Richard III of Gaeta

Richard III (died 1140/1), also known as Richard of Caleno, was the Norman count of Carinola and last quasi-independent Duke of Gaeta, ruling from 1121 to his death. From 1113, he was regent of Gaeta for his cousin or nephew, Duke Jonathan; in 1121 he succeeded him. As duke he was a nominal vassal of the Princes of Capua, to whom he was related.

Richard was the son of Count Bartholomew of Carinola, as attested by Peter the Deacon, who calls him Bartholomei de Caleno filius in his Chronicon Cassinense. Richard himself refers to his father in the grandiose title he used in charters in November 1123 and November 1127: "Richard, ordained by divine clemency consul and duke of the aforesaid city [of Gaeta], son of Lord Bartholomew of old, descended from the princes of Capua and the counts of Carinola of pious memory."

Bartholomew was a brother of Prince Jordan I of Capua and Count Jonathan I of Carinola. Richard was thus a member of the extended Drengot family. Duke Jonathan, who preceded Richard at Gaeta, may have been the son of Count Jonathan. Graham Loud presents an alternate genealogy, making Richard a son of Count Jonathan and Duke Jonathan his nephew, being a son of an unnamed brother of Richard.

Richard was married to a woman named Anna. Their son, Jonathan (died 1162×66), inherited the county of Carinola and was compensated for the loss of Gaeta, which passed to the crown after Richard's death, by the grant of the county of Conza.

According to Peter the Deacon, after the death of Duke Richard II in 1111, his widow, Rangarda, fought Count Richard of Carinola "for [control of] the duchy of Gaeta" (pro ducatu Cagetano). Peter never refers to Richard of Carinola as duke of Gaeta, preferring to call him simply the "lord of Carinola" (dominus Caleni). After the death of Richard II's heir in 1113, Jonathan was installed as duke, with Richard as regent, by Prince Robert I of Capua. Jonathan is known from the Codex Caietanus to have been in the fourth year of his minority in 1116 and the seventh of his rule in 1119. As a sign of Gaeta's independence, between March or May 1113 and July 1114 he and Richard issued charters dated to the joint reign of the Byzantine emperors Alexios I (1081–1118) and John II (1092–1143). In 1114 Richard confirmed the abbey of Montecassino in its possessions in Fondi, Ceccano, Aquino, Venafro, Alife and Teano. In 1115 Rangarda seized the tower and other possessions of the abbey at Suio in retaliation for the imprisonment of her second husband, Alexander, count of Sessa Aurunca. By 1117 Richard had helped restore to it its estates. In March 1118, when the Emperor Henry V installed an antipope, Gregory VIII in Rome, the legitimate Pope Gelasius II fled to his home town of Gaeta. Though he was a monk and a deacon, he had never been ordained or consecrated a priest. At Gaeta his ordination and consecration took place on 9–10 March, according to the Liber pontificalis (the official papal history), in the presence of Duke Richard (regent for Jonathan), Duke William II of Apulia and Prince Robert I of Capua. These three then swore homage to the pope.

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