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• 1 2023-04-20T07:10:51-07:00 The Situation in Italy 7 plain 2023-05-04T11:57:31-07:00 Southern Italy at this time was a massive melting pot of different cultures and religions who served as proxies for higher powers and interests in the region. Each culture group in the region (Italians, Lombards, Greeks, and Berbers) served a foreign power that wanted to exert its influence in the region. For the Lombards in the region, they owed their allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor due to their shared cultural background and their recognition of the Emperor as the King of Italy. The native Italians sided with the Pope and the Vatican due to the religious and political ties of the Pope during the Investiture Controversy. The Greeks allied with the Byzantine Empire, who cited the lands of southern Italy as both theirs due to their legitimacy as the continuation of the actual Roman Empire. While the Berbers didn't have an independent state on the Italian Peninsula, they usually served their local ruler or had allied themselves to the Zirid Dynasty of Tunisia, although they had little sway in the region.
  
  

  It is in this political climate that the earliest reported date of arrival of Norman knights in southern Italy is around 999 CE, although it may be assumed that they had visited before then. In that year, Norman pilgrims returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem landed in the Greek-occupied city of Apulia, where they traveled to the eastern side of the Peninsula and stayed in the Lombard-occupied city of Salerno. During their stay, an army of Berbers attacked the city in order to collect an overdue annual tribute. While tribute was being collected by the Salerno king to appease the attackers, the Normans ridiculed him and his Lombard subjects for cowardice. After some planning, the Norman and Lombards assaulted their besiegers, winning the battle and collecting the loot left behind. As a result, the grateful King of Salerno then asked Normans to stay. While the Normans refused, they did promise to bring his rich gifts to their compatriots in Normandy and tell them about possibly lucrative military service in Salerno. This laid the foundation for the adventurous Normans to begin their migration to the Italian Peninsula.

• 1 2023-05-03T19:52:07-07:00 The Normans in Southern Italy 6 plain 2023-05-05T09:33:27-07:00

  When the Normans entered Italy around the early 11th century, they entered a world where all three Abrahamic religions sought to control the decentralized southern territories. To the north, the continuous struggles of the Christian world were split between the churchly kingdom of the Papal States and the feudal realm of the Holy Roman Empire. Despite having a massive Catholic presence in southern Italy, the two factions had bitter rivalries brewing that bled into the rest of Italy. On one hand, the Lombardic Duchies of Capua and Salerno backed their Germanic allies in the Holy Roman Empire. On the other hand, the domains of Benevento backed the Pope. The faction that kept the two forces at bay from attacking one another was the southern claims of the Byzantine Empire, which held key cities and ports across the Apulian and Calabrian realms. While that was going on, the rest of southern Italy was either controlled by independent Italian merchant republics or by Sunni Berbers on the islands of Sicily and Malta.

  The Normans immediately made themselves available as mercenaries, aiding in many petty skirmishes on behalf of the different domains of the Lombards, Italians, and Byzantines. Eventually, two Normans were given different domains in the Italian Peninsula, with Robert Guiscard de Hauteville receiving the County of Melfi in 1046 CE and Richard Drengot receiving the County of Aversa in 1049 CE. With a place to call their own, the Normans began to expand rapidly across the Italian Peninsula. Mainly under the command of Robert Guiscard (roughly translated to Robert “the Cunning”), the Normans expanded and conquered the domains of Salerno, Benevento, and Amalfi, eventually being crowned Duke of Apulia and Calabria in 1059 CE. The title of Duke was given to Robert de Hauteville by Pope Nicholas II during the same year.

  The Norman domains continued to expand in the Norman wars against the Byzantines, who were allied with the Venetians and the Holy Roman Empire. With the conclusion of the Siege of Bari in 1071 CE, the Normans did the unthinkable and defeated both the Byzantines and the Germans in a war where they were outmatched. Their victory solidified their claims to all Byzantine holdings in Apulia and Calabria, ending the Byzantine’s 500-year reign and presence in the region. With their neighbors subdued, the Normans began to focus more on their remaining neighbors in Naples and Capua. More importantly, the stage was being set to conclude one of many conflicts with the Berbers on the island of Sicily, where the Normans had already captured key Sicilian ports and cities in the region.