Richard I of Capua

Richard Drengot (c. 1025 – died 1078) was the Norman count of Aversa (1049–1078), prince of Capua (1058–1078, as Richard I) and duke of Gaeta (1064–1078).

Early career in Italy Richard, who came from near Dieppe in the Pays de Caux in eastern Normandy, was the son of Asclettin I, count of Acerenza, younger brother of Asclettin II, count of Aversa, and nephew of Rainulf Drengot. Richard arrived in Southern Italy shortly after Rainulf's death in 1045, accompanied by forty Norman knights. When he first arrived in Aversa, according to Amatus of Montecassino Richard was well received by the people who followed him as if he were a count. He was described as strikingly handsome, a young man of open countenance who by design rode a horse so small his feet nearly touched the ground. He next dealt with Drogo but this time was less successful, for Drogo captured and imprisoned Richard, placing him at Drogo's mercy. He charged first that day and routed the Lombard contingent, pursuing them a long distance before turning back to assist Humphrey and Robert Guiscard. A series of deaths during the period of 1054–1056, that of Pope Leo with no immediate successor, of Constantine IX Monomachos leaving Constantinople in internal strife and Emperor Henry III leaving a child heir, gave the Normans a near free hand in Southern Italy. He pushed back the borders of the latter until there was little left of the once great principality but the city of Salerno itself and when the weak prince of Capua died in 1057, he immediately besieged Capua and took the princely title (1058) from Pandulf's brother, Landulf VIII, but left the keys to the city in Lombard hands for at least four years more, until 12 May 1062.

Prince of Capua Relations with Gaeta Richard betrothed his daughter to the son of Atenulf I, Duke of Gaeta, but when the boy died before the marriage took place, he demanded the morgengab anyway. Even before the siege of Aquino was finished, Richard as the Prince of Capua, visited the abbey of Monte Cassino with a small force to give thanks to St.Benedict He was welcomed with all due pomp and ceremony and in turn he issued a grant of protection to the Monastery's property. The monastery had previously been under the control of the fanatically anti-Norman abbot Frederick of Lorraine, who was replaced when Pope Stephen IX died, the Normans were warmly welcomed. But Desiderius of Benevento, the new the abbot of Montecassino, asked Richard to extort only 4000 sous from Duke Atenulf which, after several more weeks of trying to hold out, the duke finally paid.

In 1062, Richard sent his son Jordan to take Gaeta from Atenulf II, but Atenulf was allowed to continue personal rule until 1064. Though, in that year, Richard and Jordan appropriated the ducal and consular titles of the Gaetan rulers. Richard quelled a later rebellion of Atenulf's.

Relations with the papacy In February 1059, Hildebrand, the future Pope Gregory VII, then only a high-ranking member of the Papal Curia, travelled to Capua to enlist his aid on behalf of the reforming Pope Nicholas II against the antipope Benedict X. Soon, Richard was besieging Benedict in Galeria and, in 1059, Nicholas convened a synod at Melfi where he confirmed Robert Guiscard as duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily and Richard as count of Aversa and prince of Capua. Together they had:

Jordan I of Capua Jonathan, Count of Carinola Bartholomew, Count of Carinola an unnamed daughter, married Lando of Gaeta