Count of Sicily Roger Guiscard de Hauteville I

• General Notes
  • Notes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_I_of_Sicily
    
    Roger I (1031 ? June 22 , 1101 ), Norman ruler of Sicily , was the youngest son of Tancred of Hauteville . 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." He shared with Robert Guiscard the conquest of Calabria , 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 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 the latter supported Duke Roger, his nephew, against Bohemund I_of_Antioch, Capua and his rebels, and the real leadership of the Hautevilles passed to the Sicilian count. In return for his aid against Bohemund and his rebels the duke surrendered to his uncle in 1085 his share in the castles of Calabria, and in 1091 the half of Palermo. Roger's rule in Sicily was more real than Robert Guiscard's in Italy. At the enfeoffments of 1072 and 1092 no great undivided fiefs were created, and the mixed Norman, French and Italian vassals owed their benefices to the count. No feudal revolt of importance therefore troubled Roger. Politically supreme, the count became master of the insular Church. While he gave full toleration to the Greek Churches, he created new Latin bishoprics at Syracuse and Girgenti and elsewhere, nominating the bishops personally, while he turned the archbishopric of Palermo into a Catholic see.
    
    The Papacy, favouring a prince who had recovered Sicily from Greeks and Muslims, granted to him and his heirs in 1098 the Apostolic Legateship in the island. Roger practised general toleration to Arabs and Greeks, allowing to each race the expansion of its own civilization. In the cities the Muslims, who had generally secured such terms of surrender, retained their mosques, their kadis, and freedom of trade; in the country, however, they became serfs. He drew from the Muslims the mass of his infantry, and Saint Anselm of_Canterbury visiting him at the siege of Capua, 1098, found "the brown tents of the Arabs innumerable." Nevertheless the Latin element began to prevail with the Lombards and other Italians who flocked into the island in the wake of the conquest, and the conquest of Sicily was decisive in the steady decline from this time of Mahommedan power in the western Mediterranean.
    
    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 married three times. The first marriage took place in 1061, to Judith, daughter of William, count of Évreux (in Normandy) and Hawisa of Échauffour. She died in 1076 , leaving daughters:
    A daughter, married Hugues of Gircea
    Matilda, married Raymond IV of Toulouse
    Adelisa, married Henry, Count of Monte San Angelo
    Emma, briefly engaged to King Philip I of France ; married Ralph Maccabees, count of Montecaglioso
    
    In 1077 Roger married a second time, to Eremburge of Mortain, daughter of William, count of Mortain (also in Normandy). Their daughters were:
    Mathilda, married Robert, Count of Eu
    Felicia, married King Coloman of Hungary
    
    Roger's last wife was Adelaide del Vasto , niece of Boniface, lord of Savona. They married in 1087 . Their children were:
    Simon, Count of Sicily (died September 28 , 1105 )
    Roger
    Maximilla, married Conrad, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV
    Matilda, married Ranulf, count of Alife
    
    Trivia
    From the perspective of the history of Malta , Roger I was also the first Christian overlord of this archipelago. He conquered the Arabs in 1090 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 the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica , a publication in the public domain .
    

Click here for details of Roger's family with Adelaide di Savona del Vasto

¹ http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=michaelrneuman&id=I020471
² http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=PED&db=bevangenealogy&id=I8579&style=TABLE
Source/Citation http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=bevangenealogy&id=I102905

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