History and etymology of Roccamena
Roccamena (Calatrasi) was included in the ecclesiastic jurisdiction of the Bishop of Mazara, who in 1176 renounced his rights in favour of the new Diocese of Monreale, with the privilege confirmed in March 1182. In August 1176 William II, called "The Good" (1155-1189), founded the monastery of Santa Maria Nuova of Monreale, and he endowed the church with numerous properties.
The donation made by the Norman sovereign included the castles of Iato, Corleone and Calatrasi: “Concedimus etiam ei castellum Iati et castellum Corilionis et castellum Calatatrasi [or K-alatatrasi=Calatrasi] cum omnibus tenimentis et pertineciis eorum (...), secundum divisiones eorum que continetur in alio privilegio nostro” [ We grant it also the castles of Iato, Corleone and Calatrasi with all the lands and their appurtenances (...) according to their 'divise', contained in another our privilege] ( See “Documenti per servire alla storia di Sicilia”, 1899, p. 177) .
In 1178, Santa Maria Nova received a long "garìda" [= register of men] that listed the inhabitants of the districts of Iato, Corleone and Calatrasi. G. Spata described the old document like this: “ It is a diploma of King William II in which are mentioned the villains of the estates of Calatrasi and Corleone. It quoted the year 6686, the year of the Hegira 573 ( 1178 AD), May, indiction XI [the indiction was a 15-year cycle used to date medieval documents]. The text is in Arabic and the register with rare exceptions leads the translation into Greek. Under the top margin we read: "tò ?atò??µa t?? a????p?? t?s p?ateìas t?s ????????ò??s ?aì ?a?a?t?à??" [“to katònoma ton anthropon tes plateias tes Koryllionos kai Kalaitraze”], that is "The register of men of the district of Corleone and ‘Caletraze’ [Calatrasi] " (See G. Spata, “Sul cimelio diplomatico del duomo di Monreale” , Palermo, 1865 , p. 16).
Today the ancient village of Calatrasi no longer exists, but there are still the ruins of the glorious castle, which rises near the "New Town" of Roccamena, which was founded as San Giuseppe Iato, by Prince Giuseppe Beccadelli (1697-1781). Roccamena refers with its name to a "locus amoenus" [ideal landscape], from “Rocca” and “amena” [Pleasant fortress]), precisely because it was built in a place of exceptional nature landscape. However, it bases its tourism resources not only on the beauty of the landscape, but also on the importance of historical and archaeological site of Calatrasi, which was destroyed by Frederick II of Swabia (1194-12509. Frederick II continued the religious-political intent of the Normans (although with systems much more bloody, as the destruction of entire villages and the displacement of populations), which provided a strict control, also through the monasteries, of the area of Mount Iato ( which also involved Calatrasi).
This was undoubtedly due to the fact that Mount Iato was a very tough problem, as the Latin-Christian element was virtually absent and the area was inhabited by people of Arab origin. The massive donations of the Norman kings to some Churches and Monasteries, and the ecclesiastical division of the territory into districts [in the language of medieval Sicilian documents they were called "divise"] were used just for a thorough check of the local population. The subject in question is explained very well by Alex Metcalfe, who writes: “[...] In 1061, an initially small group of knights under the leadership of Robert Guiscard (d. 1085) and Roger de Hauteville (d. 1101) began the piecemeal conquest of the island of Sicily with support from both Christian and Muslim factions. By the 1090s, the conquest process was effectively complete and the new ‘Norman’ rulers of the island began to grant privileges to supporting landlords. Concessions of villeins were recorded in registers known in Arabic as jaraid al-rijal (singular jarida, literally ‘registers of men’) and two early examples from the mid-1090s still survive today.
By the 1130s a transition was made towards the use of boundary definitions called jaraid al-?udud (‘registers of boundaries’) to accompany the villein registers. A key motive for this change was to facilitate the administration of a population displaced by war and rebellion ... Of all the Sicilian registers, undoubtedly the most significant were those that recorded the enormous donation of lands and men to the church of 'Santa Maria Nuova in Monreale', six kilometres to the south-west of Palermo. A royal privilege was issued to the newly founded church on the 15 August 1176 by King William II in which it was granted more than 1,200 km of the ‘Val di Mazara’ with all its estates and men in perpetuity. Since the mid-ninth century, this part of western Sicily had been the densest zone of Muslim settlement.
Indeed, it had remained so during the Norman period until the forced deportations of Muslims to Lucera on the Italian mainland in the mid-thirteenth century following the rebellions that began on William’s death in 1189. In all, three registers were issued to Monreale between 1178 and 1183. Two were written in Arabic and Greek and recorded the names of the villeins who lived and worked on the donated estates. The third, issued on the 15 May 1182, was a register of boundaries written in Arabic and Latin. This comprised of 50 definitions including the magnae divisae of Jatu and Qurulun with their internal estates and the boundaries of Battallaru and Qalat al Trazi. These registers are immensely important for a number of major subject areas as well as for several derivative specialist fields.
Administratively, they offer explicit evidence for the organisation and management of royal lands and how the Normans came to impose ‘feudal’ rule over a largely Arabic-speaking Muslim population. The registers of men contain the full names of several thousand villains and are essential for reconstructing the social history of the area on the eve of the Muslim revolt after more than a century of Christian rule [...]” ( Vedi A. Metcalfe, “De Saracenico in Latinum tranferri”: Causes and Effects of Translation in the Fiscal Administration of Norman Sicily”, in “Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean”, 2001, 13, pp. 43-44).
Calatrasi was an important city in Arab times, but the site on which it rose, that is Mount Maranfusa, is one of the most important archaeological sites of Sicily, which in recent years has been investigated by scholars with perseverance. A few miles northwest of Roccamena "Recent excavations (...) have established the existence on Maranfusa Mount of a large indigenous village of Elymian culture, active almost certainly since the eighth century BC and Hellenized during the sixth century BC, which seems certainly not survived beyond the fourth century BC "(See F. Spatafora G. Calabiscetta, “A.M.G., Monte Maranfusa, un insediamento nella media Valle del Belice”, in “Sicilia Archeologica”, 1986, 62, p. 13).
The more interesting news in recent years concern specifically the native village, where archaeologists have found some rooms presumably related to the fertility cults and vessels for libations. According to Jeremy Johns, one of the country’s top experts, about "the mid-third century BC, it is possible to identify a period of decline and neglect (...) The cities of Mount Maranfusa (...) were abandoned during the Republican period and also the High Roman Empire, and they did not share even the urban renaissance that interested Mount Iato in the second century BC (...) Then, Mount Maranfusa became an important urban centre already in the tenth and eleventh centuries AD (...) and it continued to be an important agricultural centre during the twelfth century (...) However, in the late twelfth century, the settlement system underwent a dramatic change (...) and the area was virtually abandoned. "
With regard to Arab times, some cemeteries with Muslim funeral rites have been found, overlapping the ancient Elymian village. Thanks to the studies of Professor Francesca Spatafora, has been definitely identified an Arab-Norman town with Calatrasi. The castle of Calatrasi, already described by Idrisi, resulted active from Arab-Norman times until the age of Frederick II, when it was destroyed because it was one of the last strongholds ( with Iato, Corleone and Guastanella) of the Muslim revolt against the Swabian Emperor (See F. Spatafora, “Calatrasi. L'età medievale a Monte Maranfusa”, in “Federico e la Sicilia. Dalla terra alla corona, Archeologia e architettura”, a cura di C.A. Di Stefano, A. Cadei, Palermo, 1995, pp. 127-140).
With regard to the identification of the site, J. Iohns wrote clearly that “Calatrasi is modern Monte Maranfusa (...) The site of Calatrasi has been located and intensively surveyed by both ‘The Monreale Survey’ and Francesca Spatafora and other archaeologists from the 'Palermo Soprintendenza Archeologica': the surface spread of 12th century material attests to a very large settlement indeed, beneath a small castle” ( See J. Johns, “Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: the Royal Diwan”, Cambridge University Press, 2002 , p. 163 and footnote 56). In his studies about Calatrasi, Johns often stressed the importance of the city, which, before being transferred to the Monastery of Santa Maria Nuova, was enfeoffed to Giovanni Malconvenant; however, it was returned in 1162 to William I because Giovanni Malconvenant could not give the sovereign the service of eleven "milites" (soldiers). “
The Malconvenant was one of the oldest Norman baronial families in Siciliy. Their family seat lay in Coutances, some five kilometers from Hateville-Guichard, and it is probable that at least one Malconvenant accompanied the young Roger d'Hauteville when he set out for Italy in 1057. William grandfather seems to have taken part in the conquest of Sicily and in the division of the spoils, ca. 1095, to have been granted the barony of Calatrasi. The Malconvenant remained lords of Calatrasi until 1162, when the King summoved John, William's eldest brother, to Messina ... The king therefote took Calatrasi back into the royal demesne” ( See G. Necipoglu, D. Behrens-Abouseif, A. Contadini, “Muqarnas. Essays In Honor Of J.M. Rogers: An Annual On The Visual Culture Of The Islamic World”, Brill, 2006, p. 189).
“En 1159, Jean Malcovenant, seigneur de Calatrasi, dans la haute vallée du Belice, assigne des terres d'une toponomastique entièrement arabe à Henri 'meo fideli' homme que la forme de son nom nous révèle tout aussi transalpin que son signeur” [In 1159 Jean Malcovenant, Lord of Calatrasi, in the Upper Belice River Valley, gave certain lands, which are place names from Arab origin, to a certain Henry, defined ' my faithful man'; a man who, for the form of his name, was certainly a Transalpine knight as his Lord] (See A. Varvaro, “Identità linguistiche e letterarie nell'Europa romanza”, 2004, p. 150). As we have seen, from the royal demesne Calatrasi then passed to the Church of Monreale and to Monastery of Santa Maria Nova; in the early thirteenth century, according to studies by F. Spatafora, the Castle of Calatrasi was involved in a revolt of some monks, who occupied it: "In a letter of Pope Innocent III (1161-1216) in 1202 we read about a revolt of the monks of Monreale, who, through brutal means, conquered the church and the territory of the castle. Moreover, at first in connivance with Walter of Pagliara, the Bishop and Chancellor of the Kingdom of Sicily, then with Marcovaldo Anweiler, Marquis of Ancona and Lord of Romagna, tried to take prisoner the Archbishop of Monreale (…) In 1203 Innocent III sent a letter to the monks of Monreale, accusing them for their many crimes because they have rebelled against their Archbishop ... seizing the castles of Iato and Calatrasi, committing every kind of iniquities, and living in licentiousness "(See F. Spatafora, “Calatrasi. L’età medievale a Monte Maranfusa”, in “Federico e la Sicilia, dalla terra alla corona”, 1995, p. 163).
We have various medieval documents that refer not only to Calatrasi, but also to its vast territory, of which Calatrasi was the administrative centre; in fact, according to Johns, “ Calatrasi was the fief of G. Malconvenant, and after the foundation of Monreale it is quoted as the centre of the homonymous 'iqlim', that is the administrative district. In the register of Monreale of 1176 it is said that Calatrasi had a population of 424 families, that is about 2000 individuals.” But this number should be reported to the territory more than the city, as Calatrasi “was a centre of the royal and feudal power and not of a real urban settlement (...) This is confirmed by the register of 1183, where it is not mentioned any 'borgese' [bourgeois] or 'man' [farmer] in the settlement of Calatrasi "(See J. Johns, “Nota sugli insediamenti rupestri musulmani nel territorio di Santa Maria di Monreale nel XII secolo”, in “La Sicilia rupestre nel contesto delle civiltà mediterranee”, Gelatina, 1986, p. 232).
About the middle of the twelfth century, Al Idrisi (1099-1166) wrote: "From Iato to ‘Tiraz’ (Calatrasi) nine miles. Calatrasi is an imposing castle and an ancient and very solid fortress, which owns arable lands; its territory bordered to the north with Iato and to the south with the castle of Corleone "(See Al Idrisi, “Il Libro di Ruggero” [" The Book of Roger "], edited by M. Amari, 1883, p. 42). For many years it was accepted the etymology proposed by M. Amari, according to whom Calatrasi derives from the term ' Qal'at tiraz' (...) that would be connected with the term 'tiraz', indicating the place of manufacture, or "the factory of the Royal ‘tirazi’, or of silks (See M. Amari, “Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia”[ "History of the Muslims of Sicily"], 1858, Vol II, p. 29 note 2). In reality, "the name of Calatrasi in the Arab sources is ‘Tarzi’ or ‘Hisn Tarzi’, 'Fortress of Tarzi’, or ‘Qal'at Tarzi’ and not ‘Qarat-at tiraz’, as always wrote M. Amari; therefore, any relationship lacks with 'tiraz' (factory) ... because the name derives from a proper name, that is 'Tarzi' "(See M. Bettelli Bergamaschi, “Seta e colori nell'alto medioevo: il siricum del Monastero bresciano di S. Salvatore”, Cisalpino, 1994, p. 154).
Carlo Tagliavini also explained that the term "Cala" derives from the Arabic root ‘Qal'a’ = castle, fortress" (See C. Tagliavini, “Le origini delle lingue neolatine”, Pàtron, 1964, p. 266). In conclusion, since "Tarzi," as stated by M. Bettelli, is an anthroponym, that is a name referring to a proper name, Calatrasi means the "Castle of Tarzi," "castle belonging to Tarzi". For completeness, we note that Calatrasi was also known as "Calataczaruth" and "Calataurath" (See G.A. Massa, "La Sicilia in prospettiva”, 1709, Vol II, p. 26). Among other things, we notice that G. A. Massa, already in 1709, had moved much closer to the truth, although not having correctly interpreted the term "Qal'a” = castle, fortress." Indeed, he observed that Calatrasi means "properties of Tarzi" (belonging to Tarzi [G.. A. Massa wrote “Tarzi” with “s”=Tar-s-i”).
While Calatrasi was essentially an administrative centre, on the contrary its territory was very tilled, of which have been handed down us the names of some owners, such as Simon of Calatafimi, who in 1269 had " in enphyteusis the hamlet called ‘Rahaltamrum’ in the territory of Calatrasi for the census of 3 Augustals every year "; or in 1280 “Salvo Palmerio of Florence, living in Palermo, owner of 'Rahalsaphy' in the district of Calatrasi "(See“Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani”, “Bollettino”, 1973, p. 338). We also know from a letter to F. Valguanera that in 1351 he was given the punishment task for some ‘latrones' (robbers) who were in the ‘fortilicio de Calatrasi' [Castle of Calatrasi] (ACP, Proceedings of the Senate, Vol. 17, fol. 15) ["Bollettino", p. 339]. In 1348 Calatrasi was called "Pheudum". V. D'Alessandro (“Terra, nobili e borghesi nella Sicilia medievale”, Palermo 1994, p. 166 note 58) wrote: "'Pheudum' ( fief) is also called the land of the hamlet of Calatatrasi, property of the Archbishop of Monreale, that the 'Nobilis' (Noble) Goffridono de Alamanni leased and exploited for livestock . "
In the mid-sixteenth century, at the time of T. Fazello, Calatrasi Castle was in ruins; in fact, it was called 'The Rocchi' (the rocks), and it was reduced to a simple "Camperia" [The “Camperia” was an ecclesiatic jurisdiction that the Archbishops assigned to some surveillants , who exercised the supervision of the territory] (See G. Nania, “Toponomastica e topografia storica nelle valli del Belice e dello Jato”, Palermo, 1995, p. 210). After the passing of Calatrasi, a few kilometers to the west of the new village rose Roccamena. In the second half of the eighteenth century the Prince Beccadelli founded several villages, among which the village of Roccamena, whose economy was based essentially on agriculture which is remarkable for the production of cereals, grapes, vegetables and especially melon, around which held the festival of the village.