Year 1041 (MXLI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.
Robert "Guiscard" de Hauteville, sometimes Robert "the Guiscard", 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.
George Maniakes was a prominent general of the Byzantine Empire during the 11th century. He was the catepan of Italy in 1042. He is known as Gyrgir in Scandinavian sagas. He is popularly said to have been extremely tall and well built, almost a giant.
The Catepanateof Italy was a province of the Byzantine Empire from 965 until 1071. At its greatest extent, it comprised mainland Italy south of a line drawn from Monte Gargano to the Gulf of Salerno. North of that line, Amalfi and Naples also maintained allegiance to Constantinople through the catepan. The Italian region of Capitanata derives its name from katepanikion.
William I of Hauteville, known as William Iron Arm, was a Norman adventurer who was the founder of the fortunes of the Hauteville family. One of twelve sons of Tancred of Hauteville, he journeyed to the Mezzogiorno with his younger brother Drogo in the first half of the eleventh century (c.1035), in response to requests for help made by fellow Normans under Rainulf Drengot, count of Aversa.
Argyrus was a Lombard nobleman and Byzantine general, son of the Lombard hero Melus. He was born in Bari.
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."
Rainulf Drengot was a Norman adventurer and mercenary in southern Italy. In 1030 he became the first count of Aversa. He was a member of the Drengot family.
Melus was a Lombard nobleman from the Apulian town of Bari, whose ambition to carve for himself an autonomous territory from the Byzantine catapanate of Italy in the early eleventh century inadvertently sparked the Norman presence in Southern Italy. He was the first Duke of Apulia.
Arduin the Lombard was a Greek-speaking Lombard nobleman who fought originally for the Byzantines on Sicily and later against them as the leader of a band of Norman mercenaries.
Michael Dokeianos, erroneously called Doukeianos by some modern writers, was a Byzantine nobleman and military leader, who married into the Komnenos family. He was active in Sicily under George Maniakes before going to Southern Italy as Catepan of Italy in 1040–41. He was recalled after being twice defeated in battle during the Lombard-Norman revolt of 1041, a decisive moment in the eventual Norman conquest of southern Italy. He is next recorded in 1050, fighting against a Pecheneg raid in Thrace. He was captured during battle but managed to maim the Pecheneg leader, after which he was put to death and mutilated.
Hugh Tubœuf or Tudebusis was a Norman adventurer who went to Southern Italy around 1030 in search of glory and riches.
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.
Dattus was a Lombard leader from Bari, the brother-in-law of Melus of Bari. He joined his brother-in-law in a 1009 revolt against Byzantine authority in southern Italy.
The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1194, involving many battles and independent conquerors.
The siege of Bari took place 1068–71, during the Middle Ages, when Norman forces, under the command of Robert Guiscard, laid siege to the city of Bari, a major stronghold of the Byzantines in Italy and the capital of the Catepanate of Italy, starting from 5 August 1068. Bari was captured on 16 April 1071 when Robert Guiscard entered the city, ending over five centuries of Byzantine presence in Southern Italy.
The Byzantine–Norman wars were a series of military conflicts between the Normans and the Byzantine Empire fought from c. 1040 to 1186 involving the Norman-led Kingdom of Sicily in the west, and the Principality of Antioch in the Levant. The last of the Norman invasions, though having incurred disaster upon the Romans by sacking Thessalonica in 1185, was eventually driven out and vanquished by 1186.
The Battle of Montemaggiore was fought on 4 May 1041, on the river Ofanto near Cannae in Byzantine Italy, between Lombard-Norman rebel forces and the Byzantine Empire. The Norman William Iron Arm led the offence, which was part of a greater revolt, against Michael Dokeianos, the Byzantine Catepan of Italy. Suffering heavy losses in the battle, the Byzantines were eventually defeated, and the remaining forces retreated to Bari. Dokeianos was replaced and transferred to Sicily as a result of the battle. The victory provided the Normans with increasing amounts of resources, as well as a renewed surge of knights joining the rebellion.
The Battle of Montepeloso was fought on 3 September 1041 between Lombard-Norman rebel forces and the Byzantine Empire, near Montepeloso in southern Italy. The Byzantines, led by Exaugustus Boioannes, were forced into battle by the rebels, and after a day-long fight the rebels defeated the Byzantine army and captured Boioannes. The decisive rebel victory forced the Byzantines to retreat to the coastal cities, leaving the Normans and Lombards in control of the whole interior of southern Italy.
