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| 1. The Norman Kingdom in South Italy and Sicily |
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| THE HOUSE OF TANCRED (1057-1287) |
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| 1103–54 |
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| The Norman count Roger II of Sicily succeeded the Norman duke William of Apulia (1111–27) and assumed the title of king of Sicily, Apulia, and Capua with the approval of the antipope Anacletus II. Excommunicated by Pope Innocent II (1139) for his alliance with Anacletus, he defeated Innocent (1140), took him prisoner, and forced recognition of his title. By skillful diplomacy he prevented a joint invasion of Sicily by the Greek and Roman emperors. Planning a Mediterranean commercial empire, Roger established an extensive North African holding (at its maximum, 1153). | 1 |
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| 1154–66 |
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| William I, continuing Roger's policy, defeated (1156) the Byzantine allies of Pope Adrian IV and compelled Adrian to recognize his title in Sicily, Apulia, Naples, Amalfi, and Salerno. He supported Pope Alexander III against Frederick I. | 2 |
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| 1166–89 |
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| William II continued this policy, but as he planned a Mediterranean empire and wished a free hand, he welcomed the marriage (1186) of Constance (Roger II's daughter), his heiress, to the future emperor Henry VI. He himself married Joan, sister of King Richard I of England, and intended to lead the Third Crusade as part of his imperial plans. | 3 |
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| 1190–94 |
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| On William's death, Tancred of Lecce (son of Roger, duke of Apulia, the brother of Constance) led a vigorous native resistance to the emperor Henry VI (king, 1194–97), with the support of the pope and Richard I. Henry reduced Sicily, southern Italy, and part of Tuscany, with the aid of Pisa and Genoa; retained the Matildine lands in central Italy; organized an imperial administration of his holdings; and planned a great empire with Italy as its base. Purely Norman rule ended with Tancred. | 4 |
| The Norman kingship in southern Italy and Sicily was theocratic, on Byzantine lines; the administration was an efficient, departmentalized bureaucracy. Tremendous prosperity and efficient taxation made the Sicilian monarchs perhaps the richest in Europe. Dealing with a cosmopolitan kingdom containing Italian, Greek, and Arabic elements, and needing settlers, the Norman rulers practiced a tolerant eclecticism that provided for wide racial divergences in law, religion, and culture. | 5 |
| Roger II's cosmopolitan court and generous patronage of the learned produced a brilliant circle that included the Arab geographer Edrisi, Eugenius, the translator of Ptolemy's Optics, and Henry Aristippus, translator of Plato's Phaedo and Book IV of Aristotle's Meterologica. | 6 |
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