uchy from Guaimar in 1042 under Leo the Usurper.
In 1045, the Gaetans elected their own Lombard duke, Atenulf I. His son, Atenulf II, was made to submit to the Norman Prince Richard I of Capua in 1062, when Gaeta was captured by Jordan Drengot. In 1064, the city was placed under a line of puppet dukes, appointed by the Capuan princes, who had usurped the ducal and consular titles. These dukes, usually Italianate Normans, ruled Gaeta with some level of independence until the death of Richard of Caleno in 1140. In that year, Gaeta was definitively annexed to the Kingdom of Sicily by Roger II, who bestowed on his son Roger of Apulia, who was duly elected by the nobles of the city. The town did maintain its own coinage until as late as 1229, after the Normans had been superseded by the centralising Hohenstaufen.
In the many wars for possession of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Gaeta, owing to its important strategic position, was often attacked and defended bravely. In 1194 the Pisans, allies of Emperor Henry VI in the conquest of the kingdom, took possession of the city and held it as their own.
In 1227 the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II was in the city and strengthened the castle. However, in the struggle between Emperor Frederick and the Papacy, in 1228 it rebelled against Frederick II and surrendered to the pope, after the Papal forces destroyed the imperial castle in the fray. After the peace of San Germano of 1230, it was given back to the Sicilian kingdom. In 1233, Frederick regained control of the important port and fortress. In 1279 Charles I of Anjou rebuilt the castle and enhanced the fortifications. In 1289 King James II of Aragon besieged the city in vain. From 1378 Gaeta hosted for some years antipope Clement VII. The future King of Naples Ladislaus lived in Gaeta from 1387. Here, on 21 September, he married Costanza Chiaramonte, whom he repudiated three years later.
King Alfonso V of Aragon (as Alfonso I of Naples) made
