Alfonso of Capua

[1] He was probably named after his maternal grandfather, King Alfonso VI of Castile,[1] but contemporary sources invariably use the spellings Anfusus, Anphusus or Amphusus.

[a] To underline the royal authority, Roger and his sons made a solemn entry into Capua and had the principality's vassals swear fealty to their new prince and to their king and his heir.

[3][4] In this way, the traditional principalities of southern Italy nominally retained their autonomy, but as integral parts of the kingdom, royal appanages.

He was still governing there during the imperial invasion of 1137,[8] when the army of the German emperor Lothair II briefly occupied Capua and reinstated Prince Robert.

[11] The acquisition of Naples and the papal banner occurred around the same time, and Alfonso thus became the ruler of two small principalities at about the age of nineteen.

On the whole, his office appears to have been primarily a military one, and he acted more as a representative of the royal power than as the prince of an old and well-defined country.

[18] In March 1140, acting on his father's orders, Alfonso commenced the conquest of the Abruzzo, which belonged to the Duchy of Spoleto, part of the kingdom of Italy.

"[21][d] In July 1142, the king and Alfonso held a great court at Silva Marca near Ariano, attended by all the counts of the mainland.

All the conquered territories in the Abruzzo and Latium were then divided by the between Apulia and Capua, Alfonso taking the lands to the west of the Gran Sasso d'Italia.

[19] At Ceprano in early June 1144, King Roger and Alfonso opened negotiations with Pope Lucius II, who demanded the restoration of the Principality of Capua as a full papal fief.

[24] The king left to prepare a naval expedition,[21] while Alfonso invaded the papal state, taking the towns of Rieti and Amiterno.

[8] An elegy for an unnamed "son of Roger the Frank, lord of Sicily" by the Sicilian poet Abū l-Ḍawʾ was about either Alfonso or his older brother Tancred.