Romuald Guarna (between 1110 and 1120 – 1 April 1181/2) was the

Archbishop of Salerno The Archdiocese of Salerno-Campagna-Acerno ( la, Archidioecesis Salernitana-Campaniensis-Acernensis) is a Roman Catholic ecclesiastical territory in Campania, southern Italy, created in 1986. The historic Archdiocese of Salerno was in existence f ...

(as Romuald II) from 1153 to his death. He is remembered primarily for his ''Chronicon sive Annales'', an important historical record of his time.

Life

Romuald was a native of Salerno, born into the old Lombard nobility. He studied as a youth in the Schola Medica Salernitana, where he studied not only medicine (in which he taught Gilles de Corbeil), but history, law, and theology. Romuald was raised to the Salernitan archbishopric after the death of

William of Ravenna William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Eng ...

. Romuald was a diplomat for the kings William I and William II. He negotiated the Treaty of Benevento of 1156 and signed the Treaty of Venice in 1177. Though he took part in the conspiracy against the

Admiral Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet, ...

Maio of Bari, he never fell out of favour and even performed the coronation of William II. Despite this, he exaggerates his own importance in his chronicle, which characteristically begins at creation and extends till 1178. In 1160-1161, Romuald defended the city from the enraged William I, who was avenging the assassination of Maio. With the help of Salernitans at court and their connections to the king's intimates, the city was spared. In 1167, as the highest-ranking prelate in the realm, he crowned William II as king in the Cathedral of Palermo. In 1179, Romuald intervened in a council condemning the

Albigensians Catharism (; from the grc, καθαροί, katharoi, "the pure ones") was a Christian dualist or Gnostic movement between the 12th and 14th centuries which thrived in Southern Europe, particularly in northern Italy and southern France. Foll ...

. He was succeeded by

Nicholas of Ajello Nicholas of AjelloHe was not a native of Ajello ( Calabria), but Salerno. His elder brother, Richard, received the county of Ajello from King Tancred and the name has been applied to the entire family. ( it, Nicolò d'Aiello; died 10 February 122 ...

Chronicon sive Annales

Romuald's work at a chronicle known as ''Chronicon'' was obviously connected with his studies at the Schola Salernitanae where his family had been involved over generations. It was part of a universal history and editions of the 19th century usually started with one paragraph before the last part called "Historia Normannorum, pars Sicula" (about the Norman kingdom of Sicily). According to Massino Oldoni the preceding compilation already existed, when Romuald was a child, the earlier Norman history also does not use the third person like the portion ascribed to him.Oldoni (

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

Editions

* * * *

Notes

References

*Alio, Jacqueline. ''Margaret, Queen of Sicily''. New York: Trinacria, 2017, pp. 387-398 (translation of excerpts from Romuald's chronicle). *Matthew, D. J. A. "The Chronicle of Romuald of Salerno". ''The Writing of History in the Middle Ages: Essays presented to

Richard William Southern Sir Richard William Southern (8 February 1912 – 6 February 2001), who published under the name R. W. Southern, was a noted English medieval historian based at the University of Oxford. Biography Southern was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne o ...

''.

R. H. C. Davis Ralph Henry Carless Davis (7 October 1918 – 12 March 1991) was a British historian and educator specialising in the European Middle Ages. Davis was born and died in Oxford. He was a leading exponent of strict documentary analysis and interpre ...

and

J. M. Wallace-Hadrill John Michael Wallace-Hadrill, (29 September 1916 – 3 November 1985) was a senior academic and one of the foremost historians of the early Merovingian period. Wallace-Hadrill was born on 29 September 1916 in Bromsgrove, where his father ...

, edd. Oxford: 1981. * Norwich, John Julius. ''The Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194''. London: Longman, 1970.

External links

Romuald Guarna (biographical notes)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Romuald II, Archbishop of Salerno 12th-century births 1180s deaths People from Salerno 12th-century Italian historians Italian chroniclers 12th-century Lombard people 12th-century Italian Roman Catholic archbishops Archbishops of Salerno Schola Medica Salernitana 12th-century Italian writers 12th-century Italian physicians 12th-century Latin writers