The Normans at Capua

The conquest of southern Italy is associated with the destiny of the Hauteville brothers, but another Norman family also had an important role to play. The Drengots, descended from a nobleman banished by the duke of Normandy and who would become princes of Capua.
The Lombard principality of Capua was the one most influenced by the politics of Rome, and, above all, by the decisions of the Montecassino abbots. Between 1038 and 1047, it was invaded and annexed by Guaimar IV of Salerno to his seigniory, thanks to his Norman mercenaries. When the legitimate prince of Capua, Pandulf IV, returned, assisted by Emperor Henry III, it became the primary objective of Richard Drengot of Aversa, the third member of the family to hold the neighbouring county of Aversa, in theory for the account of the duke of Salerno. Richard Drengot became prince of Capua in 1059, but was not able to exercise real power until 1062, after a long series of skirmishes, and thanks to the support of abbot Desiderius of Montecassino. His legitimacy was thus established, and after his death, in 1078, six princes of his lineage held the principality of Capua and the county of Aversa, the first Norman establishment in Italy. Robert Guiscard had to come to terms with them and it was only just before reuniting under the same crown the whole of the Mezzogiorno, that Roger II, the nephew of Robert Guiscard, annexed in 1129 the lands of Drengot, in Capua and Aversa.