The Annals of Bari, 1035-1102 (Translation)

This translation relates to The Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily.

There are three surviving sets of annalistic material from Bari, apparently related to each other, which have some importance for the study of eleventh century southern Italy. (1) The 'Bari Annals' are a set of extremely sketchy entries for the tenth and early eleventh centuries (and by no means every year has an entry), but conclude with a lengthier discussion of the Norman attack on Apulia in 1041-3 (translated below). (2) The 'Annals of Lupus Protospatharius' (the name seems to be a seventeenth-century invention) have short entries for the years 855-1102, but are generally somewhat longer for the eleventh century than hitherto. They have been translated for the years 1038 onwards. It is probable that they draw on the same source as (1), though the two texts are not identical. The later parts provide some useful chronological information for the career of Robert Guiscard, and for Apulia in the years after his death in 1085. They show some links with Matera as well as Bari; they may draw on a set of (now-lost) annals from Matera, although it is also possible that the Matera information has been interpolated later. The Latin texts of both of these works can be found in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores V (Hanover 1844) pp. 52-63. (3) the so -called 'Anonymous Bari Chronicle', to be found, in a poor edition, in L.A. Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, V.147-156, is (despite its title) another related set of annals, albeit with sometimes rather longer entries than the other two, which continues until 1118. Readers should note that the annalists follow the Byzantine practice of beginning the year on 1st September.