The Normans in the Mediterranean: Southern Italy, Sicily and the Crusades

While the Duke of Normandy was seizing the throne of England in the north, other Normans, drawn from the lesser aristocracy, set out to conquer southern Italy and later Sicily. In the twelfth century, their successors succeeded in founding a kingdom that would endure until the unification of Italy.

From Mercenaries in the Service of Lombard and Byzantine Powers

At the same time as William's conquest, other Normans—younger sons of noble families, knights, pilgrims and mercenaries—embarked on the conquest of the Mediterranean. They arrived in southern Italy at a time of political fragmentation, where Lombard, Byzantine, papal and Muslim powers coexisted. Initially serving as mercenaries for local rulers, the Normans gradually established themselves as territorial lords.

At the beginning of the eleventh century, small groups of Norman knights travelled to southern Italy, attracted by the opportunities offered by this politically divided region.

In 1029, the Norman Rainulf Drengot was granted the town of Aversa, in Campania, by the Duke of Naples, together with the title of count. This marked the first permanent Norman settlement in Italy.

Between 1040 and 1043, the Normans began the conquest of Byzantine Apulia. In 1042, William Iron Arm captured Melfi, now in Basilicata, where he was elected leader of the Normans.

In 1059, at the Synod of Melfi, the Norman princes swore an oath of loyalty to the Pope, who formally invested them with their lands.

Under the leadership of Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger I, Norman expansion was consolidated in Apulia, Calabria and Sicily (1061–1091).

The Norman success in southern Italy was above all a political achievement. The conquest of the Mezzogiorno was completed with the capture of Bari in 1071, bringing nearly five centuries of Byzantine rule in southern Italy to an end, as Bari was the last Byzantine stronghold in the region.

Roger I and the Conquest of Sicily (1061–1091)

Roger I gradually conquered Sicily, from Messina in 1061 to Noto in 1091. In less than a century, the Normans rose from the status of mercenaries to that of territorial princes, becoming masters of southern Italy and Sicily.

Norman rule in the Mezzogiorno represents a second path of the Norman experience. Rather than the Anglo-Norman monarchy centred on the English Channel, it illustrates the construction of Mediterranean powers through local alliances, papal investitures, marriages with the Lombard aristocracy, close ties with monastic institutions, and confrontation with Byzantium and Islam. Robert Guiscard embodies the phase of expansion and political legitimisation; Roger I, the conquest of Sicily; and Roger II, the transformation of scattered conquests and territories into a unified kingdom.

1130: Roger II Founds the Kingdom of Sicily

The Kingdom of Sicily, founded in 1130 by Roger II, represents one of the most accomplished achievements of the Norman world.

Latin, Greek and Arab kingdom, it brought together administrative expertise, artistic traditions, languages and cultures from across the Mediterranean. The major ports of Apulia and Sicily facilitated exchanges between Europe, Byzantium and the Islamic world. Greek and Arab scientific traditions were placed at the service of the monarchy.

Within this context, the court of Palermo became one of the leading centres for the production and transmission of knowledge in the medieval West. Around 1154, the geographer al-Idrīsī composed, in Arabic and in honour of Roger II, his Geography, also known as the Book of Roger. This work, commonly referred to as the Tabula Rogeriana, includes a world map and seventy regional maps. It was the result of several years of work at the court of Palermo and remains one of the greatest geographical achievements of the Middle Ages.

The kingdom's architecture, notably the Palatine Chapel, likewise reflects the meeting of diverse artistic and cultural traditions.

Religious Mobility

Norman history is also a history of religious mobility: pilgrimages, shrines, crusades, ports and routes leading to the East.

Even before the height of the Crusading movement, the Normans maintained close connections with the shrine of Saint Michael at Monte Gargano, with the ports of southern Italy, and with the routes to the Holy Land.

Bohemond of Taranto, the son of Robert Guiscard, was excluded from the succession in Apulia and instead established his own principality during the First Crusade. After the capture of Antioch in 1098, he was recognised by the other crusader leaders as Prince of Antioch.

Odo died in 1097 in Palermo, at the Norman court of Roger I of Sicily, while awaiting embarkation for Palestine to take part in the First Crusade.