Roger II or Roger the Great was King of Sicily and Africa, son of Roger I of Sicily and successor to his brother Simon. He began his rule as Count of Sicily in 1105, became Duke of Apulia and Calabria in 1127, then King of Sicily in 1130 and King of Africa in 1148.
Roger I, nicknamed Roger Bosso and The Great Count, was a Norman nobleman who became the first Count of Sicily from 1071 to 1101. He was a member of the House of Hauteville, and his descendants in the male line continued to rule Sicily down to 1194.
Hugo Falcandus was a historian who chronicled the reign of William I of Sicily and the minority of his son William II in a highly critical work entitled The History of the Tyrants of Sicily. The Latin of the work is polished. There is some doubt as to whether "Hugo Falcandus" is a real name or a pseudonym. Evelyn Jamison argued that he was Eugenius, amiratus from 1190. The Frenchman Hugues Foucaud, abbot of Saint-Denis, has been proposed as an author. His name, Falcandus, is apparently a cacography for Falcaudus, Latin for "Foucaud", a French surname.
Robert II was the count of Aversa and the prince of Capua from 1127 until his death.
Grimoald Alferanites was the prince of Bari from 1121 to 1132.
George of Antioch was the first to hold the office of ammiratus ammiratorum in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. He was a Syrian-born Byzantine Christian of Greek ancestry. He was born in Antioch, whence he moved with his father, Michael, and mother to Tunisia following the First Crusade. He and his parents found employment under the Zirid emir, Tamim ibn Muizz. George fell out with Tamim's son and successor, Yahya, and secretly left for Christian Sicily by stealing away in disguise aboard a Palermitan ship harbored in Mahdia. Upon arrival in the Sicilian capital, George went immediately to the palace and found service with the Norman count, Roger II.
Ranulf II was the count of Alife and Caiazzo, and duke of Apulia. He was a member of the Italo-Norman Drengot family which dominated the Principality of Capua for most of the century between 1050 and 1150. Ranulf's wife, Matilda, was the sister of King Roger II of Sicily.
Sergius VII was the thirty-ninth and last duke of Naples. He succeeded his father John VI on the Neapolitan throne in 1122 at a time when Roger II of Sicily was rising rapidly in power. When Roger succeeded as duke of Apulia in 1127 and was crowned king in 1130, the fate of Naples hinged on Sergius' relations with the Sicilian court.
The Treaty or Peace of Venice, 1177, was a peace treaty between the papacy and its allies, the north Italian city-states of the Lombard League, and Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily also took part in negotiations and the treaty thereby determined the political course of all Italy for the next several years.
Alexander was the second count of Conversano (1085–1132), the son and successor of Geoffrey the Elder.
Tancred of Conversano, the youngest son of Geoffrey, Count of Conversano, became the count of Brindisi on his father's death in 1100.
The House of Hauteville was a Norman family originally of seigneurial rank from the Cotentin. The Hautevilles rose to prominence through their part in the Norman conquest of southern Italy. By 1130, one of their members, Roger II, was made the first King of Sicily. His male-line descendants ruled Sicily until 1194. Some Italian Hautevilles took part in the First Crusade and the founding of the Principality of Antioch (1098).
The Drengots were a Norman family of mercenaries, one of the first to head to Southern Italy to fight in the service of the Lombards. They became the most prominent family after the Hautevilles.
Guarin was the chaplain and chancellor of Roger II of Sicily from about 1130 to his death, during the first decade of the Norman kingdom of Sicily. According to Alexander of Telese, the contemporary chronicler, he was "erudite ... and most prudent in negotiations ... a cleric well-versed in letters, skillful in matters of the world, and possessed of a tenacious and cautious mind."
The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1139, involving many battles and independent conquerors.
The noble House of the Sarlo descends directly from Serlo I of Hauteville, son of Tancred de Hauteville and his first wife Muriella. Sarlo the first had a son from his marriage with the daughter of the Lord of Pirou also called Sarlo. Sarlo II went in the Mezzogiorno with his uncles to seek fortune.
The County of Apulia and Calabria, later the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria, was a Norman state founded by William of Hauteville in 1042 in the territories of Gargano, Capitanata, Apulia, Vulture, and most of Campania. It became a duchy when Robert Guiscard was raised to the rank of duke by Pope Nicholas II in 1059.
Eremburga of Mortain was the second wife of Count Roger I of Sicily and thus the second Sicilian countess. She is very obscure and details of her life are almost unknown to us today.
Events during the year 1105 in Italy.
Maud of Apulia was a member of the Norman D’Hauteville family and a daughter of Robert Guiscard and his second wife Sikelgaita, a Lombard princess, the daughter of Guaimar IV, Prince of Salerno. She was also known as Mahalda, Mahault, Mafalda and Matilda. She was the wife of Ramón Berenguer II, and thus Countess of Barcelona (1077–1082). After her husband’s death, she remarried Aimery I, the Viscount of Narbonne (1086–1108).
