Roger of Lauria, also Ruggero or Ruggiero di
Lauria or Llúria (c. 1245 – January 17, 1305) was an Italian admiral,
who was commander of the fleet of Aragon during the War of the Sicilian Vespers. He was
probably the most successful and talented naval tactician of the Medieval
period. Most of what is known about Roger of Lauria comes from the chronicle of Ramon
Muntaner, an Aragonese official who wrote between 1325-8 and who had
witnessed some of the sea fights he described. In addition, there are official
letters and documents in the archives of
Ruggero di Lauria was born at Lauria or Scalea in Calabria
in southern Italy, the son of Richard
of Lauria, Great Justicer of the Kingdom
of Naples, and Donna Bella, a nurse of Constance of Hohenstaufen. His father had
served under King Manfred of Sicily; when the last member of that
family, Conradin of Swabia, was beheaded at Naples in
1268, he took refuge with other Ghibelline exiles at Barcelona (Aragon) with his
mother.
Later King Peter III of Aragon, who had married Constance
of Hohenstaufen, made him knight together with Corrado
Lancia, who was to be a fellow of Roger in many of his enterprises.
In 1282 Roger was named commander of the Aragonese fleet, keeping this charge
under Peter's successors James II and Frederick III.
Roger’s position was defined as
Admiral of the Catalan-Aragonese fleet in 1283. The admiral’s duties included:
1) command of ships, galleys, and other vessels assigned to him, as well as
equipment and supplies to arm the fleet; 2) ships, galleys, and other vessels
constructed by the admiral; 3) recruitment of men for the fleet and their pay;
4) exercise of justice within the fleet; 5) costs for building, maintaining,
and repairing the royal arsenals; 6) control of piracy and the distribution of
prize money; 7) costs of buying and transporting food and other merchandise on
ships for court business; 8) money assigned to the office for all of the above;
9) collection and control of taxes raised to support the fleet. By 1285 Roger’s
command included also the
Roger of Lauria commanded the
Aragonese fleet during the campaign to capture Sicily from the Angevins after
the Sicilian Vespers revolt in 1282, which made the
Aragonese rulers of
On 4 September
1285 (Battle of Les Formigues) during the Aragonese
Crusade, he defeated the French near Barcelona, which destroyed for a long
time the French naval power in the Mediterranean.
Within days, he had landed and took part in the Battle of the Col de Panissars. On 23 June 1287 (Battle of the Counts) he again defeated the
Angevins near
When James II’s younger brother
Frederick was elected King Frederick III of Trinacria (
Roger was successful in naval
warfare because of several skillful tactics. He tried to lure enemy fleets out
of defended ports, pretending to retreat and getting them to chase him until
they became disorganized, then turning in formation to attack. He had much more
control over his captains than the enemies did. His crews were made up of
specialized troops, instead of the more generic types used by his enemies. His Catalan
archers were used initially, while his oarsmen and/or almogàvers
or amulgavars (unarmored and highly mobile troops armed with two javelins, a
lance and a dagger) stayed under cover. When the galleys closed, often from the
sides of the enemy galleys (which damaged their oars), these almogàvers
were much more agile than the heavily armored knights with swords his enemies
often used, especially on the moving deck of a galley at sea. He used trickery
to disguise the size of his force. In addition, he sometimes kept some of his
galleys hidden, to attack the rear of the enemy after the battle had started.
The first battle in which Lauria
commanded was in the Grand
Harbour of Malta on 8 July 1283. It demonstrates his naval tactics. The enemy Angevins occupied the Castel St Angelo and were under
attack from the landward side by Aragonese forces. An Angevin relief force of
20 galleys from
Lauria upon reaching
Three main tactical features of naval warfare in this battle:
1)
Lauria
orders his ships to form in a line and all the galleys to be lashed together
into a bridled line.
2)
Lauria
used crossbowmen and petraries, darts, arrows, lances, fire-raising devices.
Catalan crossbowmen were especially well known for their ability.
3)
Use
of almogavers as the marines on Catalan galleys: protected only by leather
jackets and armed with javelins, lance, and dagger, they were more nimble than
knights in armour in close combat on a ship.
4)
Fighting
in sheltered waters, a common characteristic of all Lauria’s battles
5)
In a
different battle (in harbor at
General naval tactics (Rose 123-33)
1)
Naval
battles involved two fleets approaching each other, exchanging missile fire,
grappling, and boarding. The rams on medieval galleys were above the water
line. They were not made to sink enemy ships but served as a bridge for
boarding.
2)
Chronicles
report the use of quicklime to blind at enemy (but quicklime rarely appears in
official financial accounts of naval stores)
3)
Fire
ships sailed into the midst of enemy fleets and the use of Greek fire to burn
enemy ships. Lawrence Mott (“Battle of Malta” 162-3), however, contends that
historians have exaggerated the use of fire in naval warfare. Although the
chronicles report the use of fire during sieges by both the besieging fleets and
the defenders of the besieged towns, there are actually few references in the
sources for the War of the Sicilian Vespers to the use of fire to burn enemy
ships. Mott suggests several reasons for this. Given the close quarters at
which ships fought, a firepot launched on to an enemy deck could easily begin a
fire that might spread to one’s own ship. The handling of incendiary materials
at sea had its own dangers. An accident might result in one’s own ship going up
in flames. Finally, ships were expensive weapons systems and it was far
preferable to capture one than to destroy it—which is also the reason that,
unlike in ancient naval warfare, rams in medieval galley warfare were located
above the waterline.
Limitations of ships (medieval sailed ships had difficulty tacking; late
fifteenth-century ships could sail close to the wind, which meant that they
weren’t as much at the mercy of the weather).
Many of Roger’s military actions
were amphibious raids. As was common in medieval warfare of the time, the goal
of Roger’s raiding was to destroy the enemy’s economy and enrich himself and
his troops. Roger, confident in the prowess of his almogavers, was not
reluctant to face local defense forces in battle, and was invariably successful
in such engagements. He also engaged in wide scale piracy. By Lawrence Mott’s
calculations, most of the profit from these raids came from ransoms (of noble
Christian captives) and sale of slaves (Muslim captives taken in his raids
along the North African coast) rather than from the seizure of ships and cargo.
Roger also profited by imposing tributes
on coastal cities as a price for not sacking them. Roger was infamous in his
day for his ruthless sackings of towns and the devastation wrought by his
almogavers, much of which, hostile contemporary chroniclers believed (not
Muntaner), was driven by his desire for personal gain. Lawrence Mott, however,
has shown that piracy and raiding was the greatest source of fleet revenues
outside of the fleet tax. In fact, “virtually all of the revenues from piracy,
raiding, slaving, and tribute supported the fleet” (Sea Power 124). His raiding of coastal areas, which tended to
follow his defeat of an Angevin fleet in a naval battle, also had the strategic
goal of demoralizing the enemy and depriving the Angevins of resources. This
was particularly true of his great 1286-87 raid into