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Numerous Catholic elementary and secondary schools are named for him, including schools in Toronto; Calgary; Cologne; and Dayton, Ohio.
The Albertus typeface is named after him.
At the University of Notre Dame du Lac in Notre Dame, Indiana, the Zahm Hall Chapel is dedicated to St. Albert the Great. Fr. John Zahm, C.S.C., after whom the men's residence hall is named, looked to St. Albert's example of using religion to illumine scientific discovery. Fr. Zahm's work with the Bible and evolution is sometimes seen as a continuation of St. Albert's legacy.
The second largest student's fraternity of the Netherlands, located in the city of Groningen, is named Albertus Magnus, in honor of the saint.
The Colegio Cientifico y Artistico de San Alberto, Hopelawn, New Jersey, USA with a sister school in Nueva Ecija, Philippines was founded in 1986 in honor of him who thought and taught that religion, the sciences and the arts may be advocated as subjects which should not contradict each other but should support one another to achieve wisdom and reason.
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The Vosloorus Catholic parish (located in Vosloorus Extension One, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng, South Africa) is named after the saint.
The Catholic parish in Leopoldshafen, near Karlsruhe in Germany is also named after him, too, since Albert is the patron saint of scientists and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology has a large research center nearby.
Since the death of King Albert I, the King's Feast is celebrated in Belgium on Albert's feast day.
Edinburgh's Catholic Chaplaincy which serves the city's universities, is named after St Albert.
Sant'Alberto Magno is a titular church in Rome.
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Alboin
Alboin (530s – 28 June 572) was king of the Lombards from about 560 until 572. During his reign the Lombards ended their migrations by settling in Italy, the northern part of which Alboin conquered between 569 and 572. He had a lasting effect on Italy and the Pannonian Basin; in the former, his invasion marked the beginning of centuries of Lombard rule, and in the latter, his defeat of the Gepids and his departure from Pannonia ended the dominance there of the Germanic peoples.
The period of Alboin's reign as king in Pannonia following the death of his father, Audoin, was one of confrontation and conflict between the Lombards and their main neighbours, the Gepids. The Gepids initially gained the upper hand, but in 567, thanks to his alliance with the Avars, Alboin inflicted a decisive defeat on his enemies, whose lands the Avars subsequently occupied. The increasing power of his new neighbours caused Alboin some unease however, and he therefore decided to leave Pannonia for Italy, hoping to take advantage of the Byzantine Empire's vulnerability in defending its territory in the wake of the Gothic War.
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After gathering a large coalition of peoples, Alboin crossed the Julian Alps in 568, entering an almost undefended Italy. He rapidly took control of most of Venetia and Liguria. In 569, unopposed, he took northern Italy's main city, Milan. Pavia offered stiff resistance, however, and was taken only after a siege lasting three years. During that time Alboin turned his attention to Tuscany, but signs of factionalism among his supporters and Alboin's diminishing control over his army increasingly began to manifest themselves.
Alboin was assassinated on 28 June 572, in a coup d'état instigated by the Byzantines. It was organized by the king's foster brother, Helmichis, with the support of Alboin's wife, Rosamund, daughter of the Gepid king whom Alboin had killed some years earlier. The coup failed in the face of opposition from a majority of the Lombards, who elected Cleph as Alboin's successor, forcing Helmichis and Rosamund to flee to Ravenna under imperial protection. Alboin's death deprived the Lombards of the only leader who could have kept the newborn Germanic entity together, the last in the line of hero-kings who had led the Lombards through their migrations from the vale of the Elbe to Italy. For many centuries following his death Alboin's heroism and his success in battle were celebrated in Saxon and Bavarian epic poetry.
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Etymology.
The name Alboin derives from the Proto-Germanic roots ("elf") and ("friend"); it is thus cognate with the Old English name "Ælfwine". He was known in Latin as "Alboinus" and in Greek as Ἀλβοΐνος ("Alboinos"). In modern Italian he is "Alboino" and in modern Lombard "Alboin".
Father's rule.
The Lombards under King Wacho had migrated towards the east into Pannonia, taking advantage of the difficulties facing the Ostrogothic Kingdom in Italy following the death of its founder, Theodoric, in 526. Wacho's death in about 540 brought his son Walthari to the throne, but, as the latter was still a minor, the kingdom was governed in his stead by Alboin's father, Audoin, of the Gausian clan. Seven years later Walthari died, giving Audoin the opportunity to crown himself and overthrow the reigning Lethings.
Alboin was probably born in the 530s in Pannonia, the son of Audoin and his wife, Rodelinda. She may have been the niece of King Theodoric and betrothed to Audoin through the mediation of Emperor Justinian. Like his father, Alboin was raised a pagan, although Audoin had at one point attempted to gain Byzantine support against his neighbours by professing himself a Christian. Alboin took as his first wife the Christian Chlothsind, daughter of the Frankish King Chlothar. This marriage, which took place soon after the death of the Frankish ruler Theudebald in 555, is thought to reflect Audoin's decision to distance himself from the Byzantines, traditional allies of the Lombards, who had been lukewarm when it came to supporting Audoin against the Gepids. The new Frankish alliance was important because of the Franks' known hostility to the Byzantine empire, providing the Lombards with more than one option. However, the "Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire" interprets events and sources differently, believing that Alboin married Chlothsind when already a king in or shortly before 561, the year of Chlothar's death.
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Alboin first distinguished himself on the battlefield in a clash with the Gepids. At the Battle of Asfeld (552), he killed Turismod, son of the Gepid king Thurisind, in a victory that resulted in Emperor Justinian's intervention to maintain equilibrium between the rival regional powers. After the battle, according to a tradition reported by Paul the Deacon, to be granted the right to sit at his father's table, Alboin had to ask for the hospitality of a foreign king and have him donate his weapons, as was customary. For this initiation, he went to the court of Thurisind, where the Gepid king gave him Turismod's arms. Walter Goffart believes it is probable that in this narrative Paul was making use of an oral tradition, and is sceptical that it can be dismissed as merely a typical "topos" of an epic poem.
Reign in Pannonia.
Alboin came to the throne after the death of his father, sometime between 560 and 565. As was customary among the Lombards, Alboin took the crown after an election by the tribe's freemen, who traditionally selected the king from the dead sovereign's clan. Shortly, in 565, a new war erupted with the Gepids, now led by Cunimund, Thurisind's son. The cause of the conflict is uncertain, as the sources are divided; the Lombard Paul the Deacon accuses the Gepids, while the Byzantine historian Menander Protector places the blame on Alboin, an interpretation favoured by historian Walter Pohl.
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An account of the war by the Byzantine Theophylact Simocatta sentimentalises the reasons behind the conflict, claiming it originated with Alboin's vain courting and subsequent kidnapping of Cunimund's daughter Rosamund, that Alboin proceeded then to marry. The tale is treated with scepticism by Walter Goffart, who observes that it conflicts with the "Origo Gentis Langobardorum", where she was captured only after the death of her father. The Gepids obtained the support of the Emperor in exchange for a promise to cede him the region of Sirmium, the seat of the Gepid kings. Thus in 565 or 566 Justinian's successor Justin II sent his son-in-law Baduarius as "magister militum" (field commander) to lead a Byzantine army against Alboin in support of Cunimund, ending in the Lombards' complete defeat.
Faced with the possibility of annihilation, Alboin made an alliance in 566 with the Avars under Bayan I, at the expense of some tough conditions: the Avars demanded a tenth of the Lombards' cattle, half of the war booty, and on the war's conclusion all of the lands held by the Gepids. The Lombards played on the pre-existing hostility between the Avars and the Byzantines, claiming that the latter were allied with the Gepids. Cunimund, on the other hand, encountered hostility when he once again asked the Emperor for military assistance, as the Byzantines had been angered by the Gepids' failure to cede Sirmium to them, as had been agreed. Moreover, Justin II was moving away from the foreign policy of Justinian, and believed in dealing more strictly with bordering states and peoples. Attempts to mollify Justin II with tributes failed, and as a result the Byzantines kept themselves neutral if not outright supportive of the Avars.
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In 567 the allies made their final move against Cunimund, with Alboin invading the Gepids' lands from the northwest while Bayan attacked from the northeast. Cunimund attempted to prevent the two armies from joining up by moving against the Lombards and clashing with Alboin somewhere between the Tibiscus and Danube rivers. The Gepids were defeated in the ensuing battle, their king slain by Alboin, and Cunimund's daughter Rosamund taken captive, according to references in the "Origo". The full destruction of the Gepid kingdom was completed by the Avars, who overcame the Gepids in the east. As a result, the Gepids ceased to exist as an independent people and were partly absorbed by the Lombards and the Avars. Sometime before 568, Alboin's first wife Chlothsind died, and after his victory against Cunimund Alboin married Rosamund, to establish a bond with the remaining Gepids. The war also marked a watershed in the geo-political history of the region, as together with the Lombard migration the following year, it signalled the end of six centuries of Germanic dominance in the Pannonian Basin.
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Preparations and departure from Pannonia.
Despite his success against the Gepids, Alboin had failed to greatly increase his power, and was now faced with a much stronger threat from the Avars. Historians consider this the decisive factor in convincing Alboin to undertake a migration, even though there are indications that before the war with the Gepids a decision was maturing to leave for Italy, a country thousands of Lombards had seen in the 550s when hired by the Byzantines to fight in the Gothic War. Additionally, the Lombards would have known of the weakness of Byzantine Italy, which had endured a number of problems after being retaken from the Goths. In particular the so-called Plague of Justinian had ravaged the region and conflict remained endemic, with the Three-Chapter Controversy sparking religious opposition and administration at a standstill after the able governor of the peninsula, Narses, was recalled. Nevertheless, the Lombards viewed Italy as a rich land which promised great booty, assets Alboin used to gather together a horde which included not only Lombards but many other peoples of the region, including Heruli, Suebi, Gepids, Thuringii, Bulgars, Sarmatians, the remaining Romans and a few Ostrogoths. But the most important group, other than the Lombards, were the Saxons, of whom 20,000 male warriors with their families participated in the trek. These Saxons were tributaries to the Frankish King Sigebert, and their participation indicates that Alboin had the support of the Franks for his venture.
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The precise size of the heterogeneous group gathered by Alboin is impossible to know, and many different estimates have been made. Neil Christie considers 150,000 to be a realistic size, a number which would make the Lombards a more numerous force than the Ostrogoths on the eve of their invasion of Italy. Jörg Jarnut proposes 100,000–150,000 as an approximation; Wilfried Menghen in "Die Langobarden" estimates 150,000 to 200,000; while Stefano Gasparri cautiously judges the peoples united by Alboin to be somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000.
As a precautionary move Alboin strengthened his alliance with the Avars, signing what Paul calls a "foedus perpetuum" ("perpetual treaty") and what is referred to in the 9th-century "Historia Langobardorum codicis Gothani" as a "pactum et foedus amicitiae" ("pact and treaty of friendship"), adding that the treaty was put down on paper. By the conditions accepted in the treaty, the Avars were to take possession of Pannonia and the Lombards were promised military support in Italy should the need arise; also, for a period of 200 years, the Lombards were to maintain the right to reclaim their former territories if the plan to conquer Italy failed, thus leaving Alboin with an alternative open. The accord also had the advantage of protecting Alboin's rear, as an Avar-occupied Pannonia would make it difficult for the Byzantines to bring forces to Italy by land. The agreement proved immensely successful, and relations with the Avars were almost uninterruptedly friendly during the lifetime of the Lombard Kingdom.
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A further cause of the Lombard migration into Italy may have been an invitation from Narses. According to a controversial tradition reported by several medieval sources, Narses, out of spite for having been removed by Justinian's successor Justin II, called the Lombards to Italy. Often dismissed as an unreliable tradition, it has been studied with attention by modern scholars, in particular Neil Christie, who see in it a possible record of a formal invitation by the Byzantine state to settle in northern Italy as "foederati", to help protect the region against the Franks, an arrangement that may have been disowned by Justin II after Narses' removal.
March to Italy.
The Lombard migration started on Easter Monday, 2 April 568. The decision to combine the departure with a Christian celebration can be understood in the context of Alboin's recent conversion to Arian Christianity, as attested by the presence of Arian Gothic missionaries at his court. The conversion is likely to have been motivated mostly by political considerations, and intended to consolidate the migration's cohesion, distinguishing the migrants from the Catholic Romans. It also connected Alboin and his people to the Gothic heritage, and in this way obtained the support of the Ostrogoths serving in the Byzantine army as "foederati". It has been speculated that Alboin's migration could have been partly the result of a call from surviving Ostrogoths in Italy.
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The season chosen for leaving Pannonia was unusually early; the Germanic peoples generally waited until autumn before beginning the migration, giving themselves time to do the harvesting and replenish their granaries for the march. The reason behind the spring departure could be the anxiety induced by the neighbouring Avars, despite the friendship treaty. Nomadic peoples like the Avars also waited for autumn to begin their military campaigns, as they needed enough forage for their horses. A sign of this anxiety can also be seen in the decision taken by Alboin to ravage Pannonia, which created a safety zone between the Lombards and the Avars.
The road followed by Alboin to reach Italy has been the subject of controversy, as is the length of the trek. According to Neil Christie, the Lombards divided themselves into migrational groups, with a vanguard scouting the road, probably following the Poetovio – Celeia – Emona – Forum Iulii route, while the wagons and most of the people proceeded slowly behind because of the goods and chattels they brought with them, and possibly also because they were waiting for the Saxons to join them on the road. By September raiding parties were looting Venetia, but it was probably only in 569 that the Julian Alps were crossed at the Vipava Valley; the eyewitness Secundus of Non gives the date as 20 or 21 May. The 569 date for the entry into Italy is not void of difficulties however, and Jörg Jarnut believes the conquest of most of Venetia had already been completed in 568. According to Carlo Guido Mor, a major difficulty remains in explaining how Alboin could have reached Milan on 3 September assuming he had passed the border only in the May of the same year.
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Invasion of Italy.
Foundation of the Duchy of Friuli.
The Lombards penetrated into Italy without meeting any resistance from the border troops ("milities limitanei"). The Byzantine military resources available on the spot were scant and of dubious loyalty, and the border forts may well have been left unmanned. What seems certain is that archaeological excavations have found no sign of violent confrontation in the sites that have been excavated. This agrees with Paul the Deacon's narrative, who speaks of a Lombard takeover in Friuli "without any hindrance".
The first town to fall into the Lombards' hands was Forum Iulii (Cividale del Friuli), the seat of the local "magister militum". Alboin chose this walled town close to the frontier to be capital of the Duchy of Friuli and made his nephew and shield bearer, Gisulf, duke of the region, with the specific duty of defending the borders from Byzantine or Avar attacks from the east. Gisulf obtained from his uncle the right to choose for his duchy those "farae", or clans, that he preferred.
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Alboin's decision to create a duchy and designate a duke were both important innovations; until then, the Lombards had never had dukes or duchies based on a walled town. The innovation adopted was part of Alboin's borrowing of Roman and Ostrogothic administrative models, as in Late Antiquity the "comes civitatis" (city count) was the main local authority, with full administrative powers in his region. But the shift from count ("comes") to duke ("dux") and from county ("comitatus") to duchy ("ducatus") also signalled the progressive militarization of Italy. The selection of a fortified town as the centre for the new duchy was also an important change from the time in Pannonia, for while urbanized settlements had previously been ignored by the Lombards, now a considerable part of the nobility settled itself in Forum Iulii, a pattern that was repeated regularly by the Lombards in their other duchies.
Conquest of Milan.
From Forum Iulii, Alboin next reached Aquileia, the most important road junction in the northeast, and the administrative capital of Venetia. The imminent arrival of the Lombards had a considerable impact on the city's population; the Patriarch of Aquileia Paulinus fled with his clergy and flock to the island of Grado in Byzantine-controlled territory.
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From Aquileia, Alboin took the Via Postumia and swept through Venetia, taking in rapid succession Tarvisium (Treviso), Vicentia (Vicenza), Verona, Brixia (Brescia) and Bergomum (Bergamo). The Lombards faced difficulties only in taking Opitergium (Oderzo), which Alboin decided to avoid, as he similarly avoided tackling the main Venetian towns closer to the coast on the Via Annia, such as Altinum, Patavium (Padova), Mons Silicis (Monselice), Mantua and Cremona. The invasion of Venetia generated a considerable level of turmoil, spurring waves of refugees from the Lombard-controlled interior to the Byzantine-held coast, often led by their bishops, and resulting in new settlements such as Torcello and Heraclia.
Alboin moved west in his march, invading the region of Liguria (north-west Italy) and reaching its capital Mediolanum (Milan) on 3 September 569, only to find it already abandoned by the "vicarius Italiae" (vicar of Italy), the authority entrusted with the administration of the diocese of Annonarian Italy. Archbishop Honoratus, his clergy, and part of the laity accompanied the "vicarius Italiae" to find a safe haven in the Byzantine port of Genua (Genoa). Alboin counted the years of his reign from the capture of Milan when he assumed the title of "dominus Italiae" (Lord of Italy). His success also meant the collapse of Byzantine defences in the northern part of the Po plain, and large movements of refugees to Byzantine areas.
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Several explanations have been advanced to explain the swiftness and ease of the initial Lombard advance in northern Italy. It has been suggested that the towns' doors may have been opened by the betrayal of the Gothic auxiliaries in the Byzantine army, but historians generally hold that Lombard's success occurred because Italy was not considered by Byzantium as a vital part of the empire, especially at a time when the empire was imperilled by the attacks of Avars and Slavs in the Balkans and Sassanids in the east. The Byzantine decision not to contest the Lombard invasion reflects the desire of Justinian's successors to reorient the core of the Empire's policies eastward.
Impact of the migration on Annonarian Italy.
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In the view of Pierre Riché, the disappearance of 220 bishops' seats indicates that the Lombard migration was a crippling catastrophe for the Church. Yet according to Walter Pohl the regions directly occupied by Alboin suffered less devastation and had a relatively robust survival rate for towns, whereas the occupation of territory by autonomous military bands interested mainly in raiding and looting had a more severe impact, with the bishoprics in such places rarely surviving.
Siege of Ticinum.
The first attested instance of strong resistance to Alboin's migration took place at the town of Ticinum (Pavia), which he started to besiege in 569 and captured only after three years. The town was of strategic importance, sitting at the confluence of the rivers Po and Ticino and connected by waterways to Ravenna, the capital of Byzantine Italy and the seat of the Praetorian prefecture of Italy. Its fall cut direct communications between the garrisons stationed on the Alpes Maritimae and the Adriatic coast.
Careful to maintain the initiative against the Byzantines, by 570 Alboin had taken their last defences in northern Italy except for the coastal areas of Liguria and Venetia and a few isolated inland centres such as Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), Segusio (Susa), and the island of Amacina in the Larius Lucus (Lake Como). During Alboin's kingship the Lombards crossed the Apennines and plundered Tuscia, but historians are not in full agreement as to whether this took place under his guidance and if this constituted anything more than raiding. According to Herwig Wolfram, it was probably only in 578–579 that Tuscany was conquered, but Jörg Jarnut and others believe this began in some form under Alboin, although it was not completed by the time of his death.
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Alboin's problems in maintaining control over his people worsened during the siege of Ticinum. The nature of the Lombard monarchy made it difficult for a ruler to exert the same degree of authority over his subjects as had been exercised by Theodoric over his Goths, and the structure of the army gave great authority to the military commanders or "duces", who led each band ("fara") of warriors. Additionally, the difficulties encountered by Alboin in building a solid political entity resulted from a lack of imperial legitimacy, as, unlike the Ostrogoths, they had not entered Italy as "foederati" but as enemies of the Empire.
The king's disintegrating authority over his army was also manifested in the invasion of Frankish Burgundy which from 569 or 570 was subject to yearly raids on a major scale. The Lombard attacks were ultimately repelled following Mummolus' victory at Embrun. These attacks had lasting political consequences, souring the previously cordial Lombard-Frankish relations and opening the door to an alliance between the Empire and the Franks against the Lombards, a coalition agreed to by Guntram in about 571. Alboin is generally thought not to have been behind this invasion, but an alternative interpretation of the transalpine raids presented by Gian Piero Bognetti is that Alboin may actually have been involved in the offensive on Guntram as part of an alliance with the Frankish king of Austrasia, Sigebert I. This view is met with scepticism by scholars such as Chris Wickham.
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The weakening of royal authority may also have resulted in the conquest of much of southern Italy by the Lombards, in which modern scholars believe Alboin played no role at all, probably taking place in 570 or 571 under the auspices of individual warlords. However it is far from certain that the Lombard takeover occurred during those years, as very little is known of Faroald and Zotto's respective rises to power in Spoletium (Spoleto) and Beneventum (Benevento).
Assassination.
Earliest narratives.
Ticinum eventually fell to the Lombards in either May or June 572. Alboin had in the meantime chosen Verona as his seat, establishing himself and his treasure in a royal palace built there by Theodoric. This choice may have been another attempt to link himself with the Gothic king.
It was in this palace that Alboin was killed on 28 June 572. In the account given by Paul the Deacon, the most detailed narrative on Alboin's death, history and saga intermingle almost inextricably. Much earlier and shorter is the story told by Marius of Aventicum in his "Chronica", written about a decade after Alboin's murder. According to his version, the king was killed in a conspiracy by a man close to him, called Hilmegis (Paul's Helmechis), with the connivance of the queen. Helmichis then married the widow, but the two were forced to escape to Byzantine Ravenna, taking with them the royal treasure and part of the army, which hints at the cooperation of Byzantium. Roger Collins describes Marius as an especially reliable source because of his early date and his having lived close to Lombard Italy.
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Also contemporary is Gregory of Tours' account presented in the "Historia Francorum", and echoed by the later Fredegar. Gregory's account diverges in several respects from most other sources. In his tale it is told how Alboin married the daughter of a man he had slain, and how she waited for a suitable occasion for revenge, eventually poisoning him. She had previously fallen in love with one of her husband's servants, and after the assassination tried to escape with him, but they were captured and killed. However, historians including Walter Goffart place little trust in this narrative. Goffart notes other similar doubtful stories in the "Historia" and calls its account of Alboin's demise "a suitably ironic tale of the doings of depraved humanity".
Skull cup.
Elements present in Marius' account are echoed in Paul's "Historia Langobardorum", which also contains distinctive features. One of the best-known aspects unavailable in any other source is that of the skull cup. In Paul, the events that led to Alboin's downfall unfold in Verona. During a great feast, Alboin gets drunk and orders his wife Rosamund to drink from his cup, made from the skull of his father-in-law Cunimund after he had slain him in 567 and married Rosamund. Alboin "invited her to drink merrily with her father". This reignited the queen's determination to avenge her father.
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The tale has been often dismissed as a fable and Paul was conscious of the risk of disbelief. For this reason, he insists that he saw the skull cup personally during the 740s in the royal palace of Ticinum in the hands of king Ratchis. The use of skull cups has been noticed among nomadic peoples and, in particular, among the Lombards' neighbours, the Avars. Skull cups are believed to be part of a shamanistic ritual, where drinking from the cup was considered a way to assume the dead man's powers. In this context, Stefano Gasparri and Wilfried Menghen see in Cunimund's skull cup the sign of nomadic cultural influences on the Lombards: by drinking from his enemy's skull Alboin was taking his vital strength. As for the offering of the skull to Rosamund, that may have been a ritual request of complete submission of the queen and her people to the Lombards, and thus a cause of shame or humiliation. Alternatively, it may have been a rite to appease the dead through the offering of a libation. In the latter interpretation, the queen's answer reveals her determination not to let the wound opened by the killing of her father be healed through a ritual act, thus openly displaying her thirst for revenge.
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The episode is read in a radically different way by Walter Goffart. According to him, the whole story assumes an allegorical meaning, with Paul intent on telling an edifying story of the downfall of the hero and his expulsion from the promised land, because of his human weakness. In this story, the skull cup plays a key role as it unites original sin and barbarism. Goffart does not exclude the possibility that Paul had really seen the skull but believes that by the 740s the connection between sin and barbarism as exemplified by the skull cup had already been established.
Death.
In her plan to kill her husband Rosamund found an ally in Helmichis, the king's foster brother and "spatharius" (arms bearer). According to Paul the queen then recruited the king's "cubicularius" (bedchamberlain), Peredeo, into the plot, after having seduced him. When Alboin retired for his midday rest on 28 June, care was taken to leave the door open and unguarded. Alboin's sword was also removed, leaving him defenceless when Peredeo entered his room and killed him. Alboin's remains were allegedly buried beneath the palace steps.
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Peredeo's figure and role is mostly introduced by Paul; the "Origo" had for the first time mentioned his name as "Peritheus", but there his role had been different, as he was not the assassin, but the instigator of the assassination. In the vein of his reading of the skull cup, Goffart sees Peredeo not as a historical figure but as an allegorical character: he notes a similarity between Peredeo's name and the Latin word "perditus", meaning "lost", a representation of those Lombards who entered into the service of the Empire.
Alboin's death had a lasting impact, as it deprived the Lombards of the only leader they had that could have kept together the newborn Germanic entity. His end also represents the death of the last of the line of hero-kings that had led the Lombards through their migrations from the Elbe to Italy. His fame survived him for many centuries in epic poetry, with Saxons and Bavarians celebrating his prowess in battle, his heroism, and the magical properties of his weapons.
Aftermath.
To complete the coup d'état and legitimize his claim to the throne, Helmichis married the queen, whose high standing arose not only from being the king's widow but also from being the most prominent member of the remaining Gepid nation, and as such her support was a guarantee of the Gepids' loyalty to Helmichis. The latter could also count on the support of the Lombard garrison of Verona, where many may have opposed Alboin's aggressive policy and could have cultivated the hope of reaching an entente with the Empire. The Byzantines were almost certainly deeply involved in the plot. It was in their interest to stem the Lombard tide by bringing a pro-Byzantine regime into power in Verona, and possibly, in the long run, break the unity of the Lombards' kingdom, winning over the dukes with honours and emoluments.
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The coup ultimately failed, as it met with the resistance of most of the warriors, who were opposed to the king's assassination. As a result, the Lombard garrison in Ticinum proclaimed Duke Cleph the new king, and Helmichis, rather than going to war against overwhelming odds, escaped to Ravenna with Longinus' assistance, taking with him his wife, his troops, the royal treasure and Alboin's daughter Albsuinda. In Ravenna, the two lovers became estranged and killed each other. Subsequently, Longinus sent Albsuinda and the treasure to Constantinople.
Cleph kept the throne for only 18 months before being assassinated by a slave. Possibly he too was killed at the instigation of the Byzantines, who had every interest in avoiding a hostile and solid leadership among the Lombards. An important success for the Byzantines was that no king was proclaimed to succeed Cleph, opening a decade of interregnum, thus making them more vulnerable to attacks from the Franks and Byzantines. It was only when faced with the danger of annihilation by the Franks in 584 that the dukes elected a new king in the person of Authari, son of Cleph, who began the definitive consolidation and centralization of the Lombard kingdom while the remaining imperial territories were reorganized under the control of an exarch in Ravenna with the capacity to defend the country without the Emperor's assistance.
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The consolidation of Byzantine and Lombard dominions had long-lasting consequences for Italy, as the region was from that moment on fragmented among multiple rulers until Italian unification in 1871.
Cultural references.
Alboin, together with other tribal leaders is mentioned in the 10th century Old English poem called "Widsith" (lines 70–75) :
The historical period also formed the basis of the 1961 Italian adventure film "Sword of the Conqueror" (Italian: "Rosmunda e Alboino", German title "Alboin, König der Langobarden"), with Jack Palance as Alboin.
There have been several artistic depictions of events from Alboin's life including Peter Paul Rubens' "Alboin and Rosamunde" (1615); Charles Landseer's "Assassination of Alboin, King of the Lombards" (1856); and Fortunino Matania's illustration "Rosamund captive before King Alboin of the Lombards" (1942).
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Afonso de Albuquerque
Afonso de Albuquerque, 1st Duke of Goa ( – 16 December 1515), was a Portuguese general, admiral, and statesman. He served as viceroy of Portuguese India from 1509 to 1515, during which he expanded Portuguese influence across the Indian Ocean and built a reputation as a fierce and skilled military commander.
Albuquerque advanced the three-fold Portuguese grand scheme of combating Islam, spreading Christianity, and securing the trade of spices by establishing a Portuguese Asian empire. Among his achievements, Albuquerque managed to conquer Goa and was the first European of the Renaissance to raid the Persian Gulf, and he led the first voyage by a European fleet into the Red Sea. He is generally considered a highly effective military commander, and "probably the greatest naval commander of the age", given his successful strategy — he attempted to close all the Indian Ocean naval passages to the Atlantic, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and to the Pacific, transforming it into a Portuguese "mare clausum". He was appointed head of the "fleet of the Arabian and Persian sea" in 1506.
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Many of the conflicts in which he was directly involved took place in the Indian Ocean, in the Persian Gulf regions for control of the trade routes, and on the coasts of India. His military brilliance in these initial campaigns enabled Portugal to become the first global empire in history. He led the Portuguese forces in numerous battles, including the conquest of Goa in 1510 and the capture of Malacca in 1511.
During the last five years of his life, he turned to administration, where his actions as the second governor of Portuguese India were crucial to the longevity of the Portuguese Empire. He oversaw expeditions that resulted in establishing diplomatic contacts with the Ayutthaya Kingdom through his envoy Duarte Fernandes, with Pegu in Myanmar, and Timor and the Moluccas through a voyage headed by António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão. He laid the path for European trade with Ming China through Rafael Perestrello. He also aided in establishing diplomatic relations with Ethiopia, and established diplomatic ties with Persia during the Safavid dynasty.
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Throughout his career, he received epithets such as "the Terrible", "the Great", "the Lion of the Seas", "the Portuguese Mars", and "the Caesar of the East".
Early life.
Afonso de Albuquerque was born in 1453 in Alhandra, near Lisbon. He was the second son of Gonçalo de Albuquerque, Lord of Vila Verde dos Francos, and Dona Leonor de Menezes. His father held an important position at court and was connected by remote illegitimate descent with the Portuguese monarchy. He was a descendant of King Denis’s illegitimate son, Afonso Sanches, Lord of Albuquerque. He was educated in mathematics and Latin at the court of Afonso V of Portugal, where he befriended Prince John, the future King John II of Portugal.
Early military service, 1471–1509.
In 1471, under the command of Afonso V, he was present at the conquest of Tangier and Arzila in Morocco, and he served there as an officer for some years. In 1476, he accompanied Prince John in wars against Castile, including the Battle of Toro. He participated in the campaign on the Italian peninsula in 1480 to assist Ferdinand I of Naples in repelling the Ottoman invasion of Otranto. On his return in 1481, when John was crowned as King John II, Albuquerque was made master of the horse and chief equerry ("") to the king, a post which he held throughout John's reign. In 1489, he returned to military campaigning in North Africa, as commander of defense in the Graciosa fortress, an island in the river Luco near the city of Larache. In 1490 Albuquerque was part of the guard of John II. He returned to Arzila in 1495, where his younger brother Martim died fighting by his side.
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First expedition to India, 1503.
When King Manuel I of Portugal ascended to the throne following the death of his cousin John II, he held a cautious attitude towards Albuquerque, who was a close friend of his predecessor and seventeen years Manuel's senior. Eight years later, on 6 April 1503 Albuquerque was sent on his first expedition to India together with his cousin Francisco de Albuquerque. Each commanded three ships, sailing with Duarte Pacheco Pereira and Nicolau Coelho. They engaged in several battles against the forces of the Zamorin of Calicut ("Calecute", Kozhikode) and succeeded in establishing the king of Cochin ("Cochim", Kochi) securely on his throne. In return, the king of Cochin gave the Portuguese permission to build the Portuguese fort "Immanuel" (Fort Kochi) and establish trade relations with Quilon ("Coulão", Kollam). This laid the foundation for the eastern Portuguese Empire.
Second expedition to India, 1506–1509.
Return, 1506.
Albuquerque returned home in July 1504 and was well received by King Manuel I. After he assisted with the creation of a strategy for the Portuguese efforts in the east, King Manuel entrusted him with the command of a squadron of five vessels in the fleet of sixteen sailing for India in early 1506, headed by Tristão da Cunha. The aim of the expedition was to conquer Socotra and build a fortress there, hoping to close the trade in the Red Sea.
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Albuquerque went as "chief-captain for the Coast of Arabia", sailing under da Cunha's orders until reaching Mozambique. He carried a sealed letter with a secret mission ordered by the king: after fulfilling the first mission, he was to replace the first viceroy of India, Francisco de Almeida, whose term ended two years later. Before departing, he legitimized his son Brás ("Braz" in the old Portuguese spelling), born to a common Portuguese woman named Joana Vicente in 1500.
First conquest of Socotra, Muscat and Ormuz, 1507.
The fleet left Lisbon on 6 April 1506. Albuquerque piloted his ship himself, having lost his appointed pilot on departure. In Mozambique Channel, they rescued Captain João da Nova, who had encountered difficulties on his return from India; da Nova and his ship, the "Flor de la mar", joined da Cunha's fleet. From Malindi, da Cunha sent envoys to Ethiopia, which at the time was thought to be closer to India than it actually is, under the aegis of Albuquerque. After failing to reach Ethiopia, he managed to land the envoys in Filuk. After successful attacks on Arab cities on the East African coast, the expedition conquered the island of Socotra and built a fortress at Suq, hoping to establish a base to stop the Red Sea commerce to the Indian Ocean. However, Socotra was abandoned four years later, as it was eventually realised to be a poor location for a base.
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At Socotra, they parted ways: Tristão da Cunha sailed for India, where he would relieve the Portuguese besieged at Cannanore, while Afonso took seven ships and 500 men to Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, one of the chief eastern centers of commerce. On his way, he conquered the cities of Curiati (Kuryat), Muscat in July 1507, and Khor Fakkan, accepting the submission of the cities of Kalhat and Sohar. He arrived at Hormuz on 25 September and soon captured the city, which agreed to become a tributary state of the Portuguese king.
Ormuz was then a tributary state of Shah Ismail I () of Safavid Persia. In a famous episode, shortly after its conquest, Albuquerque was confronted by Persian envoys, who demanded the payment of the due tribute from him instead. He ordered them to be given a stock of cannonballs, arrows and weapons, retorting that "such was the currency struck in Portugal to pay the tribute demanded from the dominions of King Manuel". According to Brás de Albuquerque, it was Shah Ismael who first addressed Albuquerque as "Lion of the seas".
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Afonso began building the Fort of Our Lady of Victory (later renamed Fort of Our Lady of the Conception) on Hormuz Island, engaging his men of all ranks in the work. However, some of his officers, claiming that Afonso was exceeding his orders, revolted against the heavy work and climate and departed for India. With his fleet reduced to two ships and left without supplies, he was unable to maintain his position. In January 1508, he was forced to abandon Ormuz. He raided coastal villages to resupply the settlement of Socotra, returned to Ormuz, and then headed to India.
Arrest at Cannanore, 1509.
Afonso arrived at Cannanore on the Malabar coast in December 1508, where he opened the sealed letter that he had received from the king before the viceroy, Dom Francisco de Almeida, which named him as governor to succeed Almeida. The viceroy, supported by the officers who had abandoned Afonso at Ormuz, had a matching royal order but declined to yield. He protested that his term ended only in January and stated his intention to avenge his son's death by fighting the Mamluk fleet of Mirocem, refusing Afonso's offer to fight the Mamluk fleet himself. Afonso avoided confrontation, which could have led to civil war, and moved to Kochi, India, to await further instruction from the king. Increasingly isolated, he wrote to Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, who arrived in India with a new fleet, but was ignored as Sequeira joined Almeida. At the same time, Afonso refused approaches from opponents of Almeida who encouraged him to seize power.
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On 3 February 1509, Almeida fought the naval Battle of Diu against a joint fleet of Mamluks, Ottomans, the Zamorin of Calicut, and the Sultan of Gujarat. His victory was decisive: the Ottomans and Mamluks abandoned the Indian Ocean, easing the way for Portuguese rule there for the next century. In August, after a petition from Afonso's former officers with the support of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira claiming him unfit for governance, Afonso was sent in custody to St. Angelo Fort in Cannanore. There he remained under what he considered as imprisonment.
Governor of Portuguese India, 1509–1515.
Afonso was released after three months' confinement, on the arrival at Cannanore of the Marshal of Portugal Fernando Coutinho with a large fleet sent by the king. Coutinho was the most important Portuguese noble to visit India up to that point. He brought an armada of fifteen ships and 3,000 men to defend Afonso's rights, and to take Calicut.
On 4 November 1509, Afonso became the second Governor of Portuguese India, a position he would hold until his death. Almeida set off to return to Portugal, but he was killed before he got there in a skirmish with the Khoekhoe. Upon his assuming office, Afonso intended to dominate the Muslim world and control the Spice trade.
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Initially, King Manuel I and his council in Lisbon tried to distribute the power by outlining three areas of jurisdiction in the Indian Ocean. In 1509, the nobleman Diogo Lopes de Sequeira was sent with a fleet to Southeast Asia, to seek an agreement with Sultan Mahmud Shah of Malacca, but failed and returned to Portugal. To Jorge de Aguiar was given the region between the Cape of Good Hope and Gujarat. He was succeeded by Duarte de Lemos, but left for Cochin and then for Portugal, leaving his fleet to Afonso.
Conquest of Goa, 1510.
In January 1510, obeying the orders from the king and aware of the absence of the Zamorin, Afonso advanced on Calicut. The attack was initially successful, but unravelled when Marshal Coutinho, infuriated by Albuquerque's success against Calicut and desiring glory for himself, attacked the Zamorin's palace against Albuquerque's advice, and was ambushed. During the retreat, Afonso was badly wounded and was forced to flee to the ships, barely escaping with his life, while Coutinho was killed.
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Soon after the failed attack, Afonso assembled a fleet of 23 ships and 1200 men. Contemporary reports state that he wanted to fight the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate fleet in the Red Sea or return to Hormuz. However, he had been informed by Timoji (a privateer in the service of the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire) that it would be easier to fight them in Goa, where they had sheltered after the Battle of Diu, and also of the illness of the Sultan Yusuf Adil Shah, and war between the Deccan sultanates. So he relied on surprise in the capture of Goa from the Sultanate of Bijapur.
A first assault took place in Goa from 4 March to 20 May 1510. After the initial occupation, feeling unable to hold the city given the poor condition of its fortifications, the cooling of Hindu residents' support and insubordination among his ranks following an attack by Ismail Adil Shah, Afonso refused a truce offered by the Sultan and abandoned the city in August. His fleet was scattered, and a palace revolt in Kochi hindered his recovery, so he headed to Fort Anjediva. New ships arrived from Portugal, which were intended for the nobleman Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos at Malacca, who had been given a rival command of the region.
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Three months later, on 25 November Afonso reappeared at Goa with a renovated fleet. Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos was compelled to accompany him with the reinforcements for Malacca and about 300 Malabari reinforcements from Cannanore. In less than a day, they took Goa from Ismail Adil Shah and his Ottoman allies, who surrendered on 10 December. It is estimated that 6000 of the 9000 Muslim defenders of the city died, either in the fierce battle in the streets or by drowning while trying to escape. Afonso regained the support of the Hindu population, although he frustrated the initial expectations of Timoji, who aspired to become governor. Afonso rewarded him by appointing him chief "Aguazil" of the city, an administrator and representative of the Hindu and Muslim people, as a knowledgeable interpreter of the local customs. He then made an agreement to lower the yearly tribute.
In Goa, Afonso established the first Portuguese mint in the East, after Timoja's merchants had complained of the scarcity of currency, taking it as an opportunity to solidify the territorial conquest. The new coin, based on the existing local coins, showed a cross on the obverse and an armillary sphere (or "esfera"), King Manuel's badge, on the reverse. Gold cruzados or "manueis", silver "esferas" and "alf-esferas", and bronze "leais" were issued.
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Albuquerque founded at Goa the "Hospital Real de Goa" or Royal Hospital of Goa, by the Church of Santa Catarina. Upon hearing that the doctors were extorting the sickly with excessive fees, Albuquerque summoned them, declaring that "You charge a physician's pay and don't know what disease the men who serve our lord the King suffer from. Thus, I want to teach you what is it that they die from" and put them to work building the city walls all day till nightfall before releasing them.
Despite constant attacks, Goa became the center of Portuguese India, with the conquest triggering the compliance of neighbouring kingdoms: the Sultan of Gujarat and the Zamorin of Calicut sent embassies, offering alliances and local grants to fortify.
Afonso then used Goa to secure the spice trade in favor of Portugal and sell Persian horses to Vijayanagara and Hindu princes in return for their assistance.
Conquest of Malacca, 1511.
Afonso explained to his armies why the Portuguese wanted to capture Malacca:
In February 1511, through a friendly Hindu merchant, Nina Chatu, Afonso received a letter from Rui de Araújo, one of the nineteen Portuguese held at Malacca since 1509. It urged moving forward with the largest possible fleet to demand their release, and gave details of the fortifications. Afonso showed it to Diogo Mendes de Vasconcelos, as an argument to advance as a joint fleet. In April 1511, after fortifying Goa, he gathered a force of about 900 Portuguese, 200 Hindu mercenaries and about eighteen ships. He then sailed to Malacca against orders and despite the protest of Diogo Mendes, who claimed command of the expedition. Afonso eventually centralized the Portuguese government in the Indian Ocean. After the Malaccan conquest, he wrote a letter to the king to explain his disagreement with Diogo Mendes, suggesting that further divisions could be harmful to the Portuguese in India. Under his command was Ferdinand Magellan, who had participated in the failed embassy of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in 1509.
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After a false start towards the Red Sea, they sailed to the Strait of Malacca. It was the richest city that the Portuguese tried to take, and a focal point in the trade network where Malay traders met Gujarati, Chinese, Japanese, Javanese, Bengali, Persian and Arabic, among others, described by Tomé Pires as of invaluable richness. Despite its wealth, it was mostly a wooden-built city, with few masonry buildings but was defended by a mercenary force estimated at 20,000 men and more than 2000 pieces of artillery. Its greatest weakness was the unpopularity of the government of Sultan Mahmud Shah, who favoured Muslims, arousing dissatisfaction amongst other merchants.
Afonso made a bold approach to the city, his ships decorated with banners, firing cannon volleys. He declared himself lord of all the navigation, demanded the Sultan release the prisoners and pay for damages, and demanded consent to build a fortified trading post. The Sultan eventually freed the prisoners, but was unimpressed by the small Portuguese contingent.
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He declared himself lord of all the navigation, demanded the Sultan release the prisoners and pay for damages, and demanded consent to build a fortified trading post. The Sultan eventually freed the prisoners, but was unimpressed by the small Portuguese contingent. Afonso then burned some ships at the port and four coastal buildings as a demonstration. The city being divided by the Malacca River, the connecting bridge was a strategic point, so at dawn on 25 July, the Portuguese landed and fought a tough battle, facing poisoned arrows, taking the bridge in the evening. After fruitlessly waiting for the Sultan's reaction, they returned to the ships and prepared a junk (offered by Chinese merchants), filling it with men, artillery and sandbags. Commanded by António de Abreu, it sailed upriver at high tide to the bridge. The day after, all had landed. After a fierce fight during which the Sultan appeared with an army of war elephants, the defenders were dispersed and the Sultan fled. Afonso waited for the reaction of the Sultan.
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After a fierce fight during which the Sultan appeared with an army of war elephants, the defenders were dispersed and the Sultan fled. Afonso waited for the reaction of the Sultan. Merchants approached, asking for Portuguese protection. They were given banners to mark their premises, a sign that they would not be looted. On 15 August, the Portuguese attacked again, but the Sultan had fled the city. Under strict orders, they looted the city, but respected the banners.
Afonso prepared Malacca's defenses against a Malay counterattack, building a fortress, assigning his men to shifts and using stones from the mosque and the cemetery. Despite the delays caused by heat and malaria, it was completed in November 1511, its surviving door now known as "A Famosa" ('the famous'). It was possibly then that Afonso had a large stone engraved with the names of the participants in the conquest. To quell disagreements over the order of the names, he had it set facing the wall, with the single inscription "Lapidem quem reprobaverunt aedificantes" (Latin for "The stone the builders rejected", from David's prophecy, Psalm 118:22–23) on the front.
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He settled the Portuguese administration, reappointing Rui de Araújo as factor, a post assigned before his 1509 arrest, and appointing rich merchant Nina Chatu to replace the previous Bendahara. Besides assisting in the governance of the city and the first Portuguese coinage, he provided the junks for several diplomatic missions. Meanwhile, Afonso arrested and had executed the powerful Javanese merchant Utimuti Raja who, after being appointed to a position in the Portuguese administration as representative of the Javanese population, had maintained contacts with the exiled royal family.
Shipwreck on the "Flor de la mar", 1511.
On 20 November 1511 Afonso sailed from Malacca to the coast of Malabar on the old "Flor de la Mar" carrack that had served to support the conquest of Malacca. Despite its unsound condition, he used it to transport the treasure amassed in the conquest, given its large capacity. He wanted to give the court of King Manuel a show of Malaccan treasures. There were also offerings from the Ayutthaya Kingdom (Thailand) to the king of Portugal, and all his own fortune. On the voyage, the "Flor de la Mar" was wrecked in a storm, and Afonso barely escaped drowning.
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Missions from Malacca.
Embassies to Pegu, Sumatra and Siam, 1511.
Most Muslim and Gujarati merchants having fled the city, Afonso invested in diplomatic efforts demonstrating generosity to Southeast Asian merchants, like the Chinese, to encourage good relations with the Portuguese. Trade and diplomatic missions were sent to continental kingdoms: Rui Nunes da Cunha was sent to Pegu (Burma), from where King Binyaram sent back a friendly emissary to Kochi in 1514 and Sumatra, Sumatran kings of Kampar and Indragiri sending emissaries to Afonso accepting the new power, as vassal states of Malacca. Knowing of Siamese ambitions over Malacca, Afonso sent Duarte Fernandes in a diplomatic mission to the Ayutthaya Kingdom (Thailand), returning in a Chinese junk. He was one of the Portuguese who had been arrested in Malacca, having gathered knowledge about the culture of the region. There he was the first European to arrive, establishing amicable relations between the kingdom of Portugal and the court of the king of Siam Ramathibodi II, returning with a Siamese envoy bearing gifts and letters to Afonso and the king of Portugal.
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Expedition to the "spice islands" (Maluku islands), 1512.
In November, after having secured Malacca and learning the location of the then secret "spice islands", Afonso sent three ships to find them, led by trusted António de Abreu with deputy commander Francisco Serrão. Malay sailors were recruited to guide them through Java, the Lesser Sunda Islands and the Ambon Island to Banda Islands, where they arrived in early 1512. There they remained for a month, buying and filling their ships with nutmeg and cloves. António de Abreu then sailed to Amboina whilst Serrão sailed towards the Moluccas, but he was shipwrecked near Seram. Sultan Abu Lais of Ternate heard of their stranding, and, seeing a chance to ally himself with a powerful foreign nation, brought them to Ternate in 1512 where they were permitted to build a fort on the island, the "", built in 1522.
Return to Cochin and Goa.
Afonso returned from Malacca to Cochin, but could not sail to Goa as it faced a serious revolt headed by the forces of Ismael Adil Shah, the Sultan of Bijapur, commanded by Rasul Khan and his countrymen. During Afonso's absence from Malacca, the Portuguese who opposed the taking of Goa had waived its possession, even writing to the king that it would be best to let it go. Held up by the monsoon and with few forces available, Afonso had to wait for the arrival of reinforcement fleets headed by his nephew D. Garcia de Noronha, and Jorge de Mello Pereira.
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While at Cochin, Albuquerque started a school. In a private letter to King Manuel I, he stated that he had found a chest full of books with which to teach the children of married Portuguese settlers ("casados") and Christian converts, of which there were about a hundred, to read and write.
On 10 September 1512, Afonso sailed from Cochin to Goa with fourteen ships carrying 1,700 soldiers. Determined to recapture the fortress, he ordered trenches dug and a wall breached. But on the day of the planned final assault, Rasul Khan surrendered. Afonso demanded the fort be handed over with its artillery, ammunition and horses, and the deserters to be given up. Some had joined Rasul Khan when the Portuguese were forced to flee Goa in May 1510, others during the recent siege. Rasul Khan consented, on condition that their lives be spared. Afonso agreed and he left Goa. He did spare the lives of the deserters, but had them horribly mutilated. One such renegade was Fernão Lopes, bound for Portugal in custody, who escaped at the island of Saint Helena and led a 'Robinson Crusoe' life for many years. After such measures the town became the most prosperous Portuguese settlement in India.
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Administration and diplomacy, 1512–1515.
Ethiopian embassy, 1512.
In December 1512 an envoy from Ethiopia arrived at Goa. Mateus was sent by the regent queen Eleni, following the arrival of the Portuguese from Socotra in 1507, as an ambassador for the king of Portugal in search of a coalition to help face growing Muslim influence. He was received in Goa with great honour by Afonso, as a long-sought "Prester John" envoy. His arrival was announced by King Manuel to Pope Leo X in 1513. Although Mateus faced the distrust of Afonso's rivals, who tried to prove he was some impostor or Muslim spy, Afonso sent him to Portugal. The king is described as having wept with joy at their report.
In February 1513, while Mateus was in Portugal, Afonso sailed to the Red Sea with a force of about 1000 Portuguese and 400 Malabaris. He was under orders to secure that channel for Portugal. Socotra had proved ineffective to control the Red Sea entrance and was abandoned, and Afonso's hint that Massawa could be a good Portuguese base might have been influenced by Mateus' reports.
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Campaign in the Red Sea, 1513.
Knowing that the Mamluks were preparing a second fleet at Suez, he wanted to advance before reinforcements arrived in Aden, and accordingly laid siege to the city. Aden was a fortified city, but although he had scaling ladders they broke during the chaotic attack. After half a day of fierce battle, Afonso was forced to retreat. He cruised the Red Sea inside the Bab al-Mandab, with the first European fleet to have sailed this route. He attempted to reach Jeddah, but the winds were unfavourable and so he sheltered at Kamaran island in May, until sickness among the men and lack of fresh water forced him to retreat. In August 1513, after a second attempt to reach Aden, he returned to India with no substantial results. In order to destroy the power of Egypt, he wrote to King Manuel of the idea of diverting the course of the Nile river to render the whole country barren. He also intended to steal the body of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, and hold it for ransom until all Muslims had left the Holy Land.
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Although Albuquerque's expedition failed to reach Suez, such an incursion into the Red Sea by a Christian fleet for the first time in history stunned the Muslim world, and panic spread in Cairo.
Submission of Calicut.
Albuquerque achieved during his term a favourable end to hostilities between the Portuguese and the Zamorin of Calicut, which had lasted since the massacre of the Portuguese in Calicut in 1502. As naval trade faltered and vassals defected, with no foreseeable solutions to the conflict with the Portuguese, the court of the Zamorin fell to in-fighting. The ruling Zamorin was assassinated and replaced by a rival, under the instigation of Albuquerque, permitting peace talks to commence. The Portuguese were allowed to build a fortress in Calicut itself, and acquired rights to obtain as much pepper and ginger as they wished, at stipulated prices, and half the customs duties of Calicut as yearly tribute. Construction of the fortress began immediately, under the supervision of chief architect Tomás Fernandes.
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Goa, 1514.
With peace concluded, in 1514 Afonso devoted himself to governing Goa and receiving embassies from Indian governors, strengthening the city and encouraging marriages of Portuguese men and local women. At that time, Portuguese women were barred from traveling overseas in order to maintain discipline among the men on board the ships. In 1511 under a policy which Afonso promulgated, the Portuguese government encouraged their explorers to marry local women. To promote settlement, the King of Portugal granted freeman status and exemption from Crown taxes to Portuguese men (known as "casados", or "married men") who ventured overseas and married local women. With Afonso's encouragement, mixed marriages flourished, giving birth to Portuguese-Indians or "mestiços". He appointed local people for positions in the Portuguese administration and did not interfere with local traditions (except "sati", the practice of immolating widows, which he banned).
In March 1514 King Manuel sent to Pope Leo X a huge and exotic embassy led by Tristão da Cunha, who toured the streets of Rome in an extravagant procession of animals from the colonies and wealth from the Indies. His reputation reached its peak, laying foundations of the Portuguese Empire in the East.
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In early 1514, Afonso sent ambassadors to Gujarat's Sultan Muzaffar Shah II, ruler of Cambay, to seek permission to build a fort on Diu, India. The mission returned without an agreement, but diplomatic gifts were exchanged, including an Indian rhinoceros. Afonso sent the rhino to King Manuel, making it the first living example of a rhinoceros seen in Europe since the Roman Empire. King Manuel named the rhino Genda after the Gujarat word for ball, and later gifted it to Pope Leo X, but before completing its journey to Italy the boat carrying the rhino sank and the animal drowned. In 1515, German artist Albrecht Dürer created his famous woodcut known as Dürer's Rhinoceros, based on a description from a letter and a brief sketch made by an unknown artist who had seen the actual animal. Dürer's interpretation of the rhino cemented the idea of how a rhino should look like in people's mindsets up until the late-eighteenth century.
Conquest of Ormuz and Illness.
In 1513, at Cannanore, Afonso was visited by a Persian ambassador from Shah Ismail I, who had sent ambassadors to Gujarat, Ormuz and Bijapur. The shah's ambassador to Bijapur invited Afonso to send back an envoy to Persia. Miguel Ferreira was sent via Ormuz to Tabriz, where he had several interviews with the shah about common goals of defeating the Mamluk sultan.
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At the same time, Albuquerque decided to conclude the effective conquest of Hormuz. He had learned that after the Portuguese retreat in 1507, a young king was reigning under the influence of a powerful Persian vizier, Reis Hamed, whom the king greatly feared. At Ormuz in March 1515, Afonso met the king and asked the vizier to be present. He then had him immediately stabbed and killed by his entourage, thus "freeing" the terrified king, so the island in the Persian Gulf yielded to him without resistance and remained a vassal state of the Portuguese Empire. Ormuz itself would not be Persian territory for another century, until an English-Persian alliance finally expelled the Portuguese in 1622. At Ormuz, Afonso met with Miguel Ferreira, returning with rich presents and an ambassador, carrying a letter from the Persian potentate Shah Ismael, inviting Afonso to become a leading lord in Persia. There he remained, engaging in diplomatic efforts, receiving envoys and overseeing the construction of the new fortress, while becoming increasingly ill. His illness was reported as early as September 1515. In November 1515, he embarked on a journey back to Goa.
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Death.
At this time, his political enemies at the Portuguese court were planning his downfall. They had lost no opportunity in stirring up the jealousy of King Manuel against him, insinuating that Afonso intended to usurp power in Portuguese India. While on his return voyage from Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, near the harbor of Chaul, he received news of a Portuguese fleet arriving from Europe, bearing dispatches announcing that he was to be replaced by his personal foe, Lopo Soares de Albergaria. Realizing the plot that his enemies had moved against him, profoundly disillusioned, he voiced his bitterness: "Grave must be my sins before the King, for I am in ill favor with the King for love of the men, and with the men for love of the King."
Feeling himself near death, he donned the surcoat of the Order of Santiago, of which he was a knight, and drew up his will, appointed the captain and senior officials of Ormuz, and organized a final council with his captains to decide the main matters affecting the Portuguese State of India. He wrote a brief letter to King Manuel, asking him to confer onto his natural son "all of the high honors and rewards" that Afonso had received, and assuring Manuel of his loyalty.
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On 16 December 1515, Afonso de Albuquerque died within sight of Goa. As his death was known, in the city "great wailing arose", and many took to the streets to witness his body carried on a chair by his main captains, in a procession lit by torches amidst the crowd. Afonso's body was buried in Goa, according to his will, in the Church of Nossa Senhora da Serra (Our Lady of the Hill), which he had been built in 1513 to thank the Madonna for his escape from Kamaran island. That night, the population of Goa, both Hindu and Portuguese, gathered to mourn his death.
In Portugal, King Manuel's zigzagging policies continued, still trapped by the constraints of real-time medieval communication between Lisbon and India and unaware that Afonso was dead. Hearing rumours that the Mamluk Sultan of Egypt was preparing a magnificent army at Suez to prevent the conquest of Ormuz, he repented of having replaced Afonso, and in March 1516 urgently wrote to Albergaria to return the command of all operations to Afonso and provide him with resources to face the Egyptian threat. He organized a new Portuguese navy in Asia, with orders that Afonso (if he was still in India), be made commander-in-chief against the Sultan of Cairo's armies. Manuel would afterwards learn that Afonso had died many months earlier, and that his reversed decision had been delivered many months too late.
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After 51 years, in 1566, his body was moved to Nossa Senhora da Graça church in Lisbon, which was ruined and rebuilt after the 1755 Great Lisbon earthquake.
Legacy.
King Manuel I of Portugal was belatedly convinced of Afonso's loyalty, and endeavoured to atone for his lack of confidence in Afonso by heaping honours upon his son, Brás de Albuquerque (1500–1580), whom he renamed "Afonso" in memory of the father. Afonso de Albuquerque was a prolific writer, having sent numerous letters during his governorship, covering topics from minor issues to major strategies. In 1557 his son published his biography under the title "Commentarios do Grande Affonso d'Alboquerque".
In 1572, Afonso's actions were described in "The Lusiads", the Portuguese main epic poem by Luís Vaz de Camões (Canto X, strophes 40–49). The poet praises his achievements, but has the muses frown upon the harsh rule of his men, of whom Camões was almost a contemporary fellow. In 1934, Afonso was celebrated by Fernando Pessoa in "Mensagem", a symbolist epic. In the first part of this work, called "Brasão" (Coat-of-Arms), he relates Portuguese historical protagonists to each of the fields in the Portuguese coat-of-arms, Afonso being one of the wings of the griffin headed by Henry the Navigator, the other wing being King John II.
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A variety of mango, which was created by Portuguese Jesuits in Goa via grafting techniques, was named in his honour.
Numerous homages have been paid to Afonso. He is featured in the Padrão dos Descobrimentos monument. There is a square named after him in Lisbon, which also features a bronze statue, as well as a prominent statue of his enrobed figure in a garden square in Bairro Gomes da Costa in Porto.
Two Portuguese Navy ships have been named in his honour: the sloop NRP "Afonso de Albuquerque" (1884) and the warship NRP "Afonso de Albuquerque".
References.
Bibliography.
In other languages
Primary sources
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Alcaeus
Alcaeus of Mytilene (; , "Alkaios ho Mutilēnaios"; – BC) was a lyric poet from the Greek island of Lesbos who is credited with inventing the Alcaic stanza. He was included in the canonical list of nine lyric poets by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. He was a contemporary of Sappho, with whom he may have exchanged poems. He was born into the aristocratic governing class of Mytilene, the main city of Lesbos, where he was involved in political disputes and feuds.
Biography.
The broad outlines of the poet's life are well known. He was born into the aristocratic, warrior class that dominated Mytilene, the strongest city-state on the island of Lesbos and, by the end of the seventh century BC, the most influential of all the North Aegean Greek cities, with a strong navy and colonies securing its trade-routes in the Hellespont. The city had long been ruled by kings born to the Penthilid clan but, during the poet's life, the Penthilids were a spent force and rival aristocrats and their factions contended with each other for supreme power. Alcaeus and his older brothers were passionately involved in the struggle but experienced little success. Their political adventures can be understood in terms of three tyrants who came and went in succession:
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Sometime before 600 BC, Mytilene fought Athens for control of Sigeion and Alcaeus was old enough to participate in the fighting. According to the historian Herodotus, the poet threw away his shield to make good his escape from the victorious Athenians then celebrated the occasion in a poem that he later sent to his friend, Melanippus. It is thought that Alcaeus travelled widely during his years in exile, including at least one visit to Egypt. His older brother, Antimenidas, appears to have served as a mercenary in the army of Nebuchadnezzar II and probably took part in the conquest of Askelon. Alcaeus wrote verses in celebration of Antimenides's return, including mention of his valour in slaying the larger opponent (frag. 350), and he proudly describes the military hardware that adorned their family home (frag. 357).
Alcaeus was a contemporary and a countryman of Sappho and, since both poets composed for the entertainment of Mytilenean friends, they had many opportunities to associate with each other on a quite regular basis, such as at the "Kallisteia", an annual festival celebrating the island's federation under Mytilene, held at the 'Messon' (referred to as "temenos" in frs. 129 and 130), where Sappho performed publicly with female choirs. Alcaeus's reference to Sappho in terms more typical of a divinity, as "holy/pure, honey-smiling Sappho" (fr. 384), may owe its inspiration to her performances at the festival. The Lesbian or Aeolic school of poetry "reached in the songs of Sappho and Alcaeus that high point of brilliancy to which it never after-wards approached" and it was assumed by later Greek critics and during the early centuries of the Christian era that the two poets were in fact lovers, a theme which became a favourite subject in art (as in the urn pictured above).
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Poetry.
The poetic works of Alcaeus were collected into ten books, with elaborate commentaries, by the Alexandrian scholars Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace sometime in the 3rd century BC, and yet his verses today exist only in fragmentary form, varying in size from mere phrases, such as "wine, window into a man" (fr. 333) to entire groups of verses and stanzas, such as those quoted below (fr. 346). Alexandrian scholars numbered him in their canonic nine (one lyric poet per Muse). Among these, Pindar was held by many ancient critics to be pre-eminent, but some gave precedence to Alcaeus instead. The canonic nine are traditionally divided into two groups, with Alcaeus, Sappho and Anacreon, being 'monodists' or 'solo-singers', with the following characteristics:
The other six of the canonic nine composed verses for public occasions, performed by choruses and professional singers and typically featuring complex metrical arrangements that were never reproduced in other verses. However, this division into two groups is considered by some modern scholars to be too simplistic and often it is practically impossible to know whether a lyric composition was sung or recited, or whether or not it was accompanied by musical instruments and dance. Even the private reflections of Alcaeus, ostensibly sung at dinner parties, still retain a public function.
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Critics often seek to understand Alcaeus in comparison with Sappho:
The Roman poet, Horace, also compared the two, describing Alcaeus as "more full-throatedly singing" – see Horace's tribute below. Alcaeus himself seems to underscore the difference between his own 'down-to-earth' style and Sappho's more 'celestial' qualities when he describes her almost as a goddess (as cited above), and yet it has been argued that both poets were concerned with a balance between the divine and the profane, each emphasising different elements in that balance.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus exhorts us to "Observe in Alcaeus the sublimity, brevity and sweetness coupled with stern power, his splendid figures, and his clearness which was unimpaired by the dialect; and above all mark his manner of expressing his sentiments on public affairs", while Quintilian, after commending Alcaeus for his excellence "in that part of his works where he inveighs against tyrants and contributes to good morals; in his language he is concise, exalted, careful and often like an orator"; goes on to add: "but he descended into wantonness and amours, though better fitted for higher things".
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Poetic genres.
The works of Alcaeus are conventionally grouped according to five genres.
A drinking poem (fr. 346).
The following verses demonstrate some key characteristics of the Alcaic style (square brackets indicate uncertainties in the ancient text):
The Greek meter here is relatively simple, comprising the Greater Asclepiad, adroitly used to convey, for example, the rhythm of jostling cups (). The language of the poem is typically direct and concise and comprises short sentences — the first line is in fact a model of condensed meaning, comprising an exhortation ("Let's drink!"), a rhetorical question ("Why are we waiting for the lamps?") and a justifying statement ("Only an inch of daylight left"). The meaning is clear and uncomplicated, the subject is drawn from personal experience, and there is an absence of poetic ornament, such as simile or metaphor. Like many of his poems (e.g., frs. 38, 326, 338, 347, 350), it begins with a verb (in this case "Let's drink!") and it includes a proverbial expression ("Only an inch of daylight left") though it is possible that he coined it himself.
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A hymn (fr. 34).
Alcaeus rarely used metaphor or simile and yet he had a fondness for the allegory of the storm-tossed ship of state. The following fragment of a hymn to Castor and Polydeuces (the Dioscuri) is possibly another example of this though some scholars interpret it instead as a prayer for a safe voyage.
The poem was written in Sapphic stanzas, a verse form popularly associated with his compatriot, Sappho, but in which he too excelled, here paraphrased in English to suggest the same rhythms. There were probably another three stanzas in the original poem but only nine letters of them remain. The 'far-away light' () is a reference to St. Elmo's Fire, an electrical discharge supposed by ancient Greek mariners to be an epiphany of the Dioscuri, but the meaning of the line was obscured by gaps in the papyrus until reconstructed by a modern scholar; such reconstructions are typical of the extant poetry (see Scholars, fragments and sources below). This poem does not begin with a verb but with an adverb (Δευτέ) but still communicates a sense of action. He probably performed his verses at drinking parties for friends and political allies – men for whom loyalty was essential, particularly in such troubled times.
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Tributes from other poets.
Horace.
The Roman poet Horace modelled his own lyrical compositions on those of Alcaeus, rendering the Lesbian poet's verse-forms, including 'Alcaic' and 'Sapphic' stanzas, into concise Latin – an achievement he celebrates in his third book of odes. In his second book, in an ode composed in Alcaic stanzas on the subject of an almost fatal accident he had on his farm, he imagines meeting Alcaeus and Sappho in Hades:
Ovid.
Ovid compared Alcaeus to Sappho in Letters of the Heroines, where Sappho is imagined to speak as follows:
Scholars, fragments and sources.
The story of Alcaeus is partly the story of the scholars who rescued his work from oblivion. His verses have not come down to us through a manuscript tradition – generations of scribes copying an author's collected works, such as delivered intact into the modern age four entire books of Pindar's odes – but haphazardly, in quotes from ancient scholars and commentators whose own works have chanced to survive, and in the tattered remnants of papyri uncovered from an ancient rubbish pile at Oxyrhynchus and other locations in Egypt: sources that modern scholars have studied and correlated exhaustively, adding little by little to the world's store of poetic fragments.
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Ancient scholars quoted Alcaeus in support of various arguments. Thus for example Heraclitus "The Allegorist" quoted fr. 326 and part of fr. 6, about ships in a storm, in his study on Homer's use of allegory. The hymn to Hermes, fr308(b), was quoted by Hephaestion and both he and Libanius, the rhetorician, quoted the first two lines of fr. 350, celebrating the return from Babylon of Alcaeus's brother. The rest of fr. 350 was paraphrased in prose by the historian/geographer Strabo. Many fragments were supplied in quotes by Athenaeus, principally on the subject of wine-drinking, but fr. 333, "wine, window into a man", was quoted much later by the Byzantine grammarian, John Tzetzes.
The first 'modern' publication of Alcaeus's verses appeared in a Greek and Latin edition of fragments collected from the canonic nine lyrical poets by Michael Neander, published at Basle in 1556. This was followed by another edition of the nine poets, collected by Henricus Stephanus and published in Paris in 1560. Fulvius Ursinus compiled a fuller collection of Alcaic fragments, including a commentary, which was published at Antwerp in 1568. The first separate edition of Alcaeus was by Christian David Jani and it was published at Halle in 1780. The next separate edition was by August Matthiae, Leipzig 1827.
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Some of the fragments quoted by ancient scholars were able to be integrated by scholars in the nineteenth century. Thus for example two separate quotes by Athenaeus were united by Theodor Bergk to form fr. 362. Three separate sources were combined to form fr. 350, as mentioned above, including a prose paraphrase from Strabo that first needed to be restored to its original meter, a synthesis achieved by the united efforts of Otto Hoffmann, Karl Otfried Müller and Franz Heinrich Ludolf Ahrens. The discovery of the Oxyrhynchus papyri towards the end of the nineteenth century dramatically increased the scope of scholarly research. In fact, eight important fragments have now been compiled from papyri – frs. 9, 38A, 42, 45, 34, 129, 130 and most recently S262. These fragments typically feature lacunae or gaps that scholars fill with 'educated guesses', including for example a "brilliant supplement" by Maurice Bowra in fr. 34, a hymn to the Dioscuri that includes a description of St. Elmo's fire in the ship's rigging. Working with only eight letters (; tr. "pró...tr...ntes"), Bowra conjured up a phrase that develops the meaning and the euphony of the poem (; tr. "próton' ontréchontes"), describing luminescence "running along the forestays".
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Alcamenes
Alcamenes () was an ancient Greek sculptor of Lemnos and Athens, who flourished in the 2nd half of the 5th century BC. He was a younger contemporary of Phidias and noted for the delicacy and finish of his works, among which a Hephaestus and an Aphrodite of the Gardens were conspicuous.
Pausanias says that he was the author of one of the pediments of the temple of Zeus at Olympia, but this seems a chronological and stylistic impossibility. Pausanias also refers to a statue of Ares by Alcamenes that was erected on the Athenian agora, which some have related to the Ares Borghese. However, the temple of Ares to which he refers had only been moved from Acharnes and re-sited in the Agora in Augustus's time, and statues known to derive from Alcamenes' statue show the god in a breastplate, so the identification of Alcamenes' Ares with the Ares Borghese is not secure.
At Pergamum there was discovered in 1903 a Hellenistic copy of the head of the Hermes "Propylaeus" of Alcamenes. As, however, the deity is represented in a Neo-Attic, archaistic and conventional character, this copy cannot be relied on as giving us much information as to the usual style of Alcamenes, who was almost certainly a progressive and original artist.
It is safer to judge him by the sculptural decoration of the Parthenon, in which he must almost certainly have taken a share under the direction of Phidias. He is said to be the most eminent sculptor in Athens after the departure of Phidias for Olympia, but enigmatic in that none of the sculptures associated with his name in classical literature can be securely connected with existing copies.
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Alcmene
In Greek mythology, Alcmene ( ; ) or Alcmena ( ; ; ; meaning "strong in wrath") was the wife of Amphitryon, by whom she bore two children, Iphicles and Laonome. She is best known as the mother of Heracles, whose father was the god Zeus. Alcmene was also referred to as Electryone (), a patronymic name as a daughter of Electryon.
Mythology.
Background.
According to the "Bibliotheca", Alcmene was born to Electryon, the son of Perseus and Andromeda, and king of Tiryns and Mycenae or Medea in Argolis. Her mother was Anaxo, daughter of Alcaeus and Astydamia. Other accounts say her mother was Lysidice, the daughter of Pelops and Hippodameia, or Eurydice, the daughter of Pelops. According to Pausanias, the poet Asius made Alcmene the daughter of Amphiaraus and Eriphyle.
Hesiod describes Alcmene as the tallest, most beautiful woman with wisdom surpassed by no person born of mortal parents. It is said that her face and dark eyes were as charming as Aphrodite's, and that she honoured her husband like no woman before her.
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Exile to Thebes.
According to the "Bibliotheca", Alcmene went with Amphitryon to Thebes, where he was purified by Creon for accidentally killing Electryon. Alcmene refused to marry Amphitryon until he had avenged the death of her brothers. During Amphitryon's expedition against the Taphians and Teleboans, when Zeus desired to sleep with Alcmene, he made one night last longer extending it to three, by ordering Helios, the sun god, not to rise for three whole days. He then visited Alcmene disguised as Amphitryon. Zeus persuaded Alcmene that he was her husband. Thus Zeus slept with Alcmene, his great-granddaughter, thereby conceiving Heracles, while recounting Amphitryon's victories against the Teleboans. When Amphitryon finally returned to Thebes, Alcmene told him that he had come the night before and slept with her; he learned from Tiresias what Zeus had done.
Birth of Heracles.
Homer.
In Homer's "Iliad", when Alcmene was about to give birth to Heracles, Zeus announced to all the gods that on that day a child by Zeus himself would be born and rule all those around him. Hera, after requesting Zeus to swear an oath to that effect, descended from Olympus to Argos and made the wife of Sthenelus (son of Perseus) give birth to Eurystheus after only seven months, while at the same time preventing Alcmene from delivering Heracles. This resulted in the fulfillment of Zeus's oath in that it was Eurystheus rather than Heracles.
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Ovid.
According to Ovid's "Metamorphoses", while in labour, Alcmene was having great difficulty giving birth to such a large child. After seven days and nights of agony, Alcmene stretched out her arms and called upon Lucina, the goddess of childbirth (the Roman equivalent of Eileithyia). While Lucina did go to Alcmene, she had been previously instructed by Juno (Hera) to prevent the delivery. With her hands clasped and legs crossed, Lucina muttered charms, thereby preventing Alcmene from giving birth. Alcmene writhed in pain, cursed the heavens, and came close to death. Galanthis, a maid of Alcmene who was nearby, observed Lucina's behaviour and quickly deduced that it was Juno's doing. To put an end to her mistress's suffering, she announced that Alcmene had safely delivered her child, which surprised Lucina so much that she immediately jumped up and unclenched her hands. As soon as Lucina leapt up, Alcmene was released from her spell, and gave birth to Heracles. As punishment for deceiving Lucina, Galanthis was transformed into a weasel; she continued to live with Alcmene.
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Pausanias.
In Pausanias' recounting, Hera sent witches (as they were called by the Thebans) to hinder Alcmene's delivery of Heracles. The witches were successful in preventing the birth until Historis, daughter of Tiresias, thought of a trick to deceive the witches. Like Galanthis, Historis announced that Alcmene had delivered her child; having been deceived, the witches went away, allowing Alcmene to give birth.
Plautus.
In contrast to the depictions of a difficult labor above, an alternative version is presented in "Amphitryon", a comedic play by Plautus. Here Alcmene calls upon Jupiter, who performs a miracle allowing her to give birth quickly and without pain. After a crash of thunder and light, the baby arrives without anyone's assistance.
Death.
After the death of Amphitryon, Alcmene married Rhadamanthys, son of Zeus, and lived with him in exile at Ocaleae in Boeotia. It is said that after Heracles was apotheosised, Hyllus, having pursued and killed Eurystheus, cut off Eurystheus' head and gave it to Alcmene, who gouged out the eyes with weaving pins. In "Metamorphoses", an aging Alcmene recounted the story of the birth of Heracles to Iole.
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There are two accounts of Alcmene's death. In the first, according to the Megarians, Alcmene was walking from Argos to Thebes when she died at Megara. The Heracleidae fell into disagreement about where to take Alcmene's body, with some wishing to take her corpse back to Argos, and others wishing to take it to Thebes to be buried with Amphitryon and Heracles' children by Megara. However, the god in Delphi gave the Heracleidae an oracle that it was better to bury Alcmene in Megara. In the second account given by the Thebans, when Alcmene died, she was turned from human form to a stone.
Pausanias indicated that an altar to Alcmene had been built in the Cynosarges in Athens, alongside altars to Heracles, Hebe, and Iolaus. Pausanias also said that Alcmene's tomb is located near the Olympieum at Megara.
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Alcidamas
Alcidamas (), of Elaea, in Aeolis, was a Greek sophist and rhetorician, who flourished in the 5th-4th century BC .
Life.
He was the pupil and successor of Gorgias and taught at Athens at the same time as Isocrates, to whom he was a rival and opponent. We possess two declamations under his name: "On Sophists" (Περὶ Σοφιστῶν), directed against Isocrates and setting forth the superiority of extempore over written speeches (a more recently discovered fragment of another speech against Isocrates is probably of later date); "Odysseus" (perhaps spurious) in which Odysseus accuses Palamedes of treachery during the siege of Troy.
According to Alcidamas, the highest aim of the orator was the power of speaking "ex tempore" on every conceivable subject. Aristotle ("Rhet." iii. 3) criticizes his writings as characterized by pomposity of style and an extravagant use of poetical epithets and compounds and far-fetched metaphors.
Of other works only fragments and the titles have survived: "Messeniakos", advocating the freedom of the Messenians and containing the sentiment that "God has left all men free; nature has made no man a slave"; a "Eulogy of Death", in consideration of the wide extent of human sufferings; a "Techne" or instruction-book in the art
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of rhetoric; and a "Phusikos logos". Lastly, his "Mouseion" (a word invoking the Muses) seems to have contained the narrative of the "Contest of Homer and Hesiod", of which the version that has survived is the work of a grammarian in the time of Hadrian, based on Alcidamas. This hypothesis of the contents of the "Mouseion", originally suggested by Nietzsche ("Rheinisches Museum" 25 (1870) & 28 (1873)), appears to have been confirmed by three papyrus findsone 3rd century BC ("Flinders Petrie Papyri", ed. Mahaffy, 1891, pl. xxv.), one 2nd century BC (Basil Mandilaras, 'A new papyrus fragment of the "Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi"' "Platon" 42 (1990) 45–51) and one 2nd or 3rd century AD (University of Michigan pap. 2754: Winter, J. G., 'A New Fragment on the Life of Homer' "TAPA" 56 (1925) 120–129 ).
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Aldine Press
The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics (Latin and Greek masterpieces, plus a few more modern works). The first book that was dated and printed under his name appeared in 1495.
The Aldine Press is famous in the history of typography, among other things, for the introduction of italics. The press was the first to issue printed books in the small octavo size, similar to that of a modern paperback, and intended for portability and ease of reading. According to Curt F. Bühler, the press issued 132 books during twenty years of activity under Aldus Manutius. After Manutius' death in 1515, the press was continued by his wife Maria and her father Andrea Torresani (), until Manutius' son Paulus (1512–1574) took over. His grandson Aldus Manutius the Younger then ran the firm until his death in 1597. Today, the antique books printed by the Aldine Press in Venice are referred to as "Aldines", as are the letterforms and typefaces pioneered by the Aldine Press.
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The press enjoyed a monopoly of works printed in Greek in the Republic of Venice, effectively giving it copyright protection. Protection outside the Republic was more problematic, however. The firm maintained an agency in Paris, but its commercial success was affected by many counterfeit editions, produced in Lyon and elsewhere.
Beginnings.
Aldus Manutius, the founder of the Aldine Press, was originally a humanist scholar and a teacher. Manutius met Andrea Torresani, who had acquired publishing equipment from the widow of Nicholas Jenson. The ownership of the press was originally split in two, with one half belonging to Pier Francesco Barbarigo, the nephew of Agostino Barbarigo, who was the doge at the time, and the other half belonging to Torresani. Manutius owned one fifth of Torresani's share of the press. Manutius was mainly in charge of the scholarship and editing, leaving financial and operating concerns to Barbarigo and Torresani. In 1496, Manutius established his own location of the press in a building called the "Thermae" in the Sestiere di San Polo on the campo Sant'Agostin in Venice, today "numero civico" (house number) 2343 San Polo on the "Calle della Chiesa" (Alley of the Church), now the location of the restaurant "Due Colonne". Though there are two commemorative plaques located on the building "numero civico" 2311 "Rio Terà Secondo", historians regard them to be erroneously placed based on contemporaneous letters addressed to Manutius. The first erroneous plaque had been placed by Abbot don Vincenzo Zenier in 1828.
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Manutius lived and worked in the "Thermae" in order to produce published books from the Aldine Press. This was also the location of the "New Academy", where a group of Manutius' friends, associates, and editors came together to translate Greek and Latin texts. In 1505, Manutius married Maria, the daughter of Torresani. Torresani and Manutius were already business partners, but the marriage combined the two partners' shares in the publishing business. After the marriage, Manutius lived at Torresani's house. Shrinking in popularity, in 1506 the Aldine Press was moved to Torresani's house in the parish of San Paternian. It was later demolished in 1873 and was covered by a bank building in the Venice square, "Campo Manin".
Accomplishments.
The press was started by Manutius due to a combination of his love of classics and the need for preservation of Hellenic studies. During its initial era, the press printed new copies of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek and Latin classics.
The first edition of Plato's works (known as the Aldine edition) was dedicated to Pope Leo X and included the poem of Musurus and the life of Plato by Diogenes Laertius, which were also included in the first two editions of Plato's works printed in Basel. The two Basel editions were introduced by a Latin preface written by the Greek scholar Simon Grynaeus, who dedicated the work to the humanist Thomas More.
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Manutius also printed dictionaries and grammars to help people interpret the books, used by scholars wanting to learn Greek, who would employ learned Greeks in order to teach them directly. Historian Elizabeth Eisenstein claims that the fall of Constantinople in 1453 had placed under threat the importance and survival of Greek scholarship, but that publications such as those by the Aldine Press secured it once more. Erasmus was one of the scholars learned in Greek with whom the Aldine Press partnered in order to provide accurately translated text. The Aldine Press also expanded into modern languages, mainly Italian and French.
Humanist typefaces.
Manutius eventually took on a project to improve upon the Humanistic font designs of Jenson's typefaces, hiring Francesco Griffo to design and cut typefaces for his print editions of classical literature. Humanistic fonts, based on the formal hand of Renaissance humanist scribes and notaries, had been in development from the time movable print arrived in Italy, notably by the French printer Nicolas Jenson in 1470. Griffo developed his own further refinements of style, resulting in one of the earliest roman typefaces produced.
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Italic typeface.
Adapting this admired and influential roman-faced font, Manutius and Griffo went on to produce a cursive variant, the first of what is now known as italic type. The word "italic" is derived from early Italian versions of italic faces, which were designed primarily in order to save on the cost of paper. The Aldine Press first used italic type in a woodcut of Saint Catherine of Siena in 1500. Their 1501 edition of Virgil's "Opera" was the first book to be printed in italic type. The roman typeface and italic form created and pioneered by Manutius and Griffo were highly influential in typographic development.
Portable books (or "libelli portatiles").
Beginning in 1505, Manutius produced plain texts in a portable form, using the term "enchiridion", meaning "handbook" (later misnamed "pocketbook"). The octavo was the first version of the editio minor. Although these new, portable books were not cheap, the books of the Aldine Press did not force upon their buyers a substantial investment comparable to that of large volumes of text and commentary during this era. These books consisted on an edited text issued without commentary, printed in a typeface mimicking chancery script (the cursive handwriting of the humanist), produced in a small book which could sit comfortably in the hand. The editio minor, in many ways, brought financial and logistical benefits to those interested in the classics. An individual no longer had to go to the book, but rather the book came along with them.
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Imprint and motto.
In 1501, Aldus used as his publisher's device the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor. "The dolphin and anchor device owed its origins most immediately to Pietro Bembo. Aldus told Erasmus six years later that Bembo had given him a silver coin minted under the Roman Emperor Vespasian bearing an image of this device. The image of the dolphin and anchor on the coin came with the saying "Festina Lente", meaning "make haste slowly." This would later become the motto for the Aldine Press.
After 1515.
Manutius died on February 6, 1515. Following his death, the firm was run by Torresani and his daughter Maria, the widow of Manutius. The name of the press was changed in 1508 to "In the House of Aldus and Andrea Torresano," and kept this name until 1529. In 1533, Paulus Manutius managed the firm, starting it up again and changing its name to "Heirs of Aldus and Andrea Torresano". In 1539, the imprint changed to "Sons of Aldo Manuzio". In 1567, Aldus Manutius the Younger (grandson of Aldus Manutius) took over and maintained the business until his death.
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Publications.
A partial list of publications from the Aldine Press, cited from "Aldus Manutius: A Legacy More Lasting than Bronze".
Works published from the Greeks. Manutius printed thirty editiones principes of Greek texts, allowing these texts to escape the fragility of the manuscript tradition.
Latin works
Libelli Portatiles
Archives.
The most nearly complete collection of Aldine editions ever brought together was originally housed in the Althorp library of the 2nd Earl Spencer, and is now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester.
In North America, the most substantial Aldine holdings can be found in the Ahmanson-Murphy Aldine Collection at the University of California, Los Angeles, the Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin, and the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.
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Ealdred (archbishop of York)
Ealdred (or Aldred; died 11 September 1069) was Abbot of Tavistock, Bishop of Worcester, and Archbishop of York in early medieval England. He was related to a number of other ecclesiastics of the period. After becoming a monk at the monastery at Winchester, he was appointed Abbot of Tavistock Abbey in around 1027. In 1046 he was named to the Bishopric of Worcester. Ealdred, besides his episcopal duties, served Edward the Confessor, the King of England, as a diplomat and as a military leader. He worked to bring one of the king's relatives, Edward the Exile, back to England from Hungary to secure an heir for the childless king.
In 1058 he undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the first bishop from England to do so. As administrator of the Diocese of Hereford, he was involved in fighting against the Welsh, suffering two defeats at the hands of raiders before securing a settlement with Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, a Welsh ruler.
In 1060, Ealdred was elected to the archbishopric of York but had difficulty in obtaining papal approval for his appointment, managing to do so only when he promised not to hold the bishoprics of York and Worcester simultaneously. He helped secure the election of Wulfstan as his successor at Worcester. During his archiepiscopate, he built and embellished churches in his diocese, and worked to improve his clergy by holding a synod which published regulations for the priesthood.
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Some sources say that following King Edward the Confessor's death in 1066, it was Ealdred who crowned Harold Godwinson as King of England. Ealdred supported Harold as king, but when Harold was defeated at the Battle of Hastings, Ealdred backed Edgar the Ætheling and then endorsed King William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy and a distant relative of King Edward's. Ealdred crowned King William on Christmas Day in 1066. William never quite trusted Ealdred or the other English leaders, and Ealdred had to accompany William back to Normandy in 1067, but he had returned to York by the time of his death in 1069. Ealdred supported the churches and monasteries in his diocese with gifts and building projects.
Early life.
Ealdred was probably born in the west of England, and could be related to Lyfing, his predecessor as bishop of Worcester. His family, from Devonshire, may have been well-to-do. Another relative was Wilstan or Wulfstan, who under Ealdred's influence became Abbot of Gloucester. Ealdred was a monk in the cathedral chapter at Winchester Cathedral before becoming abbot of Tavistock Abbey about 1027, an office he held until about 1043. Even after leaving the abbacy of Tavistock, he continued to hold two properties from the abbey until his death. No contemporary documents relating to Ealdred's time as abbot have been discovered.
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Ealdred was made bishop of Worcester in 1046, a position he held until his resignation in 1062. He may have acted as suffragan, or subordinate bishop, to his predecessor Lyfing before formally assuming the bishopric, as from about 1043 Ealdred witnessed as an "episcopus", or bishop, and a charter from 1045 or early 1046 names Sihtric as abbot of Tavistock. Lyfing died on 26 March 1046, and Ealdred became bishop of Worcester shortly after. However, Ealdred did not receive the other two dioceses Lyfing had held, Crediton and Cornwall; King Edward the Confessor (reigned 1043–1066) granted these to Leofric, who combined the two sees at Crediton in 1050.
Bishop and royal advisor.
Ealdred was an advisor to King Edward the Confessor, and was often involved in the royal government. He was also a military leader, and in 1046 he led an unsuccessful expedition against the Welsh. This was in retaliation for a raid led by the Welsh rulers Gruffydd ap Rhydderch, Rhys ap Rhydderch, and Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. Ealdred's expedition was betrayed by some Welsh soldiers who were serving with the English, and Ealdred was defeated.
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In 1050, Ealdred went to Rome "on the king's errand", apparently to secure papal approval to move the seat, or centre, of the bishopric of Crediton to Exeter. It may also have been to secure the release of the king from a vow to go on pilgrimage, if sources from after the Norman Conquest are to be believed. While in Rome, he attended a papal council, along with his fellow English bishop Herman. That same year, as Ealdred was returning to England he met Sweyn, a son of Godwin, Earl of Wessex, and probably absolved Sweyn for having abducted the abbess of Leominster Abbey in 1046. Through Ealdred's intercession, Sweyn was restored to his earldom, which he had lost after abducting the abbess and murdering his cousin Beorn Estrithson. Ealdred helped Sweyn not only because Ealdred was a supporter of Earl Godwin's family but because Sweyn's earldom was close to his bishopric. As recently as 1049 Irish raiders had allied with Gruffydd ap Rhydderch of Gwent in raiding along the River Usk. Ealdred unsuccessfully tried to drive off the raiders, but was again routed by the Welsh. This failure underscored Ealdred's need for a strong earl in the area to protect against raids. Normally, the bishop of Hereford would have led the defence in the absence of an Earl of Hereford, but in 1049 the incumbent, Æthelstan, was blind, so Ealdred took on the role of defender.
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Diplomatic travels.
Earl Godwin's rebellion against the king in 1051 came as a blow to Ealdred, who was a supporter of the earl and his family. Ealdred was present at the royal council at London that banished Godwin's family. Later in 1051, when he was sent to intercept Harold Godwinson and his brothers as they fled England after their father's outlawing, Ealdred "could not, or would not" capture the brothers. The banishment of Ealdred's patron came shortly after the death of Ælfric Puttoc, the Archbishop of York. York and Worcester had long had close ties, and the two sees had often been held in plurality, or at the same time. Ealdred probably wanted to become Archbishop of York after Ælfric's death, but his patron's eclipse led to the king appointing Cynesige, a royal chaplain, instead. In September 1052, though, Godwin returned from exile and his family was restored to power. By late 1053 Ealdred was once more in royal favour. At some point, he was alleged to have accompanied Swein on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but proof is lacking.
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In 1054 King Edward sent Ealdred to Germany to obtain Emperor HenryIII's help in returning Edward the Exile, son of Edmund Ironside, to England. Edmund (reigned 1016) was an elder half-brother of King Edward the Confessor, and Edmund's son Edward was in Hungary with King AndrewI, having left England as an infant after his father's death and the accession of Cnut as King of England. In this mission Ealdred was somewhat successful and obtained insight into the working of the German church during a stay of a year with HermannII, the Archbishop of Cologne. He also was impressed with the buildings he saw, and later incorporated some of the German styles into his own constructions. The main objective of the mission, however, was to secure the return of Edward; but this failed, mainly because HenryIII's relations with the Hungarians were strained, and the emperor was unable or unwilling to help Ealdred. Ealdred was able to discover that Edward was alive, and had a place at the Hungarian court. Although some sources say Ealdred attended the coronation of Emperor HenryIV, this is not possible, as on the date Henry was crowned, Ealdred was in England consecrating an abbot.
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Ealdred had returned to England by 1055, and brought with him a copy of the "Pontificale Romano-Germanicum", a set of liturgies. An extant copy of this work, currently manuscript Cotton Vitellus E xii, has been identified as a copy owned by Ealdred. It appears likely that the "Rule of Chrodegang", a continental set of ordinances for the communal life of secular canons, was introduced into England by Ealdred sometime before 1059. Probably he brought it back from Germany, possibly in concert with Harold.
After Ealdred's return to England he took charge of the sees of Hereford and Ramsbury. Ealdred also administered Winchcombe Abbey and Gloucester Abbey. The authors of the "Handbook of British Chronology Third Edition" say he was named bishop of Hereford in 1056, holding the see until he resigned it in 1060, but other sources say he merely administered the see while it was vacant, or that he was bishop of Hereford from 1055 to 1060.
Ealdred became involved with the see of Ramsbury after its bishop Herman got into a dispute with King Edward over the movement of the seat of his bishopric to Malmesbury Abbey. Herman wished to move the seat of his see, but Edward refused permission for the move. Ealdred was a close associate of Herman's, and the historian H. R. Loyn called Herman "something of an alter ego" to Ealdred. According to the medieval chronicler John of Worcester, Ealdred was given the see of Ramsbury to administer while Herman remained outside England. Herman returned in 1058, and resumed his bishopric. There is no contemporary documentary evidence of Ealdred's administration of Ramsbury.
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Welsh affairs, Jerusalem, and Worcester.
The king again employed Ealdred as a diplomat in 1056, when he assisted Earls Harold and Leofric in negotiations with the Welsh. Edward sent Ealdred after the death in battle of Bishop Leofgar of Hereford, who had attacked Gruffydd ap Llywelyn after encouragement from the king. However, Leofgar lost the battle and his life, and Edward had to sue for peace. Although details of the negotiations are lacking, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn swore loyalty to King Edward, but the oath may not have had any obligations on Gruffydd's part to Edward. The exact terms of the submission are not known in total, but Gruffydd was not required to assist Edward in war nor attend Edward's court. Ealdred was rewarded with the administration of the see of Hereford, which he held until 1061, and was appointed Archbishop of York. The diocese had suffered a serious raid from the Welsh in 1055, and during his administration, Ealdred continued the rebuilding of the cathedral church as well as securing the cathedral chapter's rights. Ealdred was granted the administration so that the area might have someone with experience with the Welsh in charge.
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In 1058 Ealdred made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the first English bishop to make the journey. He travelled through Hungary, and the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" said that "he went to Jerusalem in such state as no-one had done before him." While in Jerusalem he made a gift of a gold chalice to the church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is possible that the reason Ealdred travelled through Hungary was to arrange the travel of Edward the Exile's family to England. Another possibility is that he wished to search for other possible heirs to King Edward in Hungary. It is not known exactly when Edward the Exile's family returned to England, whether they returned with Edward in 1057, or sometime later, so it is only a possibility that they returned with Ealdred in 1058.
Very little documentary evidence is available from Ealdred's time as Bishop of Worcester. Only five leases that he signed survive, and all date from 1051 to 1053. Two further leases exist in "Hemming's Cartulary" as copies only. How the diocese of Worcester was administered when Ealdred was abroad is unclear, although it appears Wulfstan, the prior of the cathedral chapter, performed the religious duties in the diocese. On the financial side, the "Evesham Chronicle" states that Æthelwig, who became abbot of Evesham Abbey in 1058, administered Worcester before he became abbot.
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Archbishop of York.
Cynesige, the archbishop of York, died on 22 December 1060, and Ealdred was elected Archbishop of York on Christmas Day, 1060. Although a bishop was promptly appointed to Hereford, none was named to Worcester, and it appears Ealdred intended to retain Worcester along with York, which several of his predecessors had done. There were a few reasons for this, one of which was political, as the kings of England preferred to appoint bishops from the south to the northern bishoprics, hoping to counter the northern tendency towards separatism. Another reason was that York was not a wealthy see, and Worcester was. Holding Worcester along with York allowed the archbishop sufficient revenue to support himself.
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For whatever reason, Ealdred gave up the see of Worcester in 1062, when papal legates arrived in England to hold a council and make sure Ealdred relinquished Worcester. This happened at Easter in 1062. Ealdred was succeeded by Wulfstan, chosen by Ealdred, but John of Worcester relates that Ealdred had a hard time deciding between Wulfstan and Æthelwig. The legates had urged the selection of Wulfstan because of his saintliness. Because the position of Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury, was irregular, Wulfstan sought and received consecration as a bishop from Ealdred. Normally, Wulfstan would have gone to the archbishop of Canterbury, as the see of Worcester was within Canterbury's province. Although Ealdred gave up the bishopric, the appointment of Wulfstan was one that allowed Ealdred to continue his considerable influence on the see of Worcester. Ealdred retained a number of estates belonging to Worcester. Even after the Norman Conquest, Ealdred still controlled some events in Worcester, and it was Ealdred, not Wulfstan, who opposed Urse d'Abetot's attempt to extend the castle of Worcester into the cathedral after the Norman Conquest.
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While archbishop, Ealdred built at Beverley, expanding on the building projects begun by his predecessor Cynesige, as well as repairing and expanding other churches in his diocese. He also built refectories for the canons at York and Southwell. He also was the one bishop who published ecclesiastical legislation during Edward the Confessor's reign, attempting to discipline and reform the clergy. He held a synod of his clergy shortly before 1066.
After the death of Edward the Confessor.
John of Worcester, a medieval chronicler, said Ealdred crowned King HaroldII in 1066, although the Norman chroniclers mention Stigand as the officiating prelate. Given Ealdred's known support of Godwin's family, John of Worcester is probably correct. Stigand's position as archbishop was canonically suspect, and as earl Harold had not allowed Stigand to consecrate one of the earl's churches, it is unlikely Harold would have allowed Stigand to perform the much more important royal coronation. Arguments for Stigand having performed the coronation, however, rely on the fact that no other English source names the ecclesiastic who performed the ceremony; all Norman sources name Stigand as the presider. In all events, Ealdred and Harold were close, and Ealdred supported Harold's bid to become king. Ealdred perhaps accompanied Harold when the new king went to York and secured the support of the northern magnates shortly after Harold's consecration.
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According to the medieval chronicler Geoffrey Gaimar, after the Battle of Stamford Bridge Harold entrusted the loot gained from Harald Hardrada to Ealdred. Gaimar asserts that King Harold did this because he had heard of Duke William's landing in England, and needed to rush south to counter it. After the Battle of Hastings, Ealdred joined the group who tried to elevate Edgar the Ætheling, Edward the Exile's son, as king, but eventually he submitted to William the Conqueror at Berkhamsted. John of Worcester says the group supporting Edgar vacillated over what to do while William ravaged the countryside, which led to Ealdred and Edgar's submission to William.
Ealdred crowned William king on Christmas Day 1066. An innovation in William's coronation ceremony was that before the actual crowning, Ealdred asked the assembled crowd, in English, if it was their wish that William be crowned king. The Bishop of Coutances then did the same, but in Norman French. In March 1067, William took Ealdred with him when William returned to Normandy, along with the other English leaders Earl Edwin of Mercia, Earl Morcar, Edgar the Ætheling, and Archbishop Stigand.
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In March 1067, William took Ealdred with him when William returned to Normandy, along with the other English leaders Earl Edwin of Mercia, Earl Morcar, Edgar the Ætheling, and Archbishop Stigand. Ealdred at Whitsun 1068 performed the coronation of Matilda, William's wife. The "Laudes Regiae", or song commending a ruler, that was performed at Matilda's coronation may have been composed by Ealdred himself for the occasion. In 1069, when the northern thegns rebelled against William and attempted to install Edgar the Ætheling as king, Ealdred continued to support William. He was the only northern leader to support William, however. Ealdred was back at York by 1069. He died there on 11 September 1069, and his body was buried in his episcopal cathedral. He may have taken an active part in trying to calm the rebellions in the north in 1068 and 1069. The medieval chronicler William of Malmesbury records a story that when the new sheriff of Worcester, Urse d'Abetot, encroached on the cemetery of the cathedral chapter for Worcester Cathedral, Ealdred pronounced a rhyming curse on him, saying "Thou are called Urse. He may have taken an active part in trying to calm the rebellions in the north in 1068 and 1069. The medieval chronicler William of Malmesbury records a story that when the new sheriff of Worcester, Urse d'Abetot, encroached on the cemetery of the cathedral chapter for Worcester Cathedral, Ealdred pronounced a rhyming curse on him, saying "Thou are called Urse. May you have God's curse."
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Legacy.
After Ealdred's death, one of the restraints on William's treatment of the English was removed. Ealdred was one of a few native Englishmen who William appears to have trusted, and his death led to fewer attempts to integrate Englishmen into the administration, although such efforts did not entirely stop. In 1070, a church council was held at Westminster and a number of bishops were deposed. By 1073 there were only two Englishmen in episcopal sees, and by the time of William's death in 1087 there was only one, WulfstanII of Worcester.
Ealdred did much to restore discipline in the monasteries and churches under his authority, and was liberal with gifts to the churches of his diocese. He built the monastic church of St Peter at Gloucester (now Gloucester Cathedral, though nothing of his fabric remains), then part of his diocese of Worcester. He also repaired a large part of Beverley Minster in the diocese of York, adding a presbytery and an unusually splendid painted ceiling covering "all the upper part of the church from the choir to the tower... intermingled with gold in various ways, and in a wonderful fashion." He added a pulpit "in German style" of bronze, gold and silver, surmounted by an arch with a rood cross in the same materials; these were examples of the lavish decorations added to important churches in the years before the conquest.
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Ealdred encouraged Folcard, a monk of Canterbury, to write the "Life" of Saint John of Beverley. This was part of Ealdred's promotion of the cult of Saint John, who had been canonised only since 1037. Along with the "Pontificale", Ealdred may have brought back from Cologne the first manuscript of the "Cambridge Songs" to enter England, a collection of Latin Goliardic songs which became famous in the Middle Ages. The historian Michael Lapidge suggests that the "Laudes Regiae", which are included in Cotton Vitellius Exii, might have been composed by Ealdred, or a member of his household. Another historian, H. J. Cowdrey, argued that the "laudes" were composed at Winchester. These praise songs are probably the same performed at Matilda's coronation, but might have been used at other court ceremonies before Ealdred's death.
Historians have seen Ealdred as an "old-fashioned prince-bishop". Others say he "raised the see of York from its former rustic state". He was known for his generosity and for his diplomatic and administrative abilities. After the Conquest, Ealdred provided a degree of continuity between the pre- and post-Conquest worlds. One modern historian feels it was Ealdred who was behind the compilation of the D version of the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", and gives a date in the 1050s as its composition. Certainly, Ealdred is one of the leading figures in the work, and it is likely one of his clerks compiled the version.
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Alexander I of Epirus
Alexander I of Epirus (; c. 370 BC – 331 BC), also known as Alexander Molossus (), was a king of Epirus (343/2–331 BC) of the Aeacid dynasty. As the son of Neoptolemus I and brother of Olympias, Alexander I was an uncle, and a brother-in-law, of Alexander the Great. He was also an uncle to Pyrrhus of Epirus.
Biography.
Neoptolemus I ruled jointly with his brother Arybbas. When Neoptolemus died in c. 357 BC, his son Alexander was only a child and Arrybas became the sole king. In c. 350 BC, Alexander was brought to the court of Philip II of Macedon in order to protect him. In 343/2 in his late 20s, Philip made him king of Epirus, after dethroning his uncle Arybbas.
When Olympias was repudiated by her husband in 337 BC, she went to her brother, and endeavoured to induce him to make war on Philip. Alexander, however, declined the contest, and formed a second alliance with Philip by agreeing to marry the daughter of Philip (Alexander's niece) Cleopatra. During the wedding in 336 BC, Philip was assassinated by Pausanias of Orestis.
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In 334 BC, Alexander I, at the request of the Greek colony of Taras (in Magna Graecia), crossed over into Italy, to aid them in battle against several Italic tribes, including the Lucanians and Bruttii. After a victory over the Samnites and Lucanians near Paestum in 332 BC, he made a treaty with the Romans. He then took Heraclea from the Lucanians, Terina from the Bruttii, and Sipontum on the Adriatic coast. Through the treachery of some Lucanian exiles, he was compelled to engage under unfavourable circumstances in the Battle of Pandosia and was killed by a Lucanian. He left a son, Neoptolemus, and a daughter, Cadmea.
In a famous passage, Livy speculates on what would have been the outcome of a military showdown between Alexander the Great and the Roman Republic. He reports that as Alexander of Epirus lay mortally wounded on the battlefield at Pandosia he compared his fortunes to those of his famous nephew and said that the latter "waged war against women".
External links.
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Alexander Balas
Alexander I Theopator Euergetes, surnamed Balas (), was the ruler of the Seleucid Empire from 150 BC to August 145 BC.
Picked from obscurity and supported by the neighboring Roman-allied Kingdom of Pergamon, Alexander landed in Phoenicia in 152 BC and started a civil war against Seleucid King Demetrius I Soter. Backed by mercenaries and factions of the Seleucid Empire unhappy with the existing government, he defeated Demetrius and took the crown in 150 BC. He married the princess Cleopatra Thea to seal an alliance with the neighboring Ptolemaic kingdom. His reign saw the steady retreat of the Seleucid Empire's eastern border, with important eastern satrapies such as Media being lost to the nascent Parthian Empire. In 147 BC, Demetrius II Nicator, the young son of Demetrius I, began a campaign to overthrow Balas, and civil war resumed. Alexander's ally, Ptolemaic king Ptolemy VI Philometor, moved troops into Coele-Syria to support Alexander, but then switched sides and threw his support behind Demetrius II. At the Battle of the Oenoparus River in Syria, he was defeated by Ptolemy VI and he died shortly afterward.
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Life.
Origins and mission to Rome.
Alexander Balas claimed to be the son of Antiochus IV Epiphanes and Laodice IV and heir to the Seleucid throne. The ancient sources, Polybius and Diodorus say that this claim was false and that he and his sister Laodice VI were really natives of Smyrna of humble origin. However, Polybius became friends with Balas's rival King Demetrius I when both were hostages in Rome, so Polybius is not an unbiased source on this matter. Modern scholars disagree about whether the story of Attalus finding a commoner who looked the part is true or was propaganda put about by Alexander's opponents.
According to Diodorus, Alexander was originally put forward as a candidate for the Seleucid throne by Attalus II of Pergamum. Attalus had been disturbed by the Seleucid king Demetrius I's interference in Cappadocia, where he had dethroned king Ariarathes V. Boris Chrubasik is sceptical, noting that there is little subsequent evidence for Attalid involvement with Alexander. However, Selene Psoma has proposed that a large set of coins minted in a number of cities under Attalid control in this period was produced by Attalus II in order to fund Alexander's bid for the kingship.
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Alexander and his sister were maintained in Cilicia by Heracleides, a former minister of Antiochus IV and brother of Timarchus, an usurper in Media who had been executed by the reigning king Demetrius I Soter. In 153 BC, Heracleides brought Alexander and his sister to Rome, where he presented Alexander to the Roman Senate, which recognised him as the legitimate Seleucid king and agreed to support him in his bid to take the throne. Polybius mentions that Attalus II and Demetrius I also met with the Senate at this time but does not state how this was connected to the recognition of Alexander - if at all.
War with Demetrius I (152–150 BC).
After recruiting mercenaries, Alexander and Heracleides departed to Ephesus. From there, they invaded Phoenicia by sea, seizing Ptolemais Akko. Numismatic evidence shows that Alexander had also gained control of Seleucia Pieria, Byblos, Beirut, Tyre by 151 BC. On this coinage, Alexander heavily advertised his (claimed) connection to Antiochus IV, depicting Zeus Nicephorus on his coinage as Antiochus had done. He also assumed the title of "Theopator" ('Divinely Fathered'), which recalled Antiochus' epithet "Theos Epiphanes" ('God Manifest'). The coinage also presented Alexander Balas in the guise of Alexander the Great, with pronounced facial features and long flowing hair. This was intended to emphasise his military prowess to his soldiers.
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Alexander and Demetrius I competed with another to win over Jonathan Apphus, the leader of the ascendant faction in Judaea. Jonathan was won over to Alexander's side by the grant of a high position in the Seleucid court and the high priesthood in Jerusalem. Reinforced by Jonathan's hardened soldiers, Alexander fought a decisive battle with Demetrius in July 150 BC, in which Demetrius was killed. By autumn, Alexander's kingship was recognised throughout the Seleucid realm.
Reign (150–147 BC).
Alexander gained control of Antioch at this time and his chancellor, Ammonius, murdered all the courtiers of Demetrius I, as well as his wife Laodice and his eldest son Antigonus. Ptolemy VI Philometor of Egypt entered into an alliance with Alexander, which was sealed by Alexander's marriage to his daughter Cleopatra Thea. The wedding took place at Ptolemais, with Ptolemy VI and Jonathan Apphus in attendance. Alexander took the opportunity to shower honours on Jonathan, whom he treated as his main agent in Judaea. The marriage was advertised by a special coinage issue, depicting the royal pair side by side - only the second depiction of a queen on Seleucid coinage. She is shown with divine attributes (a cornucopia and a calathus) and is depicted in front of the king. Some scholars have seen Alexander as little more than a Ptolemaic puppet, arguing that this coinage emphasises Cleopatra's dominance over him and that the chancellor Ammonius was a Ptolemaic agent. Other scholars argue that the alliance was advertised as an important one, but that the arguments for Alexander's subservience have been overstated.
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