Guaimar IV of Salerno
He was, according to Amatus of Montecassino, "more courageous than his father, more generous and more courteous; indeed he possessed all the qualities a layman should have—except that he took an excessive delight in women.
"[3] He was born around the year 1013, the eldest son of Guaimar III of Salerno by Gaitelgrima, daughter of Duke Pandulf II of Benevento.
In 1022, the Emperor Henry II campaigned in southern Italy against the Greeks and sent Pilgrim, Archbishop of Cologne, to attack Pandulf IV of Capua, nicknamed the "Wolf of the Abruzzi", and Guaimar of Salerno.
The younger Guaimar succeeded his father in Salerno in 1027 (at the age of fourteen or sixteen, possibly under the regency of his mother during his brief minority).
In 1036, he received word that his uncle and erstwhile ally, Pandulf of Capua, had attempted to rape his niece, the daughter of his wife's sister and the Duke of Sorrento.
In 1037, Guaimar made the politically savvy request of arbitration to both the Holy Roman and Byzantine emperors over the issue of Pandulf's unfitness to rule.
He also received the homage of the Duke of Naples as a vassal, John V, who had brought the request for mediation to Constantinople in 1037.
After October 1041, Guaimar ceases to appear in the acts of Gaeta and it seems he was replaced by a popular usurper related to the old dynasty, Leo.
The Byzantines, who had not responded to Guaimar's earlier request for help, were preparing an expedition under the great general Giorgio Maniace.
Guaimar sent, at their request, a cohort of Lombard and Norman warriors, the first of which was one William, who, in Sicily, won the epithet "Iron Arm".
Guaimar was only duke by acclamation of the men he appointed as vassals and it was by the authority of the ducal title that he installed them in Melfi.
Rainulf Drengot, who still held Aversa, originally from the Duke of Naples, died in 1045 and his county passed, against all protestation from Guaimar, to his nephew Asclettin.
Finally, he deprived Guaimar of his title over Apulia and Calabria, bringing to an end that troublesome feudal oddity.
At a synod in Benevento in July 1051, Pope Leo IX besought Guaimar and Drogo to stop the Norman incursions on church lands.
The Normans, however, who maintained they were not bound by Guy's oath, massacred the four brothers and thirty-six others, one for each stab wound found in Guaimar's body.
Guaimar's legacy includes his dominion, either by conquest or otherwise, over Salerno, Amalfi, Gaeta, Naples, Sorrento, Apulia, Calabria, and Capua at one time or another.
He was the last great Lombard prince of the south, but perhaps he is best known for his character, which the Lord Norwich sums up this way: "...without once breaking a promise or betraying a trust.
"[8] Peter Damian, a contemporary, in a tract written for Pope Nicholas II, held a different view: Guaimar "was killed by the sword because of his many acts of violence and tyrannical oppression".
