Robert (died 1116) was a south Italian nobleman who ruled the counties of Airola, Alife, Caiazzo, Sant'Agata and Telese from 1088 until his death. He was the regent of Capua in 1090–93, and was effectively independent of any lord after 1105. He was a major patron of churches and abbeys, and also commissioned several books.
Family
Born in southern Italy, Robert belonged to the second generation of the Italo-Norman nobility. He belonged to a cadet branch of the Drengot family; the senior line had ruled the Principality of Capua since 1058. Robert's father, Rainulf I, received several counties in the north of the principality from his cousin, Prince Jordan I, in 1078. These counties had been confiscated from their Lombard rulers following a major revolt against Norman rule in 1063–65. In a charter of 4 July 1066, Jordan I and his father, Richard I, refer to the "treason of the counts of Caiazzo" to justify the redistribution of confiscated lands. The last Lombard count known by name was Peter, and either he or his son lost the county in 1065 or early 1066. Robert succeeded to all his father's counties after Rainulf's death in 1088. In his own documents, Robert did not list all the counties he held, preferring an open-ended style: "Robert, count of Alife, Caiazzo, Sant'Agata and many others".
Robert's wife was Gaitelgrima. They had two sons—Rainulf II and Richard—and a daughter, named Gaitelgrima after her mother. The daughter married Duke William II of Apulia in 1114. They had no children; she was still living when William died in 1127. Robert had an illegitimate son named Bansolino and probably at least one other son named Alexander. He was succeeded on his death by his son Rainulf.
Capuan politics
When Prince Jordan died in 1090, he was succeeded by a minor, Prince Richard II. Robert became Richard's guardian until he came of age in 1093. In 1092, under the leadership of Lando, one of the counts of Teano, the city of Capua rebelled against Prince Richard In early 1093 Richard, still under the guardianship of Robert, managed to briefly recover Capua, although he would not definitively recover it until a successful siege in 1098. During the brief recovery of Capua, on 27 January 1093 Robert, described as Richard's magister (master), "persuaded" the prince to make a donation to the abbey of Sant'Angelo in Formis.
After Richard attained his majority, Robert's relationship with his nominal overlord weakened. He apparently possessed his own court, complete with a scriptorium, and his charters mimicked the style of princely charters, but making no reference to the princely regnal years by which the charters of the prince's subjects were normally dated. The last charter in which Robert explicitly recognised Richard's lordship is dated 1105, at which time they were on a joint military campaign in the north of the principality. After this isolated instance of a pragmatic acknowledgement on Robert's part, the count of Caiazzo was de facto independent of Capuan authority. In 1105 he even described himself as "count of Caiazzo and many other [places] by the favour of divine power", a locution (c.f. Dei gratia rex) usually reserved for sovereigns.
In 1103, Guillaume de Blosseville usurped the Duchy of Gaeta and expelled its duke, Gualganus Ridellus. Gualganus, who was married to Robert's sister, retreated to his county of Pontecorvo. He died shortly after, leaving Pontecorvo to his widow. She was soon accused of conspiring with the enemies of the prince of Capua and Prince Richard confiscated her county and bestowed it on her brother. On 13 January 1105, Robert gave Pontecorvo to the Abbey of Monte Cassino, partly as a gift and partly as a sale, the money to be used as a dowry for his niece. On 25 January, Prince Richard confirmed the gift and sale. Shortly afterwards, both Robert and Richard swore oaths before Abbot Oderisius I to defend Pontecorvo from the abbey's enemies.