Atenulf I of Capua

Who was Atenulf I of Capua?

Atenulf I, called the Great, was the prince of Capua from 7 January 887 and of Benevento from 899, when he conquered that principality. He also used the title princeps gentis Langobardorum: "prince of the Lombard people," an echo of the title used by the earliest prince of Benevento following the collapse of Lombard cohesion in 774.

The son of Landenulf, gastald of Teano, Atenulf, through his influence and conquests, succeeded in vindicating his Lombard family's pretensions to princely status, à la those of Benevento and Salerno. From the 879, Capua had been contested between several candidates, but, by 887, Atenulf had removed his brothers and cousins from contention and become sole prince with the assistance of the hypatus Athanasius of Naples. In the next year, he was at war with Athanasius over "Liburnia." They fought an indecisive battle at S. Carzio on the Clanio.

Atenulf then turned his attention to Benevento, which had recently been under Byzantine and then Spoletan control. He conquered it from the once-deposed Prince Radelchis II in 899 and was acclaimed prince in Santa Sofia in Benevento in January 900. He was opposed by the one-time regent of Benevento, the Bishop Peter, whom he exiled to Salerno. Having united most of the Lombard Mezzogiorno, he directed his aggression towards the Saracens of the Garigliano.