![]() On both the Italian mainland and in Sicily, completing the conquest of All this finally ended when in the late 11th century, Norman adventurers reached Italy and began establishing a kingdom ![]() The Duchy of Amalfi grew rich on its trade with North Africa and Egypt and when the Pope and the Byzantines attempted to form a Christian alliance to drive the Moslems from the region it failed because Salerno, Naples and Amalfi entered into a peace treaty with the Arabs. When a civil war broke out between the Lombard principalities each hired large bands of Arab mercenaries who were allowed to plunder the area during their "down time" between fighting and when Gaeta, a coastal principality between Naples and Rome, felt threatened by its neighbors it imported an Arab band which carved out a territory from which it launched raids for three decades. The relationship of the Duchy of Naples with the Arab states and the number of Arabs residing in the city led the Carolingian Emperor Louis II, while campaigning in the area, to complain that Naples was a " second Palermo or Africa". On the other hand, Neapolitan merchants sold slaves to the Arabs and imported Arab mercenaries to protect the Duchy from the neighboring Christian Lombard ( Benevento, Capua and Salerno) principalities. ( From Wikipedia includes some inaccuracies, such as missing Duchy of Naples, between Amalfi and Capua, but close enough) Even after the emirates were destroyed land and sea raids continued well into the next century. Which raids were conducted deep into interior Italy the main booty from which were slaves and leading to widespread devastation, including ( location of Bari and Taranto) the destruction of the abbey at Monte Cassino. ( Saracen Tower on Amalfi Coast near Praiano) On land, Arab emirates were established on the heel of Italy at Bari (846-71) and Taranto (until 879) from Provide warning against Moorish slave raiders. That saw the construction of the Saracen towers on the Amalfi Coast to Including looting relics from the original St Peters Basilica. On one hand, Arab raiders plundered the island of Ischia (near Naples) in 812 and, in 846, sacked those parts of Rome outside the ancient Aurelian walls, ![]() The tangled relationships between Arabs and Christians can be seen in what happened during the 9th and 10th centuries in Southern Italy, a region fragmented among duchies, principalities and empires. With a landing in Sicily in 828 and the conquest of the entire island by the end of the century. Mediterranean, the attacks, launched from North Africa by Arabs and Berbers, began Iberia before launching the reconquista which was completed in 1492, followed immediately by the expulsion of the Jews and, in 1609, by aįinal expulsion of Moslems, and the decision to support the Genoese sailor Christoforo Colombo in his crazy scheme to sail west to India. Years, Christian rulers maintained a tenuous hold on the northern area of Turned back by Charles Martel near Tours in 732. Moslem invaders quickly destroyed the Visigoth kingdom, sweeping through all but the mountainous northwestĬorner and surging into France, raiding as far north of the Loire River until With the first (and unsuccessful) siege of Constantinople (674-77), the Byzantine capital, ( Wikipedia Commons) and in the west, with the landing of the Berber/Arab forces of Those events started a thousand years earlier.Īlthough not exclusively a religious tale (on that, see more below) itīegan with the assaults of Moslem armies on Europe, starting in the east Leopold I? And why are the events of the following day so important? Of events brought him there onto the territory of the Hapsburg Emperor, Now, where was I? Oh, yes, what was the King of Polandĭoing lurking about in the hills outside Vienna that night? What train Perhaps as part of a collective unconscious memory of a future event (as The title song of Ringo Starr's 1975 album, composed by John Lennon, Wore on was he thinking about Goodnight Vienna, Since July 14 and was now on the verge of taking it. Surrounded by the army of the Ottoman Empire which had besieged the city Was the city, surrounded by its massive walls and defended by a small garrison which was, in turn, Poland, stood among the woods on one of the western hills overlooking Vienna, the capital of the Hapsburg Empire. On the evening of September 11, 1683, Jan Sobieski, the King of
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