Emirate of Bari

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Emirate of Bari
847–871
Capital
Sawdan
History 
• Established
847
• Disestablished
871
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire

The Emirate of Bari was a short-lived

Louis II
.

Foundation

Bari first became the object of

Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil in Baghdad as well as to his provincial governor of Egypt asking for recognition of the conquest with the title of wali, a governor ruling over a province of the Caliphate, which was granted.[5]
Mufarrag expanded Muslim influence and enlarged the territory of the emirate.

Rule of Sawdan

The third and last emir of Bari was Sawdan, who came to power around 857 after the murder of his predecessor Mufarrag. He invaded the lands of the

safe-conduct all the way through Egypt and the Holy Land. According to the Itinerarium Bernardi, Bernard's record of the event, Bari, the civitatem Sarracenorum, had formerly belonged to the "Beneventans".[6]

The

monastic chronicles, however, portray the emir as nequissimus ac sceleratissimus: "most impossible and wicked".[6] Certainly Muslims raids on Christians (and Jews) did not cease during Sawdan's reign.[citation needed] There is evidence for high civilisation in Bari at this point.[7][8] Giosuè Musca suggests that the emirate was a boon to the regional economy, and that during this time the slave trade,[9] wine trade, and trade in pottery flourished.[7][8] Under Sawdan the city of Bari was embellished with a mosque, palaces, and public works
.

In 859,

Boiano, to prevent Sawdan from re-entering Bari after a campaign against Capua and the Terra di Lavoro
. Despite a bloody battle, the emir successfully entered his capital.

The emirate of Bari lasted long enough to enter into relations with its Christian neighbours.

Emperor Louis II, a man of Spoleto who fled to it during a revolt.[10]

Fall

Main article: Louis II's campaign against Bari (866–871)
The joint capture of Bari by Franco-Lombard troops under the direction of the Emperor Louis II in 871.

In 865,

Louis II, perhaps pressured by the Church, always uncomfortable with a Muslim state in Italy's midst, issued a capitulary calling upon the fighting men of northern Italy to gather at Lucera in the spring of 866 for an assault on Bari.[10] It is unknown, from contemporary sources, whether this force ever marched on Bari, but in the summer of that year the emperor was touring the Campania with his empress, Engelberga, and receiving strong urging from the Lombard princes—Adelchis of Benevento, Guaifer of Salerno, and Landulf II of Capua—to attack Bari again.[10]

It was not until the spring of 867 that Louis took action against the emirate. He immediately besieged

Oria, recently conquered, and burnt the former.[11] Oria was a prosperous locale before the Muslim conquest; Barbara Kreutz thus conjectures that Matera resisted Louis while Oria welcomed him: the former thus was razed.[12] This may have severed communications between Bari and Taranto, the other pole of Muslim power in southern Italy.[11] Louis established a garrison at Canosa on the frontier between Benevento and Bari, but retired to the former by March 868.[11] It was probably at about this time that Louis entered into negotiations with the new Byzantine emperor, Basil I. A marriage between Louis's daughter and Basil's eldest son, Constantine, was probably discussed in return for Byzantine naval assistance in the taking of Bari.[13]
The Chronicon Salernitanum inconsistently attaches the initiative for such talks to Louis and then Basil.

The joint attack was projected for late in the summer of 869 and Louis remained at Benevento planning as late as June. The Byzantine fleet—of four hundred ships if the Annales Bertiniani are to be trusted—arrived under the command of Nicetas with the expectation that Louis would hand over his daughter immediately.[14] This he refused to do, for no known reason, but perhaps because Nicetas had refused to recognise his imperial title, since Louis later refers in a letter to the commander's "insulting behaviour".[15] Perhaps, however, the fleet simply arrived too late in autumn.[15]

In 870 the Bariot Muslims stepped up their raids, going so far as to ravage the

Constantine Porphyrogenitus that the Byzantines played a major role in the city's fall is probably a concoction.[17] In the siege of Arab Bari (868–871) participated and Domagoj with fleet of Ragusa which, according to Constantine VII transported Croats and other Archons of Slavs on their ships to Longobardia.[18]

List of emirs

  • Kalfün (Khalfun), 841–c.852
  • Mufarrag ibn Sallam, c.852–c.857
  • Sawdan (Sawdān), c.857–871

Notes

  1. ^ Alex Metcalfe, The Muslims of Medieval Italy (Edinburgh University Press, 2009), p. 21: "there is an implication in [the name Sawdān] that he was originally from sub-Saharan Africa. A problematic reference to him in an unedited text ... again suggests that, like the previous commanders of the Muslim forces in Bari, they were not Arab."
  2. ISBN 9782857445098
    , retrieved 2019-02-06
  3. ISBN 9781849049351
    .
  4. ^ Kreutz, 25.
  5. ^ a b Kreutz, 38.
  6. ^ a b c d e f Kreutz, 39.
  7. ^ a b Drew, 135.
  8. ^ a b Kreuger, 761.
  9. ^ Much to the dismay of pious ecclesiastics like Bernard (Kreutz, 39).
  10. ^ a b c Kreutz, 40.
  11. ^ a b c Kreutz, 41.
  12. ^ Kreutz, 172, n26. The capture of the cities is referred to both in Erchempert and Lupus Protospatharius.
  13. ^ Kreutz, 42.
  14. ^ Kreutz, 43.
  15. ^ a b Kreutz, 44.
  16. ^ a b c d Kreutz, 45.
  17. ^ Kreutz, 173 n45.
  18. ^ Vedran Duančić; (2008) Hrvatska između Bizanta i Franačke (in Croatian) p. 17; [1]

Bibliography

Primary sources

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

The following are available as part of Sources of Lombard History at the Institut für Mittelalter Forschung:

See too the letter of Emperor Louis II to Emperor Basil I, written in 871 after the capture of Bari, in English translation.

Secondary sources

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Emirate_of_Bari&oldid=1219610356"