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Walter Ophamil

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Walter OphamilorOffamil(fl.1160–1191), italianised asGualtiero OffamiglioorOffamiliofromLatinOphamilius,was thearchdeaconofCefalù,deanofAgrigento,andarchbishop of Palermo(1168–1191), called "il primo ministro",the first minister of the crown. He came toSicilywithPeter of BloisandStephen du Percheat the direction ofRotrou, Archbishop of Rouen,cousin of QueenMargaret of Navarre,originally as atutorto the royal children ofWilliam I of Sicilyand Margaret. His mother was Bona, a patron of theAbbey of Clunyand adevota et fidelis nostraof the king in 1172. His father is unknown. From his name he was long thought to be an Englishman ( "Walter of the Mill" ) but this interpretation is now rejected in favour ofophamiliusreferring to Walter asWilliam II'sprotofamiliaris,[1]the senior confidant of the king in his royal household, thefamiliaris regis.

Biography

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Walter's first appearance in the historical record is at court as the Latin tutor of the children of William I in 1160. He rose through the ranks until he was a canon of theCappella Palatinaand a candidate for the vacant archiepiscopal throne of 1168, after the deposition ofStephen du Perche.According toHugo Falcandus,Walter succeeded "less by election than by violent intrusion." Nevertheless, without the support of thequeen regentor of the influentialThomas Becket,his faction bribedPope Alexander IIIinto confirming his election and he was consecrated in theCathedral of Palermoon 28 September. He received distinctly double-edged congratulations from Peter of Blois, who refers in a letter to his "humble birth".

Walter was a constant companion of the court ofWilliam II,whose tutor he had been. He accompanied William toTarantoto await his Byzantine bride and, failing that, he crownedJoanna,daughter ofHenry II of England,as queen consort on 13 February 1177.

In 1174, the first fruits of a plan of the king and the vice-chancellor,Matthew of Ajello,began to flower. The pope issued the first of a short series ofbullsfavouring the cause of creating a new archdiocese in Sicily, centred on theBenedictineCluniacabbey of Monreale,a recent foundation of William's. The abbot of said abbey would automatically be consecrated archbishop by any prelate of the realm approved of the king. The tradition of the Hagia Kyriaka, the chapel of the oldGreek Orthodoxmetropolitans of Sicily, on the grounds of Monreale greatly strengthened the king's cause in an era when tradition was so valued. The archbishop of Palermo was greatly diminished in power by the consecration of the firstarchbishop of Monreale,in the spring of 1176. Walter began the construction of a new cathedral in Palermo at this time, to counter the effects of the beautiful Monreale, the new mausoleum of theHauteville dynasty.On William's death in 1189, Walter fought vainly against the archbishop of Monreale over the body of the king.

In 1184, Walter gave his support to the marriage ofConstance,daughter ofRoger II,withHenry,son ofFrederick Barbarossa.He was one of the only ones, for Constance, as the only legitimate heir to the throne, was long confined to a monastery due to a prophecy that "her marriage would destroy Sicily". Although he supported Constance to succeed William II, at the request ofPope Clement III,he had to crownTancred of Lecceking in his cathedral in early January 1190. He died of natural causes early in 1191 and was buried in his rebuilt cathedral. Besides the cathedral, reworked so many times over the centuries, Walter left as architectural nods to his patronage of the arts the chapels of Santa Cristina and Santo Spirito. The latter is the "church of the Vespers," the church in front of which the first insult and the first murder of theSicilian Vesperstook place in 1282.

Richard of S. Germanocalled him and Matthew "the two firmest columns of the Kingdom." Modern historiography has been less kind.John Julius Norwichcalls him "the most baleful influence on the kingdom," because "there is no evidence of his having taken a single constructive step to improve the Sicilian position or to advance Sicilian fortunes." He has been reckoned a leader of the feudatories against which all Sicilian kings fought for their royal prerogatives and, byFerdinand Chalandon,as an imperialist who supported Henry in order to stand opposed to the inevitable civil war.

In literature, Walter, on the basis of his supposed English birth, was credited as the author of a Latin rudiments byJohn Balein the 1550s.Léopold Hervieuxidentified Walter with theAnglo-NormanauthorGualterus Anglicus.He went so far as to suggest that Gualterus' (Walter's) Latin versifications ofAesop's fableswere intended to instruct and entertain the young William II.

References

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  1. ^Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, B., eds. (2004-09-23)."The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. ref:odnb/28630.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/28630.Retrieved2020-03-23.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)

Sources

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  • Loewenthal, L. J. A. (1972). "For the biography of Walter Ophamil, archbishop of Palermo".The English Historical Review87:75–82.
  • Matthew, Donald J. A. (2004)."Walter (d. 1190)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.Oxford: Oxford University Press. Accessed 8 July 2008.
  • Norwich, J. J.(1970).The Kingdom in the Sun, 1130–1194.London: Longmans.
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