More City-States in Southern Italy?

IOTL, Southern Italy was consolidated into the Kingdom of Naples/Sicily under the Normans relatively early on. Earlier states like Benevento, Amalfi, Capua, Salerno, and Apulia+Calabria fell under one ruler. What if these states continued to act de facto independently? What if the prevalence of the city-state form of government was also felt in the Mezzogiorno? Could we see the development of new language divides? How would this affect the politics of the region? What cities/towns could you see developing independently? (Amalfi is an obvious one as is Naples, but some less expected ones might be interesting too!)
 
Get rid of the Normans, and you'll end up with a situation not too dissimilar from that of the North: Byzantine merchant republics on the coast, and Lombard principalities in the interior. However, while in the North the Po Valley's fertility allowed for the birth of republican, trade-oriented city-states even in the interior, the Lombard principalities of the hilly South will soon fall under the direct or indirect control of the coastal polities, in such a way that regional pseudo-monarchical Signorie might arise in the South much earlier than in the North.

Language will be influenced by those developments, too: the distance between ATL northern and southern languages will not be as great, due to a greater amount of Lombard influence in the South, but instead of having Neapolitan and Sicilian dominate, the Mezzogiorno will be home to a great number of Romance languages with a Greek substratum and a Lombard superstratum, and the Griko dialect of Greek might end up becoming far more widespread and divergent from the Greek spoken in Greece, too - maybe, enough so to count as a true neo-Hellenic language.

Religion, too: many of the coastal polities were Orthodox, and the Lombards had quite the independent streak as well, as far as religion went. Add just enough Islamic influences to the mix, and the region might end up as a hotbed of heresy like no other.
 
There are certainly indications that the southern cities, or at least some of them, were developing in this direction in the 11th and 12th centuries. At Naples, for instance, the exiled Duke Sergius (possibly Sergius IV in the 1030s) was permitted to return to Naples only if he signed a charter in which he agreed that he would not make war or peace nor create any new tax without consulting with his subjects, that he would abstain from all unjust imprisonments and confiscations, and that he would not interfere with Neapolitan commerce. In the late 11th century, the abbey of Monte Cassino - a very considerable landowner - felt it necessary to recognize the "ancient customs and liberties" of towns within its sphere. In the 12th century, in the early Norman period, there were a number of urban revolts against Norman rule. But whatever civic spirit that may have been developing around this time was quashed by the Normans.

I suspect a "Mezzogiorno of communes" might indeed be possible, but at a bare minimum Norman rule would have to be averted. Political development analagous to northern Italy may be necessary, in which a strong but fairly remote power (as in the HRE) presides over the region, and is formidable enough to dissuade outside invasion but too distant to strongly assert royal power and prerogatives. A timeline in which the Byzantines do better might do the trick - not necessarily an immense Byzantine-wank, but a situation in which the empire manages to maintain their loose hegemony in southern Italy at least through the 12th century and is untroubled by the Normans.

The most obvious candidates for significance as city-states are Bari, Naples, and Salerno, but other Byzantine-zone cities like Brindisi and Taranto are plausible choices. Benevento and Capua are probably more likely to remain as signorial states in the interior rather than communes, although I don't think their fate is set in stone. I suspect Gaeta is unlikely to escape Papal influence and will probably remain a Roman dependency.

Amalfi is, IMO, doomed. Aside from their poor geographical position, Amalfi's problem is that its rise and prosperity depended absolutely upon trade with the Muslim world, but by the 12th century that trade has been snatched up by Venice, Pisa, and Genoa, who have far greater resources than little Amalfi and will almost inevitably strangle them into irrelevance. Normans or not, their golden age is over, and they are unlikely to keep their independence. The most likely possibility, I think, is that they are absorbed as a satellite by either Naples or Salerno. Amalfi, and the Sorrento peninsula in general, could well be a lasting bone of contention between those two city-states.
 
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What might become of Sicily here, given a number of cities on the island? Presumably the Muslims probably wouldn't hold onto it- a loose hegemony, be it Frankish or Byzantine, is still IMHO likely to clientize the Sicilian emirate which is probably also on its way out (about perhaps the island could become a super sardinia, fought over by northern cities or even a Republic of Naples).
 
IOTL, Southern Italy was consolidated into the Kingdom of Naples/Sicily under the Normans relatively early on. Earlier states like Benevento, Amalfi, Capua, Salerno, and Apulia+Calabria fell under one ruler. What if these states continued to act de facto independently? What if the prevalence of the city-state form of government was also felt in the Mezzogiorno? Could we see the development of new language divides? How would this affect the politics of the region? What cities/towns could you see developing independently? (Amalfi is an obvious one as is Naples, but some less expected ones might be interesting too!)
How about Rome itself ? There had been been atemts to built a Republican state in ancient tradition.
 
What might become of Sicily here, given a number of cities on the island? Presumably the Muslims probably wouldn't hold onto it- a loose hegemony, be it Frankish or Byzantine, is still IMHO likely to clientize the Sicilian emirate which is probably also on its way out (about perhaps the island could become a super sardinia, fought over by northern cities or even a Republic of Naples).

Although not the military equals of the Normans, the Lombards were not completely without armed force that could intervene in Sicily. There was, after all, a Lombard contingent from Salerno serving in the expeditionary force of George Maniakes in the 1030s. Continued civil war and instability in Sicily is likely to draw in the Lombard states in one way or another, although a total conquest within 30 years as the Normans managed seems unlikely. Pisa, too, had interests in Sicily, and even raided Palermo in 1063, although their rivalry with Genoa - which was just getting started around that time - might prevent them from exerting themselves fully in Sicilian affairs.

I'm not sure exactly how the reduction of Muslim Sicily would progress, and a lot probably depends on the POD - if a more successful Byzantium is our starting point, another imperial expedition is possible ("Maniakes 2.0"), which would necessarily involve a lot of local Lombard troops and might leave them in a powerful position if and when Byzantine authority wanes. If the HRE manages to extend its authority so far south, as the Ottonians attempted to do, an imperial-led attack on Sicily is also possible. But if it's left entirely up to the southern Italians and the maritime city-states, I'd imagine the most likely result is a slow decline in which the Muslim states have no choice but to grant increasing privileges and concessions to outside powers upon whom they depend economically and militarily, leading to the clientalization and eventually dissolution of those states. Initially this process might resemble Norman Africa more than anything else, albeit with multiple Christian protagonists. Skilled Muslim leaders might be able to play these various Christian states off each other and profit, at least for a time.

How about Rome itself ? There had been been atemts to built a Republican state in ancient tradition.

"Attempt" is exceedingly generous. It's difficult to see a path to success for the Roman Commune or any similar Roman civic movement, and the increased independence of the southern cities is unlikely to change that.
 
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