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20° Bisabuelo/ Great Grandfather de: Carlos Juan Felipe Antonio Vicente De La Cruz Urdaneta Alamo →Robert Guiscard of Hauteville duke of Apulia & Calabria is your 20th great grandfather.
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(Linea Materna)
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Robert "Guiscard" of Hauteville, duke of Apulia & Calabria is your 20th great grandfaof→ Carlos Juan Felipe Antonio Vicente De La Cruz Urdaneta Alamo→ Carlos Juan Felipe Antonio Vicente De La Cruz Urdaneta Alamo→ Morella Álamo Borges
your mother → Belén Borges Ustáriz
her mother → Belén de Jesús Ustáriz Lecuna
her mother → Miguel María Ramón de Jesus Uztáriz y Monserrate
her father → María de Guía de Jesús de Monserrate é Ibarra
his mother → Teniente Coronel Manuel José de Monserrate y Urbina
her father → Antonieta Felicita Javiera Ignacia de Urbina y Hurtado de Mendoza
his mother → Isabel Manuela Josefa Hurtado de Mendoza y Rojas Manrique
her mother → Juana de Rojas Manrique de Mendoza
her mother → Constanza de Mendoza Mate de Luna
her mother → Mayor de Mendoza Manzanedo
her mother → Juan Fernández De Mendoza Y Manuel
her father → Sancha Manuel
his mother → Sancho Manuel de Villena Castañeda, señor del Infantado y Carrión de los Céspedes
her father → Manuel de Castilla, señor de Escalona
his father → Ferdinand "the Saint", king of Castile and León
his father → Alfonso IX of Leon
his father → Fernando II, rey de León
his father → Berenguela de Barcelona, reina consorte de León y Castilla
his mother → Ramon Berenguer III "the Great" count of Barcelona
her father → Maud of Apulia
his mother → Robert "Guiscard" of Hauteville, duke of Apulia & Calabria
her fatherConsistency CheckShow short path | Share this path
You might be connected in other ways.
20° Bisabuelo/ Great Grandfather de: Carlos Juan Felipe Antonio Vicente De La Cruz Urdaneta Alamo →Robert Guiscard of Hauteville duke of Apulia & Calabria is your 20th great grandfather.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Linea Materna)
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Robert Guiscard of Hauteville duke of Apulia & Calabria is your 20th great grandfather.of→ Carlos Juan Felipe Antonio Vicente De La Cruz Urdaneta Alamo→ Morella Álamo Borges
your mother → Belén Eloina Borges Ustáriz
her mother → Belén de Jesús Ustáriz Lecuna
her mother → Miguel María Ramón de Jesús Uztáriz y Monserrate
her father → María de Guía de Jesús de Monserrate é Ibarra
his mother → Teniente Coronel Manuel José de Monserrate y Urbina
her father → Antonieta Felicita Javiera Ignacia de Urbina y Hurtado de Mendoza
his mother → Isabel Manuela Josefa Hurtado de Mendoza y Rojas Manrique
her mother → Juana de Rojas Manrique de Mendoza
her mother → Constanza de Mendoza Mate de Luna
her mother → Mayor de Mendoza Manzanedo
her mother → Juan Fernández De Mendoza Y Manuel
her father → Sancha Manuel
his mother → Sancho Manuel de Villena Castañeda, señor del Infantado y Carrión de los Céspedes
her father → Manuel de Castilla, señor de Escalona
his father → Saint Ferdinand III, king of Castile & León
his father → Alfonso IX, king of Leon and Galicia
his father → Fernando II, rey de León
his father → Berenguela de Barcelona, reina consorte de León y Castilla
his mother → Ramon Berenguer III "the Great" count of Barcelona
her father → Maud of Apulia
his mother → Robert "Guiscard" of Hauteville, duke of Apulia & Calabria
her fatherConsistency CheckShow short path | Share this path
You might be connected in other ways.
Show Me
Merry-Joseph Blondel 1781-1853
Robert "Guiscard" of Hauteville, duke of Apulia & Calabria MP
French: Robert "Guiscard" de Hauteville, duc d'Apulie & Calabre, Italian: Roberto "Guiscardo" d'Altavilla, duca di Puglia e Calabria
Gender: Male
Birth: circa 1015
Hauteville-la-Guichard, Manche, Normandy, France
Death: July 17, 1085 (65-74)
Ionian Islands, Peloponnisos Dytiki Ellada ke Ionio, Greece
Place of Burial: Trinity Abbey in Venosa, Italy
Immediate Family:
Son of Tancred Guiscard, seigneur de Hauteville and Fressenda de Hauteville
Husband of Princess Sikelgaita Hauteville
Ex-husband of Alberada of Hauteville
Father of Bohemond I of Antioch; Emma de Hauteville; Maud of Apulia; Ruggero "Borsa" d'Altavilla, duca di Puglia; Mabel Hauteville and 7 others
Brother of Humbert de Hauteville, Hubert; Tancred II de Hauteville; Mauger de Hauteville, Count of the Capitanate; Guillaume de Hauteville, "Sanicandro" count of the Principate; Fressenda count of Aversa and prince of Capua and 2 others
Half brother of count Serlo of Hauteville, I; Drogo of Hauteville, count of Apulia; William of Hauteville, Iron-Arm; Beatrix de Mortain, d'Eu; Humphrey of Hauteville and 1 other
Added by: Dean Ronald Tanner, Sr. on May 11, 2007
Managed by: Guillermo Eduardo Ferrero Montilla and 145 others
Curated by: Pam Wilson (on hiatus)
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Aboutedit | history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Guiscard
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/85584905/robert-de-guiscard
went on to become Count of Apulia and Calabria (1057–1059),
and then Duke of Apulia and Calabria and lord of Sicily (1059–1085),
and briefly Prince of Benevento (1078–1081) before returning the title to the Pope.
Robert Guiscard (c. 1015 – 17 July 1085) was a Norman adventurer remembered for the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. Robert was born into the Hauteville family in Normandy, went on to become Count of Apulia and Calabria (1057–1059), and then Duke of Apulia and Calabria and Duke of Sicily (1059–1085), and briefly Prince of Benevento (1078–1081) before returning the title to the Pope.
His sobriquet, in contemporary Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, is often rendered "the Resourceful", "the Cunning", "the Wily", "the Fox", or "the Weasel". In Italian sources he is often Roberto il Guiscardo or Roberto d'Altavilla (from Robert de Hauteville)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Guiscard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Hauteville
http://genealogics.org/getperson.php?personID=I00080255&tree=LEO
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/505335/Robert
http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/SICILY.htm#RobertGuiscarddied1085B
Roberto Guiscardo
(?, c. 1015-Cefalonia, 1085) Militar y aventurero normando. Conde (1057-1059) y luego duque de Apulia y Calabria, y de Sicilia (1059-1085). La conquista de Calabria le dio la supremacía sobre la zona, una vez derrotadas las tropas de León IX (1053). Arrojó a los bizantinos del S de Italia (1060-1071) y emprendió la conquista de la Sicilia musulmana (toma de Palermo, 1072). Constituido el futuro reino de Sicilia, implantó una administración centralizada. Sus incursiones en los territorios pontificios obligaron a Gregorio VII a excomulgarlo (1075), hasta que en 1080 se declaró vasallo de la Santa Sede. En 1081 se dirigió a Iliria y derrotó a los bizantinos. Rescató al papa Gregorio del asedio del castillo de Sant'Angelo (1084).
Robert Guiscard From Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, or the Fox — most closely related to the archaism wiseacre) (c. 1015 – 1085) was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. He was Count (1057-1059) and then Duke (1059-1085) of Apulia and Calabria after his brother Humphrey's death
From 999 to 1042 the Normans in Italy were mainly mercenaries, serving at various times the Byzantines and a number of Lombard nobles. Then Sergius IV of Naples, by installing the leader Rainulf Drengot in the fortress of Aversa in 1029, gave them their first base, allowing them to begin an organized conquest of the land.
In 1035 there arrived William Iron-Arm and Drogo, the two eldest sons of Tancred of Hauteville, a petty noble of the Cotentin in Normandy. The two joined in the revolt of the Lombards against Byzantine control of Apulia. By 1040 the Byzantines had lost most of that province. In 1042 Melfi was chosen as the Norman capital, and in September of that year the Normans elected as their count William Iron-Arm, who was succeeded in turn by his brothers Drogo, Comes Normannorum totius Apuliae e Calabriae ("the Count of all Normans in Apulia and Calabria"), and Humphrey, who arrived about 1044.
[edit] Early years
Robert Guiscard was the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville and eldest by his second wife Fressenda. According to the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena, he left Normandy with only five mounted riders and thirty followers on foot. Upon arriving in Langobardia in 1047, he became the chief of a roving robber-band. Anna Comnena also leaves a physical description of Guiscard:
“ This Robert was Norman by descent, of minor origin, in temper tyrannical, in mind most cunning, brave in action, very clever in attacking the wealth and substance of magnates, most obstinate in achievement, for he did not allow any obstacle to prevent his executing his desire. His stature was so lofty that he surpassed even the tallest, his complexion was ruddy, his hair flaxen, his shoulders were broad, his eyes all but emitted sparks of fire, and in frame he was well-built ... this man's cry it is said to have put thousands to flight. Thus equipped by fortune, physique and character, he was naturally indomitable, and subordinate to no one in the world. ”
Lands were scarce in Apulia at the time and the roving Guiscard could not expect any grant from Drogo, then reigning, for Humphrey had just received his own county of Lavello. Guiscard soon joined Prince Pandulf IV of Capua in his ceaseless wars with Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno (1048). The next year, however, Guiscard left Pandulf, according to Amatus of Montecassino because Pandulf reneged on a promise of a castle and his daughter's hand. Guiscard returned to his brother Drogo and asked to be granted a fief. Drogo, who had just finished campaigning in Calabria, gave Guiscard command of the fortress of Scribla. Dissatisfied with this position, Guiscard moved to the castle of San Marco Argentano (after which he later named the first Norman castle in Sicily, at the site of ancient Aluntium). During his time in Calabria, Guiscard married his first wife, Alberada of Buonalbergo, the daughter of Lord Girard of Buonalbergo.
Guiscard soon rose to distinction. The Lombards turned against their erstwhile allies and Pope Leo IX determined to expel the Norman freebooters. His army was defeated, however, at the Battle of Civitate sul Fortore (1053) by the Normans, united under Humphrey. Humphrey commanded the centre against the pope's Swabian troops. Early in the battle Count Richard of Aversa, commanding the right van, put the Lombards to flight and chased them down, then returned to help rout the Swabians. Guiscard had come all the way from Calabria to command the left. His troops were held in reserve until, seeing Humphrey's forces ineffectually charging the pope's centre, he called up his father-in-law's reinforcements and joined the fray, distinguishing himself personally, even being dismounted and remounting again three separate times according to William of Apulia. Honored for his actions at Civitate, Guiscard succeeded Humphrey as count of Apulia in 1057, over his elder half-brother Geoffrey. In company with Roger, his youngest brother, Guiscard carried on the conquest of Apulia and Calabria, while Richard conquered the principality of Capua.
[edit] Rule
Soon after his succession, probably in 1058, Guiscard separated from his wife Alberada because they were related within the prohibited degrees. Shortly after, he married Sichelgaita, the sister of Gisulf II of Salerno, Guaimar's successor. In return for giving him his sister's hand, Gisulf demanded of Guiscard that he destroy two castles of his brother William, count of the Principate, which had encroached on Gisulf's territory.
The Papacy, foreseeing the breach with the Holy Roman Emperor (the Investiture Controversy), then resolved to recognize the Normans and secure them as allies. Therefore at the Council of Melfi, on 23 August 1059, Pope Nicholas II invested Guiscard as duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and Richard of Aversa as prince of Capua. Guiscard, now "by the Grace of God and St Peter duke of Apulia and Calabria and, if either aid me, future lord of Sicily", agreed to hold his titles and lands by annual rent of the Holy See and to maintain its cause. In the next twenty years he undertook a series of conquests, winning his Sicilian dukeship.
[edit] Subjection of Calabria
At the time of the opening of the Melfitan council in June, Guiscard had been leading an army in Calabria, the first strong attempt to subjugate that very Byzantine province since the Iron-Arm's campaigns with Guaimar. After attending the synod for his investiture, he returned to Calabria, where his army was besieging Cariati. After Guiscard's arrival, Cariati submitted and, before winter was out, Rossano and Gerace also. Only Reggio was left in Byzantine hands when Guiscard returned to Apulia. In Apulia, he worked to remove the Byzantine garrisons from Taranto and Brindisi, before, largely in preparation for his planned Sicilian expedition, he returned again to Calabria, where Roger was waiting with siege engines.
The fall of Reggio, after a long and arduous siege, and the subsequent capitulation of Scilla, an island citadel to which the Reggian garrison had fled, opened up the way to Sicily. Roger first led a tiny force to attack Messina but was repulsed easily by the Saracen garrison. The large invading force which could have been expected did not materialise, for Guiscard was recalled by a new Byzantine army, sent by Constantine X, ravaging Apulia. In January 1061, Melfi itself was under siege and Roger too was recalled. But the full weight of Guiscard's forces forced the Byzantines to retreat and by May Apulia was calm.
[edit] Sicilian campaigns
Invading Sicily with Roger, the brothers captured Messina (1061) with comparable ease: Roger's men landed unsighted during the night and surprised the Saracen army in the morning. The Guiscard's troops landed unopposed and found Messina abandoned. Guiscard immediately fortified Messina and allied himself with Ibn at-Timnah, one of the rival emirs of Sicily, against Ibn al-Hawas, another emir. The armies of Guiscard, his brother, and his Moslem friend marched into central Sicily by way of Rometta, which had remained loyal to al-Timnah. They passed through Frazzanò and the pianura di Maniace, where George Maniakes and the first Hautevilles distinguished themselves twenty-one years prior. Guiscard assaulted the town of Centuripe, but their resistance was strong, and he moved on. Paternò fell and he brought his army to Enna (then Castrogiovanni), a formidable fortress. The Saracens sallied forth and were defeated, but Enna itself did not fall. Guiscard turned back, leaving a fortress at San Marco d'Alunzio, named after his first stronghold in Calabria. He returned to Apulia with Sichelgaita for Christmas.
He returned in 1064, but bypassed Enna taking straight for Palermo. However, his campsite was infested with tarantulas and had to be abandoned. The campaign was unsuccessful this time, though a later campaign, in 1072, saw Palermo fall and for the rest of Sicily it was only then a matter of time.
[edit] Against the Byzantines
Bari was reduced (April 1071), and the Byzantine forces finally ousted from southern Italy. The territory of Salerno was already Guiscard's; in December 1076 he took the city, expelling its Lombard prince Gisulf, whose sister Sichelgaita he had married. The Norman attacks on Benevento, a papal fief, alarmed and angered Gregory VII, but pressed hard by the emperor, Henry IV, he turned again to the Normans, and at Ceprano (June 1080) reinvested Guiscard, securing him also in the southern Abruzzi, but reserving Salerno.
Guiscard's last enterprise was his attack on the Byzantine Empire, a rallying ground for his rebel vassals, such as Henry, Count of Monte Sant'Angelo. In this enterprise Guiscard crossed swords with his most redoubtable opponent, the only one worthy of himself, in a clash of swords that would become legendary in the years after. In this struggle he met his nemesis in the person of the greatest man of the age: Emperor Alexius. He contemplated seizing the throne of the Basileus and took up the cause of Michael VII, who had been deposed in 1078 and to whose son his daughter had been betrothed. He sailed with 16,000 men of which 1,300 were Norman knights against the empire in May 1081, and by February 1082 had occupied Corfu and Durazzo, defeating the Emperor Alexius in front of the latter (Battle of Dyrrhachium, October 1081). He was, however, recalled to the aid of Gregory VII, besieged in Castel Sant'Angelo by Henry IV (June 1083).
Marching north with 36,000 men he entered Rome and forced Henry to retire, but an émeute of the citizens led to a three days' sack of the city (May 1084), after which Guiscard escorted the pope to Rome. His son Bohemund, for a time master of Thessaly, had now lost the Byzantine conquests. Guiscard, returning with 150 ships to restore them, occupied Corfu and Kefalonia, but died along with 500 Norman knights of fever in the latter on July 15 1085, in his 70th year. He was buried in S. Trinità at Venosa. The town of Fiscardo on Kefalonia is named after him.
Guiscard was succeeded by Roger Borsa, his son by Sichelgaita; Bohemund, his son by an earlier Norman wife Alberada, being set aside. He left two younger sons: Guy, Duke of Amalfi, and Robert Scalio, neither of whom made any trouble for their elder brothers. At his death Guiscard was duke of Apulia and Calabria, prince of Salerno and suzerain of Sicily. His successes had been due not only to his great qualities but to the "entente" with the Papal See. He created and enforced a strong ducal power which, however, was met by many baronial revolts, one being in 1078, when he demanded from the Apulian vassals an "aid" on the betrothal of his daughter. In conquering such wide territories he had little time to organize them internally. In the history of the Norman kingdom of Italy Guiscard remains essentially the hero and founder, though his career ended in "something of a dead end,"[1] while his nephew Roger II is the statesman and organizer.
[edit] Religion
Robert Guiscard, through his conquest of Calabria and Sicily, was instrumental in bringing Latin Christianity to those regions most affected by Greek Orthodoxy and Islam. Nevertheless, though he encouraged the Latin rite in preference to anything Greek, he did not force his Moslem subjects to convert or leave and rather used them (as did his successors) as mercenaries. He laid the foundation of a new cathedral in Salerno and of a Norman monastery at Sant'Eufemia in Calabria. This latter monastery began as a community of eleven monks from Saint-Evroul in Normandy under the abbot Robert de Grantmesnil. They had a famous choir.
Though his relationship with the pope was rocky, Guiscard preferred to be on good terms with the papacy and he made a gesture of abandoning his first wife in response to church law. Though the popes were often fearful of his growing power, they preferred the strong and independent hand of a Catholic Norman to the rule of a Byzantine Greek. Guiscard received his investment with Sicily at the hands of Pope Nicholas II, who feared the opposition of the Holy Roman Emperor to the Papal reforms more. Guiscard supported the reforms, coming to the rescue of a besieged Pope Gregory VII, who had once excommunicated him for encroaching on the territory of the Papal States.
Guiscard achieved enough martial and political success for Dante Alighieri, in The Divine Comedy, to place the spirit of Guiscard in Heaven's sphere of Mars with history's greatest Christian warriors. In Inferno, he describes a field of mutiliated shades stretching out to the horizon as what Guiscard's enemies would look like after a battle.
Robert Guiscard From Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, or the Fox — most closely related to the archaism wiseacre) (c. 1015 – 1085) was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. He was Count (1057-1059) and then Duke (1059-1085) of Apulia and Calabria after his brother Humphrey's death
From 999 to 1042 the Normans in Italy were mainly mercenaries, serving at various times the Byzantines and a number of Lombard nobles. Then Sergius IV of Naples, by installing the leader Rainulf Drengot in the fortress of Aversa in 1029, gave them their first base, allowing them to begin an organized conquest of the land.
In 1035 there arrived William Iron-Arm and Drogo, the two eldest sons of Tancred of Hauteville, a petty noble of the Cotentin in Normandy. The two joined in the revolt of the Lombards against Byzantine control of Apulia. By 1040 the Byzantines had lost most of that province. In 1042 Melfi was chosen as the Norman capital, and in September of that year the Normans elected as their count William Iron-Arm, who was succeeded in turn by his brothers Drogo, Comes Normannorum totius Apuliae e Calabriae ("the Count of all Normans in Apulia and Calabria"), and Humphrey, who arrived about 1044.
[edit] Early years
Robert Guiscard was the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville and eldest by his second wife Fressenda. According to the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena, he left Normandy with only five mounted riders and thirty followers on foot. Upon arriving in Langobardia in 1047, he became the chief of a roving robber-band. Anna Comnena also leaves a physical description of Guiscard:
“ This Robert was Norman by descent, of minor origin, in temper tyrannical, in mind most cunning, brave in action, very clever in attacking the wealth and substance of magnates, most obstinate in achievement, for he did not allow any obstacle to prevent his executing his desire. His stature was so lofty that he surpassed even the tallest, his complexion was ruddy, his hair flaxen, his shoulders were broad, his eyes all but emitted sparks of fire, and in frame he was well-built ... this man's cry it is said to have put thousands to flight. Thus equipped by fortune, physique and character, he was naturally indomitable, and subordinate to no one in the world. ”
Lands were scarce in Apulia at the time and the roving Guiscard could not expect any grant from Drogo, then reigning, for Humphrey had just received his own county of Lavello. Guiscard soon joined Prince Pandulf IV of Capua in his ceaseless wars with Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno (1048). The next year, however, Guiscard left Pandulf, according to Amatus of Montecassino because Pandulf reneged on a promise of a castle and his daughter's hand. Guiscard returned to his brother Drogo and asked to be granted a fief. Drogo, who had just finished campaigning in Calabria, gave Guiscard command of the fortress of Scribla. Dissatisfied with this position, Guiscard moved to the castle of San Marco Argentano (after which he later named the first Norman castle in Sicily, at the site of ancient Aluntium). During his time in Calabria, Guiscard married his first wife, Alberada of Buonalbergo, the daughter of Lord Girard of Buonalbergo.
Guiscard soon rose to distinction. The Lombards turned against their erstwhile allies and Pope Leo IX determined to expel the Norman freebooters. His army was defeated, however, at the Battle of Civitate sul Fortore (1053) by the Normans, united under Humphrey. Humphrey commanded the centre against the pope's Swabian troops. Early in the battle Count Richard of Aversa, commanding the right van, put the Lombards to flight and chased them down, then returned to help rout the Swabians. Guiscard had come all the way from Calabria to command the left. His troops were held in reserve until, seeing Humphrey's forces ineffectually charging the pope's centre, he called up his father-in-law's reinforcements and joined the fray, distinguishing himself personally, even being dismounted and remounting again three separate times according to William of Apulia. Honored for his actions at Civitate, Guiscard succeeded Humphrey as count of Apulia in 1057, over his elder half-brother Geoffrey. In company with Roger, his youngest brother, Guiscard carried on the conquest of Apulia and Calabria, while Richard conquered the principality of Capua.
[edit] Rule
Soon after his succession, probably in 1058, Guiscard separated from his wife Alberada because they were related within the prohibited degrees. Shortly after, he married Sichelgaita, the sister of Gisulf II of Salerno, Guaimar's successor. In return for giving him his sister's hand, Gisulf demanded of Guiscard that he destroy two castles of his brother William, count of the Principate, which had encroached on Gisulf's territory.
The Papacy, foreseeing the breach with the Holy Roman Emperor (the Investiture Controversy), then resolved to recognize the Normans and secure them as allies. Therefore at the Council of Melfi, on 23 August 1059, Pope Nicholas II invested Guiscard as duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and Richard of Aversa as prince of Capua. Guiscard, now "by the Grace of God and St Peter duke of Apulia and Calabria and, if either aid me, future lord of Sicily", agreed to hold his titles and lands by annual rent of the Holy See and to maintain its cause. In the next twenty years he undertook a series of conquests, winning his Sicilian dukeship.
[edit] Subjection of Calabria
At the time of the opening of the Melfitan council in June, Guiscard had been leading an army in Calabria, the first strong attempt to subjugate that very Byzantine province since the Iron-Arm's campaigns with Guaimar. After attending the synod for his investiture, he returned to Calabria, where his army was besieging Cariati. After Guiscard's arrival, Cariati submitted and, before winter was out, Rossano and Gerace also. Only Reggio was left in Byzantine hands when Guiscard returned to Apulia. In Apulia, he worked to remove the Byzantine garrisons from Taranto and Brindisi, before, largely in preparation for his planned Sicilian expedition, he returned again to Calabria, where Roger was waiting with siege engines.
The fall of Reggio, after a long and arduous siege, and the subsequent capitulation of Scilla, an island citadel to which the Reggian garrison had fled, opened up the way to Sicily. Roger first led a tiny force to attack Messina but was repulsed easily by the Saracen garrison. The large invading force which could have been expected did not materialise, for Guiscard was recalled by a new Byzantine army, sent by Constantine X, ravaging Apulia. In January 1061, Melfi itself was under siege and Roger too was recalled. But the full weight of Guiscard's forces forced the Byzantines to retreat and by May Apulia was calm.
[edit] Sicilian campaigns
Invading Sicily with Roger, the brothers captured Messina (1061) with comparable ease: Roger's men landed unsighted during the night and surprised the Saracen army in the morning. The Guiscard's troops landed unopposed and found Messina abandoned. Guiscard immediately fortified Messina and allied himself with Ibn at-Timnah, one of the rival emirs of Sicily, against Ibn al-Hawas, another emir. The armies of Guiscard, his brother, and his Moslem friend marched into central Sicily by way of Rometta, which had remained loyal to al-Timnah. They passed through Frazzanò and the pianura di Maniace, where George Maniakes and the first Hautevilles distinguished themselves twenty-one years prior. Guiscard assaulted the town of Centuripe, but their resistance was strong, and he moved on. Paternò fell and he brought his army to Enna (then Castrogiovanni), a formidable fortress. The Saracens sallied forth and were defeated, but Enna itself did not fall. Guiscard turned back, leaving a fortress at San Marco d'Alunzio, named after his first stronghold in Calabria. He returned to Apulia with Sichelgaita for Christmas.
He returned in 1064, but bypassed Enna taking straight for Palermo. However, his campsite was infested with tarantulas and had to be abandoned. The campaign was unsuccessful this time, though a later campaign, in 1072, saw Palermo fall and for the rest of Sicily it was only then a matter of time.
[edit] Against the Byzantines
Bari was reduced (April 1071), and the Byzantine forces finally ousted from southern Italy. The territory of Salerno was already Guiscard's; in December 1076 he took the city, expelling its Lombard prince Gisulf, whose sister Sichelgaita he had married. The Norman attacks on Benevento, a papal fief, alarmed and angered Gregory VII, but pressed hard by the emperor, Henry IV, he turned again to the Normans, and at Ceprano (June 1080) reinvested Guiscard, securing him also in the southern Abruzzi, but reserving Salerno.
Guiscard's last enterprise was his attack on the Byzantine Empire, a rallying ground for his rebel vassals, such as Henry, Count of Monte Sant'Angelo. In this enterprise Guiscard crossed swords with his most redoubtable opponent, the only one worthy of himself, in a clash of swords that would become legendary in the years after. In this struggle he met his nemesis in the person of the greatest man of the age: Emperor Alexius. He contemplated seizing the throne of the Basileus and took up the cause of Michael VII, who had been deposed in 1078 and to whose son his daughter had been betrothed. He sailed with 16,000 men of which 1,300 were Norman knights against the empire in May 1081, and by February 1082 had occupied Corfu and Durazzo, defeating the Emperor Alexius in front of the latter (Battle of Dyrrhachium, October 1081). He was, however, recalled to the aid of Gregory VII, besieged in Castel Sant'Angelo by Henry IV (June 1083).
Marching north with 36,000 men he entered Rome and forced Henry to retire, but an émeute of the citizens led to a three days' sack of the city (May 1084), after which Guiscard escorted the pope to Rome. His son Bohemund, for a time master of Thessaly, had now lost the Byzantine conquests. Guiscard, returning with 150 ships to restore them, occupied Corfu and Kefalonia, but died along with 500 Norman knights of fever in the latter on July 15 1085, in his 70th year. He was buried in S. Trinità at Venosa. The town of Fiscardo on Kefalonia is named after him.
Guiscard was succeeded by Roger Borsa, his son by Sichelgaita; Bohemund, his son by an earlier Norman wife Alberada, being set aside. He left two younger sons: Guy, Duke of Amalfi, and Robert Scalio, neither of whom made any trouble for their elder brothers. At his death Guiscard was duke of Apulia and Calabria, prince of Salerno and suzerain of Sicily. His successes had been due not only to his great qualities but to the "entente" with the Papal See. He created and enforced a strong ducal power which, however, was met by many baronial revolts, one being in 1078, when he demanded from the Apulian vassals an "aid" on the betrothal of his daughter. In conquering such wide territories he had little time to organize them internally. In the history of the Norman kingdom of Italy Guiscard remains essentially the hero and founder, though his career ended in "something of a dead end,"[1] while his nephew Roger II is the statesman and organizer.
[edit] Religion
Robert Guiscard, through his conquest of Calabria and Sicily, was instrumental in bringing Latin Christianity to those regions most affected by Greek Orthodoxy and Islam. Nevertheless, though he encouraged the Latin rite in preference to anything Greek, he did not force his Moslem subjects to convert or leave and rather used them (as did his successors) as mercenaries. He laid the foundation of a new cathedral in Salerno and of a Norman monastery at Sant'Eufemia in Calabria. This latter monastery began as a community of eleven monks from Saint-Evroul in Normandy under the abbot Robert de Grantmesnil. They had a famous choir.
Though his relationship with the pope was rocky, Guiscard preferred to be on good terms with the papacy and he made a gesture of abandoning his first wife in response to church law. Though the popes were often fearful of his growing power, they preferred the strong and independent hand of a Catholic Norman to the rule of a Byzantine Greek. Guiscard received his investment with Sicily at the hands of Pope Nicholas II, who feared the opposition of the Holy Roman Emperor to the Papal reforms more. Guiscard supported the reforms, coming to the rescue of a besieged Pope Gregory VII, who had once excommunicated him for encroaching on the territory of the Papal States.
Guiscard achieved enough martial and political success for Dante Alighieri, in The Divine Comedy, to place the spirit of Guiscard in Heaven's sphere of Mars with history's greatest Christian warriors. In Inferno, he describes a field of mutiliated shades stretching out to the horizon as what Guiscard's enemies would look like after a battle.
Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia and Calabria, from Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, the Fox, or the Weasel (c. 1015 – 17 July 1085) was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. Robert was from the noble Maison d'Hautville of the Hauteville family, he went to become Count (1057-1059) and then Duke (1059-1085) of Apulia and Calabria after his brother Humphrey's death.From 999 to 1042 the Normans in Italy were mainly mercenaries, serving at various times the Byzantines and a number of Lombard nobles. Then Sergius IV of Naples, by installing the leader Rainulf Drengot in the fortress of Aversa in 1029, gave them their first base, allowing them to begin an organized conquest of the land.
In 1035 there arrived William Iron-Arm and Drogo, the two eldest sons of Tancred of Hauteville, a petty noble of the Cotentin in Normandy. The two joined in the revolt of the Lombards against Byzantine control of Apulia. By 1040 the Byzantines had lost most of that province. In 1042 Melfi was chosen as the Norman capital, and in September of that year the Normans elected as their count William Iron-Arm, who was succeeded in turn by his brothers Drogo, Comes Normannorum totius Apuliæ e Calabriæ ("the Count of all Normans in Apulia and Calabria"), and Humphrey, who arrived about 1044.Robert Guiscard was the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville and eldest by his second wife Fressenda. According to the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena, he left Normandy with only five mounted riders and thirty followers on foot. Upon arriving in Langobardia in 1047, he became the chief of a roving robber-band. Anna Comnena also leaves a physical description of Guiscard:
This Robert was Norman by descent, of minor origin, in temper tyrannical, in mind most cunning, brave in action, very clever in attacking the wealth and substance of magnates, most obstinate in achievement, for he did not allow any obstacle to prevent his executing his desire. His stature was so lofty that he surpassed even the tallest, his complexion was ruddy, his hair flaxen, his shoulders were broad, his eyes all but emitted sparks of fire, and in frame he was well-built ... this man's cry it is said to have put thousands to flight. Thus equipped by fortune, physique and character, he was naturally indomitable, and subordinate to no one in the world.
Lands were scarce in Apulia at the time and the roving Guiscard could not expect any grant from Drogo, then reigning, for Humphrey had just received his own county of Lavello. Guiscard soon joined Prince Pandulf IV of Capua in his ceaseless wars with Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno (1048). The next year, however, Guiscard left Pandulf, according to Amatus of Montecassino because Pandulf reneged on a promise of a castle and his daughter's hand. Guiscard returned to his brother Drogo and asked to be granted a fief. Drogo, who had just finished campaigning in Calabria, gave Guiscard command of the fortress of Scribla. Dissatisfied with this position, Guiscard moved to the castle of San Marco Argentano (after which he later named the first Norman castle in Sicily, at the site of ancient Aluntium). During his time in Calabria, Guiscard married his first wife, Alberada of Buonalbergo, the daughter of Lord Girard of Buonalbergo.
Guiscard soon rose to distinction. The Lombards turned against their erstwhile allies and Pope Leo IX determined to expel the Norman freebooters. His army was defeated, however, at the Battle of Civitate sul Fortore (1053) by the Normans, united under Humphrey. Humphrey commanded the centre against the pope's Swabian troops. Early in the battle Count Richard of Aversa, commanding the right van, put the Lombards to flight and chased them down, then returned to help rout the Swabians. Guiscard had come all the way from Calabria to command the left. His troops were held in reserve until, seeing Humphrey's forces ineffectually charging the pope's centre, he called up his father-in-law's reinforcements and joined the fray, distinguishing himself personally, even being dismounted and remounting again three separate times according to William of Apulia. Honored for his actions at Civitate, Guiscard succeeded Humphrey as count of Apulia in 1057, over his elder half-brother Geoffrey. In company with Roger, his youngest brother, Guiscard carried on the conquest of Apulia and Calabria, while Richard conquered the principality of Capua.
[edit]Rule
Soon after his succession, probably in 1058, Guiscard separated from his wife Alberada because they were related within the prohibited degrees. Shortly after, he married Sichelgaita, the sister of Gisulf II of Salerno, Guaimar's successor. In return for giving him his sister's hand, Gisulf demanded of Guiscard that he destroy two castles of his brother William, count of the Principate, which had encroached on Gisulf's territory.
The Papacy, foreseeing the breach with the Holy Roman Emperor (the Investiture Controversy), then resolved to recognize the Normans and secure them as allies. Therefore at the Council of Melfi, on 23 August 1059, Pope Nicholas II invested Guiscard as duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and Richard of Aversa as prince of Capua. Guiscard, now "by the Grace of God and St Peter duke of Apulia and Calabria and, if either aid me, future lord of Sicily", agreed to hold his titles and lands by annual rent of the Holy See and to maintain its cause. In the next twenty years he undertook a series of conquests, winning his Sicilian dukedom.Subjection of Calabria
At the time of the opening of the Melfitan council in June, Guiscard had been leading an army in Calabria, the first strong attempt to subjugate that very Byzantine province since the Iron-Arm's campaigns with Guaimar. After attending the synod for his investiture, he returned to Calabria, where his army was besieging Cariati. After Guiscard's arrival, Cariati submitted and, before winter was out, Rossano and Gerace also. Only Reggio was left in Byzantine hands when Guiscard returned to Apulia. In Apulia, he worked to remove the Byzantine garrisons from Taranto and Brindisi, before, largely in preparation for his planned Sicilian expedition, he returned again to Calabria, where Roger was waiting with siege engines.
The fall of Reggio, after a long and arduous siege, and the subsequent capitulation of Scilla, an island citadel to which the Reggian garrison had fled, opened up the way to Sicily. Roger first led a tiny force to attack Messina but was repulsed easily by the Saracen garrison. The large invading force which could have been expected did not materialise, for Guiscard was recalled by a new Byzantine army, sent by Constantine X, ravaging Apulia. In January 1061, Melfi itself was under siege and Roger too was recalled. But the full weight of Guiscard's forces forced the Byzantines to retreat and by May Apulia was calm.
[edit]Sicilian campaigns
Invading Sicily with Roger, the brothers captured Messina (1061) with comparable ease: Roger's men landed unsighted during the night and surprised the Saracen army in the morning. The Guiscard's troops landed unopposed and found Messina abandoned. Guiscard immediately fortified Messina and allied himself with Ibn at-Timnah, one of the rival emirs of Sicily, against Ibn al-Hawas, another emir. The armies of Guiscard, his brother, and his Moslem friend marched into central Sicily by way of Rometta, which had remained loyal to al-Timnah. They passed through Frazzanò and the pianura di Maniace, where George Maniakes and the first Hautevilles distinguished themselves twenty-one years prior. Guiscard assaulted the town of Centuripe, but their resistance was strong, and he moved on. Paternò fell and he brought his army to Enna (then Castrogiovanni), a formidable fortress. The Saracens sallied forth and were defeated, but Enna itself did not fall. Guiscard turned back, leaving a fortress at San Marco d'Alunzio, named after his first stronghold in Calabria. He returned to Apulia with Sichelgaita for Christmas.
He returned in 1064, but bypassed Enna taking straight for Palermo. However, his campsite was infested with tarantulas and had to be abandoned. The campaign was unsuccessful this time, though a later campaign, in 1072, saw Palermo fall and for the rest of Sicily it was only then a matter of time.
Bari was reduced (April 1071), and the Byzantine forces finally ousted from southern Italy. The territory of Salerno was already Guiscard's; in December 1076 he took the city, expelling its Lombard prince Gisulf, whose sister Sichelgaita he had married. The Norman attacks on Benevento, a papal fief, alarmed and angered Gregory VII, but pressed hard by the emperor, Henry IV, he turned again to the Normans, and at Ceprano (June 1080) reinvested Guiscard, securing him also in the southern Abruzzi, but reserving Salerno.
Guiscard's last enterprise was his attack on the Byzantine Empire, a rallying ground for his rebel vassals, such as Henry, Count of Monte Sant'Angelo. In this enterprise Guiscard crossed swords with his most redoubtable opponent, the only one worthy of himself, in a clash of swords that would become legendary in the years after. In this struggle he met his nemesis in the person of the greatest man of the age: Emperor Alexius. He contemplated seizing the throne of the Basileus and took up the cause of Michael VII, who had been deposed in 1078 and to whose son his daughter had been betrothed. He sailed with 16,000 men of which 1,300 were Norman knights against the empire in May 1081, and by February 1082 had occupied Corfu and Durazzo, defeating the Emperor Alexius in front of the latter (Battle of Dyrrhachium, October 1081). He was, however, recalled to the aid of Gregory VII, besieged in Castel Sant'Angelo by Henry IV (June 1083).
Marching north with 36,000 men he entered Rome and forced Henry to retire, but a short-lived rebellion or seditious tumult (émeute) of the citizens led to a three days' sack of the city (May 1084), after which Guiscard escorted the pope to Rome. His son Bohemund, for a time master of Thessaly, had now lost the Byzantine conquests. Guiscard, returning with 150 ships to restore them, occupied Corfu and Kefalonia, but died along with 500 Norman knights of fever in the latter on 17 July 1085, in his 70th year.[1][2] He was buried in the Hauteville family mausoleum of the Trinity Abbey (SS. Trinità) at Venosa. The town of Fiscardo on Kefalonia is named after him.
Guiscard was succeeded by Roger Borsa, his son by Sichelgaita; Bohemund, his son by an earlier Norman wife Alberada, being set aside. He left two younger sons: Guy, Duke of Amalfi, and Robert Scalio, neither of whom made any trouble for their elder brothers. At his death Guiscard was duke of Apulia and Calabria, prince of Salerno and suzerain of Sicily. His successes had been due not only to his great qualities but to the "entente" with the Papal See. He created and enforced a strong ducal power which, however, was met by many baronial revolts, one being in 1078, when he demanded from the Apulian vassals an "aid" on the betrothal of his daughter. In conquering such wide territories he had little time to organize them internally. In the history of the Norman kingdom of Italy Guiscard remains essentially the hero and founder, though his career ended in "something of a dead end,"[3] while his nephew Roger II is the statesman and organizer.
[edit]Religion
Robert Guiscard, through his conquest of Calabria and Sicily, was instrumental in bringing Latin Christianity to an area which historically followed the Byzantine rite. Guiscard laid the foundation of a new cathedral in Salerno and of a Norman monastery at Sant'Eufemia in Calabria. This latter monastery, famous for its choir, began as a community of eleven monks from Saint-Evroul in Normandy under the abbot Robert de Grantmesnil.
Though his relationship with the pope was rocky, Guiscard preferred to be on good terms with the papacy and he made a gesture of abandoning his first wife in response to church law. Though the popes were often fearful of his growing power, they preferred the strong and independent hand of a Catholic Norman to the rule of a Byzantine Greek. Guiscard received his investment with Sicily at the hands of Pope Nicholas II, who feared the opposition of the Holy Roman Emperor to the Papal reforms more. Guiscard supported the reforms, coming to the rescue of a besieged Pope Gregory VII, who had once excommunicated him for encroaching on the territory of the Papal States. After the Great Schism of 1054, the polarized religious atmosphere served to strengthen Guiscard's alliance with papal forces, resulting in a formidable papal-Norman opposition to the Eastern Empire.[4]
Such was Guiscard's martial and political success that Dante Alighieri recorded it in his Divine Comedy, placing his spirit in Heaven's sphere of Mars with history's greatest Christian warriors. In Inferno, Dante describes Guiscard's enemies as a field of mutilated shades stretching out to the horizon.
Robert Guiscard (from Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, or the Fox — most closely related to the archaism wiseacre) (c. 1015 – 1085) was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. He was Count (1057-1059) and then Duke (1059-1085) of Apulia and Calabria after his brother Humphrey's death.
Robert Guiscard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Guiscard (from Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, or the Fox — most closely related to the archaism wiseacre) (c. 1015 – 1085) was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. He was Count (1057-1059) and then Duke (1059-1085) of Apulia and Calabria after his brother Humphrey's death.
Background
From 999 to 1042 the Normans in Italy were mainly mercenaries, serving at various times the Byzantines and a number of Lombard nobles. Then Sergius IV of Naples, by installing the leader Rainulf Drengot in the fortress of Aversa in 1029, gave them their first base, allowing them to begin an organized conquest of the land.
In 1035 there arrived William Iron-Arm and Drogo, the two eldest sons of Tancred of Hauteville, a petty noble of the Cotentin in Normandy. The two joined in the revolt of the Lombards against Byzantine control of Apulia. By 1040 the Byzantines had lost most of that province. In 1042 Melfi was chosen as the Norman capital, and in September of that year the Normans elected as their count William Iron-Arm, who was succeeded in turn by his brothers Drogo, Comes Normannorum totius Apuliae e Calabriae ("the Count of all Normans in Apulia and Calabria"), and Humphrey, who arrived about 1044.
Early years
Robert Guiscard was the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville and eldest by his second wife Fressenda. According to the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena, he left Normandy with only five mounted riders and thirty followers on foot. Upon arriving in Langobardia in 1047, he became the chief of a roving robber-band. Anna Comnena also leaves a physical description of Guiscard:
“ This Robert was Norman by descent, of minor origin, in temper tyrannical, in mind most cunning, brave in action, very clever in attacking the wealth and substance of magnates, most obstinate in achievement, for he did not allow any obstacle to prevent his executing his desire. His stature was so lofty that he surpassed even the tallest, his complexion was ruddy, his hair flaxen, his shoulders were broad, his eyes all but emitted sparks of fire, and in frame he was well-built ... this man's cry it is said to have put thousands to flight. Thus equipped by fortune, physique and character, he was naturally indomitable, and subordinate to no one in the world. ”
Lands were scarce in Apulia at the time and the roving Guiscard could not expect any grant from Drogo, then reigning, for Humphrey had just received his own county of Lavello. Guiscard soon joined Prince Pandulf IV of Capua in his ceaseless wars with Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno (1048). The next year, however, Guiscard left Pandulf, according to Amatus of Montecassino because Pandulf reneged on a promise of a castle and his daughter's hand. Guiscard returned to his brother Drogo and asked to be granted a fief. Drogo, who had just finished campaigning in Calabria, gave Guiscard command of the fortress of Scribla. Dissatisfied with this position, Guiscard moved to the castle of San Marco Argentano (after which he later named the first Norman castle in Sicily, at the site of ancient Aluntium). During his time in Calabria, Guiscard married his first wife, Alberada of Buonalbergo, the daughter of Lord Girard of Buonalbergo.
Guiscard soon rose to distinction. The Lombards turned against their erstwhile allies and Pope Leo IX determined to expel the Norman freebooters. His army was defeated, however, at the Battle of Civitate sul Fortore (1053) by the Normans, united under Humphrey. Humphrey commanded the centre against the pope's Swabian troops. Early in the battle Count Richard of Aversa, commanding the right van, put the Lombards to flight and chased them down, then returned to help rout the Swabians. Guiscard had come all the way from Calabria to command the left. His troops were held in reserve until, seeing Humphrey's forces ineffectually charging the pope's centre, he called up his father-in-law's reinforcements and joined the fray, distinguishing himself personally, even being dismounted and remounting again three separate times according to William of Apulia. Honored for his actions at Civitate, Guiscard succeeded Humphrey as count of Apulia in 1057, over his elder half-brother Geoffrey. In company with Roger, his youngest brother, Guiscard carried on the conquest of Apulia and Calabria, while Richard conquered the principality of Capua.
[edit]Rule
Soon after his succession, probably in 1058, Guiscard separated from his wife Alberada because they were related within the prohibited degrees. Shortly after, he married Sichelgaita, the sister of Gisulf II of Salerno, Guaimar's successor. In return for giving him his sister's hand, Gisulf demanded of Guiscard that he destroy two castles of his brother William, count of the Principate, which had encroached on Gisulf's territory.
The Papacy, foreseeing the breach with the Holy Roman Emperor (the Investiture Controversy), then resolved to recognize the Normans and secure them as allies. Therefore at the Council of Melfi, on 23 August 1059, Pope Nicholas II invested Guiscard as duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and Richard of Aversa as prince of Capua. Guiscard, now "by the Grace of God and St Peter duke of Apulia and Calabria and, if either aid me, future lord of Sicily", agreed to hold his titles and lands by annual rent of the Holy See and to maintain its cause. In the next twenty years he undertook a series of conquests, winning his Sicilian dukeship.
[edit]Subjection of Calabria
At the time of the opening of the Melfitan council in June, Guiscard had been leading an army in Calabria, the first strong attempt to subjugate that very Byzantine province since the Iron-Arm's campaigns with Guaimar. After attending the synod for his investiture, he returned to Calabria, where his army was besieging Cariati. After Guiscard's arrival, Cariati submitted and, before winter was out, Rossano and Gerace also. Only Reggio was left in Byzantine hands when Guiscard returned to Apulia. In Apulia, he worked to remove the Byzantine garrisons from Taranto and Brindisi, before, largely in preparation for his planned Sicilian expedition, he returned again to Calabria, where Roger was waiting with siege engines.
The fall of Reggio, after a long and arduous siege, and the subsequent capitulation of Scilla, an island citadel to which the Reggian garrison had fled, opened up the way to Sicily. Roger first led a tiny force to attack Messina but was repulsed easily by the Saracen garrison. The large invading force which could have been expected did not materialise, for Guiscard was recalled by a new Byzantine army, sent by Constantine X, ravaging Apulia. In January 1061, Melfi itself was under siege and Roger too was recalled. But the full weight of Guiscard's forces forced the Byzantines to retreat and by May Apulia was calm.
[edit]Sicilian campaigns
Invading Sicily with Roger, the brothers captured Messina (1061) with comparable ease: Roger's men landed unsighted during the night and surprised the Saracen army in the morning. The Guiscard's troops landed unopposed and found Messina abandoned. Guiscard immediately fortified Messina and allied himself with Ibn at-Timnah, one of the rival emirs of Sicily, against Ibn al-Hawas, another emir. The armies of Guiscard, his brother, and his Moslem friend marched into central Sicily by way of Rometta, which had remained loyal to al-Timnah. They passed through Frazzanò and the pianura di Maniace, where George Maniakes and the first Hautevilles distinguished themselves twenty-one years prior. Guiscard assaulted the town of Centuripe, but their resistance was strong, and he moved on. Paternò fell and he brought his army to Enna (then Castrogiovanni), a formidable fortress. The Saracens sallied forth and were defeated, but Enna itself did not fall. Guiscard turned back, leaving a fortress at San Marco d'Alunzio, named after his first stronghold in Calabria. He returned to Apulia with Sichelgaita for Christmas.
He returned in 1064, but bypassed Enna taking straight for Palermo. However, his campsite was infested with tarantulas and had to be abandoned. The campaign was unsuccessful this time, though a later campaign, in 1072, saw Palermo fall and for the rest of Sicily it was only then a matter of time.
Against the Byzantines
Bari was reduced (April 1071), and the Byzantine forces finally ousted from southern Italy. The territory of Salerno was already Guiscard's; in December 1076 he took the city, expelling its Lombard prince Gisulf, whose sister Sichelgaita he had married. The Norman attacks on Benevento, a papal fief, alarmed and angered Gregory VII, but pressed hard by the emperor, Henry IV, he turned again to the Normans, and at Ceprano (June 1080) reinvested Guiscard, securing him also in the southern Abruzzi, but reserving Salerno.
Guiscard's last enterprise was his attack on the Byzantine Empire, a rallying ground for his rebel vassals, such as Henry, Count of Monte Sant'Angelo. In this enterprise Guiscard crossed swords with his most redoubtable opponent, the only one worthy of himself, in a clash of swords that would become legendary in the years after. In this struggle he met his nemesis in the person of the greatest man of the age: Emperor Alexius. He contemplated seizing the throne of the Basileus and took up the cause of Michael VII, who had been deposed in 1078 and to whose son his daughter had been betrothed. He sailed with 16,000 men of which 1,300 were Norman knights against the empire in May 1081, and by February 1082 had occupied Corfu and Durazzo, defeating the Emperor Alexius in front of the latter (Battle of Dyrrhachium, October 1081). He was, however, recalled to the aid of Gregory VII, besieged in Castel Sant'Angelo by Henry IV (June 1083).
Marching north with 36,000 men he entered Rome and forced Henry to retire, but an émeute of the citizens led to a three days' sack of the city (May 1084), after which Guiscard escorted the pope to Rome. His son Bohemund, for a time master of Thessaly, had now lost the Byzantine conquests. Guiscard, returning with 150 ships to restore them, occupied Corfu and Kefalonia, but died along with 500 Norman knights of fever in the latter on July 15 1085, in his 70th year. He was buried in the Hauteville family mausoleum of the Trinity Abbey (SS. Trinità) at Venosa. The town of Fiscardo on Kefalonia is named after him.
Guiscard was succeeded by Roger Borsa, his son by Sichelgaita; Bohemund, his son by an earlier Norman wife Alberada, being set aside. He left two younger sons: Guy, Duke of Amalfi, and Robert Scalio, neither of whom made any trouble for their elder brothers. At his death Guiscard was duke of Apulia and Calabria, prince of Salerno and suzerain of Sicily. His successes had been due not only to his great qualities but to the "entente" with the Papal See. He created and enforced a strong ducal power which, however, was met by many baronial revolts, one being in 1078, when he demanded from the Apulian vassals an "aid" on the betrothal of his daughter. In conquering such wide territories he had little time to organize them internally. In the history of the Norman kingdom of Italy Guiscard remains essentially the hero and founder, though his career ended in "something of a dead end,"[1] while his nephew Roger II is the statesman and organizer.
[edit]Religion
Robert Guiscard, through his conquest of Calabria and Sicily, was instrumental in bringing Latin Christianity to an area which historically followed the Byzantine rite. Guiscard laid the foundation of a new cathedral in Salerno and of a Norman monastery at Sant'Eufemia in Calabria. This latter monastery, famous for its choir, began as a community of eleven monks from Saint-Evroul in Normandy under the abbot Robert de Grantmesnil.
Though his relationship with the pope was rocky, Guiscard preferred to be on good terms with the papacy and he made a gesture of abandoning his first wife in response to church law. Though the popes were often fearful of his growing power, they preferred the strong and independent hand of a Catholic Norman to the rule of a Byzantine Greek. Guiscard received his investment with Sicily at the hands of Pope Nicholas II, who feared the opposition of the Holy Roman Emperor to the Papal reforms more. Guiscard supported the reforms, coming to the rescue of a besieged Pope Gregory VII, who had once excommunicated him for encroaching on the territory of the Papal States. After the Great Schism of 1054, the polarized religious atmosphere served to strengthen Guiscard's alliance with papal forces, resulting in a formidable papal-Norman opposition to the Eastern Empire.[2]
Such was Guiscard's martial and political success that Dante Alighieri recorded it in his Divine Comedy, placing his spirit in Heaven's sphere of Mars with history's greatest Christian warriors. In Inferno, Dante describes Guiscard's enemies as a field of mutiliated shades stretching out to the horizon.
[edit]Sources
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
Chalandon, F. Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile. (Paris, 1907).
von Heinemann, L. Geschichte der Normannen in Unteritalien (Leipzig, 1894).
Loud, Graham A. The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000. ISBN 0-582-04529-0
Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016-1130. Longmans: London, 1967.
Savvides, Alexios G.C. (2007). Byzantino-Normannica: The Norman Capture of Italy (to A.D. 1081) and the First Two Invasions in Byzantium (A.D. 1081-1085 and 1107-1108). Leuven, Belgium; Dudley, MA: Peeters. ISBN 9789042919112.
Medieval History Texts in Translation ;
Coin with Guiscard's effigy.
Notes
^ Loud, 294.
^ Savvides 2007, 35.
Robert Guiscard (from Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, or the Fox — most closely related to the archaism wiseacre) (c. 1015 – 1085) was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. He was Count (1057-1059) and then Duke (1059-1085) of Apulia and Calabria after his brother Humphrey's death.
Como otros muchos caballeros normandos empobrecidos, Guiscardo marchó a Italia, a donde llegó hacia el año 1046. Después de servir en las fuerzas del Príncipe de Capua, organizó un ejército para crear sus propias posesiones en Calabria.
Cuando el papa León IX intentó expulsar a los normandos de Italia en 1053, Guiscardo tuvo un importante papel en la derrota de las tropas del Papa en Civitate, localidad próxima a la actual ciudad de San Severo. A la muerte de su hermano mayor, Unfrido, Roberto se convirtió en líder de los normandos establecidos en Italia. El Papa, que buscaba deshacerse de la tutela del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico, decidió acercarse a líderes normandos presentes en el sur de Itàlia. En 1059 el papa Nicolás II nombró a Roberto por la gracia de Dios y de san Pedro, duque de Apulia y Calabria y de aquí en adelante, con la ayuda de los dos, duque de Sicilia. A cambio, Roberto Guiscardo reconoció al Papa como su señor feudal.
En esa época, Sicilia estaba en manos de los bizantinos, por lo que él y su hermano Roger se embarcaron en una serie de campañas militares y conquistaron Messina en el año 1061 y Palermo en el 1072. Después dirigió su atención hacia los Balcanes, y en 1081 obtuvo una gran victoria sobre el emperador bizantino Alejo I Comneno en Durazzo (Albania). Entre tanto, sus campañas en Macedonia y en Tesalia fueron dirigidas por su hijo Bohemundo.
Roberto fue llamado en 1083 para que acudiese en auxilio del papa Gregorio VII, que estaba asediado en el castillo Sant'Angelo por Enrique IV, emperador del Sacro Imperio, por lo que tuvo que abandonar sus victoriosas campañas. En 1084, Roberto expulsó de Roma al Emperador y redujo a cenizas un tercio de la ciudad. Roberto volvió en apoyo de su hijo Bohemundo en la campaña de Grecia, pero murió de fiebres en Cefalonia unas semanas más tarde en julio del 1085 (Fiebre tifoidea), dejando como sucesor a su hijo Roger Borsa.
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Robert Guiscard
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Coin of Robert Guiscard.
Robert Guiscard, from Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, the Fox, or the Weasel (c. 1015 – 17 July 1085) was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. Robert was from the noble Maison d'Hautville of the Hauteville family, he went to become Count (1057-1059) and then Duke (1059-1085) of Apulia and Calabria after his brother Humphrey's death.
Contents
[show]
* 1 Background
* 2 Early years
* 3 Rule
o 3.1 Subjection of Calabria
o 3.2 Sicilian campaigns
o 3.3 Against the Byzantines
* 4 Religion
* 5 Marriage and issue
* 6 Sources
* 7 Notes
[edit] Background
From 999 to 1042 the Normans in Italy were mainly mercenaries, serving at various times the Byzantines and a number of Lombard nobles. Then Sergius IV of Naples, by installing the leader Rainulf Drengot in the fortress of Aversa in 1029, gave them their first base, allowing them to begin an organized conquest of the land.
In 1035 there arrived William Iron-Arm and Drogo, the two eldest sons of Tancred of Hauteville, a petty noble of the Cotentin in Normandy. The two joined in the revolt of the Lombards against Byzantine control of Apulia. By 1040 the Byzantines had lost most of that province. In 1042 Melfi was chosen as the Norman capital, and in September of that year the Normans elected as their count William Iron-Arm, who was succeeded in turn by his brothers Drogo, Comes Normannorum totius Apuliæ e Calabriæ ("the Count of all Normans in Apulia and Calabria"), and Humphrey, who arrived about 1044.
[edit] Early years
Robert Guiscard (standing), with his brother Count Roger. 19th century print.
Robert Guiscard was the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville and eldest by his second wife Fressenda. According to the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena, he left Normandy with only five mounted riders and thirty followers on foot. Upon arriving in Langobardia in 1047, he became the chief of a roving robber-band. Anna Comnena also leaves a physical description of Guiscard:
This Robert was Norman by descent, of minor origin, in temper tyrannical, in mind most cunning, brave in action, very clever in attacking the wealth and substance of magnates, most obstinate in achievement, for he did not allow any obstacle to prevent his executing his desire. His stature was so lofty that he surpassed even the tallest, his complexion was ruddy, his hair flaxen, his shoulders were broad, his eyes all but emitted sparks of fire, and in frame he was well-built ... this man's cry it is said to have put thousands to flight. Thus equipped by fortune, physique and character, he was naturally indomitable, and subordinate to no one in the world.
Lands were scarce in Apulia at the time and the roving Guiscard could not expect any grant from Drogo, then reigning, for Humphrey had just received his own county of Lavello. Guiscard soon joined Prince Pandulf IV of Capua in his ceaseless wars with Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno (1048). The next year, however, Guiscard left Pandulf, according to Amatus of Montecassino because Pandulf reneged on a promise of a castle and his daughter's hand. Guiscard returned to his brother Drogo and asked to be granted a fief. Drogo, who had just finished campaigning in Calabria, gave Guiscard command of the fortress of Scribla. Dissatisfied with this position, Guiscard moved to the castle of San Marco Argentano (after which he later named the first Norman castle in Sicily, at the site of ancient Aluntium). During his time in Calabria, Guiscard married his first wife, Alberada of Buonalbergo, the daughter of Lord Girard of Buonalbergo.
Guiscard soon rose to distinction. The Lombards turned against their erstwhile allies and Pope Leo IX determined to expel the Norman freebooters. His army was defeated, however, at the Battle of Civitate sul Fortore (1053) by the Normans, united under Humphrey. Humphrey commanded the centre against the pope's Swabian troops. Early in the battle Count Richard of Aversa, commanding the right van, put the Lombards to flight and chased them down, then returned to help rout the Swabians. Guiscard had come all the way from Calabria to command the left. His troops were held in reserve until, seeing Humphrey's forces ineffectually charging the pope's centre, he called up his father-in-law's reinforcements and joined the fray, distinguishing himself personally, even being dismounted and remounting again three separate times according to William of Apulia. Honored for his actions at Civitate, Guiscard succeeded Humphrey as count of Apulia in 1057, over his elder half-brother Geoffrey. In company with Roger, his youngest brother, Guiscard carried on the conquest of Apulia and Calabria, while Richard conquered the principality of Capua.
[edit] Rule
Soon after his succession, probably in 1058, Guiscard separated from his wife Alberada because they were related within the prohibited degrees. Shortly after, he married Sichelgaita, the sister of Gisulf II of Salerno, Guaimar's successor. In return for giving him his sister's hand, Gisulf demanded of Guiscard that he destroy two castles of his brother William, count of the Principate, which had encroached on Gisulf's territory.
The Papacy, foreseeing the breach with the Holy Roman Emperor (the Investiture Controversy), then resolved to recognize the Normans and secure them as allies. Therefore at the Council of Melfi, on 23 August 1059, Pope Nicholas II invested Guiscard as duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and Richard of Aversa as prince of Capua. Guiscard, now "by the Grace of God and St Peter duke of Apulia and Calabria and, if either aid me, future lord of Sicily", agreed to hold his titles and lands by annual rent of the Holy See and to maintain its cause. In the next twenty years he undertook a series of conquests, winning his Sicilian dukedom.
[edit] Subjection of Calabria
At the time of the opening of the Melfitan council in June, Guiscard had been leading an army in Calabria, the first strong attempt to subjugate that very Byzantine province since the Iron-Arm's campaigns with Guaimar. After attending the synod for his investiture, he returned to Calabria, where his army was besieging Cariati. After Guiscard's arrival, Cariati submitted and, before winter was out, Rossano and Gerace also. Only Reggio was left in Byzantine hands when Guiscard returned to Apulia. In Apulia, he worked to remove the Byzantine garrisons from Taranto and Brindisi, before, largely in preparation for his planned Sicilian expedition, he returned again to Calabria, where Roger was waiting with siege engines.
The fall of Reggio, after a long and arduous siege, and the subsequent capitulation of Scilla, an island citadel to which the Reggian garrison had fled, opened up the way to Sicily. Roger first led a tiny force to attack Messina but was repulsed easily by the Saracen garrison. The large invading force which could have been expected did not materialise, for Guiscard was recalled by a new Byzantine army, sent by Constantine X, ravaging Apulia. In January 1061, Melfi itself was under siege and Roger too was recalled. But the full weight of Guiscard's forces forced the Byzantines to retreat and by May Apulia was calm.
[edit] Sicilian campaigns
Invading Sicily with Roger, the brothers captured Messina (1061) with comparable ease: Roger's men landed unsighted during the night and surprised the Saracen army in the morning. The Guiscard's troops landed unopposed and found Messina abandoned. Guiscard immediately fortified Messina and allied himself with Ibn at-Timnah, one of the rival emirs of Sicily, against Ibn al-Hawas, another emir. The armies of Guiscard, his brother, and his Moslem friend marched into central Sicily by way of Rometta, which had remained loyal to al-Timnah. They passed through Frazzanò and the pianura di Maniace, where George Maniakes and the first Hautevilles distinguished themselves twenty-one years prior. Guiscard assaulted the town of Centuripe, but their resistance was strong, and he moved on. Paternò fell and he brought his army to Enna (then Castrogiovanni), a formidable fortress. The Saracens sallied forth and were defeated, but Enna itself did not fall. Guiscard turned back, leaving a fortress at San Marco d'Alunzio, named after his first stronghold in Calabria. He returned to Apulia with Sichelgaita for Christmas.
He returned in 1064, but bypassed Enna taking straight for Palermo. However, his campsite was infested with tarantulas and had to be abandoned. The campaign was unsuccessful this time, though a later campaign, in 1072, saw Palermo fall and for the rest of Sicily it was only then a matter of time.
[edit] Against the Byzantines
The beach of Atheras (north of Lixouri, where Guiscard died)
Hauteville family mausoleum, where Robert Guiscard was buried. Trinity Abbey in Venosa, Italy.
Bari was reduced (April 1071), and the Byzantine forces finally ousted from southern Italy. The territory of Salerno was already Guiscard's; in December 1076 he took the city, expelling its Lombard prince Gisulf, whose sister Sichelgaita he had married. The Norman attacks on Benevento, a papal fief, alarmed and angered Gregory VII, but pressed hard by the emperor, Henry IV, he turned again to the Normans, and at Ceprano (June 1080) reinvested Guiscard, securing him also in the southern Abruzzi, but reserving Salerno.
Guiscard's last enterprise was his attack on the Byzantine Empire, a rallying ground for his rebel vassals, such as Henry, Count of Monte Sant'Angelo. In this enterprise Guiscard crossed swords with his most redoubtable opponent, the only one worthy of himself, in a clash of swords that would become legendary in the years after. In this struggle he met his nemesis in the person of the greatest man of the age: Emperor Alexius. He contemplated seizing the throne of the Basileus and took up the cause of Michael VII, who had been deposed in 1078 and to whose son his daughter had been betrothed. He sailed with 16,000 men of which 1,300 were Norman knights against the empire in May 1081, and by February 1082 had occupied Corfu and Durazzo, defeating the Emperor Alexius in front of the latter (Battle of Dyrrhachium, October 1081). He was, however, recalled to the aid of Gregory VII, besieged in Castel Sant'Angelo by Henry IV (June 1083).
Marching north with 36,000 men he entered Rome and forced Henry to retire, but a short-lived rebellion or seditious tumult (émeute) of the citizens led to a three days' sack of the city (May 1084), after which Guiscard escorted the pope to Rome. His son Bohemund, for a time master of Thessaly, had now lost the Byzantine conquests. Guiscard, returning with 150 ships to restore them, occupied Corfu and Kefalonia, but died along with 500 Norman knights of fever in the latter on 17 July 1085, in his 70th year.[1][2] He was buried in the Hauteville family mausoleum of the Trinity Abbey (SS. Trinità) at Venosa. The town of Fiscardo on Kefalonia is named after him.
Guiscard was succeeded by Roger Borsa, his son by Sichelgaita; Bohemund, his son by an earlier Norman wife Alberada, being set aside. He left two younger sons: Guy, Duke of Amalfi, and Robert Scalio, neither of whom made any trouble for their elder brothers. At his death Guiscard was duke of Apulia and Calabria, prince of Salerno and suzerain of Sicily. His successes had been due not only to his great qualities but to the "entente" with the Papal See. He created and enforced a strong ducal power which, however, was met by many baronial revolts, one being in 1078, when he demanded from the Apulian vassals an "aid" on the betrothal of his daughter. In conquering such wide territories he had little time to organize them internally. In the history of the Norman kingdom of Italy Guiscard remains essentially the hero and founder, though his career ended in "something of a dead end,"[3] while his nephew Roger II is the statesman and organizer.
[edit] Religion
Robert Guiscard, through his conquest of Calabria and Sicily, was instrumental in bringing Latin Christianity to an area which historically followed the Byzantine rite. Guiscard laid the foundation of a new cathedral in Salerno and of a Norman monastery at Sant'Eufemia in Calabria. This latter monastery, famous for its choir, began as a community of eleven monks from Saint-Evroul in Normandy under the abbot Robert de Grantmesnil.
Though his relationship with the pope was rocky, Guiscard preferred to be on good terms with the papacy and he made a gesture of abandoning his first wife in response to church law. Though the popes were often fearful of his growing power, they preferred the strong and independent hand of a Catholic Norman to the rule of a Byzantine Greek. Guiscard received his investment with Sicily at the hands of Pope Nicholas II, who feared the opposition of the Holy Roman Emperor to the Papal reforms more. Guiscard supported the reforms, coming to the rescue of a besieged Pope Gregory VII, who had once excommunicated him for encroaching on the territory of the Papal States. After the Great Schism of 1054, the polarized religious atmosphere served to strengthen Guiscard's alliance with papal forces, resulting in a formidable papal-Norman opposition to the Eastern Empire.[4]
Such was Guiscard's martial and political success that Dante Alighieri recorded it in his Divine Comedy, placing his spirit in Heaven's sphere of Mars with history's greatest Christian warriors. In Inferno, Dante describes Guiscard's enemies as a field of mutilated shades stretching out to the horizon.
[edit] Marriage and issue
Married in 1051 to Alberada of Buonalbergo (1032 – aft. June 1122) and had two children:
* Bohemund
* Emma (b. 1052 or after), married to Odo the Good Marquis
Married in 1058 or 1059 to Sichelgaita and had 8 children:
* Matilda (also Mahalta, Maud, or Maude; 1059 – aft. 1085), married Ramon Berenguer II, Count of Barcelona
* Roger Borsa
* Mabile, married to William de Grantmesnil
* Eria, married to Hugh V of Maine
* Robert Scalio
* Guy, Duke of Amalfi
* Sibylla, (married to Ebles de Ramerupt, 4th Count of Roucy and had 8 children)
* Olympias (or Helen), betrothed to Konstantios Doukas, son of Michael VII in August 1074, contract broken off in 1078
[edit] Sources
* Chalandon, F. Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile. (Paris, 1907).
* von Heinemann, L. Geschichte der Normannen in Unteritalien (Leipzig, 1894).
* Loud, G. A. The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000. ISBN 0-582-04529-0
* Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016-1130. Longmans: London, 1967.
* Savvides, Alexios G.C. (2007). Byzantino-Normannica: The Norman Capture of Italy (to A.D. 1081) and the First Two Invasions in Byzantium (A.D. 1081-1085 and 1107-1108). Leuven, Belgium; Dudley, MA: Peeters. ISBN 9789042919112.
* Medieval History Texts in Translation at Leeds University
* Coin with Guiscard's effigy.
* Foundation for Medieval Genealogy on Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia
[edit] Notes
1. ^ James van Wyck Osborne, The Greatest Norman Conquest (1937), page 396.
2. ^ G. A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (2000), page 223.
3. ^ Loud, 294.
4. ^ Savvides 2007, 35.
Preceded by
Humphrey Duke of Apulia
1057–1085 Succeeded by
Roger Borsa
BIOGRAPHY: b. c. 1015,, Normandy [France]
d. July 17, 1085, near Cephalonia, Greece, Byzantine Empire
byname ROBERT GUISCARD, OR ROBERT DE HAUTEVILLE, Italian ROBERTO GUISCARDO, OR ROBERTO D'ALTAVILLA, Norman adventurer who settled in Apulia, in southern Italy, about 1047 and became duke of Apulia (1059). He eventually extended Norman rule over Naples, Calabria, and Sicily and laid the foundations of the Kingdom of Sicily.
Arrival in Apulia
Robert was born into a family of knights. Arriving in Apulia, in southern Italy, around 1047 to join his half brother Drogo, he found that it and Campania, though they were southern Italy's most flourishing regions, were plagued by political disturbances. These regions attracted hordes of fortune-seeking Norman immigrants, who were to transform the political role of both regions in the following decades.
In Campania, the Lombards of Capua were launching wars against the Byzantine dukes of Naples in order to gain possession of that important seaport. In Apulia, William ("Iron Arm") de Hauteville, Robert's eldest half brother, having successfully defeated the Byzantine Greeks who controlled that region, had been elected count of Apulia in 1042. In 1046 he had been succeeded by his brother Drogo.
When Robert joined his brothers, they sent him to Calabria to attack Byzantine territory. He began his campaign by pillaging the countryside and ransoming its people. In 1053, at the head of the combined forces of Normans from Apulia and Campania, he defeated the haphazardly led forces of the Byzantines, the Lombards, and the papacy at Civitate. Because of the deaths of William and Drogo and of his third half brother, Count Humphrey, in 1057, Robert returned to Apulia to seize control from Humphrey's sons and save the region from disgregating internal conflicts. After becoming the recognized leader of the Apulian Normans, Robert resumed his campaign in Calabria. His brother Roger's arrival from Normandy enabled him to extend and solidify his conquests in Apulia.
In his progression from gang leader to commander of mercenary troops to conqueror, Robert emerged as a shrewd and perspicacious political figure. In 1059 he entered into a concordat at Melfi with Pope Nicholas II. Until that time the papacy had been hostile toward the Normans, considering them to be an anarchist force that upset the political structure in southern Italy--a structure based on a balance of power between the Byzantines and the Lombards of northern Italy. The schism that took place between the Greek and Latin churches in 1054 worsened the relations between the Byzantine emperors and the papacy, and eventually the papacy realized that Norman conquests over the Byzantines could work to its advantage. Robert's plan to expel the Arabs from Sicily and restore Christianity to the island also found favour in Nicholas' eyes. This expedition into Sicily got under way in 1060, as soon as the conquest of Calabria was completed. Robert entrusted the command of the expedition to his brother Roger, but on particularly difficult occasions--e.g., the siege of Palermo in 1071--he came to his brother's aid.
Until this time, Robert's relations with Roger had not always been amicable, since Roger, aware of both his own talent and Robert's dependency on him, would not settle for the subordinate role allotted him. Their differences were resolved when Robert invested Roger, after he had recognized Robert's supreme authority, with "the County of Sicily and Calabria" along with the right to govern and tax both counties.
Copyright © 1994-2001 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc
Robert Guiscard (from Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, or the Fox — most closely related to the archaism wiseacre) (c. 1015 – 1085) was a Norman adventurer who conquered Southern Italy and Sicily. He was count (1057-1059) and then duke (1059-1085) of Apulia and Calabria after his brother Humphrey's death.
From 999 to 1042 the Normans in Italy were mainly mercenaries, serving at various times the Byzantines and a number of Lombard nobles. Then Sergius IV of Naples, by installing the leader Rainulf Drengot in the fortress of Aversa in 1029, gave them their first base, allowing them to begin an organized conquest of the land.
In 1035 there arrived William Iron-Arm and Drogo, the two eldest sons of Tancred of Hauteville, a petty noble of the Cotentin in Normandy. The two joined in the revolt of the Lombards against Byzantine control of Apulia. By 1040 the Byzantines had lost most of that province. In 1042 Melfi was chosen as the Norman capital, and in September of that year the Normans elected as their count William Iron-Arm, who was succeeded in turn by his brothers Drogo, Comes Normannorum totius Apuliae e Calabriae ("the Count of all Normans in Apulia and Calabria"), and Humphrey, who arrived about 1044.
[edit] Early years
Robert Guiscard was the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville and eldest by his second wife Fressenda. According to the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena, he left Normandy with only five mounted riders and thirty followers on foot. Upon arriving in Langobardia in 1047, he became the chief of a roving robber-band. Anna Comnena also leaves a physical description of Guiscard:
“ This Robert was Norman by descent, of minor origin, in temper tyrannical, in mind most cunning, brave in action, very clever in attacking the wealth and substance of magnates, most obstinate in achievement, for he did not allow any obstacle to prevent his executing his desire. His stature was so lofty that he surpassed even the tallest, his complexion was ruddy, his hair flaxen, his shoulders were broad, his eyes all but emitted sparks of fire, and in frame he was well-built ... this man's cry it is said to have put thousands to flight. Thus equipped by fortune, physique and character, he was naturally indomitable, and subordinate to no one in the world. ”
Lands were scarce in Apulia at the time and the roving Guiscard could not expect any grant from Drogo, then reigning, for Humphrey had just received his own county of Lavello. Guiscard soon joined Prince Pandulf IV of Capua in his ceaseless wars with Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno (1048). The next year, however, Guiscard left Pandulf, according to Amatus of Montecassino because Pandulf reneged on a promise of a castle and his daughter's hand. Guiscard returned to his brother Drogo and asked to be granted a fief. Drogo, who had just finished campaigning in Calabria, gave Guiscard command of the fortress of Scribla. Dissatisfied with this position, Guiscard moved to the castle of San Marco Argentano (after which he later named the first Norman castle in Sicily, at the site of ancient Aluntium). During his time in Calabria, Guiscard married his first wife, Alberada of Buonalbergo, the daughter of Lord Girard of Buonalbergo.
Guiscard soon rose to distinction. The Lombards turned against their erstwhile allies and Pope Leo IX determined to expel the Norman freebooters. His army was defeated, however, at the Battle of Civitate sul Fortore (1053) by the Normans, united under Humphrey. Humphrey commanded the centre against the pope's Swabian troops. Early in the battle Count Richard of Aversa, commanding the right van, put the Lombards to flight and chased them down, then returned to help rout the Swabians. Guiscard had come all the way from Calabria to command the left. His troops were held in reserve until, seeing Humphrey's forces ineffectually charging the pope's centre, he called up his father-in-law's reinforcements and joined the fray, distinguishing himself personally, even being dismounted and remounting again three separate times according to William of Apulia. Honored for his actions at Civitate, Guiscard succeeded Humphrey as count of Apulia in 1057, over his elder half-brother Geoffrey. In company with Roger, his youngest brother, Guiscard carried on the conquest of Apulia and Calabria, while Richard conquered the principality of Capua.
[edit] Rule
Soon after his succession, probably in 1058, Guiscard separated from his wife Alberada because they were related within the prohibited degrees to marry Sichelgaita, the sister of Gisulf II of Salerno, Guaimar's successor. In return for giving him his sister's hand, Gisulf demanded of Guiscard that he destroy two castles of his brother William, count of the Principate, which had encroached on Gisulf's territory.
The Papacy, foreseeing the breach with the Holy Roman Emperor (the Investiture Controversy), then resolved to recognize the Normans and secure them as allies. Therefore at the Council of Melfi, on 23 August 1059, Pope Nicholas II invested Guiscard as duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and Richard of Aversa as prince of Capua. Guiscard, now "by the Grace of God and St Peter duke of Apulia and Calabria and, if either aid me, future lord of Sicily", agreed to hold his titles and lands by annual rent of the Holy See and to maintain its cause. In the next twenty years he undertook a series of conquests, winning his Sicilian dukeship.
[edit] Subjection of Calabria
At the time of the opening of the Melfitan council in June, Guiscard had been leading an army in Calabria, the first strong attempt to subjugate that very Byzantine province since the Iron-Arm's campaigns with Guaimar. After attending the synod for his investiture, he returned to Calabria, where his army was besieging Cariati. After Guiscard's arrival, Cariati submitted and, before winter was out, Rossano and Gerace also. Only Reggio was left in Byzantine hands when Guiscard returned to Apulia. In Apulia, he worked to remove the Byzantine garrisons from Taranto and Brindisi, before, largely in preparation for his planned Sicilian expedition, he returned again to Calabria, where Roger was waiting with siege engines.
The fall of Reggio, after a long and arduous siege, and the subsequent capitulation of Scilla, an island citadel to which the Reggian garrison had fled, opened up the way to Sicily. Roger first led a tiny force to attack Messina but was repulsed easily by the Saracen garrison. The large invading force which could have been expected did not materialise, for Guiscard was recalled by a new Byzantine army, sent by Constantine X, ravaging Apulia. In January 1061, Melfi itself was under siege and Roger too was recalled. But the full weight of Guiscard's forces forced the Byzantines to retreat and by May Apulia was calm.
[edit] Sicilian campaigns
Invading Sicily with Roger, the brothers captured Messina (1061) with comparable ease: Roger's men landed unsighted during the night and surprised the Saracen army in the morning. The Guiscard's troops landed unopposed and found Messina abandoned. Guiscard immediately fortified Messina and allied himself with Ibn at-Timnah, one of the rival emirs of Sicily, against Ibn al-Hawas, another emir. The armies of Guiscard, his brother, and his Moslem friend marched into central Sicily by way of Rometta, which had remained loyal to al-Timnah. They passed through Frazzanò and the pianura di Maniace, where George Maniakes and the first Hautevilles distinguished themselves twenty-one years prior. Guiscard assaulted the town of Centuripe, but their resistance was strong, and he moved on. Paternò fell and he brought his army to Enna (then Castrogiovanni), a formidable fortress. The Saracens sallied forth and were defeated, but Enna itself did not fall. Guiscard turned back, leaving a fortress at San Marco d'Alunzio, named after his first stronghold in Calabria. He returned to Apulia with Sichelgaita for Christmas.
He returned in 1064, but bypassed Enna taking straight for Palermo. However, his campsite was infested with tarantulas and had to be abandoned. The campaign was unsuccessful this time, though a later campaign, in 1072, saw Palermo fall and for the rest of Sicily it was only then a matter of time.
[edit] Against the Byzantines
Bari was reduced (April 1071), and the Byzantine forces finally ousted from southern Italy. The territory of Salerno was already Guiscard's; in December 1076 he took the city, expelling its Lombard prince Gisulf, whose sister Sichelgaita he had married. The Norman attacks on Benevento, a papal fief, alarmed and angered Gregory VII, but pressed hard by the emperor, Henry IV, he turned again to the Normans, and at Ceprano (June 1080) reinvested Guiscard, securing him also in the southern Abruzzi, but reserving Salerno.
Guiscard's last enterprise was his attack on the Byzantine Empire, a rallying ground for his rebel vassals, such as Henry, Count of Monte Sant'Angelo. In this enterprise Guiscard crossed swords with his most redoubtable opponent, the only one worthy of himself, in a clash of swords that would become legendary in the years after. In this struggle he met his nemesis in the person of the greatest man of the age: Emperor Alexius. He contemplated seizing the throne of the Basileus and took up the cause of Michael VII, who had been deposed in 1078 and to whose son his daughter had been betrothed. He sailed with 16,000 men of which 1,300 were Norman knights against the empire in May 1081, and by February 1082 had occupied Corfu and Durazzo, defeating the Emperor Alexius in front of the latter (Battle of Dyrrhachium, October 1081). He was, however, recalled to the aid of Gregory VII, besieged in Castel Sant'Angelo by Henry IV (June 1083).
Marching north with 36,000 men he entered Rome and forced Henry to retire, but an émeute of the citizens led to a three days' sack of the city (May 1084), after which Guiscard escorted the pope to Rome. His son Bohemund, for a time master of Thessaly, had now lost the Byzantine conquests. Guiscard, returning with 150 ships to restore them, occupied Corfu and Kephalonia, but died along with 500 Norman knights of fever in the latter on July 15 1085, in his 70th year. He was buried in S. Trinità at Venosa. The town of Fiskardo on Kephalonia is named after him.
Guiscard was succeeded by Roger Borsa, his son by Sichelgaita; Bohemund, his son by an earlier Norman wife Alberada, being set aside. He left two younger sons: Guy, Duke of Amalfi, and Robert Scalio, neither of whom made any trouble for their elder brothers. At his death Guiscard was duke of Apulia and Calabria, prince of Salerno and suzerain of Sicily. His successes had been due not only to his great qualities but to the "entente" with the Papal See. He created and enforced a strong ducal power which, however, was met by many baronial revolts, one being in 1078, when he demanded from the Apulian vassals an "aid" on the betrothal of his daughter. In conquering such wide territories he had little time to organize them internally. In the history of the Norman kingdom of Italy Guiscard remains essentially the hero and founder, though his career ended in "something of a dead end,"[1] while his nephew Roger II is the statesman and organizer.
[edit] In literature
Robert Guiscard achieved enough martial and political success for Dante Alighieri, in The Divine Comedy, to place the spirit of Guiscard in Heaven's sphere of Mars with history's greatest Christian warriors. In Inferno, he describes a field of mutiliated shades stretching out to the horizon as what Guiscard's enemies would look like after a battle.
Robert Guiscard, from Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, the Fox, or the Weasel (c. 1015 – 1085) was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. He was Count (1057-1059) and then Duke (1059-1085) of Apulia and Calabria after his brother Humphrey's death.
Background
From 999 to 1042 the Normans in Italy were mainly mercenaries, serving at various times the Byzantines and a number of Lombard nobles. Then Sergius IV of Naples, by installing the leader Rainulf Drengot in the fortress of Aversa in 1029, gave them their first base, allowing them to begin an organized conquest of the land.
In 1035 there arrived William Iron-Arm and Drogo, the two eldest sons of Tancred of Hauteville, a petty noble of the Cotentin in Normandy. The two joined in the revolt of the Lombards against Byzantine control of Apulia. By 1040 the Byzantines had lost most of that province. In 1042 Melfi was chosen as the Norman capital, and in September of that year the Normans elected as their count William Iron-Arm, who was succeeded in turn by his brothers Drogo, Comes Normannorum totius Apuliæ e Calabriæ ("the Count of all Normans in Apulia and Calabria"), and Humphrey, who arrived about 1044.
Early years
Robert Guiscard (standing), with his brother Count Roger. 19th century print.Robert Guiscard was the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville and eldest by his second wife Fressenda. According to the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena, he left Normandy with only five mounted riders and thirty followers on foot. Upon arriving in Langobardia in 1047, he became the chief of a roving robber-band. Anna Comnena also leaves a physical description of Guiscard:
This Robert was Norman by descent, of minor origin, in temper tyrannical, in mind most cunning, brave in action, very clever in attacking the wealth and substance of magnates, most obstinate in achievement, for he did not allow any obstacle to prevent his executing his desire. His stature was so lofty that he surpassed even the tallest, his complexion was ruddy, his hair flaxen, his shoulders were broad, his eyes all but emitted sparks of fire, and in frame he was well-built ... this man's cry it is said to have put thousands to flight. Thus equipped by fortune, physique and character, he was naturally indomitable, and subordinate to no one in the world.
Lands were scarce in Apulia at the time and the roving Guiscard could not expect any grant from Drogo, then reigning, for Humphrey had just received his own county of Lavello. Guiscard soon joined Prince Pandulf IV of Capua in his ceaseless wars with Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno (1048). The next year, however, Guiscard left Pandulf, according to Amatus of Montecassino because Pandulf reneged on a promise of a castle and his daughter's hand. Guiscard returned to his brother Drogo and asked to be granted a fief. Drogo, who had just finished campaigning in Calabria, gave Guiscard command of the fortress of Scribla. Dissatisfied with this position, Guiscard moved to the castle of San Marco Argentano (after which he later named the first Norman castle in Sicily, at the site of ancient Aluntium). During his time in Calabria, Guiscard married his first wife, Alberada of Buonalbergo, the daughter of Lord Girard of Buonalbergo.
Guiscard soon rose to distinction. The Lombards turned against their erstwhile allies and Pope Leo IX determined to expel the Norman freebooters. His army was defeated, however, at the Battle of Civitate sul Fortore (1053) by the Normans, united under Humphrey. Humphrey commanded the centre against the pope's Swabian troops. Early in the battle Count Richard of Aversa, commanding the right van, put the Lombards to flight and chased them down, then returned to help rout the Swabians. Guiscard had come all the way from Calabria to command the left. His troops were held in reserve until, seeing Humphrey's forces ineffectually charging the pope's centre, he called up his father-in-law's reinforcements and joined the fray, distinguishing himself personally, even being dismounted and remounting again three separate times according to William of Apulia. Honored for his actions at Civitate, Guiscard succeeded Humphrey as count of Apulia in 1057, over his elder half-brother Geoffrey. In company with Roger, his youngest brother, Guiscard carried on the conquest of Apulia and Calabria, while Richard conquered the principality of Capua.
Rule
Soon after his succession, probably in 1058, Guiscard separated from his wife Alberada because they were related within the prohibited degrees. Shortly after, he married Sichelgaita, the sister of Gisulf II of Salerno, Guaimar's successor. In return for giving him his sister's hand, Gisulf demanded of Guiscard that he destroy two castles of his brother William, count of the Principate, which had encroached on Gisulf's territory.
The Papacy, foreseeing the breach with the Holy Roman Emperor (the Investiture Controversy), then resolved to recognize the Normans and secure them as allies. Therefore at the Council of Melfi, on 23 August 1059, Pope Nicholas II invested Guiscard as duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and Richard of Aversa as prince of Capua. Guiscard, now "by the Grace of God and St Peter duke of Apulia and Calabria and, if either aid me, future lord of Sicily", agreed to hold his titles and lands by annual rent of the Holy See and to maintain its cause. In the next twenty years he undertook a series of conquests, winning his Sicilian dukedom.
Subjection of Calabria
At the time of the opening of the Melfitan council in June, Guiscard had been leading an army in Calabria, the first strong attempt to subjugate that very Byzantine province since the Iron-Arm's campaigns with Guaimar. After attending the synod for his investiture, he returned to Calabria, where his army was besieging Cariati. After Guiscard's arrival, Cariati submitted and, before winter was out, Rossano and Gerace also. Only Reggio was left in Byzantine hands when Guiscard returned to Apulia. In Apulia, he worked to remove the Byzantine garrisons from Taranto and Brindisi, before, largely in preparation for his planned Sicilian expedition, he returned again to Calabria, where Roger was waiting with siege engines.
The fall of Reggio, after a long and arduous siege, and the subsequent capitulation of Scilla, an island citadel to which the Reggian garrison had fled, opened up the way to Sicily. Roger first led a tiny force to attack Messina but was repulsed easily by the Saracen garrison. The large invading force which could have been expected did not materialise, for Guiscard was recalled by a new Byzantine army, sent by Constantine X, ravaging Apulia. In January 1061, Melfi itself was under siege and Roger too was recalled. But the full weight of Guiscard's forces forced the Byzantines to retreat and by May Apulia was calm.
Sicilian campaigns
Invading Sicily with Roger, the brothers captured Messina (1061) with comparable ease: Roger's men landed unsighted during the night and surprised the Saracen army in the morning. The Guiscard's troops landed unopposed and found Messina abandoned. Guiscard immediately fortified Messina and allied himself with Ibn at-Timnah, one of the rival emirs of Sicily, against Ibn al-Hawas, another emir. The armies of Guiscard, his brother, and his Moslem friend marched into central Sicily by way of Rometta, which had remained loyal to al-Timnah. They passed through Frazzanò and the pianura di Maniace, where George Maniakes and the first Hautevilles distinguished themselves twenty-one years prior. Guiscard assaulted the town of Centuripe, but their resistance was strong, and he moved on. Paternò fell and he brought his army to Enna (then Castrogiovanni), a formidable fortress. The Saracens sallied forth and were defeated, but Enna itself did not fall. Guiscard turned back, leaving a fortress at San Marco d'Alunzio, named after his first stronghold in Calabria. He returned to Apulia with Sichelgaita for Christmas.
He returned in 1064, but bypassed Enna taking straight for Palermo. However, his campsite was infested with tarantulas and had to be abandoned. The campaign was unsuccessful this time, though a later campaign, in 1072, saw Palermo fall and for the rest of Sicily it was only then a matter of time.
Against the Byzantines
The beach of Atheras (north of Lixouri) where Guiscard died)
Hauteville family mausoleum, where Robert Guiscard was buried. Trinity Abbey in Venosa, Italy. Bari was reduced (April 1071), and the Byzantine forces finally ousted from southern Italy. The territory of Salerno was already Guiscard's; in December 1076 he took the city, expelling its Lombard prince Gisulf, whose sister Sichelgaita he had married. The Norman attacks on Benevento, a papal fief, alarmed and angered Gregory VII, but pressed hard by the emperor, Henry IV, he turned again to the Normans, and at Ceprano (June 1080) reinvested Guiscard, securing him also in the southern Abruzzi, but reserving Salerno.
Guiscard's last enterprise was his attack on the Byzantine Empire, a rallying ground for his rebel vassals, such as Henry, Count of Monte Sant'Angelo. In this enterprise Guiscard crossed swords with his most redoubtable opponent, the only one worthy of himself, in a clash of swords that would become legendary in the years after. In this struggle he met his nemesis in the person of the greatest man of the age: Emperor Alexius. He contemplated seizing the throne of the Basileus and took up the cause of Michael VII, who had been deposed in 1078 and to whose son his daughter had been betrothed. He sailed with 16,000 men of which 1,300 were Norman knights against the empire in May 1081, and by February 1082 had occupied Corfu and Durazzo, defeating the Emperor Alexius in front of the latter (Battle of Dyrrhachium, October 1081). He was, however, recalled to the aid of Gregory VII, besieged in Castel Sant'Angelo by Henry IV (June 1083).
Marching north with 36,000 men he entered Rome and forced Henry to retire, but a short-lived rebellion or seditious tumult (émeute) of the citizens led to a three days' sack of the city (May 1084), after which Guiscard escorted the pope to Rome. His son Bohemund, for a time master of Thessaly, had now lost the Byzantine conquests. Guiscard, returning with 150 ships to restore them, occupied Corfu and Kefalonia, but died along with 500 Norman knights of fever in the latter on July 15 1085, in his 70th year. He was buried in the Hauteville family mausoleum of the Trinity Abbey (SS. Trinità) at Venosa. The town of Fiscardo on Kefalonia is named after him.
Guiscard was succeeded by Roger Borsa, his son by Sichelgaita; Bohemund, his son by an earlier Norman wife Alberada, being set aside. He left two younger sons: Guy, Duke of Amalfi, and Robert Scalio, neither of whom made any trouble for their elder brothers. At his death Guiscard was duke of Apulia and Calabria, prince of Salerno and suzerain of Sicily. His successes had been due not only to his great qualities but to the "entente" with the Papal See. He created and enforced a strong ducal power which, however, was met by many baronial revolts, one being in 1078, when he demanded from the Apulian vassals an "aid" on the betrothal of his daughter. In conquering such wide territories he had little time to organize them internally. In the history of the Norman kingdom of Italy Guiscard remains essentially the hero and founder, though his career ended in "something of a dead end," while his nephew Roger II is the statesman and organizer.
Religion
Robert Guiscard, through his conquest of Calabria and Sicily, was instrumental in bringing Latin Christianity to an area which historically followed the Byzantine rite. Guiscard laid the foundation of a new cathedral in Salerno and of a Norman monastery at Sant'Eufemia in Calabria. This latter monastery, famous for its choir, began as a community of eleven monks from Saint-Evroul in Normandy under the abbot Robert de Grantmesnil.
Though his relationship with the pope was rocky, Guiscard preferred to be on good terms with the papacy and he made a gesture of abandoning his first wife in response to church law. Though the popes were often fearful of his growing power, they preferred the strong and independent hand of
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Agregado por: Ing. Carlos Juan Felipe Urdaneta Alamo, MD.IG.
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RANGO HISTORICO
✺- 1015→Agosto: Canuto II de Dinamarca invade Inglaterra.
✺- 1020→Roberto II de Francia funda la ciudad de Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
✺- 1025→Constantino VIII es nombrado emperador del Imperio bizantino.
✺- 1030→Fallece Olaf el Santo, rey de Noruega.
✺- 1035→Nace el Reino de Aragón, por la unión de los condados de Aragón, Sobrarbe y Ribagorza en la figura de Ramiro I.
✺- 1040→NACE Alfonso VI de León, rey de León y Castilla. Hijo de Fernando I de León
✺- 1045→El Imperio bizantino conquista Armenia, en la última acción ofensiva en Asia de su historia.
✺- 1050→nace el 11 de noviembre: Enrique IV del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico.
✺- 1055→Iglesia católica: Víctor II es elegido papa.
→ España cristiana: Diego Flaínez, padre del Cid conquista a Navarra para Castilla los castillos de La Piedra y de Úrbel del Castillo que cerraban el paso a través del valle del alto Úrbel.
✺- 1060→El Cid es nombrado caballero.
✺- 1065→Sancho Ramírez de Aragón conquista Barbastro y contrae matrimonio con Isabel de Urgel, hija de Ermengol III de Urgel.
✺- 1070→Se crea la población de Fucking, Austria, una de las más famosas del mundo debido a su tan peculiar nombre.
✺- 1075→Alfonso VI de León establece la diócesis de Burgos como continuación canónica de la antigua diócesis de Oca.
✺- 1080→El Cid Campeador es desterrado.
✺- 1085→25 de mayo. Alfonso VI de Castilla conquista Toledo y se corona rex hispaniae.
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Agregado por: Ing. Carlos Juan Felipe Urdaneta Alamo, MD.IG.
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Roberto Guiscardo
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Roberto Guiscardo
Duque de Apulia y Calabriaa1
RobertGuiscardAndRoger.JPG
Roberto Guiscardo y su hermano Roger.
Duque de Apulia y Calabria
1059-1089
Predecesor El mismo como conde
Sucesor Roger Borsa
[mostrar]Otros títulos
Información personal
Nacimiento c. 1015
Fallecimiento 17 de julio del 1085
Atheras, al norte de Lixouri
Entierro Abadía de la Santísima Trinidad Venosa
Familia
Casa real Casa de Altavilla
Padre Tancredo de Hauteville
Madre Fressenda
Consorte Alberada of Buonalbergo
Sichelgaita
Coat of Arms of Robert Guiscard.svg
Escudo de Roberto Guiscardo
[editar datos en Wikidata]
Roberto de Hauteville o Roberto Guiscardo, hijo de Tancredo de Hauteville (c. 1015 – 1085), fue un aventurero normando, nacido cerca de Coutances, en Normandía, y uno de los protagonistas de la conquista normanda de Italia Meridional. El sobrenombre Guiscardo procede del latín Viscardus y del francés antiguo Viscart, con el significado de con recursos, inteligente, zorro. Llegó a convertirse en conde de Apulia y Calabria (1057 - 1059) y, más tarde, duque, heredando el cargo de su hermanastro Hunifredo de Apulia.
Índice
1 Contexto histórico
2 Primeros años
3 Gobierno
3.1 Sometimiento de Calabria
3.2 Campañas en Sicilia
3.3 Campañas contra el Imperio romano de Oriente
4 Años finales
5 Semblanza y carácter
6 Religión
7 Véase también
8 Notas
9 Referencias
10 Bibliografía
11 Enlaces externos
Contexto histórico
Entre los años 999 y 1042, la participación de los normandos en la vida política de la península italiana se había limitado a su intervención como mercenarios, en ocasiones para el Imperio bizantino y en otras ocasiones al servicio de nobles lombardos. Más tarde Sergio IV de Nápoles les dotó de una primera base propia, instalando a Ranulfo Drengot a cargo del condado de Aversa. Desde este punto de referencia los normandos comenzarían una conquista más organizada del territorio.
En 1035 hicieron su aparición en tierras italianas Guillermo Brazo de Hierro y Drogo de Hauteville, los dos hijos mayores de Tancredo de Hauteville, un noble de menor importancia de la región de Cotentin, en Normandía. Los dos hermanos unieron sus fuerzas a la revuelta de los lombardos contra el control bizantino de Apulia, facilitando que para el año 1040 los bizantinos hubieran perdido ya la mayoría de la provincia. En 1042 se eligió la ciudad de Melfi como nueva capital normanda, y en septiembre de ese año los normandos eligieron a Guillermo Brazo de Hierro como su conde. Éste sería sucedido por sus hermanos Drogo (con el título Comes Normannorum totius Apuliæ e Calabriæ o "Conde de todos los Normandos en Apulia y Calabria"), y Hunifredo de Hauteville (o Huniferdo de Apulia), que llegó a la región alrededor del año 1044.
Primeros años
Roberto Guiscardo era el sexto hijo de Tancredo de Hauteville, el mayor de los que tuvo con su segunda esposa, Fressenda. Según relata la historiadora bizantina Ana Comneno, dejó Normandía con sólo cinco caballeros montados a su lado y unos treinta soldados de a pie. A su llegada a Lombardía en 1047, se convirtió en el líder de una banda de salteadores.
Las tierras eran escasas en Apulia en esa época, y el errante Guiscardo no podía esperar ninguna concesión de Drogo, su hermanastro reinante en ese momento en la región, puesto que Hinifredo acababa de recibir su propio condado de Lavello. Guiscardo se unió al príncipe Pandulfo IV de Capua en sus interminables guerras contra Guaimario IV de Salerno (1048). Al año siguiente, sin embargo, Guiscardo dejó a Pandulfo, según Amatus de Montecassino debido a que Pandulfo renegó de su promesa de otorgar a Guiscardo un castillo y la mano de su hija. Guiscardo volvió con Drogo y pidió que se le concediera un feudo. Drogo, que acaba de terminar su campaña de Calabria, otorgó a Guiscardo el mando de la fortaleza de Scribla. Sin embargo, no satisfecho con esta nueva posición, Guiscardo se trasladó al castillo de San Marco Argentano. Durante su estancia en Calabria, Guiscardo contrajo matrimonio con Alberada de Buonalbergo, hija de Girardo de Buonalbergo.
Guiscardo pronto se destacó. Los lombardos se enfrentaron a sus antiguos aliados y el papa León IX decidió expulsar a los buscadores de fortuna normandos de Italia. Sin embargo, su ejército fue derrotado por los normandos en la batalla de Civitate (1053), comandados por Hunifredo. Hunifredo dirigía del centro, contra las tropas papales, el conde Ricardo de Aversa dirigía el ala derecha, contra los lombardos, y Guiscardo el ala izquierda. El ala derecha de Ricardo logró poner en fuga a los longobardos, girando para enfrentarse a las tropas papales. Guiscardo estaba en reserva, y aprovechó ese momento para unirse a la batalla, distinguiéndose personalmente y llegando a ser desmontado y vuelto a montar hasta en tres ocasiones, según relata Guillermo de Apulia. Honrado por sus acciones en Civitate, Guiscardo sucedería a Hunifredo como conde de Apulia en 1057. Ayudado por Roger I de Sicilia, su hermano menor, Guiscardo llevaría a cabo la conquista de Apulia y Calabria, mientras que Ricardo conquistaba el principado de Capua.
Gobierno
Poco después de su sucesión, probablemente en 1058, Guiscardo se divorció de su mujer Alberada debido a que existía una relación de consanguinidad demasiado cercana para los límites admitidos. Poco después se casó con Sichelgaita, hermana de Gisulfo II de Salerno. Este exigió a cambio de la mano de su hija que Guiscardo destruyese dos castillos de su hermano Guillermo, conde del Principado, que se habían construido peligrosamente cerca del territorio de Gisulfo.
Moneda de Roberto Guiscardo.
El papado reformista, enfrentado al Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico en la Querella de las Investiduras, así como a la propia aristocracia romana, decidió reconocer a los normandos y asegurarse su alianza. Por ello, en el concilio de Melfi, el 23 de agosto de 1059, el papa Nicolás II invistió a Guiscardo como duque de Apulia, Calabria y Sicilia (por la gracia de Dios y de san Pedro, duque de Apulia y Calabria y de aquí en adelante, con la ayuda de los dos, duque de Sicilia) y a Ricardo de Aversa como príncipe de Capua . Guiscardo aceptó los títulos, reconociéndose vasallo del Papa, y durante los siguientes veinte años llevó una serie de campañas militares que le permitieron conquistar el ducado de Sicilia.
Sometimiento de Calabria
En la época de la apertura del concilio de Melfi, en junio, Guiscardo había estado dirigiendo un ejército en una campaña en Calabria, en el primer esfuerzo importante de subyugar la provincia bizantina desde los tiempos de las campañas de Guillermo Brazo de Hierro. Tras asistir al sínodo para su investidura, volvió a Calabria, donde su ejército estaba asediando la ciudad de Cariati. Poco después de su llegada Cariati se rindió y, antes de que terminara el invierno, también se sometieron las ciudades de Rossano y Gerace. Para cuando Guiscardo volvió a Apulia tan sólo quedaba Regio en poder de los bizantinos. En Apulia luchó para expulsar las guarniciones bizantinas de las ciudades de Taranto y Brindisi, para después volver a Calabria, en preparación de su campaña siciliana, en dónde Rogelio esperaba con las armas de asedio.
La caída de Regio, tras un largo y arduo asedio, y la rendición de Scilla, una ciudadela ubicada en una isla a la que había huido la guarnición de Regio, dejó abierta la vía a Sicilia. Rogelio envió primero una pequeña fuerza de ataque a Mesina, pero fue repelida fácilmente por la guarnición sarracena. La gran fuerza de invasión que se esperaba no llegó, porque Guiscardo tuvo que desviar su atención a un nuevo ejército bizantino, enviado por Constantino X, que estaba asolando Apulia. En enero de 1061, la propia Melfi estaba siendo asediada, y Rogelio también fue requerido para enfrentarse a los bizantinos. La totalidad de las fuerzas de Guiscardo lograron hacer retroceder a los bizantinos, y en mayo la región de Apulia ya se encontraba en calma.
Campañas en Sicilia
En la siguiente invasión de Sicilia, Rogelio y Guiscardo capturaron Mesina (1061) con gran facilidad: Los hombres de Rogelio desembarcaron durante la noche y sorprendieron al ejército sarraceno por la mañana. Las tropas de Guiscardo desembarcaron sin oposición y se encontraron Mesina abandonada. Guiscard procedió inmediatamente a la fortificación de la ciudad, y se alió con Ibn at-Timnah, uno de los dos emires rivales de Sicilia, contra Ibn al-Hawas, el otro emir. Los ejércitos de Guiscard, de su hermano, y de su aliado musulmám se internaron en la Sicilia central por la vía de Rometta, ciudad que había permanecido leal a al-Timnah. Atravesaron Frazzanò y la pianura di Maniace, lugar en el que Jorge Maniaces y los primeros miembros de la familia de los Altavillas se habían distinguido hacía ya 21 años. Guiscardo asaltó la ciudad de Centuripe, pero encontró gran resistencia y siguió adelante. Paterno cayó, y llevó a su ejército hasta Enna (entonces conocida como Castrogiovanni), una fortaleza formidable. Los sarracenos hicieron una salida, pero fueron derrotados, aunque Enna no llegó a caer. Guiscardo dio la vuelta, dejando una fortaleza en San Marco d'Alunzio, cuyo nombre conmemoraba su primera fortaleza en Calabria. Volvió a Apulia con Sichelgaita en Navidad.
Volvió en 1064, pero esta vez no se detuvo en Enna, sino que se dirigió directamente hacia Palermo. Sin embargo, su campamento se vio infestado de tarántulas y lo tuvo que abandonar. Esta campaña sería infructuosa, aunque una posterior campaña en 1072 llevaría a la caída de Palermo, dejando la conquista del resto de Sicilia más como una cuestión de tiempo. Una de las consecuencias de la campaña siciliana fue que comenzó a recibir el apodo de "Roberto Camisa Negra". Este mote se debió a que durante la campaña portaba ropas elegantes tintadas con tintes de importación, pero que con los esfuerzos de la campaña comenzaron a correrse hasta que toda la ropa acabó teniendo un color negruzco.2
Campañas contra el Imperio romano de Oriente
Playa de Atheras, lugar en el que Roberto Guiscardo murió.
Mausoleo de la Casa de Altavilla, lugar de enterramiento de Roberto Guiscardo. Abadía de la Trinidad en Venosa, Italia.
Bari fue conquistada en abril de 1071, lo que supuso la expulsión definitiva de las tropas imperiales del sur de Italia. El territorio de Salerno ya estaba en poder de Guiscard, y en diciembre de 1076 tomó la ciudad, expulsando al príncipe lombardo Gisulfo, hermano de su mujer Sichelgaita. Los ataques normandos sobre Benevento, un feudo papal, alarmaron y enfurecioneron al papa Gregorio VII, pero presionado por el emperador germánico Enrique IV se vio obligado a aliarse de nuevo con los normandos, y reinvistió a Guiscard en Ceprano, en junio de 1080, asegurándole también el control del sur de Abruzzi, pero reservándose Salerno.
La última aventura de Roberto Guiscardo fue su ataque al propio Imperio romano de Oriente, campaña que le llevaría a enfrentarse al emperador Alejo I Comneno. Guiscardo decidió apoyar la causa de Miguel VII, emperador depuesto en 1078 por Alejo, después de que Miguel ofreciera a Roberto el matrimonio de su hija con el hijo de Roberto. Partió en mayo de 1081 al frente de 16.000 hombres, de los cuales 1.300 eran caballeros normandos. En febrero de 1082 logró ocupar Corfú y Durazzo (Albania), derrotando al emperador Alejo en octubre de 1081 en la Batalla de Dirraquio.
Años finales
Roberto tuvo que volver a Italia para ayudar al papa Gregorio VII, que se encontraba bajo asedio en Castel Sant'Angelo por Enrique IV, emperador del Sacro Imperio Romano (junio de 1083). Entre tanto, sus campañas en Macedonia y en Tesalia fueron dirigidas por su hijo Bohemundo. Ese mismo año Roberto destruyó la ciudad de Cannas, dejando tan sólo en pie la catedral y la residencia del obispo.3
Marchó al norte de Italia, hacia Roma, al mando de 36.000 hombres, forzando a Enrique a retirarse, pero debido a una pequeña rebelión o a un tumulto sedicioso (émeute) de los ciudadanos romanos, se desencadenó un saqueo de Roma de tres días de duración en el que redujo a cenizas un tercio de la ciudad, tras el cual Guiscardo escoltó al Papa de vuelta a Roma. Para entonces, su hijo Bohemundo había perdido el control de las conquistas bizantinas, por lo que Guiscardo volvió con 150 naves para recuperarlas. Ocupó Corfú y Cefalonia con la ayuda de Ragusa y las ciudades dálmatas (que estaban bajo el gobierno de Demetrio Zvonimir de Croacia),4 pero murió de fiebre junto con otros 500 caballeros normandos como muy tarde el 17 de julio de 1085, a los 70 años de edad.56 Fue enterrado en el mausoleo de la familia en la Abadía de la Trinidad, en Venosa. La ciudad de Fiscardo en Cefalonia tomó su nombre de él.
Semblanza y carácter
Ana Comneno, historiadora e hija del basileus Alejo Comneno, uno de los líderes que se enfrentaron en vida a Roberto Guiscardo ofrece una visión del carácter y de la semblanza de Roberto Guiscardo:
De origen normando; ... tenía pensamientos propios de un tirano, un temperamento astuto y una fuerza considerable; era muy hábil para obtener la riqueza y el rango de las personas importantes y el más irrefrenable a la hora de actuar por su implacable persecución de los objetivos que se marcaba. Su estatura era tan elevada que sobrepasaba a los más altos, su complexión era rojiza, su pelo rubísimo, sus hombros anchos, sus ojos emitían destellos de fuego, y en general tenía buena imagen (...) se dice que el grito de este hombre hizo huir a miles de personas. Por ello, equipado con la fortuna, el físico y el carácter, era naturalmente indomable, y no se subordinaba a nadie en el mundo entero.
Ana Comneno, Alexiada.
Religión
Roberto Guiscardo fue, a través de su conquistas de Calabria y Sicilia, uno de los causantes principales de la llegada del cristianismo latino a regiones que históricamente habían seguido el rito bizantino. Guiscardo encargó la construcción de una nueva catedral en Salerno y de un monasterio normando en Sant'Eufemia d'Aspromonte, en Calabria. Este monasterio, famoso por su coro, comenzó como una comunidad de once monjes de Saint-Evroul, en Normandía, a las órdenes del abad Robert de Grantmesnil.
Aunque su relación con el papado no fue pacífica, Guiscardo prefirió estar en buenas relaciones con el papado, llegando incluso a hacer el gesto de abandonar a su primera esposa en respuesta al derecho canónico. Los papas, por su parte, aunque a menudo se sentían amenazados por su creciente poder prefirieron la fuerte e independiente mano de los normandos católicos para hacer frente a los griegos bizantinos.
Guiscardo recibió su investidura de Sicilia de manos del papa Nicolás II, que temía la oposición del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico a sus reformas papales. Guiscardo apoyó las reformas, yendo al rescate del papa Gregorio VII incluso cuando este llegó a excomunicarle en tiempos anteriores por haberse acercado demasiado a los estados pontificios. Tras el gran cisma de Oriente de 1054, la atmósfera religiosa ayudó a la alianza de Guiscardo con las fuerzas papales, logrando una formidable oposición papal-normanda frente al imperio de oriente.7
Predecesor:
Hunifredo de Apulia Conde de Apulia y Calabria
1057-1059 Sucesor:
El mismo como duque
Predecesor:
El mismo como conde Duque de Apulia y Calabria
1059 - 1085 Sucesor:
Roger Borsa
Véase también
Casa de Hauteville
Condado de Sicilia
Notas
Su tiulación completa era Por la gracia de Dios y de San Pedro, duque de Apulia y Calabria y, con su ayuda futuro duque de Sicilia
Referencias
Bartlett, Robert. «La formación de Europa: Conquista, colonización y cambio cultural, 950-1350». Consultado el 31 de julio de 2013.
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=20623842
Catholic Encyclopedia
Ferdo Šišić, Povijest Hrvata u vrijeme narodnih vladara, 1925, Zagreb ISBN 86-401-0080-2
James van Wyck Osborne, The Greatest Norman Conquest (1937), page 396.
G. A. Loud, The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (2000), page 223.
Savvides 2007, 35.
Bibliografía
von Kleist, Heinrich. Robert Guiskard, Herzog der Normänner, student edition (Stuttgart, 2011).
Chalandon, F. Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicile. (París, 1907).
von Heinemann, L. Geschichte der Normannen in Unteritalien (Leipzig, 1894).
Loud, G. A. The Age of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2000. ISBN 0-582-04529-0
Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016-1130. Longmans: London, 1967.
Savvides, Alexios G.C. (2007). Byzantino-Normannica: The Norman Capture of Italy (to A.D. 1081) and the First Two Invasions in Byzantium (A.D. 1081-1085 and 1107-1108). Leuven, Belgium; Dudley, MA: Peeters. ISBN 978-90-429-1911-2.
Enlaces externos
Wikimedia Commons alberga una categoría multimedia sobre Roberto Guiscardo.
La torre de Roberto Guiscardo (en francés)
La torre de Roberto Guiscardo (San Marco Argentano, Calabria)
Medieval History Texts in Translation at University of Leeds
Coin with Guiscard's effigy.
Medieval Lands Project on Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia
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