Meanwhile other sons of Tancred de Hauteville were arriving, one after another. Drogo and Humfrey did well for themselves and became Dukes. In 1045 the greatest of all arrived, Robert, surnamed the Wizard.[1] He was in the fight of 1053, and did great things there. Eventually Robert Guiscard gathered up all the Norman conquests and became the chief Norman conqueror of Southern Italy. In 1059 he was Duke of Apulia; in 1077 he held all Apulia. The Lombard states were destroyed, Benevento became part of the Patrimony of St Peter, the Eastern Empire held only Naples.
The news of the successes of his brothers at last brought the youngest of the de Hautevilles, Roger, to Italy in 1057; While he was looking out for something to do, Robert called his attention to Sicily. In 1061 Roger took Messina. Then he and Robert joined forces; between them they seized Palermo in 1072, and so most of the island. Robert, as Duke of Apulia, was considered Roger's suzerain. He kept for himself Palermo, the Val Demone, and half Messina. Roger, Count of Sicily under his brother, had the rest. During the following years Roger gradually seized all that was left of the Saracen possessions in the island. In 1079 he took Taormina; so that the Moslems held only Girgenti, Syracuse, and Castrogiovanni[2] in the middle. By 1091 they had lost these places too. The last Moslem Emir, Hāmud, submitted himself, turned Christian, and was rewarded with a fine property in Calabria. Meanwhile Robert Guiscard was completing the conquest of the mainland. In 1071 he took Bari; in 1077 he occupied Salerno and deposed the last Lombard prince in Italy, Gisulf. Then he carried war against the Empire to Kerkyra and Dyrrhachion. He died in Kerkyra; they brought his body home to Venosa, near Melfi, and buried him there, and put on his grave: "Hic terror mundi Guiscardus."
In 1099 Richard II of Capua, of the other Norman line was obliged to recognize the suzerainty of the Dukes of Apulia.
In 1098 a Concordat was made between Roger of Sicily and Pope Urban II (1088-1099), by which Roger became Apostolic Legate[3] for Sicily. He now takes the title "Magnus
- ↑ Robert Guiscard. The name means rather a clever, sharp fellow, callidus.
- ↑ Castrogiovanni was originally Enna. The Moslems called it Kasr Yannī; then the Christians translated this back into Castrogiovanni.
- ↑ Based upon this concession are all the endless claims of Neapolitan kings to some kind of canonical authority in Church matters. Roger and his first successors made many Church laws on the strength of it.
