Peter Stewart, University of Western Australia

There have been several posts over the past year with ancestor tables including Rogerio di Loria, Grand Admiral of Aragon, which give a birth date around 1260 but take his line no farther back.

Given the extravagant fixation in some quarters with every skerrick of Plantagenet ancestry, the following may be of interest even at third hand:

In the entry for Loria in his "Dictionnaire Historique et Généalogique des Grands Familles de Grèce, d'Albanie et de Constantinople" (Paris 1983), Mihail-Dmitri Sturdza says the admiral was born at La Scalea in Calabria around 1250 and died at Valence in Feb 1305, having married twice and fathered ten legitimate offspring along with at least one illegitimate son. His first wife Margarita, a sister of Corrado di Lancia and niece of king
Manfred, was mother of Ilaria who married Enrico Sanseverino, count of Marsico and constable of Sicily (they are well-known to this group as ancestors of Elizabeth Wydvill). The admiral's second wife was Saurina d'Enteça, apparently sp as she was endowed with the barony of Cocentaïna which passed in turn to several of her step-children.

The admiral's father is given as another Roger di Loria, living in the mid-twelfth century, a minor nobleman in the entourage of king Manfred, and his mother as Bella d'Amichi. She was nurse and then governess to Constanza di Benevento, born in 1249 (Roger is described as her "suckling-brother", hence his suggested birth date). Mother and son accompanied the princess to Aragon in 1262 for her fateful marriage to the future king Pedro III.

Sources cited for this information are:

F Campanile, "L'Armi overo l'insegne dei nobili" (Naples 1610), pp 67-71
A Rubio y Liuch, "Diplomatari del l'Orient català" (Barcelona 1947)
J Gramunt, "Los linajes catalanes en Grecia en el siglo XIV" (Hidalguia
1957)
M Merce Costa, article "Lloria" in La Gran Enciclopedia Catalana
PF Palumbo, "Contributi alla storia dell'età di Manfredi (Rome 1959)

Can anyone confirm this parentage from primary sources, add to it, or
otherwise offer comment?

Peter Stewart

Posted on soc.genealogy.medieval.
Riviera dei Cedri.NET exoress gratitude to Peter Steward for the permission of publishing

Thanks for the reference - it has taken a while to track this down, and I find that Ebner's information on the lady's name, the place given for Roger's burial, and the name of his Valencian barony, are all at least doubtful and perhaps incorrect. There were also mistakes in my original posting based on Mihail-Dimitri Sturdza's "Dictionnaire Historique et Généalogique des Grands Familles de Grèce, d'Albanie et de Constantinople" (Paris, 1983), including a major one in describing the second wife Saurina de Enteza as childless, caused by misreading via a faint fax of a photocopy.

Many group members will share an interest in the great admiral Roger, since he is likely to be their only known ancestor who conquered and reigned over African territory, and the only one who has been compared by naval historians with Nelson for his strategic and tactical genius. Biographies are hard to come by, and even some Italian encyclopaedias in recent years have failed to cover him.

Incidentally, the spelling of his surname has varied - Boccaccio in "The Decameron" calls him dell'Oria, elsewhere it is usually di Loria or Lauria from Italian sources, de Luria from Spanish and Lluria from Catalan. Lauria seems to be preferred for the place in modern atlases, so I shall switch to that. The name of Lauria's barony is given as Cocentaina in every source I have seen except for "Lexikon des Mittelaltters" V, p 2059, where Henri
Bresc gives this spelling in the article on Roger, but "Concentaina" in the article above - the extra "n" may be a common variant or a typo for all I know. Can anyone tell us for certain?

The most frequently cited contemporary source for Lauria's life is the chronicle of Ramón Muntaner, who knew him and his family and served as the governor (for Sicily) of their Maghribi principality after the admiral's death [see Charles-Emmanuel Dufourcq, "L'Espagne Catalane et le Maghrib aux XIII et XIV siècles" (Paris, 1965), p 579]. Unfortunately, although he relates much interesting information about several generations of the family, Muntaner gives only the marriages and not the names of Lauria's daughters by his first wife Margarita (whom he identifies as a sister of Corrado "one of the handsomest men in the world and one of the wisest" Lancia, usually Lanza or Llansa in Spain) [see chapter XVIII, "The Chronicle of Muntaner", translated by Lady Goodenough, 2 vols, Hakluyt Society, series 2 (London, 1920/1)]. Another record of all the admiral's children must have existed in ca 1560, when Jeronimo Zurita was writing his magnum opus "Anales de la Corona de Aragón" [1st edition 1562-80; ed Angel Canellas Lopez (Zaragoza, 1977)]. In book V, chapter LXVI, Zurita mentions every family member by name, having compared his source(s) with Muntaner's chronicle which had been published for the first time in Valencia in 1558. He remarks on a different head-count (due to Muntaner's omission of a daughter, who I think had probably died unmarried before he wrote). This is the earliest specific reference to the admiral's daughters that I can find in print: and Zurita unequivocally gives the mother of Roger di Sanseverino, count of Mileto, as Hilaria. This baptismal name is somewhat reinforced by the fact that the lady's eldest grandaughter was Ilaria di Sanseverino, wife of Filippo di Sangineto, count of Altomonte & Corigliano [see the article "Une famille de l'aristocratie Napolitaine sous les souverains Angevins: les Sanseverino (1270-1420)" by Sylvie Pollastri, in "Mélanges de l'École Française de Rome, Moyen Age", t 103 - 1 (1991)].

Maria as a baptismal name does not seem to be prominent in any closely connected family at the time - I can't find a single occurrence. Indeed I doubt that this became at all widespread in southern Italian families (except those of Greek origin) before Spanish influence had thoroughly set in, and not common even then until the cult of the Magdalene considerably later, but this is a mere impression & apt to be proved wrong. Can anyone enlighten me on this point?

On the other hand, P Ebner's information on the subject is indirect and raises rather than answers questions. To save readers from searching for his book, here is the gist of what he says, in writing about the foundation of a Franciscan conventual house at Cuccaro in 1333: an inscription in stone recording this event was replaced ("rinnovata", perhaps restored), giving the foundress' name incorrectly as 'Ilaria' instead of Maria at the direction of a Provincial of the order. The mistake was repeated in print by G Antonini in "La Lucania" (Naples, 1795), although G Volpi had shown in his "Cronologia dei vescovi pestani" (Naples, 1752) that Ilaria was actually the famous admiral's sister, while Maria was his daughter married to Enrico di Sanseverino.

Whatever her name, the daughter was lavish in her benefactions, according to Ebner's note, founding seven Franciscan houses - which rather suggests a memorable enough figure, whom the Provincial of her favoured order should have known even centuries later by the right name. Possibly there's a simple explanation, though we can only speculate: 'Maria' may have been an alternative name adopted to avoid confusion with an aunt and a cousin's widow both named Ilaria and living in the Sanseverino orbit, or was possibly a religious name taken with the veil if the lady in question became a nun in
her own widowhood. She may have had quite a long time to kick her heels in chastity, whether or not enjoying a rich dot - her only known husband died fairly young, in his father's lifetime, though it's not quite clear whether this happened before the event recorded in 1333 when his wife was piously disposing of wealth from his lordships. Some sources say Enrico died in 1336/7, or at least was buried then. If the latter his obsequies may have been long overdue, or perhaps a reburial in home ground: Sylvie Pollastri [op cit], who also calls his wife Ilaria with no mention of any 'Maria', has Enrico dying in 1317 according to her genealogical table I, which cites private archives and another early printed secondary source, Scipione Ammirato's "Delle familie nobili Napolitane", (Naples, vol i 1580, vol ii pub posth 1651). However, Pollastri indicates that records are scarce for this senior branch of the Sanseverino family - and in any case the tables presented with her article were poorly proof-read, so 1337 may have been the intended date.

Although I can't locate a copy of Volpi's book to see what the evidence was that satisfied Ebner (on a point of no material importance to his subject), I doubt on the whole that an 18th-century Neapolitan antiquary writing about bishops is likely to be more reliable on a particular name than one of the world's greatest historians, Zurita, who researched in Naples, Sicily, Rome and Aragon with all the resources of the Hapsburg empire at his service 200 years earlier, especially given onomastic support in a subsequent generation as well as the preceding one (assuming there really was an aunt also named Ilaria).
Scipione Ammirato apparently led others into a more egregious confusion in this lineage, over the identity of Enrico di Sanseverino's mother whom he identified as Isualda d'Agaldo (Isoarde, or Isnarde, daughter of Amiel d'Agoult, signore of Corbano, a cadet of the great Provençal family). In fact Enrico's father Tommaso di Sanseverino, count of Marsico, had two known wives apart from this purported marriage to Isualda, one of them being Marguerite, daughter of the son's eponym Henri de Vaudémont, count of Ariano [see Georges Poull, "La Maison ducale de Lorraine" (Nancy, 1991), p 333].
Despite this, many still-current works of reference, e.g. Turton (1928); and Vittorio Spreti's "Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare Italiana" (Milan & Bologna, 1928- ), propagate the maternity according to Ammirato with no reservation. Pollastri, like others before her, names Marguerite as definitely the mother of Enrico, citing evidence from the "Registres
reconstruits de la Chancellerie angevine" (Naples, 1950-82) and the Sanseverino di Bisignano archive [op cit, note 10 on p 241]. She says that the marriage to Isualda was a political fix which may not have gone ahead or was childless.

The problems, mirabile dictu, don't end there: sources also disagree about the descent from Tommaso (and whichever wife ) through Enrico and his wife (whatever her given name) to Giovanna di Sanseverino, a great-grandmother of Jacquette de Luxembourg-St Pol and ancestor to many readers. Unfortunately this Giovanna isn't mentioned at all by Ammirato or other early sources (nor by Pollastri). Schwennicke [see ES, neue folge, VII, tafel 79] has her parentage at odds with that given by Turton and some others - the ES version makes her a daughter of Antonio di Sanseverino, count of Marsico, and
Isabeau de Baux; Turton has Antonio's uncle Roger (III) di Sanseverino, count of Mileto, and his second wife Marquise de Baux, citing only JW Imhoff, "Genealogica 20" (1710) in his selective bibliography. GW Watson, publishing 30 years before Turton, notes that Imhoff (in common with Ammirato) doesn't actually mention this Giovanna at all [see "The Seize Quartiers of the Kings and Queens of England", table XXX, 1st series, in The
Genealogist, NS, vol XII, note 7 on p 248]. However, Watson accords with Turton in remarking that she "was, perhaps, the same as Jane, dau. of Roger, Count of Mileto, by Marchesa del Balzo, his second wife". I'm not sure of his source for suggesting there ever was such a person - presumably either Ferrante della Marra's "Discorsi delle famiglie estinte" (1641) or F Sansovino's "Origine delle famiglie illustri d'Italia" (1670) which he cites for the same table. Pollastri records two of Roger III's daughters as certainly, and a third as possibly, from his marriage to Marquise de Baux/Marchesa del Balzo, with another one plus the doubtful extra from his earlier marriage to Giovanna d'Aquino, none of whom is named Giovanna (or plain Jane for that matter), though table I has a son Giovanni from the first union.

Schwennicke shows that Giovanna di Sanseverino's eldest child by Louis d'Enghien was a son called Antoine, a name new to the father's family. I don't have a record of his source(s) for this table, or for the de Baux table in band III where Giovanna's parents should also appear - it might be helpful if someone would post this information. If it's a primary source, I guess the evidence could well be a later dispensation for consanguinity, because assuming the ES lineage is correct then Jacquette de Luxembourg's parents would have been first cousins twice removed, unusually with the wife representing the senior generation. By the way, Sylvie Pollastri's study is less than helpful in this matter, since her relevant table leaves out Antonio di Sanseverino altogether and instead shows his son apparently breeding with the poor lad's own mother.

Returning to the great admiral di Lauria, I'm puzzled by Mr Borthwick's statement that he is buried in the church of Our Lady of Puig. I assume this is in Valencia where he died, but it seems to conflict with Jeronimo Zurita's account, which is as follows:

"Fue llevado su cuerpo al monasterio de Santas Creus y enterr´onle debajo de la sepultura del rey don Pedro...." [loc cit, lines 321-3]

The Benedictines apparently abandoned this monastery in the 19th century, so perhaps their church has been renamed since - like our lady Ilaria/Maria - to honour the queen of Heaven. In any event, it's well attested that Roger was buried according to his last wishes at the feet of his old master king Pedro III [see the article on Lauria by David Hannay in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed; and John H Pryor,"The naval batles of Roger di Lauria", in Journal of Medieval History, vol 9.3 (Sept 1983), p 211]. Another small mystery attaches to the date of his death - Zurita says 17 January 1305, yet Hannay has 2 January. Can someone who knows about the convoluted history of calendars across Europe tell us if by any chance Zurita (writing in Spain, 1562) and Hannay (in England, 1911) are referring to the same day in 1305?

There was a curious sequel to the burial: "In 1889, as a result of persistent rumours that the tomb was empty, it was opened and Lauria's remains were found in a broken coffin of exquisitely carved crystal or glass" [John H Pryor, loc cit]. Is it possible that a memorial inscription wrongly thought to mark his tomb in the church of Our Lady of Puig was the cause of those rumours, or that Roger was reburied in a different place after exhumation?

Below is a table showing the Lauria family through three generations. NB their precise connection to the later di Lauria family in Sicily has not been established.

ROGER I, signore of Lauria, killed in battle at Benevento 26 Feb 1266 m
BELLA d'AMICHI, nurse & governess to Costanza di Benevento (di Svevia),
later consort of Pedro III, king of Aragon
1 ROGER II, grand admiral of Aragon & Sicily, prince of Djerba & Kerkenna,
count of Malta & Gozo, b ca 1245/50, d 17 Jan 1305 (1) m MARGARITA LANCIA, d
bef 1289
1.1 BEATRIZ, señora of Cocentaïna m 1296 JAIME de ARAGÓN, señor of Ejérica,
b 1276, d 1321 (left issue - their eldest son m a dau of Charles II d'Anjou,
king of Sicily; their youngest son was probably ancestor of the later de
Luria family in Aragon through his illegitimate son who was granted the
barony of Cocentaïna)
1.2 ROGER III (called Rogerón), señor of Cocentaïna m NN (left issue)
1.3 ILARIA (? aka Maria), b ca 1280, d aft 1333 m ENRICO di SANSEVERINO,
signore of Cuccaro, constable of Sicily, d ? 1317-37 (left issue)
1.4 JUAN, Catalan provost of Thebes, fl 1359 m NN (left issue)
1.5 COSTANZA m OTON de MONCADA (left issue - their son Pedro de Moncada was
admiral of Aragon for king Pedro IV)
1 ROGER II (2) m SAURINA de ENTEZA, heiress of Cocentaïna, dau of BERENGUER
de ENTEZA, Aragonese commander-in-chief & GALABOR N
1.6 BERENGUER ROGER, señor of Cocentaïna, d sp 1328 m FAÏDA de MALOLEONE
1.7 ROBERTO, d vp
1.8 CARLO, b 1292, d 1335 m NN (left issue)
1.9 MARGARITA (1) m UGO di CHIAROMONTE, d ca 1319/20; (2) m BARTOLOMEO da
CAPUA, protonotary of the kingdom of Sicily; (3) m NICOLAS de JOINVILLE,
count of Terranova & Venafro, viceroy of Otranto
1.10 JAUFREDINA } one of whom m
1.11 SAURINA } GUILLÉN de SAN VICENTE
1 ROGER II had an illegitimate son by an unknown woman:
1.12 PERELLO
2 N (male) m NN
2.1 GIOVANNI, executed 1299 m ILARIA MALETTA, dau of MANFREDI MALETTA, count
of Gesualdo
3 ILARIA (according to Giuseppe Volpi)

______________________________

PS: There is a tenuous link between Roger di Lauria and a Doria after all, though it belongs to historiography rather than to genealogy: in his "Annali Genovesi" Iacopo Doria recounts a pirate raid on Corfu & the Peloponnese commanded by the great admiral. This was part of an apparent challenge by Aragon to the neutrality of the Genoese, perhaps within a larger design to sour their delicate relations with the papacy, Venice and the Byzantine emperor Andronikos II. At any rate, Doria considered it one of the most remarkable events for Genoa in the course of AD 1292.

However, his coverage is very matter-of-fact - another version in the more rollicking "Cronica de la Morea" (anon) describes how Roger took to horse at Kalamata in single combat with the French knight Jean de Durnay. The admiral was promptly knocked in a heap from his mount (but then mariners have always been notoriously poor riders - as witness the puissant sea lord who flopped off his horse onto the Mall like a sack of potatoes in the coronation procession of queen Elizabeth II). Lauria struggled to his feet in time to save his opponent from a deadly revenge by his loyal sailors, and then courteously regretted that he didn't have a spare daughter to offer the Frenchman in marriage....never mind that the lady Ilaria/Maria was approaching nubility about then, and almost certainly hadn't been married to Enrico di Sanseverino already.

The grand admiral's domination of the seas caused the Genoese a long headache through the 1290s: it was said that not even a fish dared to swim by without his safe-conduct. All the more wonder then that the editors of Italian reference books tend to forget Lauria's astonishing career today - sic tansit gloria maris [see Georg Caro, "Genoa und die Mächt am Mittelmeer, 1257-1311", 2 vols (1899, repr Aalen 1967)]

Peter Stewart, University of Western Australia

Posted on soc.genealogy.medieval.
Riviera dei Cedri.NET exoress gratitude to Peter Steward for the permission of publishing