The Norman Conquest

Southern Italy Series

-----The Norman Conquest-----

In 999 a group of Norman knights entered the city of Salerno. They were returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They hadn’t long been in town when Muslim pirates landed on the shore and demanded tribute from the prince of Salerno. The Lombard prince, Guaimar III [link] , began to collect the money, but he was rebuked by his Norman guests for his lack of bravery. The Normans themselves attacked the pirates and drove them into the sea. Having seen their bravery, the prince offered them land and titles if they would stay and fight for him. But though they could not stay, the knights promised to tell their kinsmen in Normandy of the opportunity.

Ten years later the Lombards in Bari revolted against their Byzantine rulers. Though it was swiftly crushed, the Lombards of Bari revolted again in 1017. This time the Lombards had Norman mercenaries. But the Byzantines still won, and they too began to hire Norman mercenaries of their own.

The Lombard princes in Capua and Benevento began to hire Normans to supplement their existing armies. One of the greatest was Rainulf Drengot [link] who exploited the conflict between the Prince of Capua and the Duke of Naples to his advantage, serving under one then the other. In 1030 the Duke of Naples awarded him the county of Aversa as a fief. The land grant was legitimized in 1037 when Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II recognized Rainulf Drengot as Count of Aversa, the first Norman Count in Italy.

One year later the Byzantines began hiring Lombard, Norman and Varangian [link] knights for an expedition to reconquer Sicily from the Muslims. In this campaign the Norman William [link] earned the epithet “Iron Arm” after killing the Emir of Syracuse in single combat. After the leader of the Lombard mercenaries was publicly disgraced by the Byzantine general, the Lombard, Norman and Varangian knights were sent by the Byzantines to Melfi. But once there the Lombards revolted and lead the mercenaries in a rebellion against the Byzantines. After a rebel victory the Byzantines began to bribe the Lombard leaders of the rebellion, but the rebels responded in September of 1042 by electing William Iron Arm of the House of Hauteville as their leader.

William turned to Guaimar IV, son of Guaimar III, for assistance in defeating the Byzantines. William recognized Guaimar as his feudal lord and Guaimar gave William back the city of Melfi as a fief. The Normans were so successful that Guaimar was proclaimed the Duke of Apulia and Calabria.

But the situation began to unravel in 1045 when both William and Rainulf Drengot died. Drengot’s fief of Aversa passed to leaders hostile to Guaimar. William was succeeded by his brother Drogo who began attacking the monastery at Monte Cassino for loot. Then in 1047 Holy Roman Emperor Henry III [link] marched into southern Italy and split Guaimar’s duchy into two, putting half under the command of Drogo and leaving the rest for Guaimar. In 1051 Drogo was assassinated and by the next year Guaimar was also dead. Control of the Normans and the Duchy now fell to Humphrey of Hauteville [link] ,brother of William and Drogo.

Pope Leo IX feared the power of the Normans as a menace to the Church and Rome. After failing to convince the Holy Roman Emperor of the seriousness of the threat, the Pope gathered his own army and allies to face the Normans.

The armies clashed on June 18th 1053 at Civitate [link] . The victorious Normans captured Pope Leo IX and forced him to recognize the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria.

In 1057 Humphrey died and was succeeded by his brother Robert Guiscard. In August of 1059 the Pope crowned Guiscard as Duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily. Guiscard then lead the conquest of the rest of Calabria. Then in May 1061 the Normans invaded Muslim Sicliy. The campaign was managed by Roger while his brother Guiscard campaigned in Apulia. But the fight for Sicily was hard due to the island's harsh volcanic terrain.

Meanwhile to the north in 1066 their Norman cousins under William the Conqueror had just conquered England.

Then in 1072 Robert captured the city of Palermo which became the capitol of his realm. In 1086 the city of Syracuse was wrested from Muslim control. Then in 1091 the last Muslim citadel on Sicily was conquered. Later that year a Norman fleet captured Malta. But there was no time to celebrate because in 1095 Pope Urban II issued the First Crusade.

Southern Italy Series

500 BC [link] Origins
264 BC [link] The Punic Wars
115 AD [link] The Roman Empire
405 [link] East and West
526 [link] Collapse of the West
565 [link] Reconquest
572 [link] Lombard Invasion
751 [link] Lombard Italy
814 [link] Charlemagne’s Empire
1000 [link] The Holy Roman Empire and Italy
1095 The Norman Conquest
1154 [link] The Kingdom of Sicily
1250 [link] Hohenstaufen Italy
1280 [link] Anjou Sicily
1300 [link] War of the Vespers
1400 [link] Black Death
1492 [link] Renaissance Italy
1559 [link] Italian Wars
1715 [link] Habsburg Italy
1780 [link] Bourbon Italy
1799 [link] Revolutionary Italy
1812 [link] Napoleonic Italy
1860 [link] United Italy

2/19/12 EDIT:
map base source [link]
map base created by Citypeek [link]