After the invasion of the Normans, it was for a while the seat of a duchy; later, however, it became a fief of the dukes of Atri.

Local tradition preserves the name of a bishop, Simplicius, who attended the Roman synod of 487 and died in 492, but he belongs to legend, not history.

[3] Ferdinando Ughelli[4] prints the narrative of Francesco Giuliano of Conversano concerning Simplicius, but states that it seems to him to be highly suspect, and maybe deliberately invented falsehoods or corrupt, since there are some things found in it which cannot be true.

His name however is a false reading of the acts of the synod; he actually belonged to Tempsa in the Abruzzi, not to Conversano in Apulia.

In 1670 (and 1744) the Chapter of the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Body of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven was composed of four dignities (the Archdeacon, the Archpriest, the Cantor and the Primicerius[6]) and twenty-six Canons.