struggle is suffused with the atmosphere of Holy War. Walter‘received a
blessing and absolution’from the legate before proceeding to battle, and
the count’s enemies perceived‘a shining golden cross’, miraculously
suspended in the air in front of him. In short, Walter’s victory‘was so
great that it seemed that thefirst had been almost nothing compared to
the second’.^57 Whilst Palear and Dipold escaped from the wreckage of
their forces, the count of Brienne netted a large number of prominent
captives.^58 The battle of Cannae marks the high point of Walter’s cam-
paign in southern Italy, even though it had only just started, and had
almost four years left to run.
In the wake of this second great success, though, difficulties began to
mount for the victor. The biggest problem may well have been a sudden
reduction in the number of crack French knights in Walter’s army. At
around this juncture, it seems, Walter of Montbéliard –and maybe
Eustace of Conflans too–left Walter III to it, deciding either that the
task was essentially done or that the time had come, in any case, to push
on to the Latin East.^59 For Walter III, the loss of these knights could have
been mitigated by the arrival of Innocent’s cousin, the papal marshal
James of Segni, leading a host of reinforcements; but there is reason to
doubt that these troops were anything like as good as the ones that had
gone. Walter and James were certainly meant to be working together. If
theGestais right, the pope appointed them both as masters and justiciars
of the Terra di Lavoro and Apulia.^60 But James was far more independ-
ent of Walter than the latter’s French kinsmen had been. The marshal
had his own interests and concerns that did not always coalesce with
Walter’s. For example, the pope instructed that a range of territories
should be assigned to James, whom he regarded as the rightful count of
Andria, and‘he ordered the count of Brienne to provide assistance to
help [his cousin] obtain the county’.^61
Indeed, it soon became embarrassingly obvious that Innocent and
Walter were not seeing eye to eye. As early as the immediate aftermath
of the battle of Cannae, the pope had wanted Walter to cross over to
Sicily to root out the Church’s chief enemies there, but Walter showed
(^57) Ibid., ch. 34.
(^58) Seeibid., ch. 34; Richard of San Germano,Chronica, 23; and the pope’s letter in
Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris, 1844–64), vol. ccxiv, cols. 993–6.
(^59) See Longnon,Les compagnons de Villehardouin,19–21. By contrast, Robert of Joinville
seems to have remained with Walter III in southern Italy, and died there in 1203
60 (ibid., 20).
61 The Deeds of Pope Innocent III, ch. 37.
Ibid., ch. 37. For further signs of tension between the two, see Innocent’s letter in
Patrologia Latina, vol. ccxv, cols. 409–10.
44 Breakthrough and High Point (c. 1191–1237)