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The Catalogus Baronum and the recruitment and

administration of the armies of the Norman kingdom
of Sicily: a re-examination*
James Hill
University of Leeds

Abstract
The Catalogus Baronum has long been overlooked in the corpus of texts relating to the Norman
period of south Italy due to its chaotic nature and the difficulties of obtaining information
from it. Seeking to rectify this situation, this article re-evaluates the current conclusions drawn
from the Catalogus by academics such as Jamison using data derived from a statistical analysis of
the document. By abandoning a rigidly ‘feudal’ interpretation of the document new areas of
research are opened up. Additionally, it offers new theories on the use and nature of the
Catalogus, informed by this research and approach.

The main source of information concerning the theoretical provision of troops for
military service in the kingdom of Sicily during the so-called Norman period in the
twelfth century is the Catalogus Baronum.1 This was a register of military obligations in
the duchy of Apulia, the principality of Capua and the Abruzzi region which had
recently been conquered by King Roger, based on fiefs held from the crown. It was
first compiled c.1150, potentially in response to the threat of invasion by both Manuel
Komnenus and Conrad III. The only known manuscript was destroyed in the Second
World War, but has been preserved through photographs, from which the modern
edition was compiled in 1972.
This article seeks to explore the importance of the Catalogus for the military
organization of the mainland regions of Apulia and Calabria in the twelfth century,
which are detailed in the section of the document titled the Quaternus Magne
Expeditionis. It will also seek to reconcile the textual problems of the Catalogus with the
historiography surrounding it, and attempt to establish what the purpose of the
document actually was.
In order to understand the Catalogus, it must be placed in context. Thus, what
understanding there is of the military administration in the Norman period before the
establishment of the kingdom must be considered first. This period extends from
the beginning of Norman infiltration of the region in roughly the ten-twenties to the
foundation of the kingdom in 1130. What military recruitment systems existed before
the mid twelfth century, and the extent to which they differ from the system described
in the Catalogus, needs to be addressed. Military obligation and service in Normandy,

* This article was first given as a paper at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds in July 2011. The
author would like to thank Prof. G. A. Loud for his assistance.
1
The edition used in this project is Jamison’s (Catalogus Baronum, ed. E. M. Jamison (Rome, 1972) (hereafter
Catalogus)). The manuscript itself was destroyed in Sept. 1943 when German troops burned the contents of the
Naples State Archive. This edition, edited from photocopies and previous transcripts, is the most complete.

Copyright © 2012 Institute of Historical Research DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2281.2012.00605.x

Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
2 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination

at the time when the Normans first came to southern Italy, has been well discussed by
Chibnall,2 and this article will see how this model can fit with the south Italian
experience. However, it is not the intention to re-work Reynolds’s authoritative
research on fiefs,3 and this section will only consider the development of the south
Italian feudum in so much as it pertains to vassalage and the Catalogus.
With its context established, the content of the Catalogus and how this has been
treated can be considered.This will be done by looking at the superficial data that can
be gathered from the Catalogus and the extent to which these overall totals and patterns
support the existing scholarship on the document. Additionally, the nature of the
document and its intended purpose must be examined; where the evidence conflicts
with the conclusions of modern scholarship, alternatives which are supported by the
evidence will be suggested.
Finally, the problems contained within the Catalogus must be investigated, as well as
how these can be dealt with.Verification of the data contained within the document
can be done partially by comparison with narrative sources, and partially through
studying the internal consistency of the document. The article will also examine how
the document can be used to establish patterns in types of landholding, and will
compare this to other such patterns in similar kingdoms.
Rather than being a single item, the manuscript, which was copied in the mid
thirteenth century, was in fact a compendium of three different documents. The
earliest and largest, the Quaternus Magne Expeditionis, was compiled c.1150 and revised
around 1168. The second document, which lists the milites of Arce, Sora and Aquino,
three settlements on the northern border of the kingdom, was drawn up soon
afterwards in 1175.4 The final document, entitled Pheudatarii Justitiariatus Capitanante
(‘the feudatories of the justiciarship of the Capitanata’), was drawn up c.1240.5
However, these two final documents are very short, and in the latter case did not even
pertain to the Norman period of the kingdom; the Quaternus makes up the vast bulk
of the overall manuscript. This collection of documents, generally referred to as the
Catalogus Baronum, was only copied a century after the original composition of the
Quaternus, and while all three documents relate to fief-holding and military service,
they would not necessarily have been associated with each other when they were in
use. It is unclear if the names of the individual documents were originally used, or if
they were later interpolations when the documents were brought together.
The manuscript of the Quaternus itself was copied several times before it reached
the last surviving copy. In addition to this, it was heavily modified in the period
between 1150 and 1168, when the register was updated as it was needed.This extensive
removal from the original has left its mark on the text, with one substantial section
copied twice, and a myriad of other scribal errors also present in the manuscript.6
Nevertheless, it remains the only register of military obligation contemporary with the
period from this area.

In order to address the nature of the Catalogus, it must first be placed into context.The
period before the foundation of the kingdom in 1130 was one of division and dispute.

M. Chibnall, ‘Military service in Normandy before 1066’, Anglo-Norman Stud., v (1982), 65–77.
2

S. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: the Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford, 1994).
3

Catalogus, entries 1263–372.

4
5
Catalogus, entries 1373–442; and foreword, p. xv.
6
Catalogus, entries 1230–62 duplicate entries 1053–84, while entries 65, 199–209, 268, 392, 446, 586 are all
examples of scribal errors, but this is by no means a comprehensive list.

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 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination 3

Thus, identifying an overall trend in the patterns of military service during these
years is problematic, although once political unity was established a more unified
military structure began to emerge. The mainland of south Italy was divided before
the Norman takeover between a predominantly Lombard set of city states in the
north-west and west, while the eastern and southern parts were directly ruled as part
of the Byzantine empire. These regions were separated ethnically, politically and
religiously, but not along the same boundaries: the north of Apulia was predominantly
Lombard, while Latin and Greek rites occurred with little regard to political borders.
The fractured nature of the conflicts before 1130 also presents a problem: at no point
before the acceptance of Roger II’s authority was there any sort of unified army, so
any military figures that do exist represent a myriad of groups that were rarely the
same in each conflict.
The Lombard states had a system of military service similar to that of the Normans
before their arrival, which is to say, personal and direct rather than institutionalized.7
However, the pre-kingdom period had no real idea of ‘feudal’ relationships in the
institutional sense. Land was recorded as being given as a gift for loyal and effective
service, rather than as a condition for continued duty.8 Before the Normans, the coastal
cities of Gaeta and Naples had land set aside which appears to have been designated
exclusively as a reward for service to the city, but it was not granted in an institutional
fashion. Where a reason for a land grant is given, it is always as a reward for a single
action, rather than for a defined term of service.9 In this way, the grant of Aversa to
Count Rainulf by Sergius, duke of Naples can be seen as normal for the time, as this
model predated the Norman takeover as well as being the usual practice in Norman
south Italy before the creation of the unified kingdom.10 Hence a grant by Robert
Guiscard to his master of the wardrobe in 1079 suggests that Robert was conferring
the land and other property therein as a reward for loyal service, rather than as a
contractual obligation to continue providing support.11 This is not to suggest that
continued loyalty was not the desired result of the gift; merely that the gift did not
come with any contractual requirements for service attached to the land.
However, on a lower level such dependent tenure did occur, as in the case of a
charter issued by Bishop Rainulf of Chieti (in office from 1087 to 1101), which
describes in detail a ‘feudal’ practice: a certain Geoffrey of Vulturara owed forty days’
service a year in exchange for land from the church.12 Nevertheless, the term feudum
(or any term which might denote an entity such as a ‘fief ’) does not appear at any
point in this charter, nor does the phrasing or language of the later documents. It is
also an isolated case – the document is the only one we have for the entire Norman
period that stipulates a term of service. Indeed, the problem is considerably more

7
C. Cahen, Le régime féodal de l’Italie Normande (Paris, 1940), pp. 29–30; P. Skinner, ‘When was southern Italy
“feudal”?’, Settimane di studio del centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, xlvii (2000), 309–45, at p. 320.
8
J.-M. Martin, ‘Les structures féodales normanno-souabes et la Terre Sainte’, in Il mezzogiorno normanno-svevo
e le crociate (Atti delle quattordicesime giornate normanno-sveve, Bari 17–20 ottobre 2000), ed. G. Musca (Bari, 2002),
pp. 225–50, at p. 229.
9
Skinner, p. 322.
10
Skinner, pp. 323–4. Amatus of Montecassino, The History of the Normans, trans. P. N. Dunbar, rev. G. A. Loud
(Woodbridge, 2004) (hereafter Amatus), bk. I, ch. 42, p. 60.
11
Recueil des actes des ducs normands d’Italie (1046–1127), i: les premiers ducs (1046–87), ed. L.-R. Ménager (Bari,
1980), pp. 97–8, no. 28. This is not strictly a land charter, but rather the grant of a house and some land in
Salerno. However, given the uncertainty about the use of the term feudum when it does appear in the 12th
century, this grant remains relevant to the discussion.
12
F. Ughelli, Italia sacra: sive de episcopis Italiæ (10 vols., Venice, 1717–22), vi. 700.

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4 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination

general: the term feudum does not appear until well after the first decade of the twelfth
century, and phidon only appears in Greek in 1120.13 This makes it difficult to think of
the term as a Norman import, and although it was in use in Normandy and England
far earlier than it was in south Italy,14 this was still well after the majority of
immigration from Normandy had ceased and the uses of the term in both regions are
not easy to reconcile. Furthermore, some of the best evidence for dependent tenure
and military service in the early twelfth century actually derives from the Abruzzi
region, which was only partly penetrated by the Normans, and was certainly not
confined to those of Norman descent.15 This suggests, therefore, that these ‘feudal
practices’ were widely diffused and were not necessarily a purely Norman import.
A term that may have been introduced by the Normans, however, was beneficium,
which appears in two early charters from Aversa.16 These, however, are inconclusive –
they appear to offer knight service, but in no defined way at all, and certainly do not
qualify as evidence for the elaborate ‘feudal’ structures posited by scholars such as Cahen
and Cuozzo. It is interesting that the term beneficium seems only to have appeared in
Aversa, a town founded and largely inhabited by Normans, and seems to have fallen out
of use as time goes on. So while the formalized structures described in the mid twelfth
century cannot be seen during the pre-kingdom period, the Lombard states were clearly
the closest to them of the political groups that the Normans came to dominate.
The Byzantine territories were significantly different from the Lombard states.
Rather than consisting of small independent states, all of Apulia and Calabria were part
of the empire and thus were organized within the administrative structures that it
possessed. The towns of these areas were expected to levy their own militia while
any major military campaigns were the responsibility of the military command in
Constantinople.17 However, in practice, south Italy ranked low on the list of Byzantine
problems in comparison with the empire’s woes in Asia Minor and the Balkans. The
ultimately unsuccessful 1038 campaign to reclaim Sicily was the last serious expedition
sent by Constantinople until the establishment of the Norman kingdom (with the
exception of a few small relief forces sent over during the conquest of Apulia, which
were entirely unsuccessful, it was the only major expedition sent in the eleventh
century). So the Greek settlements on the mainland were largely left to fend for
themselves without the aid of the professional Byzantine army: service was presumably
performed by the citizens of a town, as was required. Furthermore, while the nature
and size of the aristocracy in Byzantine Apulia is disputed, it is clear that the social
elites of the region were not dominated by a warrior class.18
Following the conquest, the greatest changes appear to have been outside the
towns, where lordships were given to Normans and occupied by them, forming the
basis for a Lombard/Norman style of military service.19 The practice in Apulia can

13
Cahen, p. 48.
14
Chibnall, p. 74.
15
E.g., Il cartulario della chiesa Teramana, ed. F. Savini (Rome, 1910), pp. 68–9, no. 35 (1114), in which an
aristocrat agrees to hold his land from the bishop of Aprutium, and provide military service to him (cf. pp. 70–2,
no. 38 (1116)). It should be noted that in neither of these two charters is the word feudum actually employed.
16
Codice diplomatico normanno di Aversa, ed. A. Gallo (Naples, 1926), pp. 386–7, no. 43 (1068); pp. 399–401,
no. 53 (1073).
17
G. A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow, 2000), p. 77.
18
Skinner, p. 331.
19
V. von Falkenhausen, ‘Il popolamento: etniè, fedi, insediamenti’, in Terra e uomini nel mezzogiorno
normanno-svevo (Atti delle settime giornate normanno-sveve, Bari, 15–17 ottobre 1985), ed. G. Musca (Bari, 1987),
pp. 68–9.

Copyright © 2012 Institute of Historical Research

 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination 5

be seen to begin with the division of the region among the Norman lords at Melfi,
separating it into twelve counties, including land they had not yet conquered.20
However, as with the Lombard states, the terminology of a ‘feudal’ system was
missing: lands were granted to loyal knights, but without constitutional requirement
for service to the duke of Apulia. Ties of service were personal and based on loyalty
(or coercion, as will be seen) rather than on legal bonds. However, the process of
settlement and adjustment from local custom to a centralized ‘Norman’ system must
be seen as a gradual one, instituted much later than the point at which the land was
notionally divided among the Normans. Additionally, the large towns in Apulia
appear to have been almost unaffected by this gradual shift. In Bari, where a wealth
of documentation exists, there is little evidence of interference from its Norman
overlords. Aside from a nominal lord appointed by the duke after its conquest in
1071, virtually no attempts to enforce ducal power or draw forces from Bari were
made until the reforms of the mid twelfth century. Furthermore, after the reduction
in ducal authority during the rule of Roger Borsa, cities like Bari appear to have
claimed virtual autonomy, forcing the duke to deal with rather than command
them.21
Thus, these varied geographical areas, encompassing different religious and ethnic
groups under Norman influence, appear eventually to have adopted a new, relatively
universal ‘Norman’ system by the mid twelfth century. However, it is difficult to
establish the course of these events. While the creation of dependent tenures can be
seen right from Count Rainulf’s operations in Aversa to the division of land between
the Norman lords in 1042 at Melfi, the ‘feudal’ language of the later twelfth century
is simply absent. Notably, the land charter issued by Bishop Rainulf of Chieti does
describe a traditional vassal relationship in exchange for land, but without the
ideological and legal terminology of French ‘feudal’ relationships. Thus, it appears that
the great shift in the attitude of nobles and administrators between the pre- and
post-kingdom period was not one of dependent tenure, which seemed to exist in
both, but to whom the land ultimately belonged. This change in attitudes to ducal
and eventually royal authority can be traced through the pattern of rebellions against
the expanding authority of the Hauteville lords and kings. This helps to provide a
rough guide to the expansion of central authority and the institutionalization of
military service. While early revolts during Guiscard’s rule were generally incited
by his dispossessed cousins attempting to regain their power, the 1082 rebellion
following the invasion of Byzantium in 1081 was a much more universal action.22
The invasion was deeply unpopular, as William of Apulia states: ‘it seemed to many
that this expedition was an unfair and burdensome matter, and in particular those
who had wives and much-loved children at home were reluctant to fight such a war.
But the duke reinforced his gentle persuasions with threats, and forced many to
go’.23
Robert’s difficulty in coercing his vassals into sending troops, the extent of the
rebellion and the length of time it took him to subdue it suggests that this was a

20
Amatus, bk. II, ch. 31, p. 77; Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, p. 95.
21
P. Oldfield, City and Community in Norman Italy (Cambridge, 2009), p. 34.
22
While the rebellion was once again led by Guiscard’s dispossessed nephew, Abelard, this one appears to have
included a significantly larger portion of the higher nobility (Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 217–19).
23
Guillaume de Pouille, La Geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. M. Mathieu (Palermo, 1961), bk. IV, ll. 128–32, p. 210
(English trans. by G. A. Loud).

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6 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination

serious challenge to his authority to draw the required number of troops.24 A similar
pattern can be seen after the death of Robert Guiscard, when his centralized rule,
based on his own personal connections, collapsed, as his sons and other nobles
quarrelled among themselves.25 From this period to Roger II’s creation of the
kingdom, the conflicts that occurred were between the various barons and counts on
the mainland. Roger Borsa’s status as duke of Apulia had minimal impact and he was
effectively reduced to little more than a territorial count in terms of his authority; he
was also forced to concede land to secure the assistance of his uncle Count Roger
against rebellious counts, rather than simply commanding his obedience.26 However,
after Roger II attempted to install his own authority over all of mainland southern
Italy, many of the mainland nobles, particularly from the principality of Capua, united
against him under Count Rainulf of Caiazzo, in defence of their own freedoms.27
Therefore, during the course of Norman occupation and rule before the
establishment of the kingdom a gradual transfer can be perceived away from the
existing systems present in the various regions of south Italy towards a new and distinct
‘south Italian Norman’ style of rule.This gradual centralizing trend can be seen to have
had the greatest effect in this period in the Byzantine regions, where the most dramatic
shift must have been, as well as some of the largest settlements of Norman knights.
The area least affected was the Lombard principalities, where a system similar to the
emerging ‘Norman’ one already existed. Nevertheless, this was still to a large extent
dependent on personal ties and gifts, rather than on an institutional system of holding
land in exchange for service.

The mid twelfth century appears to show a significant departure from the previous
models of service presented by Norman rule. Alterations in administrative departments
under Roger II prompted the creation of the defensive and financial records of the
kingdom and gave rise to the Catalogus Baronum,28 detailing the military strength of
Apulia and Capua.The provenance of the Catalogus has already been outlined: what is
more directly relevant is its intended purpose.
The book is structured as a tiered hierarchy of service organized principally by
region. As a general rule, counts are listed, followed by their barons, who in turn may
have had dependants. However, outside comital regions, land was usually divided by
city and surrounding territory, with the exception of some records between entries
700 and 800 in the Catalogus, which are on the border between Apulia and Capua and

24
For the rebellion, see G. Malaterra, De Rebus Gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Guiscardi
Ducis Fratris eius, ed. E. Pontieri (Bologna, 1927), bk. III, ch. 34, pp. 77–8; Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, p. 244.
Malaterra gives a figure of 1,300 knights who took part in the expedition (Malaterra, bk. III, ch. 24,
p. 71); however, most of the more powerful nobles appear to have remained behind in Italy. This is still a
strikingly large expeditionary force, given that only 20 years before the number of Normans available to leave
their lands and assist in the invasion of Sicily was fewer than 700 at its highest (Malaterra, bk. II., ch. 17, p. 34)
and was quickly reduced to under 150 following the battle outside Cerami in 1063 (Malaterra, bk. II, ch. 33,
pp. 42–3). Even if the numbers are Malaterra’s best guesses, it can only be hoped that he is consistent with his
margins of error.
25
Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 246–60; for the role of Bohemond, see also Martin, ‘Les structures féodales
normanno-souabes’, in Musca, pp. 229–30.
26
E.g., Malaterra, bk. IV, ch. 12, pp. 96–7.
27
See, esp., H. Houben, Roger II of Sicily: a Ruler between East and West, trans. G. A. Loud and D. Milburn
(Cambridge, 2002), pp. 60–73; and G. A. Loud, Roger II and the Creation of the Kingdom of Sicily (Manchester,
2012).
28
For discussion of the reforms in this period on the island of Sicily and in Calabria, see H. Takayama, The
Administration of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily (Leiden, 1993), pp. 47–71.

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 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination 7

Table 1. A summary of the totals of the Catalogus Baronum

Region Milites Villani Milites Servientes/ Ballistarii

(augmentum) Pedites (augmentum)
(augmentum)
Abruzzi 1,024.85 0 2,322 4,464 0
Duchy of Apulia 1,442.686 2,127 3,238 4,657 2
Principality of Capua 674.5 0 1,456 1,911 13
Principality of Taranto 44 0 151 181 0
Terra de Bari 97.75 11 204 241 0
Totals 3,283.786 2,138 7,371 11,169 15

contain a confusion of overlapping information and lordships.29 The document moves

roughly from the south to the north of the region, beginning with the Terra de Bari
and Taranto, followed by mid Apulia, then the lower old city-states such as Salerno,
proceeding to northern Apulia and Capua, and concluding with the Abruzzi region in
the very north of the kingdom.
From these entries broad patterns can be determined. The entire Quaternus
document as it currently exists gives a total of 7,371 knights, if one includes the extra
contingents listed there under the term ‘augmentum’ (about which more will be said
below). However, this figure is almost certainly too low; the omissions which are
traceable include eighty-seven knights for the count of Molise alone,30 as well as others
which are not immediately obvious. Another fifty individuals appear as ‘milites non
habentes feuda’,31 which brings the grand total to a minimum of 7,508. Similarly, the
total number of serjeants listed by the Catalogus is 11,169, but this figure too is plagued
by omissions. Some 211 of these men are referred to as ‘pedites’, while 10,958 are
called ‘servientes’. This distinction appears to be arbitrary: there is no logic as to
when one term is used instead of the other, and they are occasionally deployed
interchangeably within the same entry. Also included in the ‘augmentum’ is one final
field, ‘ballistarii’, and in one instance, ‘ballista’. Ballista usually translates as crossbows,
and ballistarii as something pertaining to artillery (or crossbows).32 However, in this
context the term is difficult to determine; just fifteen ‘ballistarii’ are recorded as being
offered (‘obtulit’) by only four men, all of whom are large landholders, and only with
the ‘augmentum’. Thus, the term may refer to some manner of artillery rather than to
crossbowmen. The totals by region for all categories are given in Table 1.
Therefore, as can be seen, the intended purpose of the Catalogus was unquestionably
as a record of military service owed, but the extent to which the information in the
document has been discussed requires reviewing. Contained within the Catalogus is a
detailed collection of figures and arrangements, however incomplete and distorted it
may be. The vast majority of records are in the format of: (1) The count or baron of
the landholder; (2) The landholder of the fief; (3) The location of the fief; (4) An initial
fief figure; and (5) An ‘augmentum’ figure. The accepted view, put forward by Jamison

29
Redundant information can be found in Catalogus, entries 726/799, 743/755, 778/793 and 761/798.
30
This number has been drawn from the totals of the lands of the county of Molise in Catalogus, entry 805.
The personal lands of Count Hugh and an unknown number of his vassals are omitted in the text.
31
Catalogus, entries 406/407.
32
Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, ed. J. F. Niermeyer (Leiden, 2002), p. 79.

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8 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination

and Cahen, is that the initial figure for a fief, occasionally referred to in the text as the
‘feudum proprium’, is the agreed figure of service decided on enfeoffment, while the
second number, almost always named as the ‘augmentum’, is a theoretical maximum
that each landholder can provide if called upon.33 While modern scholarship has
generally moved away from the idea of ‘feudalism’, many of the conclusions rooted in
this notion are still accepted.Thus, while the language of the Catalogus appears ‘feudal’,
this does not seem to be the relationship it is describing. Nevertheless, much of the
existing research drawing on the Catalogus fits it into a framework of vassalage and land
tenure for service, despite the lack of evidence for this actually taking place.The simple
presence of ‘feudal’ language in the document is usually enough for it to be considered
proof of the development of ‘feudal’ structures in south Italy, and it is usually
referenced purely to demonstrate the ‘feudalization’ of that region by the mid twelfth
century.
While the name Quaternus Magne Expeditionis suggests to the modern mind a
purely military document, there seems no reason to assume that this is the case. The
main problem arises from the first figure, the so-called ‘feudum proprium’, which
appears far too regularly to have no military application whatsoever. While it is
reasonable to consider the ‘augmentum’ as a military figure that deals with actual
people (and explaining the title), the ‘feudum proprium’ figure is problematic in this
respect. Several bishoprics and abbeys offer no fief figures, merely giving the phrase
‘pro magnae expeditionis’ and what can only be an ‘augmentum’ figure,34 as do
several areas of small-holdings.35 Some of these omissions are obviously copying
errors on the part of scribes where the regular formula is intact but figures are
missing; however, where the formula is significantly altered it would appear to be a
deliberate omission. Jamison justifies this by suggesting that churches and free-
holdings were exempt from normal service.36 This could be true if there was any
internal consistency within the document, but some churches do offer fief figures,37
as do the vast majority of small-holdings, albeit in fractional figures. Some of these
are clearly copyist errors, but many more are clearly not: it is a problem that cannot
be easily explained.
The initial fief figure is a little more straightforward than the ‘augmentum’
figure: it contains only three variations, ‘milites’, ‘villani’ and in one instance,
‘commendatarii’,38 which appears to be another form of ‘villani’. There are 3,283.786
knights fiefs recorded in total for the size of fiefs, while a further 2,138 ‘villani’ are
recorded and twenty ‘commendatarii’. If this in fact represented the mainland activities
of the armies of the kingdom of Sicily outside a crisis, it would represent an army that
was both small and entirely devoid of supporting troops.‘Villani’ were not soldiers, and
thus presumably would be paying a rent rather than providing service.This means that
this figure cannot be showing the kingdom’s main recruitment policy. Additionally,
Niketas Choniates tells us that in 1147 Roger II garrisoned Corfu with 1,000 knights

33
E. M. Jamison, ‘Additional work on the Catalogus Baronum’, Bullettino dell⬘Istituto Storico Italiano per il medio
evo, lxxxiii (1971), 1–63, at pp. 6–9; Cahen, pp. 41–51.
34
The figures can be reasonably considered an ‘augmentum’ because they often include ‘servientes’ in addition
to ‘milites’, and never offer fractional figures. They fit the pattern of ‘augmentum’ far better than a ‘feudum
proprium’ (see Catalogus, entry 491).
35
Catalogus, entries 124, 145, 282–90, 408, 490–1, 691–2, 823.
36
Jamison, ‘Additional work’, p. 11.
37
Catalogus, entries 107, 137, 386, 402, 492, 1104, 1204, 1218, 1221–2.
38
‘commended men’ (Niermeyer, p. 216).

Copyright © 2012 Institute of Historical Research

 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination 9

and siege engines, while the fleet continued to plunder the Aegean coast.39 The
mainland provinces included in the Catalogus comprise approximately 60 per cent of
the area covered by the kingdom, and so if Calabria and Sicily could provide the same
ratio of knights, the total army of the kingdom would have been roughly 5,500
knights, at the very most.40 The garrison on Corfu, then, would represent a fifth of the
total and a serious commitment for the south Italians, as well as a serious blow to the
total troops available to the king when they surrendered.Yet no outcry is heard from
the narrative sources, which surely would have had something to say about so many of
the kingdom’s soldiers being lost.
Similarly to the ‘villani’, it has also been suggested that the fractional fiefs which
appeared in the Catalogus were money fiefs: 103 references are smaller than a fief (a
total of 41.986), while fifty-six entries contain no survey figure of any kind. Only a
very small proportion of these can be attributed to scribal error while copying the
manuscript. Furthermore, fifty-five entries are for fractional fiefs over one (for example,
one and a half fiefs or two and a half fiefs), made up of composite parts that are
geographically divided, accounting for a further twenty-seven knights. While several
sections of the small fractional fiefs are recorded together, the larger fractional fiefs are
almost never near one another, and thus it is difficult to suggest that these landholders
would have banded together to produce one over the distances involved. Therefore
another problem arises from the fractions of fiefs given in the more ‘regular’ entries.
Jamison’s assertion that fractional fiefs would have been expected to band together to
provide the knights which they owed sounds entirely plausible.41 However, it does not
help to explain what should happen to fractional fiefs that are geographically isolated,
or how a knight who holds two and half fiefs should behave. Further compounding
this problem is the additional variation in a sizeable selection of the entries giving the
initial figure in terms of ‘villani’ instead of ‘milites’. These ‘villani’ would clearly not
have been expected to serve for general combat duties and held no ties of vassalage,
and thus have no logical place in the Catalogus as proposed by Jamison and Cahen.
Cuozzo goes as far as saying that a knight’s fief held a standard monetary value,
suggested at twenty ounces of gold.42 This offers weight to the idea of fractional fiefs
being monetary, but stops short of explaining all the other difficulties of the Catalogus
because of the insistence on forcing the available data into a ‘feudal’ framework.
Cuozzo persists in the assumption that because the Catalogus uses the word ‘feudum’,
it must refer to a fief linked with vassalage. From a very similar document, the Cartae
Baronum of England, written only a few years later in 1166, it can be seen that
fractional fiefs are very common: the archbishop of York’s return alone contains
twenty-two fractional fiefs, including some extremely small ones.43 This document uses
similar language to the Catalogus, but it is clear that its general purpose is financial,

39
Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium, trans. H. J. Magoulias (Detroit, Mich., 1984) (hereafter Choniates),
p. 43, repeated p. 51.
40
This calculation is rough and based purely on areas of land; documentation has not survived that shows
what military forces were levied from Sicily and Calabria. Given the heavily Muslim population of the island,
it is possible that more infantry and archers than heavy cavalry would have been recruited from there. Equally,
Calabria is extremely mountainous, and the available pasture for horses is significantly lower than in other parts
of the kingdom. Nevertheless, this is purely speculative, with no evidence apart from the fact that the Catalogus
does not mention from where the kingdom’s army was getting any ranged troops.
41
Jamison, ‘Additional work’, p. 8.
42
E. Cuozzo, La cavalleria nel regno normanno di Sicilia (Atripalda, 2002), p. 153.
43
English Historical Documents, ii: 1042–1189, ed. D. C. Douglas and G. W. Greenaway (1953), pp. 971–2.

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10 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination

rather than documenting vassalage. Cahen even admits that the early beneficium grants
to Aversa are far more concerned with land than vassalage, but uses the Catalogus to
show that this had changed by the mid twelfth century.44 However, his argument is also
based on the language of the Catalogus, rather than on its content.
In addition to these inexplicable irregularities in the terminology, there is the
context surrounding the creation of the document. As mentioned above, before the
foundation of the kingdom, the model described in the Catalogus simply did not exist.
Thus, it must be seen as a new creation, implemented by the crown, rather than as a
recording of the existing systems. This has parallels on the island of Sicily as well, in
the actions of the dı̄wān, the government ministry responsible for administering and
taxing Sicily and Calabria, set up in 1145.45 The dı̄wān was responsible for recording
land boundaries and the value of land held by individuals. It is possible that the initial
compilation of the Catalogus in the early eleven-fifties was a project in a similar vein,
albeit for different conditions.Within this context, it is much easier to see the Catalogus
as having a different purpose from the ‘feudal’ record suggested in previous scholarship.
In this model the first figure given represents the results of a preliminary land
or wealth survey, indicating the wealth and means of the landholder, while the
‘augmentum’ figure remains a theoretical total of all the military forces that that
landholder might be expected to produce in the event of an invasion. This also helps
to explain the strange inclusion of the ‘feudum pauperum’ clauses (and the variant
clause, where someone offers himself ‘se ipsum’ for service with the ‘augmentum’),46
which might seem odd to find in a document dealing strictly with service.
Jamison states that the ‘milites’ sent from a ‘feudum pauperum’ were combatants who
were less well armoured than a wealthier knight.47 Yet nowhere in the Catalogus is there
any indication of the expected quality of the soldiers to be provided, so the passage
could just as easily refer to the land of the fief rather than the expectations of the
knight serving for it. This view is further strengthened by certain passages which give
their figures in ‘villani’, but state that this is equivalent to a knight’s fief,48 or any of the
countless other irregular entries such as that for Fulcus the doctor, whose initial figure
is given in ‘villani’ and who offers his services (presumably as surgeon) in lieu of any
knights.49 This more universal view of the applications of this document is also
supported by its use and the timing of its updates. In addition to the creation of the
document in very close temporal proximity to the establishment of the dı̄wān in Sicily,
its updating in 1167/8 also coincides with the creation of a sister department to
administer the mainland regions recorded in the Catalogus.50 This reinterpretation of
the purpose of the Catalogus shows a less traditional document in terms of military
figures, one which is sadly less precise than the previous model. It also stresses the lack
of a ‘feudal’ structure: the first figure does not appear to relate directly to service, but

44
Cahen, pp. 47–50.
45
J. Johns, Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: the Royal Dı̄wān (Cambridge, 2002), p. 115; Takayama, p. 81,
gives the start-up date for the dı̄wān as 1149.
46
See Catalogus, entries 282–90, 481 or 846 for examples.The ‘feudum pauperum’ phrasing is by far the most
common, but that also has variations (cf. entry 481).
47
Jamison, ‘Additional work’, p. 8.
48
Catalogus, entry 58.
49
Catalogus, entry 540: ‘Fulcus medicus filus Sergii medici tenet villanos viginti et debet servire sicut
stabilitum fuit ei a Curia’.
50
For further discussion about the creation of the duana baronum and its links to the revisions of the Catalogus
Baronum, see Takayama, pp. 156–7.

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 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination 11

rather to wealth, while the ‘augmentum’ seems to be concerned with actual military
totals, although with no indication as to how they were used or if there was any
expectation of service.

In addition to the treatment of the purpose and content of the Catalogus, it is

important to examine the limitations of the document and the problems within the
text that cause difficulties in using it. So the questions raised by the transmission of the
document must be considered, as well as the extent to which the information can be
verified. This can be done by comparing the actions of individuals named in the text
against charters, and by a comparison of the quantity of soldiers listed in the document
with narrative sources.
Aside from the problems surrounding the use and nature of the document and the
risks of anachronism within the text, the content has suffered corruption in its
transmission. Most striking is the omission of the entire personal lands of the count
of Molise and potentially several of his barons, but this is not the only traceable
omission.51 In addition to these errors, there are countless faults in mathematical
addition, both within single entries between the ‘feudum’ and ‘augmentum’ figures
(where both are given),52 and often when the overall figure for a landholder with
vassals is totalled at the end of his holdings.53 Equally pervasive is the provision of
extremely improbable figures, which are difficult to discern as either incorrect or
correct but are clearly irregular. Unfortunately, in these cases there is no way of
supplying an accurate figure as it is almost impossible to identify where the error has
taken place and which numbers are correct. Thus, when working with the Catalogus,
it is important to bear in mind that while it provides very precise figures, totals drawn
from it should not be considered anything more than an approximation of what was
originally written.
However, the Catalogus does allow study of landowning individuals, as well as the
pattern of land distribution, and this can be used to help verify some of the
information that it contains. Individuals named within the Catalogus can be
cross-referenced in charters (where they exist), allowing for crude dating of sections of
the document.54 In addition, the patterns of landholding are of note. A total of 190
fiefs are recorded as being directly held from the king; only five of these are by a
count,55 although while the other counts are not expressly stated as holding land from
the king, it is reasonable to assume that this was the case. The vast majority of direct
royal holdings are in the Abruzzi, which may be due to the small number of comital
holdings in that area: much of the remaining land must have been in royal hands.
These explicitly royal lands account for 756 knights and 1,515 serjeants with the
‘augmentum’, which is 10.33 per cent of the total knights and 13.56 per cent of the

51
The first appearance of a vassal of Hugh of Molise is in Catalogus, entry 740, but it is impossible to
determine how much has been omitted. Entry 805 states that the total for his lands should be 486 knights, only
299 of whom are recorded in the Catalogus – a substantial discrepancy. Even more ‘servientes’ are omitted, with
only 278 recorded of an expected 650. Other probable omissions come in entries 1075 and 1078, and many
other calculation errors are probably caused by this problem.
52
E.g., Catalogus, entries 203, 209, 268.
53
E.g., Catalogus, entries 445, 718, 735. Hugh of Molise’s totals are probably the most obvious in 805.
54
Bohemond Malerba, a knight of Summonte, can be found in Catalogus, entry 393, and also in Codice
Diplomatico Verginiano, ed. P. M. Tropeano (13 vols., Montevergine, 1977–2001), iv. 308, v. 467. Additionally, Roger
de Aquila, count of Avellino, appears in Catalogus, entry 392 and Codice Diplomatico Verginiano, iv. 345, 371; v. 444,
474, 476.
55
Count Godfrey of Lessina (Catalogus, entry 377).

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12 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination

serjeants, a ratio of one knight to 2.004 serjeants. In addition to the king, there are
thirty-two men of major landowning class who are listed as having barons, twenty-four
of whom are named as counts.With the ‘augmentum’, these counts are responsible for
2,564 knights, 4,095 serjeants and four ‘balistarii’, while lands held directly from the
king owe a further 761 knights and 1,520 serjeants. This means that 45.41 per cent of
the knights recorded in the Catalogus are from lands of named counts or the king,
50.27 per cent of the serjeants, which is a ratio of 1:1.59. The abbeys and bishoprics
of Apulia and Calabria appear only to have provided 252 knights, but 884 serjeants.
This equates to 3.44 per cent of the total knights, but 7.55 per cent of the serjeants.
The resulting ratio of 1:3.51 is strikingly higher than that of the counts, and can be
seen to have represented a significant difference in the composition of forces levied
from the two types of landholders. This is comparable to the kingdom of Jerusalem,
where the figures recorded by John of Ibelin show that the patriarch and his bishops
also provided a significantly higher ratio of serjeants to knights.56
It is exceedingly difficult to verify the figures themselves, and particularly the extent
to which they represent what happened in reality during crisis. Only one detailed
account of the Byzantine invasion of 1155 exists: that of the notary John Kinnamos.
Unfortunately, the other narrative sources which describe this event are extremely
sparse when it comes to military details, and both sides carefully omit events. The
Greek sources by Kinnamos and Niketas Choniates both fail to include King William
I’s recapture of Bari and subsequent razing of it, with Choniates even portraying the
whole expedition as a resounding success, with troops only withdrawing because of
concerns in the rest of the empire.57 Conversely, the south Italian sources by ‘Hugo
Falcandus’ and Romuald of Salerno gloss over the initial Greek successes and battles
and focus on William’s later victories in the campaign.58 Thus, these sources must all
be treated with caution, as each has an intrinsic bias. However, Kinnamos’s account is
also the only source of data for the 1155 expedition against which to examine the
numbers in the Catalogus.
Narrative sources obviously cannot be treated as accurate data, but the information
given by Kinnamos is interesting: he offers the figure of 2,000 knights and
‘innumerable infantry’ for the first Sicilian army, which was drawn from ‘the barons and
the chancellor’.59 Given the extent of the territory which had already been overrun by
the Greeks at that point, perhaps 5,000 knights registered under the ‘augmentum’ in the
Catalogus were from land still under Sicilian rule. In order to field the 2,000 men
described, all the knights west of Taranto, in the interior counties north of Taranto and
in the lower half of the Campania would have had to be mustered.This is in itself not
unrealistic, for none of these forces would have had to march huge distances, and the
battle took place several months into the invasion, allowing plenty of time for the
muster to have taken place. This calculation, however, does not take into account
the unnamed rebellious nobles who joined the Greeks, or at the very least did not get
drawn into the conflict, offering terms of surrender instead of fighting, which would
have dramatically reduced the available pool of troops. The forces from the island

56
P. W. Edbury, John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Woodbridge, 1997), p. 132.
57
Choniates, pp. 53–7; Iōannēs Kinnamos, Deeds of John and Manuel Comnenus, trans. C. M. Brand (New York,
1976), pp. 106–29.
58
‘Hugo Falcandus’, The History of the Tyrants of Sicily, trans. G. A. Loud and T.Wiedemann (Manchester, 1998)
(hereafter Falcandus), pp. 73–5, 223–4.
59
Kinnamos, p. 110.

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 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination 13

arrived with William I, and the 2,000 knights who are mentioned are explicitly stated
to have come from the barons, and so must have been drawn from the mainland.
Unfortunately, none of the narratives gives any idea of the numbers in William I’s
army, other than vague general statements implying that his forces were large.60 This,
combined with the lack of a similar document cataloguing service owed from Sicily
and Calabria, prevents a complete comparison of the narratives and the surviving
clerical data.

As this article has shown, the Norman period in south Italy was one which saw
significant development and restructuring of the systems of military recruitment and
administration. While the ‘feudal’ language of the Catalogus is largely absent from
documents before the establishment of the kingdom, the notion of dependent tenure
was clearly not alien either to the Norman immigrants or to the inhabitants of the
Lombard principalities. The Lombard states appear to have drawn their military forces
from the landed nobility as well as mercenaries, and entry to this class of nobility could
be achieved through service, as Count Rainulf of Aversa demonstrated. The Normans
also had an idea of rewarding service with land, as can be seen from the division of
Apulia at the council of Melfi in 1042 and the land charters of Robert Guiscard.
However, with the exception of the land charter issued by Bishop Rainulf, none of
these charters implies that land granted as a reward held any legal strings requiring
further service. The actions of the greater nobility in Apulia during the Byzantine
invasion of 1082, many of whom refused to accompany the expedition, reinforce this
idea of semi-independence. Therefore, while the mainland during and after the
Norman conquest had a basic system of dependent landholding (without the use of
‘feudal’ terminology), there was no typically ‘feudal’ system of vassalage or service in
the period before the creation of the Catalogus.
The Catalogus revolutionizes the understanding of the military recruitment and
administration of the mainland. The detail that it offers is unrivalled in any document
produced before or for some time afterwards, although how that data is interpreted is
a matter of difficulty. Rather than accepting the view that the Catalogus was a purely
military document, designed as a record of all military service in Apulia and Capua
both ‘regular’ and in times of crisis, it is probable that the Catalogus had a much more
limited purpose: to record the maximum possible military levy for any given lord,
and the approximate wealth of that lord. Thus, rather than acting as a somewhat
inexplicable ‘feudal’ register, it can be seen much more logically as a land and
emergency defence register. The use of ‘feudal’ language within the document is
simply not indicative of ‘feudal’ practice in terms of service for fiefs, and while it
remains possible that this may have happened, there is no evidence to suggest that the
Catalogus records this practice. The parallels between this interpretation and what
happened in other governmental departments in the Sicilian administration further
help to clarify its position: the Catalogus may have acted as a record for the curia in
much the same manner as the records of the dı̄wān, and it is likely that it was
instrumental in the record-keeping for the duana baronum in the late eleven-sixties.
While the purpose of the Catalogus may not be immediately clear, it has many
serious errors in transmission which make using specific numbers from it problematic.
Nevertheless, the composition of soldiers from different lords holding land allows for

60
Falcandus, pp. 73, 224.

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14 The Catalogus Baronum: a re-examination

interesting comparisons within the document, helping to establish the variations in

military recruitment from different types of landholders. While this reveals patterns in
keeping with the kingdoms of Jerusalem and England, the absence of any other
document remotely similar to the Catalogus from the kingdom of Sicily makes
verifying its data difficult. Some information from narrative sources, particularly that of
John Kinnamos, can be used for comparison with the clerical data of the Catalogus.
This narrative information tends to support the data: nothing presented within the
sources is beyond the realms of what might be levied from the mainland fiefs.
Therefore the Catalogus Baronum, despite its many scribal errors and occasionally
incomprehensible calculations, represents a document of unparalleled depth and detail
in comparison to the other available sources for the administration of the south Italian
military. The wealth of statistical information which can be drawn from it has only
begun to be investigated and much work remains to be done, particularly in
comparisons with narrative and charter sources. Nevertheless, the Catalogus is evidently
a vital and influential source for the military resources of Apulia and Calabria, and one
which has often been overlooked in more recent scholarship. It reveals a complicated
system of landholder promises, extensive hierarchies, individual exceptions, regional
variations and seemingly conflicting ways of interpreting the data: the hallmarks of a
document in need of further study.

Copyright © 2012 Institute of Historical Research