Robert Guiscard, also referred to as Robert de Hauteville, was a Norman adventurer remembered for his conquest of southern Italy and Sicily in the 11th century.
The Battle of Civitate was fought on 18 June 1053 in southern Italy, between the Normans, led by the Count of Apulia Humphrey of Hauteville, and a Swabian-Italian-Lombard army, organised by Pope Leo IX and led on the battlefield by Gerard, Duke of Lorraine, and Rudolf, Prince of Benevento. The Norman victory over the allied papal army marked the climax of a conflict between the Norman mercenaries who came to southern Italy in the eleventh century, the de Hauteville family, and the local Lombard princes. By 1059 the Normans would create an alliance with the papacy, which included a formal recognition by Pope Nicholas II of the Norman conquest in south Italy, investing Robert Guiscard as Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and Count of Sicily.
Drogo of Hauteville was the second Norman Count of Apulia. He led the Normans of Southern Italy after the death of his brother, William Iron Arm.
Humphrey of Hauteville, surnamed Abagelard, was the count of Apulia and Calabria from 1051 to his death.
Guaimar IV was Prince of Salerno (1027–1052), Duke of Amalfi (1039–1052), Duke of Gaeta (1040–1041), and Prince of Capua (1038–1047) in Southern Italy over the period from 1027 to 1052. He was an important figure in the final phase of Byzantine authority in the Mezzogiorno and the commencement of Norman power. He was, according to Amatus of Montecassino, "more courageous than his father, more generous and more courteous; indeed he possessed all the qualities a layman should have—except that he took an excessive delight in women."
GaufredoMalaterra was an eleventh-century Benedictine monk and historian, possibly of Norman origin. He travelled to the southern Italian peninsula, passing some time in Apulia before entering the monastery of Sant'Agata at Catania, on the isle of Sicily. Malaterra indicates that, prior to his arrival in Catania, he had spent an undefined period away from monastic life, in the worldly service of "Martha".
William of Apulia was a poet and chronicler of the Normans, writing in the 1090s. His Latin epic, Gesta Roberti Wiscardi, written in hexameters, is one of the principal contemporary sources for the Norman conquest of southern Italy, especially the career of Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia (1059–1085).
Richard Drengot was the count of Aversa (1049–1078), prince of Capua and duke of Gaeta (1064–1078).
Gisulf II was the last Lombard prince of Salerno (1052–1077).
William of Montreuil, was an Italo-Norman freebooter of the mid-eleventh century who was briefly Duke of Gaeta. He was described by Amatus of Monte Cassino as "an exceptional knight, small in stature, who was very robust, strong, valiant" and by Orderic Vitalis as 'the good Norman'.
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.
Atenulf I was the Lombard count of Aquino who rose to become Duke of Gaeta in Southern Italy during the chaotic middle of the eleventh century.
The Italo-Normans, or Siculo-Normans (Siculo-Normanni) when referring to Sicily and Southern Italy, are the Italian-born descendants of the first Norman conquerors to travel to Southern Italy in the first half of the eleventh century. While maintaining much of their distinctly Norman piety and customs of war, they were shaped by the diversity of Southern Italy, by the cultures and customs of the Greeks, Lombards, and Arabs in Sicily.
The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1194, involving many battles and independent conquerors.
The County of Apulia and Calabria, later the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria, was a Norman state founded by William of Hauteville in 1043, composed of 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.
Graham Anthony Loud is a professor emeritus of medieval history at the University of Leeds. Loud is a specialist in the history of southern Italy during the Central Middle Ages, and also in German history in the Staufen period.
Pandulf III was briefly the Prince of Salerno from around 3 to 10 June 1052. He was the eldest of four brothers of Gemma, wife of Prince Guaimar IV. He seized the throne in a coup d'état, when he and his brother assassinated Guaimar. He reigned for only a week before he was forced to step down and was promptly murdered.
Joscelin was a Norman count of Molfetta on the Adriatic coast of southern Italy. He rejected the leadership of Duke Robert Guiscard and rebelled, perhaps as early as 1064, certainly by 1067. Defeated, he went over the Byzantines in 1068.
Helena, born Olympias, was a daughter of the Norman duke of Apulia, Robert Guiscard, and the Lombard noblewoman Sikelgaita. From 1074 until 1078, she was the fiancée of the Byzantine co-emperor Constantine Doukas.
