Jordan II of Capua

He was married, before 1113, to Gaitelgrima, daughter of Sergius, Prince of Sorrento, a union which allowed him to extend his influence down the Amalfi coast from his castle at Nocera.

[1] Before falling to the troops of Count Roger I of Sicily, Nocera had been the central town of one of the subdivisions, either an actus (circuit, jurisdiction) or comitatus (county), of the Principality of Salerno.

A diploma Jordan issued in September 1111, with the consent of his brother, in favour of the monastery of Santissima Trinità di Cava de' Tirreni is dated by the reign of Duke William II of Apulia.

A few days later, in the presence of Sergius of Sorrento, among others, Jordan swore to protect the person of the abbot and several fortresses belonging to the abbey, including the strategic castle of Sant'Adiutore.

[1] In March 1114 Jordan organised a gathering of prominent Normans, including his brother, at Nocera in order to extract oaths from Robert of Eboli and Roger of San Severino to stop their hostile actions against Cava.

[1] In January 1115 he confirmed some goods to the monastery of San Massimo di Salerno, a dependency of Cava, which had been forced to take its claims to court against the citizens of Nocera.

His grant of the strategic castle of Pico to Monte Cassino in February 1125 may disguise his efforts to extend his authority into the remotest parts of the principality, or even into the monastery itself, which was forced to accept a compromise in order to receive the fortress.

Seal of Jordan II from a document of 1125, depicting the city of Capua and the words CAPUA SPECIOSA ("Fair Capua").
Map showing the Principality of Capua in 1112 (Capua represented by a star). Nocera is shown as the site of the later battle of Nocera and within the Duchy of Naples . In fact, the precise borders of these states are difficult to reconstruct. The Sorrentine peninsula juts out to the west of Salerno .