Falco of Benevento

Falco of Benevento (Italian: Falcone) was an Italian twelfth-century historian, notary and scribe in the papal palace in Benevento, his native city, where he was born to high-standing parents.

He is an important chronicler for the years between 1102 and 1139 in the Mezzogiorno. As an historian, he is not only reliable, as he was often an eyewitness to events he recounts, but also partisan, for he was a Lombard by birth and he fiercely opposed the Normans, whom he saw as barbarians.

Part of his chronicle are now lost, but were apparently used for the year 1099–1103 and 1140–49 in the Chronica Romanorum pontificum et imperatorum ac de rebus in Apulia gestis.

Editions

• Chronicon Beneventanum at The Latin Library.
• Chronicon Beneventanum at the Centro Europea di Studi Normanni.

Sources

• Norwich, John Julius. The Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194. Longman: London, 1970.