Philip of Mahdia, a North African of Greek origin, was the emir of Palermo, and successor of the great George of Antioch. He was a eunuch who rose through the ranks of the royal curia in Palermo until he was eventually one of King Roger II's most trusted men. On George's death in year 546 of the Hijrah (AD 1151 or 1152), Roger appointed him to the highest post in the kingdom.
In summer 1153, he was sent on an expedition to conquer Tunisia. The governor of Bône (ancient Hippo Regius, modern Annaba) had appealed to Roger for aid against the Almohads. Philip captured the city, treated the populace well, and then returned whence he had come. He was welcomed in Palermo as a hero cum triumpho et gloria (with triumph and glory) according to Romuald, Archbishop of Salerno. Following Romuald's account, he was then charged with converting to Islam and promptly imprisoned and eventually admitted guilt and he was executed by orders of King Roger, who would have forgiven such an offence against his person, but not against God. This account is probably a later interpolation and its authenticity is debated. Arab chroniclers, like Ibn al-Athir, suggest that it was because Philip had allowed several prosperous and learned families to leave Bône after capture. Norwich finds that incredible and suggests that Roger, just months away from death, was either prematurely senile (echoing Hugo Falcandus) or incapacitated by poor health and so his ministers had Philip executed, probably for apostasy.
Brian Catlos, Who was Philip of Mahdia and Why Did He Have to Die? Confessional Identity and Political Power in the Twelfth-Century Mediterranean, «Mediterranean Chronicle», vol. 1, Corfu 2011.
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Roger II 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. By the time of his death at the age of 58, Roger had succeeded in uniting all the Norman conquests in Italy into one kingdom with a strong centralized government.
Tancred was King of Sicily from 1189 to 1194. He was born in Lecce an illegitimate son of Roger III, Duke of Apulia by his mistress Emma, a daughter of Achard II, Count of Lecce. He inherited the title "Count of Lecce" from his grandfather and is consequently often referred to as Tancred of Lecce. Due to his short stature and unhandsome visage, he was mocked by his critics as "The Monkey King".
William I, called the Bad or the Wicked, was the second king of Sicily, ruling from his father's death in 1154 to his own in 1166. He was the fourth son of Roger II and Elvira of Castile.
William II, called the Good, was king of Sicily from 1166 to 1189. From surviving sources William's character is indistinct. Lacking in military enterprise, secluded and pleasure-loving, he seldom emerged from his palace life at Palermo. Yet his reign is marked by an ambitious foreign policy and a vigorous diplomacy. Champion of the papacy and in secret league with the Lombard cities, he was able to defy the common enemy, Frederick Barbarossa. In the Divine Comedy, Dante places William II in Paradise. He is also referred to in Boccaccio's Decameron.
Constance I was reigning Queen of Sicily from 1194–98, jointly with her spouse from 1194 to 1197, and with her infant son Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1198, as the heiress of the Norman kings of Sicily. She was also Holy Roman Empress and later Dowager by marriage to Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.
Ivar the Boneless, also known as Ivar Ragnarsson, was a semi-legendary Viking leader who invaded England and Ireland. According to the Tale of Ragnar Lodbrok, he was the son of Ragnar Loðbrok and his wife Aslaug. His brothers included Björn Ironside, Hvitserk, Sigurd Snake-in-the-Eye and Ubba. Ivar is probably the same person as Ímar.
Christodulus, probably either a Greek Orthodox or a Muslim convert, was the first emir of Palermo under the Normans. His rise occurred after the death of Count Simon of Sicily in 1105 and he held the position of emir by 1107, during the regency of Adelaide del Vasto for her son, King Roger II of Sicily.
Joan of England was a Queen of Sicily and countess consort of Toulouse. She was the seventh child of Henry II, King of England, and Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine. From her birth, she was destined to make a political and royal marriage. She married William II of Sicily and later Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse, two very important and powerful figures in the political landscape of Medieval Europe.
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.
Maio of Bari was the third of the great admirals of Sicily and the most important man in the Norman kingdom of Sicily during the reign of William I (1154–66). Lord Norwich calls him "one of the most influential statesmen in Europe."
Stephen du Perche was the chancellor of the Kingdom of Sicily (1166–68) and Archbishop of Palermo (1167–68) during the early regency of his cousin, the queen dowager Margaret of Navarre (1166–71).
Margaritus of Brindisi, called "the new Neptune", was the last great ammiratus ammiratorum of Sicily. Following in the footsteps of Christodulus, George of Antioch, and Maio of Bari, Margaritus led the fleets of the kingdom in the reigns of William II (1166–1189) and Tancred (1189–1194). He probably began as a Greek pirate and gradually rose to the rank of privateer before becoming a permanent admiral of the navy. In 1185, he became the first count palatine of Cephalonia and Zakynthos. In 1192, he became the first count of Malta. He also held the titles of Prince of Taranto and Duke of Durazzo.
Romuald Guarna was the Archbishop of Salerno from 1153 to his death. He is remembered primarily for his Chronicon sive Annales, an important historical record of his time.
Henry, born Rodrigo according to Hugo Falcandus, was an alleged son of the Navarrese king García Ramírez and his wife, Margaret of L'Aigle, and brother of the Sicilian queen dowager Margaret, who made him Count of Montescaglioso (1166) and then Count of the Principate (1168).
Richard Palmer, an Englishman, was the bishop of Syracuse from 1169 and archbishop of Messina from 1182. Palmer first rose to prominence in 1160 as one of the triumvirate of grandees who replaced the assassinated Admiral Maio of Bari. He was "a man of great learning and eloquence," according to Hugo Falcandus.
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 War of the Sicilian Vespers or just War of the Vespers was a conflict that started with the insurrection of the Sicilian Vespers against Charles of Anjou in 1282 and ended in 1302 with the Peace of Caltabellotta. It was fought in Sicily, Catalonia and elsewhere in the western Mediterranean between the kings of Aragon on one side against the Angevin Charles of Anjou, his son Charles II, the kings of France, and the Papacy on the other side. The war resulted in the division of the old Kingdom of Sicily; at Caltabellotta, Charles II was confirmed as king of Sicily's peninsular territories, while Frederick III was confirmed as king of the island territories.
The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1139, involving many battles and independent conquerors.
The term Norman–Arab–Byzantine culture, Norman-Sicilian culture or, less inclusively, Norman–Arab culture, refers to the interaction of the Norman, Latin, Arab and Byzantine Greek cultures following the Norman conquest of Sicily and of Norman Africa from 1061 to around 1250. The civilization resulted from numerous exchanges in the cultural and scientific fields, based on the tolerance shown by the Normans towards the Greek-speaking populations and the Muslim settlers. As a result, Sicily under the Normans became a crossroad for the interaction between the Norman and Latin Catholic, Byzantine–Orthodox and Arab–Islamic cultures.
The Kingdom of Africa was an extension of the frontier zone of the Siculo-Norman state in the former Roman province of Africa, corresponding to Tunisia and parts of Algeria and Libya today. The main primary sources for the kingdom are Arabic (Muslim); the Latin (Christian) sources are scanter.
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