Where the Middle Ages Begin
St Bartholomew of Simeri (ca. 1050-1130), a Greek monastic founder and reformer from Calabria, saw the effective end of Byzantine imperial power in southern Italy in 1071, the conquest of Muslim Palermo by Robert Guiscard the following year, and the rise of the Norman kingdom of Roger II at the end of his life.
Roger II was crowned in 1130, and in 1137 he incorporated into his state all Norman territories situated in the South of Italy, including Naples. Soon after 1148 he started to gain control over the emirs of Ifriqiya with the help of George of Antioch, the leader of both his army and his fleet.
The Norman Kings of Sicily and the Fatimid Caliphate By Jeremy Johns Anglo-Norman Studies, Vol.15 (1993) Introduction: The de Hauteville rulers of Sicily were parvenus. Tancred, lord of Hauteville-la-Guischard near Coutances, had owed only ten knights’ service to Duke Robert. It was Tancred’s inability to provide for his twelve sons that drove eleven of them […]
The Normans between Byzantium and the Islamic World TRAVAINI, LUCIA Dumbarton Oaks Papers: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington, D.C.(2001) Abstract When dealing with the subject of monetary transactions and exchanges involving the Normans of Italy, Byzantium, and the Islamic world, scholars have been cautioned to use care when discussing terms such as influence […]
Cultural syncretism and ethnic identity: The Norman ‘conquest’ of Southern Italy and Sicily Drell, Joanna H.(Department of History, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York) Journal of Medieval History, Vol. 25, No. 3,(1999) Abstract The culturally syncretic character of medieval Southern Italy and Sicily was never so apparent as under Norman rule in the twelfth century. From the […]
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