Norman Sicily was one of the weirder political entities to emerge in the Middle Ages. In the year 1000 southern Italy was a mess of competing principalities, over which the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, the German emperor, the Pope, and the Muslim rulers of North Africa struggled to assert dominion. The first French-speaking Normans drifted in as mercenaries. They soon realized, though, that the situation was wide open to men of their talents, and they began to work for themselves. By 1062 their leader was Robert Guiscard -- "the wily" -- and he, not satisfied with being the most powerful man in southern Italy, invaded Sicily, drove out the Muslim emirs who had been running it, and made himself overlord. Imagine, the son of a minor baron in northwestern France journeys off to Italy as a mercenary, and within a couple of decades he is the effective king of Sicily, ruling over a mixed population of Greeks, Italians, Muslims, Normans, and others. And the weirdest part is, he and the other Normans did a really good job. The Sicilians would long remember the reigns of their Norman kings as a golden age. Guiscard was notably tolerant, and at one point he had an Arab physician, a Greek legal adviser, and an Italian chronicler, besides a large crew of Norman knights. In their capital of Palermo the Normans built several buildings in a bizarre polyglot style that mixed Byzantine, Arab, and northern European elements. The most famous work of this style is the Cappella Palatina or palace chapel (above and below).
Robert Guiscard was the sixth of the twelve sons of a minor Norman baron named Tancred d'Hauteville, and seven or eight of the brothers participated in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. Imagine what life was like in that family when those boys were growing up.
Norman Sicily was one of the weirder political entities to emerge in the Middle Ages. In the year 1000 southern Italy was a mess of competing principalities, over which the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, the German emperor, the Pope, and the Muslim rulers of North Africa struggled to assert dominion. The first French-speaking Normans drifted in as mercenaries. They soon realized, though, that the situation was wide open to men of their talents, and they began to work for themselves. By 1062 their leader was Robert Guiscard -- "the wily" -- and he, not satisfied with being the most powerful man in southern Italy, invaded Sicily, drove out the Muslim emirs who had been running it, and made himself overlord. Imagine, the son of a minor baron in northwestern France journeys off to Italy as a mercenary, and within a couple of decades he is the effective king of Sicily, ruling over a mixed population of Greeks, Italians, Muslims, Normans, and others. And the weirdest part is, he and the other Normans did a really good job. The Sicilians would long remember the reigns of their Norman kings as a golden age. Guiscard was notably tolerant, and at one point he had an Arab physician, a Greek legal adviser, and an Italian chronicler, besides a large crew of Norman knights. In their capital of Palermo the Normans built several buildings in a bizarre polyglot style that mixed Byzantine, Arab, and northern European elements. The most famous work of this style is the Cappella Palatina or palace chapel (above and below).
Robert Guiscard was the sixth of the twelve sons of a minor Norman baron named Tancred d'Hauteville, and seven or eight of the brothers participated in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. Imagine what life was like in that family when those boys were growing up.
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