VESUVIUS DURING THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES 561 



turies, are our only sources relating to the ash-eruption of 685, which 

 continued ' mense martio per dies aliquot.' This is reckoned as the 

 fifth in the list of recorded disturbances. 



There now ensues a period of dire poverty in Italian chronicles, and 

 we hear nothing further of Vesuvius for nearly three hundred years. 

 Then are found meager and incidental notices of two eruptions, during 

 the earlier of which lava flows reached the sea, a symptom of high 

 intensity, only twice repeated in modern times. The unique authority 

 for these events is Petrus Damianus, a prolific and most singular 

 polemical writer of the early eleventh century, monk and cardinal, 

 whom Balzani describes as having ' treated in prose and verse every 

 possible subject, whether in literature, homilies, lives of saints, political 

 or religious treatises. 4 Some confusion exists regarding the dates of 

 these eruptions. This arises from the fact that the years in which 

 they occurred are unmentioned, although names are given instead of 

 petty princes with whose deaths they synchronized, the coincidence 

 being interpreted in a manner usual to the times. Later on we find an 

 extract of Peter's account appearing in a postscript to Leo of Marsi's 

 *' Chronicon ' under date of 1049, where, unfortunately, the name of the 

 reigning duke of Naples, John III., is omitted, thus leaving it uncer- 

 tain which one of the numerous family of Capuan princes was intended. 

 Recently the tangle has been unraveled by the Neapolitan historian 

 Capasso, 5 who is no doubt correct in assigning the events in question to 

 the years 968 (in lieu of 982) and autumn of 999, respectively. By a 

 fortunate chance, the original draft of Leo of Marsi's chronicle is still 

 preserved at Munich, and, with its erasures and numerous additions, 

 clearly shows what use was made by the author of his materials in pre- 

 paring finished copy. 



For a brief mention of the eighth recorded eruption we are indebted 

 to a wandering monk, Eodulphus Glaber, of whom little is known 

 except that he lived at various monasteries, including those of Beze and 

 Cluny, after having traveled extensively in Italy. His history, pub- 

 lished 1047, is not without value for contemporary events, and is 

 regarded as reliable in the main, hence no reason appears for doubting 

 his account of a violent eruption in 1007. By some authors the passage 

 has been understood to read seven years before instead of after the 

 millenium, hence the earlier date is often incorrectly given in cata- 

 logues of eruptions. Mabillon recalls that the year 1006 was 



4 Ugo Balzani. ' Le cronache italiane nel medio evo.,' 2d ed. (Milan, 1900). 

 The complete works of Petrns Damianus are edited by Migne, ' Patrolog. lat./ 

 Vols. CXLIV., CXLV. (Paris, 1853). Cf. Opusculis xix., c. 9 et 10. 



B B. Capasso, ' Monumenta Neapolitani Ducatus,' Vol. I., p. 114. For an 

 account of tlie Pandulf line of princes, see the article by M. Schipa in Archiv. 

 Slorico Prov. Napoletane, ann. XII. (1887), p. 254, and compare the genealog- 

 ical table given in Pflugk-Harttung's 'Iter Italicum,' p. 711. * 

 vol. lxix. — 36. 



