfway between Amalfi and Salerno, raiding across the countryside for the next twenty years.  And in Apulia (the heel of Italy), other bands seized Otranto and Taranto (the latter held for more than 30 years).  But Bari was the biggest prize.

(The map below shows the situation in the mid-12th century but shows the locations of most of the cities mentioned, including Bari, Taranto, Benevento, Salerno and Naples.)

Bari was the most prosperous seaport of the region.  In later years it would become even wealthier serving as a slave depot, primarily for Venice, used to store slaves from Slavic lands (primarily the areas that became Poland and Prussia) before transport and sale to Arab principalities.

In 847 the city was seized by a band of Arab raiders under the leadership of Kalfun, a shadowy figure who may have been part of a mercenary garrison installed by the Prince of Benevento to control Bari.  Kalfun was probably of Berber origin, possibly an escaped servant of the Aglahbid dynasty which ruled North Africa and Sicily.  Kalfun's successor, Mufarrag, who became emir in 852, sought and obtained recognition as an emirate from the Abbasid Caliph and expanded its territory, launching raids across the southern part of the peninsula.  Sawdan was next in line, taking power in 857.

According to Barbara Kruetz, author of Before The Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth & Tenth Centuries, we only have fragmentary information about the emirate and Sawdan.  

At some point in the mid-860s, the Frankish monk Bernard, on his way to the Holy Land with two companions, came to Bari . . . 

They obtained from Sawdan safe conduct letters addressed to the princes of Baghdad and Jerusalem.

The narrative of Bernard's journey suggests no shock that Bari, 'formerly belonging to the Beneventans' was now in Muslim hands; Bernard and his companions received courteous treatment there and seem simply to have accepted the fact that Bari was no longer part of the Christian world.

Kruetz also writes of the Chronicle of Ahimaaz, an eleventh century Hebrew narrative of the history of a south Italian Jewish family:

Many of the anecdotes in this chronicle seem questionable, but it is noteworthy that Sawdan  . . . is memorialized in it as a wise and eminently civilized ruler . . . Doubtless much of this story was romantic fiction . . . Yet it is interesting that the author, who did not mince words concerning the havoc wreaked by Arab raids (and on some key Jewish communities), nonetheless depicted Muslim Bari as a stable and well-governed city.

She also points to evidence that "Bari under Muslim rule came to be accepted as simply another piece of the south Italian jigsaw puzzle, merely one more entity to be dealt with", citing Christian rebels fleeing to Sawdan for protection and the emir's envoys coming to Salerno where they were lodged in the bishop's palace. 

That is not to say that Sawdan was a peaceful man.  Far from it.  Plunder was essential to his survival and prestige.  His bands pillaged all over south Italy, particularly Benevento and Capua, burning the fortified town of Ascoli, seizing the castle of Venafro near the abbeys of Monte Cassino and San Vincenzo, from both of which massive gold ransoms were extracted.  He also defeated Lombard attempts to recapture Bari.

By the mid-860s it seemed like south Italy might be headed in the same direction as Sicily.

Enter Louis II, great-grandson of Charlemagne and, since 844, King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor.   In response to calls for help against the Arabs and a desire to assert his real, as opposed to nominal supremacy, Louis II ventured south in 866 with a goal of retaking Bari. What he encountered was a tangled web of competing principalities and shifting alliances which delayed him, leading initially to several unsuccessful campaigns before Bari finally fell in February 871 Bari fell, resulting in Sawdan's capture and transport to Louis' headquarters in Benevento, where the most remarkable part of the emir's story takes place.

Mere months later, in August 871, Louis found himself and his family suddenly surrounded and put under guard in close confinement.  After a month of negotiations, Louis and the family were released but only after he had taken an oath never to return to Benevento; a humiliating end to what had seemed a triumphal campaign for the emperor.

What happened?

Although Louis came south to rid the area of the threat from Bari, he had showed no signs of leaving after its fall.  For the families ruling the local principalities that was a bad thing because they had no desire to submit themselves to Louis. And, according to all the surviving chronicles, much of the blame for the seizure of Louis was due to Sawdan.

Sawdan must have had a substantial reservoir of charm to draw upon.  He quickly became popular at Benevento, entertaining a constant stream of well-born visitors and dining frequently with Louis.  According to Kreutz:

"He became a lighting rod, attracting Lombard complaints about the Franks and Frankish complaints about the Lombards.  Then . . . he put to use what he had learned from each side . . . [Sawdan] purportedly inflamed the Beneventans by warning that Louis planned to send many of them north, in chains; . . . The evidence suggest that Sawdan had access to information from both sides, and that he passed it on in the manner most likely to be helpful to his own cause."

Louis left Benevento, never to return, dying four years later.  Sawdan, kept in comfortable captivity in Benevento, was released upon Louis' death and then, unfortunately, disappears from history so we do not know his fate.