Alexander II's position continued to be challenged by Honorius until the latter's death in 1072. The next sixty years exhibited one schism after another. The Normans of south Italy As early as 1063, the Normans. taking advantage of the schism, successfully expanded their empire by attacking and seizing the city of Gaeta, an important port leading into the southern part of the Roman campagna. In 1066, Richard of Capua, who had helped Alexander enter Rome and secure a coronation in October 1061, suddenly changed sides. With the Germans abandoning Cadalo and embracing Alexander, the Normans were no longer the mainstay and support of the papacy, and were faced with a competitor which had designs on the same territories as the Normans. The barons of the Roman campagna, too, saw an advantage to be gained (or at least revenge to be extracted) by joining the Normans against Alexander and the reform party of Hildebrand, which had robbed them of their rights in papal elections and the civil government of the Church. Moving north, Prince Richard seized Ceprano, devastated Lazio, and encamped outside Rome, from which he demanded the title of Patricius. In the meantime, the frantic Cardinal Hildebrand repeatedly called upon Marquis Godfrey of Tuscany, who was with King Henry in Germany, to come to the aid of Rome. In spring 1067, he collected an army, lifted the siege of Rome, and caused Prince Richard to withdraw to Capua. Richard left his son Jordanus in charge of the army in the plain below Aquino, to bar the way of the forces of Godfrey. But it was a shortage of supplies, sickness, and bribery on the part of the Normans, that brought Godfrey to negotiate with Jordanus, and finally to return north. A new treaty between the papacy and the Normans was negotiated, and, at the synod held at Melfi by Pope Alexander on 1 August 1067, Prince Richard returned to his allegiance and was confirmed as Duke of Apulia and Calabria. Policies In the second half of April 1063, Pope Alexander held a synod at the Lateran Basilica in Rome, attended by more than a hundred bishops. During the synod, he excommunicated Honorius II (Bishop Cadalo). The pope and bishops also decreed: that no mercy was to be shown to simoniacs by preserving their dignity; that those who had been ordained by simoniacs were to be retained in their orders; in