quam paucitas bellatorum elidunt.]

[Footnote 136: The Normans and Sicilians appear to be confounded.]

The hopes, or at least the wishes, of Falcandus were at first gratified
by the free and unanimous election of Tancred, the grandson of the first
king, whose birth was illegitimate, but whose civil and military virtues
shone without a blemish. During four years, the term of his life and
reign, he stood in arms on the farthest verge of the Apulian frontier,
against the powers of Germany; and the restitution of a royal captive,
of Constantia herself, without injury or ransom, may appear to surpass
the most liberal measure of policy or reason. After his decease, the
kingdom of his widow and infant son fell without a struggle; and Henry
pursued his victorious march from Capua to Palermo. The political
balance of Italy was destroyed by his success; and if the pope and the
free cities had consulted their obvious and real interest, they would
have combined the powers of earth and heaven to prevent the dangerous
union of the German empire with the kingdom of Sicily. But the subtle
policy, for which the Vatican has so often been praised or arraigned,
was on this occasion blind and inactive; and if it were true that
Celestine the Third had kicked away the Imperial crown from the head
of the prostrate Henry, [137] such an act of impotent pride could serve
only to cancel an obligation and provoke an enemy. The Genoese, who
enjoyed a beneficial trade and establishment in Sicily, listened to the
promise of his boundless gratitude and speedy departure: [138] their
fleet commanded the straits of Messina, and opened the harbor of
Palermo; and the first act of his government was to abolish the
privileges, and to seize the property, of these imprudent allies. The
last hope of Falcandus was defeated by the discord of the Christians and
Mahometans: they fought in the capital; several thousands of the latter
were slain; but their surviving brethren fortified the mountains, and
disturbed above thirty years the peace of the island. By the policy of
Frederic the Second, sixty thousand Saracens were transplanted to Nocera
in Apulia. In their wars against the Roman church, the emperor and
his son Mainfroy were strengthened and disgraced by the service of the
enemies of Christ; and this national colony maintained their religion
and manners in the heart of Italy, till they were extirpated, at the
end of the thirteenth century, by the zeal and rev