Roger I of Sicily

Roger I (1031 – June 22, 1101), called Bosso and the Great Count, was the Norman Count of Sicily from 1071 to 1101.

Biography

Roger was the youngest son of Tancred of Hauteville by his second wife Fredisenda. He arrived in Southern Italy soon after 1055.

Malaterra, who compares Robert Guiscard and his brother to "Joseph and Benjamin of old," says of Roger: "He was a youth of the greatest beauty, of lofty stature, of graceful shape, most eloquent in speech and cool in counsel. He was far-seeing in arranging all his actions, pleasant and merry all with men; strong and brave, and furious in battle." Roger shared the conquest of Calabria with Robert, and in a treaty of 1062 the brothers in dividing the conquest apparently made a kind of "condominium" by which either was to have half of every castle and town in Calabria.

Robert now resolved to employ Roger's genius in reducing Sicily, which contained, besides the Muslims, numerous Greek Christians subject to Arab princes who had become all but independent of the sultan of Tunis. In May 1061 the brothers crossed from Reggio and captured Messina. After Palermo had been taken in January 1072, Robert Guiscard, as suzerain, invested Roger as Count of Sicily, but he retained Palermo, half of Messina, and the north-east portion (the Val Demone). Not till 1085, however, was Roger able to undertake a systematic crusade.

In March 1086 Syracuse surrendered, and when in February 1091 Noto yielded, the conquest was complete. Much of Robert's success had been due to Roger's support. Similarly, when the leadership of the Hautevilles passed to Roger, he supported his nephew Duke Roger against Bohemund, Capua, and other rebels. In return for his aid against Bohemund and the rebels, the duke surrendered his share in the castles of Calabria to his uncle in 1085, and in 1091 his inheritance in Palermo. Roger's rule in Sicily was more absolute than Robert Guiscard's in Italy. At the enfeoffments of 1072 and 1092 no great undivided fiefs were created, so the mixed Norman, French and Italian vassals all owed their benefices to the count. No feudal revolt of importance therefore troubled Roger.

Politically supreme, the count also became master of the insular church. The Papacy, favouring a prince who had recovered Sicily from Greeks and Muslims, in 1098 granted Roger and his heirs the Apostolic Legateship of the island. Roger created new Latin bishoprics at Syracuse, Girgenti, and elsewhere, nominating the bishops personally, while he turned the archbishopric of Palermo into a Catholic see. Roger practised general toleration towards Arabs and Greeks, allowing to each race the expansion of its own civilization. In the cities, the Muslims, who had generally secured such rights in their terms of surrender, retained their mosques, their kadis, and freedom of trade; in the country, however, they became serfs. Roger drew the mass of his infantry from the Muslims. Saint Anselm, visiting him at the siege of Capua, 1098, found "the brown tents of the Arabs innumerable". Nevertheless, the Latin element began to prevail, as Lombards and other Italians flocked to the island in the wake of the conquest, and the conquest of Sicily proved decisive in the steady decline of Muslim power in the western Mediterranean from this time.

Roger, the "Great Count of Sicily," died on June 22 1101, in his seventieth year and was buried in S. Trinità of Mileto.

Family

Roger's eldest son was a bastard named Jordan, who predeceased him. His second son, Geoffrey, may have been a bastard, but may also have been a son of his first or second wife. Whatever the case, he was a leper with no chance of inheriting.

Roger's first marriage took place in 1061, to Judith, daughter of William, Count of Évreux and Hawisa of Échauffour. She died in 1076, leaving all daughters:

1. A daughter, married Hugh of Gircea (or Gercé)
2. Matilda, married Raymond IV of Toulouse
3. Adelisa, married Henry, Count of Monte Sant'Angelo
4. Emma (d.1120), briefly engaged to Philip I of France; married firstly the count of Clermont and secondly Rudolf, Count of Montescaglioso

In 1077, Roger married a second time, to Eremburga of Mortain, daughter of "William, Count of Mortain" (probably William Warlenc). Their children were:

1. Mauger, Count of Troina
2. Matilda, married Robert, Count of Eu
3. Muriel, married Josbert de Lucy
4. Constancia, married Conrad of Italy
5. Felicia, married King Coloman of Hungary
6. Violante, married Robert of Burgundy, son of Robert I of Burgundy
7. Flandina, married Henry del Vasto
8. Judith, married Robert I of Bassunvilla

Roger's third and last wife was Adelaide del Vasto, niece of Boniface, Lord of Savona. They married in 1087. Their children were:

1. Simon, Count of Sicily
2. Matilda, married Ranulf II, Count of Alife
3. Roger II, Count, later King, of Sicily
4. Maximilla, married Hildebrand VI (of the Aldobrandeschi family)

Trivia

• From the perspective of the history of Malta, Roger I was also the first Christian overlord of this archipelago since the ninth century (when Malta was part of the Byzantine Empire). He conquered the Arabs in 1091 and immediately introduced a tri-partite feudal system of State, Church and Nobility. There probably was more to it - even until today, folklore tells how Roger - needing the help of the Maltese - tore his quartered red-and-white banner, thus creating the Maltese flag. Historians state that this premise is impossible.

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

Sources

• Geoffrey Malaterra
• Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016-1130. Longmans: London, 1967.
• Houben, Hubert (translated by Graham A. Loud and Diane Milburn). Roger II of Sicily: Ruler between East and West. Cambridge University Press, 2002.