Peter I (born before 1020), also known as Petronius (French: Pierron and Italian: Petrone or Pietrone), was the first Norman count of Trani. He was one of the most prominent of the twelve leaders of the Norman mercenaries serving Guaimar IV of Salerno. Though it had not yet been conquered from the Byzantine Empire, Peter received Trani in the Normans' division of Apulia made at Melfi in 1042. In that same division his brother Walter received Civitate.
Peter probably arrived in southern Italy around 1035. It is unknown if Peter was in fact from Normandy; he may have been a Breton or a Frenchman. His father, Amicus (Amico), may have been a relative of the Hautevilles or married to one. In 1038 Peter participated in the Byzantine campaign led by George Maniakes against the Emirate of Sicily. In battle he was usually found beside William Iron Arm, the leader and first count of the Normans of Melfi. After the division of 1042 Peter fortified the region around Trani, building new cities at Andria and Corato and re-fortifying Bisceglie and Barletta, as recorded by the chronicler William of Apulia (book II, lines 30–32):
Ditior his Petrus consanguinitate propinquus
Edidit hic Andrum fabricavit et inde Coretum
Buxilias, Barolum maris aedificavit in oris.
In 1046 he made his first assault on Trani, succeeding in capturing the suburbs and environs but not the city itself, which was defended by Argyrus, a former Norman ally. The Tranesi themselves were Byzantine partisans, with no sympathy for the Normans.
In 1046 Peter was also a candidate to succeed William. According to William of Apulia, though he was the wealthier candidate he was confronted at Melfi by William's brothers Humphrey and Drogo, who supposedly mortally wounded him in a duel. More likely he was just taken captive, since he and Humphrey jointly led a Norman army against Argyrus in 1053. Argyrus had travelled with his troops by ship to Siponto. There he was defeated, suffering heavy losses and, being severely wounded himself, barely escaped to Viesti, according to the Anonymus Barensis (§152).
Peter is recorded by Amatus of Montecassino as entering Melfi again in 1057 to dispute the succession with Drogo's younger brother Robert Guiscard. According to the same source the Melfitans rebelled against him and he fled to Cisterna. Peter and Guiscard must have made peace, however, as Amatus records that the former's two daughters were found wealthy husbands by the latter.
In 1064, Peter's second son Geoffrey refers to his father as magni comitis Petroni in an act donating one ship to the monastery of the Santissima Trinità in Venosa for fishing on the Mar Piccolo, the bay of Taranto. Peter's youngest son, Peter II, likewise confirmed this donation pro remedio anime (ejus) ("for the health of [their father's] soul"). Peter I had not taken Trani by the time of his death. He is sometimes confused with his son Peter. The "count Petrone" who defeated Argyrus in 1053 has an entry in the Prosopography of the Byzantine World and is identified there with the son of Amicus, that is, Peter I, though other source believe the Petronius of 1053 was Peter II. "Petronius" is an augmentative of Peter, and indicates greatness (probably of stature). Peter I's relationship to his son Geoffrey is mentioned in Lupus Protospatharius. Peter's eldest son, Amicus, is barely known.
RobertGuiscard, sometimes Robert "the Guiscard", also nicknamed “Terror Mundi” was a Norman adventurer remembered for the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily.
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.
Tancred of Hauteville was an 11th-century Norman petty lord about whom little is known. He was a minor noble near Coutances in the Cotentin. Tancred is also known by the achievements of his twelve sons.
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.
Drogo of Hauteville (c. 1010 – 10 August 1051) was the second Count of Apulia and Calabria (1046–51) in southern Italy. Initially he was only the leader of those Normans in the service of Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno, but after 1047 he was a territorial prince owing fealty directly to the Emperor.
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 also got the submission of Naples. 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."
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.
Richard Drengot was the count of Aversa (1049–1078), prince of Capua and duke of Gaeta (1064–1078).
Herman of Hauteville was the younger son of Humphrey, count of Apulia and Calabria (1051–1057), and his Lombard wife, Gaitelgrima of Salerno, also known as Altrude. His older brother Abelard was supposed to inherit their father's lands, but Robert Guiscard, their uncle, who was elected count on Humphrey's death, confiscated them.
The 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.
The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1139, involving many battles and independent conquerors.
Geoffrey, Godfrey, or Goffredo, called Lofredus in Latin, was an Italo-Norman military leader and the first Count of Taranto. He was the second son of Peter I of Trani, though of his elder brother, Amicus, nothing is known. He succeeded his father in the territory of Trani and was in control of it in 1064, though the city itself remained with the Byzantine Empire. His younger brother, Peter II, took the city from the Byzantines in 1054 and, taking advantage of Geoffrey's absence, took control of the patrimony. Geoffrey married a daughter of Drogo, lord of Mottola and Castellaneta.
Peter II was the third Italo-Norman count of Trani. He was the youngest of three sons of Peter I; his elder brothers were Amico and Geoffrey.
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.
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.
Amicus of Giovinazzo, also Amicus II, was a Norman nobleman and military leader during the Norman conquest of southern Italy. He was the count of Molfetta from 1068 until his death and of Giovinazzo from 1068 until 1073. He came from a prominent family often opposed to the rule of the Hautevilles. In 1067–68, 1072–73 and 1079–80 he took part in rebellions against the Hauteville Duke of Apulia. In 1067 and 1079 he received aid from Byzantium against the duke.
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