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War in History

The Norman Invasion of 17(4) 381402


The Author(s) 2010

Sicily, 10611072: Numbers Reprints and permission: sagepub.


co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

and Military Tactics DOI: 10.1177/0968344510376463


http://wih.sagepub.com

Georgios Theotokis
University of Glasgow

Abstract
By 1060 the Normans of Melfi had greatly expanded their dominions in Apulia and
Calabria. The next step in their ambitious plans in the Italian peninsula, the invasion
of Sicily, took place in 1061: it was not completed before 1091, mostly owing to a
combination of political setbacks in the mainland, along with several inefficiencies in
Norman military organization. No comprehensive study of the military aspects of the
Norman conquest of Sicily has been written, and this paper intends to cover this specific
gap. It deals with the first two stages of the Sicilian conquest, the period between the
first invasion of 1061 and the first unsuccessful siege of Palermo in 1064, and the second
period, which is marked by the five-month siege and capture of the Muslim capital in
1072. It examines the composition of the Norman and Muslim armies, in terms not only
of numbers but also of the ration of cavalry, infantry and auxiliary units. It also considers
how far the Normans had been willing to adapt to the Mediterranean reality of warfare,
more specifically the construction of siege engines and of a navy capable of imposing
a blockade and transporting troops and horses from the Italian mainland to Sicily; the
Norman fighting tactics used in the field of battle against the Muslims; and whether
those tactics changed during the several stages of the Sicilian conquest.

Keywords
Guiscard, Hauteville, Italian Normans, Kalbite, Normans, Saracen, Sicily

I. Primary Sources for the Conquest


The only chronicle material that deals solely with the invasion of Sicily by the Normans,
and thus the only detailed source we have for this period, is Geoffrey Malaterras Deeds
of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of His Brother Duke Robert Guiscard. Although
we know very little about Malaterras life apart from the fact that he had come from a

Corresponding author:
Georgios Theotokis, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G11 5NJ, UK.
Email: Geo_theotokis@yahoo.gr
382 War in History 17(4)

region beyond the Alps, he himself tells us that he came to Sicily to become a monk at
the request of Count Roger, who wished to re-establish the power of the Latin church in
the island right after its complete conquest from the Muslims in 1091. Thus, it must have
been during that decade and most likely at its end that he began writing his work.
Other primary sources contemporary with Malaterras work are William of Apulias
Gesta Roberti Guiscardi, written between 1095 and 1099 by a layman at Roger Borsas
court, and the History of the Normans by Amatus of Montecassino, written in 1080.1
The person that dominates Malaterras work is Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily,
Guiscards younger brother, who was regarded as a generous patron whom Malaterra
could not refuse when asked to commemorate his deeds. Other important limits on
Malaterras work are: the scarcity of numbers in his analyses, the composition of the
opposing armies, the dating of events, and the fact that there are very few detailed
descriptions of battles and sieges in his work. Malaterras sources for his work, for he
was not an eyewitness himself to the events he describes in his history, were primarily
oral, gathered from people who had witnessed the events.2 However, Malaterra does not
identify any of his sources, and we do not know whether they were knights, foot soldiers,
or other followers of the Norman army. There is a debate as to whether Malaterra had
used the Anonymi Vaticani historia Sicula in his work, a history of the Norman conquests
in southern Italy and Sicily up to 1091 written during the reign of Roger II, or whether
these two sources for Robert Guiscards and Rogers lives were written independently.3
However, Malaterra would have been aware of the works of William of Jumiges or
William of Poitiers, but it is not likely that he knew of the work of William of Apulia,
since the latter was writing in 109599, just a few years before Rogers death in 1101.
Amatus of Montecassino and William of Apulia mostly deal with Robert Guiscards
achievements in mainland Italy, and mention the main Sicilian events in just a few
verses. The History of the Normans was compiled by Amatus around 1080, and it is the
earliest chronicle material we have for the Norman establishment in southern Italy and
Sicily, from its earliest stages in the 1010s to the death of Richard I of Capua on 5 April
1078. Amatus was a contemporary and an eyewitness to the events he describes, or at

1 Goffredus Malaterra, De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi
ducis fratris eius, vol. 6 of L.A. Muratori, ed., Rerum Italicarum scriptores: raccolta degli
storici italiani dal cinquecento al millecinquecento (Citt di Castello, 1900) [hereafter,
Malaterra]. Malaterras work has been translated in a recent edition: Geoffrey Malaterra, The
Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of His Brother Duke Robert Guiscard, trans.
Kenneth Baxter Wolf (London, 2005). The main secondary works on Malaterra are: Ernesto
Pontieri, I normanni nellItalia meridionale (Naples, 1964); F. Chalandon, Histoire de la
domination normande en Italie et en Sicile, 2 vols (Paris, 1907), pp. xxxvixxxvii; Kenneth
Baxter Wolf, Making History: The Normans and Their Historians in Eleventh-Century Italy
(Philadelphia, 1995), pp. 14371; Emily Albu, The Normans in Their Histories: Propaganda,
Myth and Subversion (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 10644; Guillaume de Pouille, La Geste de
Robert Guiscard, ed. and trans. Marguerite Mathieu (Palermo, 1961) [hereafter, Gesta];
Amatus of Montecassino, The History of the Normans, trans. P.N. Dunbar, notes by Graham
Loud (Woodbridge, 2004).
2 Malaterra, p. 3; Malaterra, Deeds of Count Roger, p. 41.
3 Chalandon, Histoire de la domination normande, pp. xxxviixxxviii.
Theotokis 383

least had access to people who were present, while he must also have had access to
Montecassinos archive material. His work is divided into eight books, with each one
covering a period of seven to eight years. However, his dating is rather problematic: he
rarely provides us with any dates in his account, and in the few cases where he does
he simply mentions the day of the month and not the year, with this problem becoming
even more acute because of the authors lack of chronological order in his history.
William of Apulia was a layman and a member of the court of Roger Borsa, the son
of Robert Guiscard and heir to his dukedom. He seems to have had a particular interest
in certain military factors in campaigns, such as the composition of forces, battle plans,
and siege equipment, as, for example, in the battle of Civitate and the sieges of Bari and
Dyrrachium.4 His position at Rogers court would also have allowed him access to
certain high-ranking officials of the dukedom and to the veterans of Robert Guiscards
campaigns. Williams Gesta covers the period from the appearance of the Normans in
Italy in the 1010s to the death of Robert Guiscard in Cephalonia, in June 1085, but the
author covers the first six decades until the capture of Bari in 1071 in his first two
books. And as the protagonist of Williams work is Robert Guiscard, the Sicilian theatre
of operations plays a secondary role in his narrative.
Finally, the Islamic sources for the Norman invasion of Sicily are very late, and either
are ill-informed or do not deal at any length with an episode that represented a severe
setback to the faith.5

II. Sicilys Strategic Importance and Its Occupation by the


Muslims, Ninth to Eleventh Centuries
Sicily can be seen, throughout its history from antiquity to the Second World War, as the
checkpoint that controls all the sea routes from the western Mediterranean to the east. It
always constituted the necessary next step for any further expansion, either to the North
African coasts or to mainland Italy. The great Belisarius commenced his attack against
the Italian Ostrogoths by first taking Sicily in 535, before landing on the Italian coasts,
while in 1948 the British field marshal and commander-in-chief of the 15th Army Group,
Sir Harold Alexander, wrote of the Allied invasion of Sicily in June 1943:

At the Casablanca conference in mid-January, 1943, it was decided by the Prime Minister and
President Roosevelt, assisted by the Combined Chiefs of Staff, that after Africa had been finally
cleared of the enemy the island of Sicily should be assaulted and captured as a base for operations
against Southern Europe and to open the Mediterranean to the shipping of the United Nations.6

4 Gesta, II.122256, pp. 13947; II.480573, pp. 15963; IV.235448, pp. 21729.
5 See the very useful study by Jeremy Johns, Arabic Sources for Sicily, in Mary Whitby, ed.,
Byzantines and Crusaders in Non-Greek Sources, 10251204 (Oxford, 2007), pp. 34160. See
also: Vera von Falkenhausen, Between Two Empires: Byzantine Italy in the Reign of Basil II,
in Paul Magdalino, ed., Byzantium in the Year 1000 (Leiden, 2003), pp. 13839; Chalandon,
Histoire de la domination normande, pp. lxviilxix.
6 Harold Alexander, The Conquest of Sicily from 10th July 1943 to 17th August 1943, London
Gazette (Supplement), no. 38205, pp. 100925, 10 February 1948.
384 War in History 17(4)

Figure 1.The island of Sicily

Sicilys topography (Figure 1) is peculiar, in comparison to Apulia and mainland Italy, in


the sense that a high proportion of the island is covered with mountains (25%) and hills
(61%), and only a low proportion (14%) is mostly coastal plains. The islands geog-
raphy is dominated by Mount Etna on the east coast, some 3263 metres high, while to the
north of the island there are three groups of granite mountains, covered with forest, that
fall short of 2000 metres and take in a zone from Milazzo to Termini and spread as far
inland as Petralia and Nicosia. The coastlands of northern Sicily from Taormina to
Trapani alternate between narrow alluvial plains and rocky spurs which often leave little
space for communications. The interior of Sicily is dominated by impermeable rocks and
rounded hills and ridges separated by open valleys, while the brutal climate with its long
summer droughts and low rainfall creates a sharp contrast to the coastal zones. Finally,
along the southern shore, low cliffs alternate with alluvial plains, and between Mazara
and Trapani a series of broad marine platforms can be identified.
To return to the period under discussion, the subjugation of the island by the Aghlabid
dynasty in the third quarter of the ninth century and the naval raids conducted by the
Sicilian emirs along the western and eastern Italian coastline7 were not just some minor
annoyance in the eyes of the catepans8 at Bari. But after the expulsion of the Byzantines

7 Michele Amari, Storia dei musulmani di Sicilia (Catania, 1935), II, pp. 40103.
8 Since the establishment of the imperial navy in the late seventh century, the office of the
catepan was the commander of the marines in a maritime theme of the empire. However,
this office was upgraded by Nicephoros Phocas to a rank equivalent to the dukes around
Theotokis 385

from Calabria in the late 1050s it was the turn of Robert Guiscard dHauteville, the
newly created Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and his Normans to force the Muslims out
of Sicily. Otherwise, their Italian conquests, along with the important sea-commerce of
the Tyrrhenian and south Adriatic seas, would never have been secure.9
Malaterra wrote of the motives behind the Norman invasion in 1061: noticing how
narrow the sea was that separated it [Sicily] from Calabria, Roger, who was always avid
for domination, was seized with the ambition of obtaining it. He figured that it would be
of profit to him in two ways that is, to his soul and to his body.10 This suggests that the
decision to invade Sicily was inspired by Roger just a few months before the actual inva-
sion, which is misleading. In fact, at the synod at Melfi in August 1059, Pope Nicholas II
had invested Robert Guiscard as future Duke of Sicily, thus laying the foundation for the
conquest of the island which would serve the interests of both parties. The Normans would
profit from the conquest of an island as fertile and rich as Sicily, while the Catholic Church
would reap the fruits of glory for taking the island away from the infidels after almost two
centuries, and not allowing it to fall under the jurisdiction of Constantinople.11
The invasion of the island of Sicily between 1060 and the conquest of Palermo in
1072 consisted primarily of three major pitched battles between Norman and Muslim
armies, either Sicilian or North African, one major siege, and one great amphibious
operation conducted by a hybrid Norman fleet. Sicily, however, was important to the
Zirid Muslims of Ifriqiya as well, with the latter actively reinforcing their Kalbite co-
religionists by providing them with a fleet and reinforcements whenever possible. The
maintenance of the island was crucial to them not only in terms of their economy, which
had relied on imported Sicilian grain and wheat grown in the western and southern parts
of the island since classical times, but also with respect to their fame as newly emerged
warriors of the Koran in North Africa. In addition, large populations of Berbers from the
Kutama tribe, from which the Zirids also originated, had migrated to Sicily since the late
ninth century and settled mostly on the north coast, with their protection being one of
the Zirids main tasks.12
If we now turn our attention to the enemies that the Normans were to face in Sicily,
by the beginning of the ninth century the Muslims had overwhelmed all of North Africa
and were already launching significant and numerous raids on Calabria and Sicily itself.
Their major chance to establish themselves permanently on the island came in 827 when,
taking advantage of a local rebellion, the Muslims landed on the island in full strength
and stormed Palermo in 830. Their progress was quite slow, a prelude to the Norman

the mid-tenth century, when we find a catepan as a governor of the catepanate (province) of
Longobardia (southern Sicily).
9 For more on the sea commerce of Amalfi, Salerno, and Napoli and its importance to the
Sicilian Muslims as well, see Amari, Storia dei musulmani, pp. 51415, 52325.
10 Malaterra, 2.1.
11 For Robert Guiscards investiture at Melfi and its significance for the Sicilian invasion and
political developments in southern Italy, see the detailed analyses in G.A. Loud, The Age
of Robert Guiscard: Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (London, 2000),
pp. 18694.
12 Aziz Ahmad, A History of Islamic Sicily (Edinburgh, 1975), pp. 2122.
386 War in History 17(4)

pace of conquest, and it took them five decades to subdue the island, which eventually
fell to them mostly because of poor leadership and the Byzantine Empires struggle on
the eastern frontiers against the Arabs.13
The Muslim dynasty of the Aghlabids that dominated Tripolitania and Tunisia had
invaded Sicily in the second quarter of the ninth century, but the conquest had not been
fully completed until the Muslims had subdued Taormina, the last Byzantine base in
Sicily, in 902. The Aghlabids were ousted in 909 by the Fatimids, who directly ruled the
island for almost four decades14 until 947, when a governor was sent from Ifriqiya to
crush a local rebellion at Palermo. His name was Ali al-Kalbi and his governorship was
to lead to the establishment of the local Muslim dynasty of the Kalbites, which was to
rule the island for more than 90 years. While typically still vassals of the Fatimids and
practically after 972 of the Zirid vicerois in Ifriqiya, the Kalbites enjoyed a significant
degree of autonomy and self-sufficiency, while their dynastic rights on the island were
recognized as hereditary in 970. By the year 1000 they sometimes even used the title of
malik15 of Sicily. During the second half of the tenth century Sicily enjoyed a large period
of political stability which helped in maintaining religious toleration on the island and in
expanding the already flourishing Palermitan commerce. However, from the early elev-
enth century the political consensus began to break down and separatist forces emerged.
This came as a direct result of the rising unpopularity of the Kalbite dynasty, particularly
among the rural population, because of their elaborate court life and taxation reforms.16
Two successive emirs were overthrown during the first four decades, the emir Jafar in
1019 after an attempt to alter the customary taxation system, and his brother Ahmed
al-Akhal in 1037, after a revolt that was caused by his imposition of high taxes.17
During this period there was a great migration from North Africa, due to civilreligious
conflicts between Sunni and Shia factions. The so-called Banu-Hilal invasions, a series
of conflicts lasting from 1040 to 105455, were caused by the Zirid declaration of
independence and their conversion to the Sunni faction of Islam, contrary to the pre-
dominantly Shia Fatimids.18 In addition, between 986 and the mid-1030s several
sporadic Muslim naval raids took place, aimed at southern Italy and mainland Greece. In
986 the Muslims occupied Gerace, advancing as far north as Cosenza, while two years
later they threatened Bari and Taranto. Again in 1003, the capital of Byzantine Italy
was besieged and this time it was a Venetian fleet that came to the rescue. Calabria, and
especially the valley of Crati, was invaded in 1009 and the suburbs of Bari were occupied
in 1010 and 1015. The same pattern of sporadic raids continued until the 1030s, with the
Muslim fleet unsuccessfully attacking Corfu and the west coast of Greece in 1032.19

13 For more on the Muslim conquest of Sicily, see op. cit., pp. 124; Alex Metcalfe, The Muslims
of Medieval Italy (Edinburgh, 2009), pp. 424. I am grateful to Dr Alex Metcalfe for sending
me a final draft of his forthcoming book.
14 For more on that, see Metcalfe, Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 4469.
15 Amari, Storia dei musulmani, p. 406; Ahmad, History of Islamic Sicily, p. 32. Malik is the
Arab title for king, which was less important, however, than the supreme title of Caliph.
16 Metcalfe, Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 7173.
17 Op. cit., pp. 7679.
18 For more on this, see op. cit., pp. 9293.
19 Ahmad, History of Islamic Sicily, pp. 3435.
Theotokis 387

A key date for the history of the island in the eleventh century is 1038, when a
Byzantine expedition was launched against the Kalbite Muslims of Sicily. Under the
command of the famous Byzantine general George Maniaces,20 imperial units from
the Balkans Greeks, Bulgarians, Vlachs, and a contingent of Varangians joined the
assembled Italian levies for a landing at Messina. Constantinople also called for its
vassals in Italy to send reinforcements, with Gaimar being more than happy to furnish
300 Norman knights under William and Drogo Hauteville.21 Unfortunately we know
nothing of the military operations that took place throughout the campaign until its stale-
mate in 1040, apart from the initial Byzantine success in taking Messina and the defeat
of a Muslim army close to Syracuse that led to the capture of the city.22
The Sicilian history of the period from 1040 to 1052 is confusing and anarchic. When
the last Kalbite emir, al-Hasan, was assassinated in 1052, the island was divided into
three principalities. The south and centre were ruled by Ibn al-Hawas, who also com-
manded the key fortresses of Agrigento (on the west coast) and Castrogiovanni (in the
centre), the west by Abd-Allah ibn Manqut, and the east by Ibn al-Timnah, based in
Catania. The latters role in the following events and the Norman invasion of the 1060s
is significant.23 Ibn al-Timnah emerged on the Sicilian political scene in 1053 and in the
following years he established himself in Syracuse. In this period he also married the
sister of al-Hawas, up until that time the most powerful of the Muslim emirs. A conflict
between him and al-Hawas, caused by political ambition and sparked by a domestic rift
with his wife, led al-Timnah to besiege Castrogiovanni. His failure and his gradual loss
of power in the east of the island forced the Muslim emir to contact Roger, in February
1061 according to Malaterra.24 From that period and until his death in 1062, al-Timnah
actively assisted the Normans in their invasion of the island by providing troops, guides,
money, and supplies in the vain hope that his allies, once they had defeated al-Hawas,
would hand the island back to him.
Before I proceed to the main part of this paper, the human geography of the island
needs to be examined, as it is a factor that played a significant role in the early stages of

20 For George Maniaces career and life, see Alexios Savvides, .


11 , 10301043 .. (Athens, 2004); G. Leveniotes,
,
11 , unpublished DPhil Thesis, Aristotle University
of Thessaloniki, 2007, pp. 189, 493.
21 Malaterra, 1.7, 1.8; Gesta, I.196221, pp. 10810; Ioannes Skylitzes and Georgius Cedrenus,
Synopsis historiarum, ed. Immanuel Bekker, Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae XXXIV
and XXXV (Bonn, 183839), XXXV, pp. 52023, 545.
22 Malaterra, 1.7; Amatus, II.8, 9. Skylitzes also mentions the capture of 13 more cities:
Skylitzes and Cedrenus, Synopsis historiarum, XXXV, p. 520. Also, Chronicle of the Kings
of Norway, translated from the Icelandic of Snorro Sturleson, ed. S. Laing, 3 vols (London,
1844), III, pp. 712.
23 The length of this paper does not allow me to go into a detailed analysis of his role in the
events. This has already been done by Metcalfe, Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 9395, and
The Muslims of Sicily under Christian Rule, in Graham Loud and Alex Metcalfe, eds, The
Society of Norman Italy (Leiden, 2002), pp. 29395; see also Ahmad, History of Islamic
Sicily, pp. 3637; Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 14749.
24 Malaterra, 2.3.
388 War in History 17(4)

the Norman invasion. Sicily was under Byzantine rule for more than three centuries after
Belisarius expedition in 535 ce, and thus the Greek element was by far the strongest in
political, social, economic, and religious life. However, the Muslim invasion in 827 and
the gradual conquest that took almost seven decades were about to change the demo-
graphic identity of Sicily. And this was through a combination of repopulation and
gradual assimilation of the local population.25 During the Muslim expansion from the
west to east, from Mazara to Palermo eastward, the conquest took a form of repopulation
of major strategic cities of the west coast such as Agrigento, Mazara, Trapani, and, of
course, Palermo while large numbers of slaves were brought from Ifriqiya to work on
agriculture. But even though the change in the rural areas of Sicily proved slower
and, indeed, more conservative in nature, many of the Christian elements eventually
converted to Islam and adopted Arabic as a second language.26 In the Val di Mazara
Islamization of the region had progressed swiftly already since its conquest by the
Aghlabids in the middle of the ninth century, with large numbers of Kutama Berbers
being transplanted there. Christianity resisted firmly in the fertile Val di Noto in the
century between 850 and 950, and it was under the Kalbites that a policy of colonization
took shape. Thus, by the 1060s only the Val Demone had remained overwhelmingly
Christian, mostly because of its contacts with the neighbouring theme of Calabria and the
support of the archbishopric of Reggio.27

III. First Stage of Sicilian Expansion, 10601064


One of the greatest challenges that the Normans had had to face since their first arrival in
Italy, almost four decades before, was the transportation of a large armed force by sea.
Although they claimed to be descendants of the mighty Scandinavians, they had probably
never set foot on a warship,28 let alone organized a massive amphibious operation against
a hostile territory. As William of Apulia notes just before writing about the siege of Bari:
The Norman race had up to this point known nothing of naval warfare. [...] He [Robert
Guiscard] greatly rejoiced at the novelty of this naval victory, hoping that he and the
Normans might in the future engage in battle at sea with more hope of success.29 Thus,

25 Michelle Amari, Biblioteca arabo-sicula, 2 vols (Turin, 1880), p. 51; Ahmad, History of
Islamic Sicily, pp. 3037; Metcalfe, Muslims of Medieval Italy, pp. 424, and Muslims
of Sicily, pp. 28991. I did not have the chance to look at Jeremy Johns, The Muslims
of Norman Sicily, c. 1060 c. 1194, unpublished DPhil thesis, 2 vols, Oxford, 1983.
26 Metcalfe, Muslims of Sicily, p. 290.
27 Vera von Falkenhausen, The Greek Presence in Norman Sicily: The Contribution of Archival
Material in Greek, in Graham Loud and Alex Metcalfe, eds, The Society of Norman Italy
(Leiden, 2002), p. 256.
28 Though William (d. 1045/6) and Drogo (d. 1051), the first two leaders of the Normans, had
taken part in the Byzantine expedition in Sicily in 103841, when they were transported from
the mainland by the Byzantine fleet. For the course of the campaign, see Amari, Storia dei
musulmani, pp. 43855; J. Gay, LItalie mridionale et lEmpire byzantin (Paris, 1904),
pp. 45054; Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 7880; Chalandon, Histoire de la domination
normande, pp. 8896.
29 Gesta, III.13238, p. 170.
Theotokis 389

for the period 106076 the possibility of the Normans having built their own ships can
be discounted, not only because there is no indication in the chronicles but also because
there were no halts in their operations which can be explained by their stopping to build
ships. The significance, therefore, of Robert Guiscards and his brother Rogers landing
on the coast near Messina in May 1061 is considerable for the evolution of military
thinking, not only for Italy but also for Normandy and England.30 There were two other
naval landings at Messina prior to this, both conducted by Roger, one a year earlier when
he took with him only 60 men,31 and the other in March 1061, this time with 160 knights
and a few hundred foot-soldiers. Both aimed at the reconnaissance and plundering of the
area around Messina,32 but neither was of the same magnitude as the one that took place
in May 1061.
The Normans, apart from lacking experience in conducting naval operations, had
neither the knowledge nor the skills to build a fleet of warships and especially horse
transports.33 Consequently all they could do was to use the ships of their conquered sub-
jects, especially because the Greeks and the Apulians were very experienced sailors and
the Byzantine fleet was accustomed to carrying cavalry units,34 the most recent examples

30 D.P. Waley suggests that the knowledge for conducting massive amphibious operations was
given to William II of Normandy from the experience gained at the crossing of the Messina
straits in 1061, which was obtained by the Normans during their participation in the Byzantine
campaign of 103841 against the Muslims in Sicily: see D.P. Waley, Combined Operations
in Sicily, A.D. 106078, Papers of the British School at Rome XXII (1954), pp. 12122.
Bernard Bachrach supports this argument: B. Bachrach, Some Observations on the Military
Administration of the Norman Conquest, Anglo-Norman Studies VIII (1985), p. 7; see also
the very detailed examination: B. Bachrach, On the Origins of William the Conquerors
Horse Transports, Technology and Culture XXVI (Chicago, 1985), pp. 50531.
31 Malaterra, 2.1.
32 Op. cit., 2.4; Amatus, V.10, who does not mention the first expedition. For these operations
prior to the main Messina landing, see: Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 14849; Chalandon,
Histoire de la domination normande, pp. 19394; J.J. Norwich, The Normans in the South,
10161130 (London, 1967), pp. 13536.
33 The possibility of having shipwrights with them cannot be supported by the chronicler
material.
34 Certain scholars tend to think that the fact of hiring the ships and their crews seemed more
likely than confiscation and obligatory service, although the primary sources are not clear at
this point: see Waley, Combined Operations, p. 121; J.H. Pryor, Transportation of Horses
by Sea during the Crusades, Mariners Mirror LXVIII (1982), pp. 1213; M. Bennett,
Norman Naval Activity in the Mediterranean, Anglo-Norman Studies XV (1992), p. 48.
Stanton argues that the Greek and Muslim crews were conscripted and that the Normans
demanded a quota of sailors from each of the conquered ports: C.D. Stanton, Naval Power in
the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily, Haskins Society Journal XIX (2008), pp.
13234; compare with what E. van Houts writes about the contribution of ships by William
IIs magnates for the 1066 English invasion: E. van Houts, The Ship List of William the
Conqueror, Anglo-Norman Studies X (1987), pp. 15983. I have been unable to consult
S.M. Foster, Some Aspects of Maritime Activity and the Use of Sea Power in Relation to
the Crusading States, DPhil thesis, Oxford, 1978. To me it seems more reasonable that the
Normans used as a model the Anglo-Saxon scipfyrd and the Cinque Ports, going back as
390 War in History 17(4)

being the Sicilian campaigns of 1025 and 1038. Having conquered by 1059 Cariati,
Rossano, Gerace, Brindisi, and Otranto, some of the most important Byzantine ports in
southern Italy after Bari, they could use the Greek ships and crews for their own military
purposes.35 Although information about the types of vessel employed by the Normans in
their amphibious operation is scarce, with chroniclers frequently employing the vague
term naves,36 in general terms the ships captured in the aforementioned ports must have
been mostly long, open galleys which could carry about 70 men,37 heavy round-hull
merchant and small fishing ships which could have been adapted for naval use, and
Venetian and Amalfitan ships of various types (either war vessels or merchant ships), all
denoted by the terms chelandion (), pamfylos (), sandalion
(), catina (), tarida (Arabic tarrada), the horse-transport ships which
the Arabs of the tenth century preferred, and sagena (derived from the Byzantine ,
meaning seductive).38

early as the reign of the Confessor, which would also influence the Norwegian and Danish
fleet-muster system. See: N.A.M. Rodger, The Safeguard of the Sea, vol. 1, 6601649
(London, 1997), pp. 2327, 39; C.W.C. Hollister, Anglo-Saxon Military Institutions (Oxford,
1998), pp. 10326; Michael Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: The English
Experience (London, 2006), pp. 26872; M. Strickland, Military Technology and Conquest:
The Anomaly of Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Norman Studies XIX (1996), pp. 37379;
P. Contamine, War in the Middle Ages, trans. M. Jones (Oxford, 2005), p. 51. The influence
of the Byzantines also seems possible, but I have found only one recorded example in Italy of
ships being built or confiscated, with crews being forced into service. The Calabrian strategos
Nicephoros Hexakionites attempted to build a fleet in 965, but the inhabitants of Rossano
so resented his decision that they burned the ships and sought St Niles help against the
governors reprisals: see Vita St-Nili Iunioris, c. 9, in J.P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Cursus
Completus, Series Graeca, 166 vols (Paris, 185766), vol. 120, cols 10507.
35 The primary sources refer to that only after the siege of Bari onwards, but it is certain that the
Normans had enlisted Greeks to man their transport ships since Messina.
36 In most cases Malaterra uses the term naves, with his unfamiliarity with the ship terms being
striking. When he becomes more specific, which is very rare, we see the use of terms such
as germundi, galea (a Byzantine light one-bank ship), catti, golafri, and dromundi (from the
Byzantine dromon). However, we should bear in mind that Malaterra was not an expert on
naval technology. See Malaterra, 2.8. Amatus is also quite vague, using the terms catti, naves,
and galea: Amatus, V.1315.
37 The ratio between the number of men and horses carried in a transport ship is very difficult
to estimate. The most likely ratio is 3:1 (three men for every horse), while for the Byzantine
fleets of the period it was around 5:1. See Bachrach, On the Origins, pp. 50531; see also
the reference n. 28.
38 For a more detailed analysis of the types of ship used by the Normans in this period, see Bennett,
Norman Naval Activity; John H. Pryor, Geography, Technology and War (Cambridge,
1988), pp. 2539, 6063; R.H. Dolley, The Warships of the Later Roman Empire, Journal
of Roman Studies XXXVIII (1948), p. 53; Waley, Combined Operations, pp. 11921;
C.M. Gillmor, Naval Logistics of the Cross-Channel Operation, 1066, Anglo-Norman
Studies VII (1984), pp. 10531; Barbara Kreutz, Ships, Shipping, and the Implications of
Change in the Early Mediterranean, Viator VII (1976), pp. 99100.
Theotokis 391

In 1061 Guiscard and Roger took, according to Amatus, 270 knights in 13 ships
across the straits in the first wave and then 166 knights in the second wave,39 in an
attempt to capture Messina and secure the transportation of the rest of the army from the
opposite Calabrian coast. However, this number of men transported across the straits in
the first wave, 20 men with their horses in each ship, meant a ratio of 1:1 for men and
horses per ship. This would suggest that Guiscard was able to pack his ships with as
many horses as possible in this short crossing,40 while it also confirms that the ships
which were used were not designed primarily for transportation, like the Byzantine
ships which had a loading capacity of about 105110 men (crew and marines included)
and around 1220 horses.41
If we compare the two theatres of operation Sicily and England, at first glance there
seems to be no immediate connection between them. However, there are indications that
the knowledge and experience gained in Sicily in 1061 significantly helped William the
Conqueror in his invasion five years later.42 Even if we dismiss an enigmatic line in the
Carmen de Hastingae proelio,43 charter evidence does confirm the fact that relations
between members of families in Normandy and Italy were maintained,44 and it is highly
likely that they were the only members of his army whom William could have asked for
advice on how to transport his large army across the English Channel. D.P. Waley notes

39 Amatus, V.15; 300 and 150 knights respectively, according to Malaterra, 2.10.
40 If we compare Guiscards crossing in 1061 and Rogers crossing to Malta 30 years later, we
can see that Roger carried only 14 horses in his flagship, thus seriously reflecting the distance
factor. See Pryor, Transportation of Horses, p. 13.
41 Waley, Combined Operations, p. 121; John H. Pryor and Elizabeth M. Jeffreys, The Age of
the : The Byzantine Navy, ca 5001204 (Leiden, 2006), p. 307.
42 I have to include the view of Matthew Bennett, who disagrees with the link between the
Mediterranean and the Channel: M. Bennett, Amphibious Operations from the Norman
Conquest to the Crusades of St. Louis, c. 1050c. 1250, in D.J.B. Trim and M.C. Fissel, ed.,
Amphibious Warfare, 10001700 (Leiden, 2006), pp. 5253. Bennett based his argument on
a series of studies: R. Gardiner, ed., The Earliest Ships: The Evolution of Boats into Ships
(London, 1996), chs 5, 7, 8.
43 Apulus et Calaber, Siculus quibus incola seruit, Normanni faciles actibus egregiis, The
Carmen de Hastingae proelio of Guy, Bishop of Amiens, ed. and trans. F. Barlow (Oxford,
1999), ll. 25960, pp. 1617; Guy of Amiens, De bello Hastingensi carmen, ed. H. Petrie, in
Monumenta Historica Britannica (London, 1848), p. 861.
44 G.A. Loud, How Norman was the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy?, Nottingham
Medieval Studies XXV (1981), pp. 1334; Loud, The Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom
of England, 10661266, History LXXXVIII (October 2003), pp. 54067; L.R. Menager,
Pesanteur et tiologie de la colonisation normande de lItalie, Roberto il Guiscardo e il
suo tempo: relazioni e comunicazioni nelle prime giornate normanno-sueve (Bari, 1973),
pp. 189214, and Inventaires des familles normandes et franques migres en Italie mridionale
et en Sicile (XIeXIIe sicles), Roberto il Guiscardo e il suo tempo: relazioni e comunicazioni
nelle prime giornate normanno-sueve (Rome, 1975), pp. 260390. The aforementioned
articles by Menager have been reprinted in a single volume: Hommes et institutions de lItalie
normande (London, 1981).
392 War in History 17(4)

that the technical problems were the same in the north and south,45 and there have been
many instances of Mediterranean influence on shipping in the north, such as the master
of the English kings ship in the early twelfth century who was an Italian.46 However, the
argument that there were similarities between the types of warship in the Mediterranean
and the North Sea cannot be sustained, given the evidence we have for the following
centuries, and more specifically the absence of any Mediterranean galleys from north-
ern waters.47
It seems likely that the real contribution of the Normans lay not in the ship-building
procedure but rather in the modification of the existing ships from Flanders or Normandy,
either warships similar to their Viking predecessors or merchant vessels, to enable them
to transport Williams army across the Channel. Given that the Italian Normans had not
witnessed the construction of any Byzantine or Italian vessel, or at least their presence in
any shipyard in Italy is not recorded, they are unlikely to have put into practice a ship-
building knowledge that they had not acquired. These Normans, however, had seen first-
hand how a merchant vessel could be modified to transport horses,48 and they could
transfer this experience to their counterparts in northern France. This argument can be
further enhanced by the point that, although William of Poitiers tells us that ships were
ordered to be constructed, it is highly unlikely that a large number of them, or 696 as
Wace tells us, could have been built in the few months before the landing at Sussex.
With regard to the initial stage of the invasion of Sicily in May 1061, in order to
avoid the Muslim ship-patrols that were sweeping the straits of Messina,49 Roger
landed at Santa-Maria del Faro, just a few kilometres south of Messina, and his
advance guard took the Muslim garrison of the city by surprise and overran it. At
this point Malaterra notes that Roger feigned retreat in order to draw the garrison
out of the city, and then turned back and attacked it fiercely.50 Whether this was
indeed a military tactic employed by Roger or Malaterra presented it that way we
will never know with certainty. However, it is important to note that this tactic of
feigned flight was frequently used by the Normans in the second half of the eleventh
century, with the most characteristic examples being those of Hastings (1066)51

45 Mostly concerning the hull of the ships, the sea currents, the tides, and the landing ground. See
Waley, Combined Operations, pp. 12425. However, Gillmor argues that the landing ground
in Sussex required ships with shorter hulls: see Gillmor, Naval Logistics, pp. 10531; see also
J. Neumann, Hydrographic and Ship-Hydrodynamic Aspects of the Norman Invasion,
AD 1066, Anglo-Norman Studies XI (1988), pp. 22143.
46 Charles H. Haskins, Norman Institutions (Cambridge, 1918), pp. 12122.
47 Prestwich, Armies and Warfare, p. 265.
48 See the exhaustive study by Pryor and Jeffreys, Age of the , pp. 32530.
49 These were squadrons sent by Ibn al-Hawwas, who, by then, more or less dominated the
island. See Malaterra, 2.8; Amatus, V.13.
50 Malaterra, 2.1.
51 The debate on whether there was indeed a feigned retreat of Williams cavalry at the second
stage of the battle of Hastings has been fought almost as hard as the battle itself, and we
need not engage in this issue. I find the argument of Oman, Brown, Douglas, and Bachrach
more convincing than Beelers, Lemmons, and Delbrucks cover-up of a true retreat by
the contemporary chroniclers. For more on the feigned retreat and battle tactics at Hastings,
Theotokis 393

and Dyrrachium (1081).52 The resemblance of this Norman battle ploy to those
employed by the Seljuk Turks around the same period is quite striking. The Seljuks
employed hit-and-run tactics to harass and confuse their enemies, opting to move
not in large groups but in small bands operating around the perimeter of the enemys
formations.53 They fired a hail of arrows to demoralize the enemy and to isolate and
break up their formations, before they charged in with their swords and lances. The
feigned retreat was a well-applied trick which had been introduced in Europe as
long ago as the mid-fifth century by the nomadic tribes of the Huns, and even though
contacts did exist between the Eastern Franks and the Magyars another nomadic
tribe of Turkish origin it has been suggested by B. Bachrach that it was the steppe
tribe of the Alans, settled in Armorica (the name given to Brittany in Roman times)
by the Romans in the fifth century, who influenced the Normans with their tactics.54
After securing Messina, Guiscard followed across with the main Norman force of
about 1000 knights and 1000 infantry, a fairly reliable number given by Amatus. The
Norman army proceeded west, sweeping the northern coast and then immediately
south, targeting the important strategic stronghold of Castrogiovanni in central Sicily.
The course was most likely proposed by Ibn al-Timnah, who theoretically controlled
the northern coastal road from Messina to the vicinity of Palermo. He provided local guides,
interpreters, and provisions, as both Malaterra and Amatus imply.55 The Normans,
being far from their bases and in hostile territory (although the Christians did welcome
them as liberators, at least for the first year), could not have afforded to stay in Sicily
for long, with the campaigning season approaching its end. The Muslims were nowhere
to be found, and in order both to provoke the emir to face them and to supply their army,
Robert and Roger pillaged their way down to Castrogiovanni, killing many of the
inhabitants.56 This finally brought the Muslims out of their fortifications, enabling
the Normans, although heavily outnumbered, to inflict a heavy defeat on them in the

see: Sir Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages (London, 1991), I,
pp. 14966; R.A. Brown, The Battle of Hastings, Anglo-Norman Studies III (1980), pp. 121;
B. Bachrach, The Feigned Retreat at Hastings, Medieval Studies XXXIII (1971), pp. 34447;
D.C. Douglas, William the Conqueror: The Norman Impact upon England (London, 1964),
pp. 20304; C.H. Lemmon, The Field of Hastings (St Leonards-on-Sea, 1956); John Beeler,
Warfare in England, 10661189 (New York, 1995), pp. 2122; Hans Delbruck, History of the
Art of War within the Framework of Political History (London, 197585), III, pp. 15859.
52 The main secondary works for the battle of Dyrrachium are: John Haldon, The Byzantine
Wars: Battles and Campaigns of the Byzantine Era (Stroud, 2000), pp. 13337; John W.
Birkenmeier, The Development of the Komnenian Army, 10811180 (Leiden, 2002), pp. 6270.
53 John France, Victory in the East (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 14350; R.C. Smail, Crusading
Warfare (Cambridge, 1976), pp. 7583; Oman, Art of War, I, pp. 20619, especially pp. 20608.
54 Bachrach, Feigned Retreat, pp. 34447; The Alans in Gaul, Traditio XXIII (1967),
pp. 48082, 48489; The Origin of Armorican Chivalry, Technology and Culture X
(1969), pp. 16671.
55 Malaterra, 2.18, 20, where he calls Ibn al-Timnah the name Betumen; Amatus, V.22; this
is the same course followed by the Byzantine general George Maniaces in his three-year
Sicilian campaign in 1038.
56 Malaterra, 2.16.
394 War in History 17(4)

summer of 1061. There were no significant gains for the Normans, because with the
escape of many Muslims back to their base and with the campaigning season almost
over, they could not afford to stay in hostile territory any longer. Retirement back to
Messina was ordered after a few weeks and a very successful pillaging expedition to
Agrigento, conducted by Roger.57
Despite the promising beginning, the complete conquest of Sicily proved a very
lengthy process. In their first year the Normans had managed to establish control over
most of the areas of the north-east of the island, the Val Demone in particular, which
mainly consisted of Greek Orthodox Christians. The anti-Muslim feeling of the popula-
tion of that region had already emerged as a significant factor in the Byzantine exped
ition of 103841, and it can be attributed to the aggressive Kalbite policy of extending
the Muslim colonies in the south and east of the island.58 But once the Muslims had
recovered from these consecutive setbacks, they resisted stoutly for many more years.
However, the main reason for the difficulty in conquering the island was the infrequency
with which the Normans could deploy sufficient forces to Sicily, with Roger having just
a few hundred knights to maintain his dominions and launch plundering expeditions
when necessary. Throughout 1062 no major conflicts between the Normans and the
Muslims occurred, mostly because of the strife between Roger and his brother. Troina
and Petralia were lost to Ibn al-Hawas. Troina was later regained by Roger, during the
autumn of that year, and was made his headquarters, while soon afterwards he was lead-
ing an expedition to Nicosia.59
One reason why Robert Guiscard could ill afford to send many troops to his brother
in Sicily, apart from their strife already mentioned in 1062, was the fact that Apulia was
a more important operational theatre than Sicily. And to follow Guiscards operations in
the region, he had to deal with the conquests of Brindisi (recaptured by the Byzantines
soon after) and Oria in 1062, along with a serious rebellion at Cosenza, in Calabria, in
106465, which took several months to suppress.60 Roberts attention was once again
turned to Apulia after 1065, and he captured Vieste and Otranto by the end of 1066. Soon
afterwards, however, he was about to face the most dangerous rebellion against his power
in Apulia, headed by Amicus, Joscelin of Molfetta, Roger Toutebove, and two of his own
nephews, Geoffrey of Conversano and Abelard.61 The way in which the operational the-
atres of Apulia and Sicily are connected is more than obvious, and thus to properly
examine the Norman invasion of Sicily we should keep a close eye on the political and
military developments across the straits of Messina.

57 Malaterra, 2.17. A similar plundering expedition was conducted during the following winter
by Roger and 250 knights in Agrigento: see Malaterra, 2.18.
58 For more on that, see: Ahmad, History of Islamic Sicily, p. 37; Metcalfe, Muslims of Medieval
Italy, pp. 8182, and Muslims of Sicily, pp. 28995.
59 Malaterra, 2.29.
60 Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, p. 132.
61 Although Chalandon has noted that the rebellion began in 1064, recent studies by Loud has
shown that this Apulian rebellion only occupied the period from the autumn of 1067 to early
spring of 1068. See: Chalandon, Histoire de la domination normande, pp. 17885; Loud, Age
of Robert Guiscard, pp. 13334.
Theotokis 395

The strategy employed by the Normans in this crucial stage of the Sicilian expansion,
but also during their conquest of Calabria, pivoted on the extraction of tribute from the
majority of the cities and the establishment of outposts, especially in Calabria, in order
to establish effective control of the countryside. The Norman tactics appear to have been to
seize a fortified place, or to build a fortification in a strong natural position,62 and then
to use it to raid and spread terror in the surrounding areas and force the local population
into submission. The latter paid tribute and handed over hostages, but did not necessarily
surrender the town or its castle (if there was any). Some examples are the Calabrian cities
of Bisignano, Cosenza, Martirano, and Gerace63 and the Sicilian cities of Petralia64 and
Rometta.65 This was quite sensible on the part of the Normans, because at this crucial
stage they had neither the manpower to put sufficient garrisons into each and every town
nor the luxury of time to besiege each town into submission.
After Robert and his brother Roger settled their dispute in spring 1063, we can see a
slight change in the tactics used by the latter in Sicily. In order to diminish the disadvan-
tage of having a very small number of knights at his disposal paid troops which were
recruited from his own following in Calabria, along with soldiers serving primarily for
booty66 he used the mobility and speed of the horses to ambush the Muslims, the most
characteristic example being that of the Norman victory at Cerami in the early summer
of 1063. However, important as it was, this victory did not bring the Normans closer to
conquering the island but merely confirmed their hold on the north-eastern part. Roger
simply maintained his army on a hand-to-mouth basis, relying on plundering raids,
mostly in the south and south-west of the island, while help from Apulia was far from
imminent.
Victories might be won, but afterwards it was necessary to control large areas of con-
quered territory with only a limited number of troops. A clear distinction between
England and the south must be drawn with regard to fortresses that the Normans found
in each case and the manner in which they took advantage of them.67 What the Normans

62 Chalandon further suggests that for the conquest of Calabria, Guiscard and Roger were
establishing a series of outposts to subdue the countryside: see Chalandon, Histoire de la
domination normande, p. 150.
63 Malaterra, 1.17.
64 According to Malaterra: the citizens of that town [...] took counsel among themselves and
decided to make peace with the count [Roger], surrendering the fortress to his dominion.
See Malaterra, 2.20.
65 The citizens of Rometta simply swore fealty to Roger on the Koran. See Malaterra, 2.13.
66 This argument is reinforced by Malaterras references. First, to Robert Guiscards army in
1057: By giving them gifts and promising them even more in the future he had practically
transformed them into brothers (Malaterra, 1.16). Second, he mentions 300 iuvenes after the
battle of Castrogiovanni in the summer of 1061 (Malaterra, 2.1617). Third, Rogers troops
that garrisoned Petralia and Troina in 1061, who are distinguished into household knights and
mercenaries: militibus et stipendiariis muniens (Malaterra, 2.20).
67 For a detailed bibliography concerning the Sicilian fortifications in the Byzantine, Arabic,
and Norman eras, see Henri Bresc, Terre e castelli: le fortificazioni nella Sicilia araba e
normanna, in R. Comba and A.A. Settia, eds, Castelli: storia e archeologia (Torino, 1984),
pp. 7387; F. Maurici, Castelli medievali in Sicilia: dai bizantini ai normanni (Palermo,
396 War in History 17(4)

found in Sicily were: (a) highly crowded and heavily fortified ports, such as those of
Palermo and Messina; (b) well-defended cities situated in closed valleys or close to the
coast, such as Rometta, Trapani, Mazara, and Catania; and (c) the castra, situated in
remote and naturally defended places that dominated a certain plain area, with the most
famous being the one at Castrogiovanni. The conquest of Sicily by Rogers troops was
undoubtedly accompanied by the destruction of smaller castra and other kinds of forti-
fied places, although it is impossible to calculate the exact figure.68 But the Normans
were quick to seize and modify either old and abandoned or newly conquered ones,
mostly by building overstructures, donjons or chateaux, something that proves their
ability to adapt to the new environment and to combine their existing knowledge with
what they found in Sicily. Their main influence came from the Fatimid palaces of the late
tenth century and the Byzantine kastra.69

IV. Major Pitched Battles Fought during the First Stage of the
Conquest
The first battle after the Messina landing occurred close to the fortress of Castrogiovanni,
in the centre of the island, in the summer of 1061. The Norman army consisted of 700
knights and probably the same number of infantry,70 while the Muslims according to
Amatus had 15,000 horsemen and 100,000 infantry, surely an exaggerated number.71 In
this battle the Normans did not put their army in the field in three separate battalions, but
formed one attack-wave as in their victory at Civitate against the papal army eight years
earlier. Roger was chosen to command the first wave and Robert was due to follow him
with the second, if necessary. The Muslims had formed three battle lines.72 Unfortunately
the course of the battle is unknown to us, but Malaterra writes that the Norman cavalry
charged once again upon their enemies in their usual manner, forcing the Saracens to
retreat back into their castle with heavy casualties.73
In June 1063 the regrouped and heavily reinforced Muslim army moved against the
Norman-held territory on the edges of the Val Demone. Just 10 kilometres from Rogers
base at Troina, and after a standstill of three days, the Normans won an action at the castle
of Cerami. There Rogers nephew Serlo, commanding only 36 knights, according to

1992); Henri Bresc, Les Normands: constructeurs de chteaux, in Pierre Bouet and Franois
Neveux, eds, Les Normandes en Mditerrane aux XIeXIIe sicles (Caen, 2001).
68 P. Collura, Le pi antiche carte dellArchivio capitolare di Agrigento (Palermo, 1960), p. 15.
69 For a detailed comparison, see Bresc, Les Normands, pp. 7275.
70 Amatus gives 1000 for cavalry and for infantry, but Guiscard had undoubtedly left some of
his men to garrison Messina, as Malaterra tells us, and so the number 700 might be closer
to the truth. See Malaterra, 2.17; Amatus, V.23. Guiscards number of 700 cavalry is also
reported by Ibn al-Athir. See M. Amari, Storia dei musulmani di Sicilia IIIi (Catania, 1937),
p. 75, n. 1.
71 Amatus, V.23. Although Malaterra does not give numbers for the Muslims, he is careful to
distinguish between the local Sicilian Muslims and reinforcements that had been sent by the
Zirids of Tunisia: see Malaterra, 2.17.
72 Malaterra, 2.17.
73 Op. cit., 2.17; Amatus, V.23.
Theotokis 397

Malaterras misleading figures, forced an enemy army of about 3000 cavalrymen and many
infantry to retreat.74 After this initial success, Rogers force of 100 knights engaged the
enemy by forming two battles (vanguard and rearguard), applying the same strategy as in
Castrogiovanni two years before. However, the regrouped Muslim army managed to repel
the first Norman attack and move against the rearguard, which was commanded by Roger.
At this point, however, according to Malaterra, who is our only source for this battle, the
divine intervention of St George saved the day for the Normans, who counter-attacked and
forced their enemies to retreat. Malaterra gives the number of 15,000 dead and 20,000
Muslim prisoners, which, even if it is grossly exaggerated, confirms the fact that the 136
Norman knights were vastly outnumbered by their enemies, and it was probably because of
that numerical difference that Roger was at first reluctant to fight the Muslims.75

V. Second Stage of Sicilian Expansion, 10681072: Siege of


Palermo
We have very little information on what was taking place in Sicily during the next four
years following the events at Cerami,76 which suggests either that Roger had only a few
troops at his disposal, because of civil strife in Apulia and Calabria, or that the Muslims
were putting up vigorous resistance to the Norman expansion. Nonetheless, we are told
that Roger maintained pressure on the Muslims, mostly along the north coast towards the
capital. However, even after their long presence in the north-east of the island, the
Normans conquests were far from being secure, and the Norman expansion in Sicily
could not yet be characterized as inevitable. The key to the conquest of Sicily lay in the
largest and wealthiest of its cities, Palermo.
Only a few months before the siege of Bari, Guiscards most ambitious military oper-
ation until that time, the last major pitched battle fought against the Muslims took place
at Misilmeri (1068), some 12 kilometres south-east of the capital, Palermo. The informa-
tion given by Malaterra is sparse, but we are able to reconstruct the main sequence of
events. After launching a plundering expedition to the Palermo area, Rogers cavalry
force came upon a mixed Zirid and Sicilian army at Misilmeri which was arranged in
battle order, obviously having laid an ambush. We do not know the size of the two armies,
but, as usual, the Normans must have been many times outnumbered. Roger did not
hesitate this time, as in Cerami, and after arranging his armys battle lines and having
surprise on his side, launched an attack upon the enemy. Once again, the Muslims were
unable to withstand a Norman cavalry attack, and Malaterra tells us that hardly anyone
survived to carry the news to Palermo.77
By the end of August 1068 Robert Guiscard was ready to begin the siege of the Italian
capital. There is no doubt about the importance of this operation, with Bari being the
largest, wealthiest city and the most important port of the Byzantine province of

74 Certainly an exaggerated number, given by Malaterra, 2.33.


75 Malaterra, 2.33.
76 For more on this see Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 13034, 158; Norwich, Normans in
the South, pp. 16365.
77 Malaterra, 2.41.
398 War in History 17(4)

Longobardia.78 Up until that year the Normans had gained much experience conducting
land battles, but their major weakness at this stage was their lack of knowledge in
conducting siege and naval warfare. The three-year siege of the capital of Byzantine Italy
was to prove an extremely valuable experience for the persistent Normans, who went on
to apply the same siege strategy against the Palermitans in 1071. The link between these
two operations is obvious and makes the study of the Bari siege necessary.
The siege began in September 1068, and all we know about the Normans, on the basis
of chronicler material, is that they must have brought every soldier they could spare,
including Calabrians, to man their ships.79 The Byzantines, being safe behind their high
walls, were smart enough not to offer the Normans pitched battle, and once Guiscard
realized that, he ordered his fleet to block the entrance of the citys port, forming some
sort of a bridge linking the two sides of it. Although the defenders managed to break
through and send warning messages to Constantinople, the two attempts to relieve the
city (1069, 1071) failed owing to the effectiveness of the Norman naval blockade.
Eventually the starving city surrendered in April 1071.
Since the two theatres of war, in Apulia and Sicily, operated in a parallel way, and since
the campaigning period had just begun for the Normans, Guiscard immediately turned his
attention to Palermo. Once again the chroniclers are silent about the Muslim garrison of
Palermo and the Norman besieging army, but we do know that Guiscard ordered all of his
troops that had taken part in the Bari campaign to follow him south to Reggio, the capital
of Calabria.80 Guiscards fleet numbered, according to several primary sources, around 50
to 58 ships,81 a significant increase in its capacity which probably came from all the cap-
tured Bariot ships, especially if we compare it with the naval operation at Messina just 12
years earlier, when Robert had only 13 transport ships. The sailors that manned the
Norman ships were Calabrians, Bariots, and, according to William of Apulia, captive
Greeks who were forced to serve in the fleet, while the marines were Normans.82
The siege of Palermo lasted for five months and, although the chroniclers accounts are
contradictory, we are able to reconstruct the basic chain of events. It is clear that the city
was blockaded by land and sea, as had been Bari,83 and that there were sorties and sharp
engagements between Norman and Muslim detachments outside the city walls.84 Hunger
and disease quickly became a major problem in the city, which suggests it had not

78 For more on Bari, see Patricia Skinner, Room for Tension: Urban Life in Apulia in the
Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Papers of the British School at Rome LXV (1998),
pp. 15977.
79 Gesta, II.48586, p. 158.
80 Gesta, III.166, p. 172.
81 Some 10 catti and 40 other ships, probably galleys, as Bennett suggests: Bennett,
Norman Naval Activity, p. 13; Amatus, VI.14; Lupus Protospatharius, Chronicon rerum
in regno Neapolitano gestarum, in Monumenta Germaniae historica inde ab anno Christi
quingentesimo usque ad annum millesimum et quingentesimum. Scriptores, auspiciis
Societatis Aperiendis Fontibus rerum Germanicarum Medii Aevi, ed. G.H. Pertz (Hannover,
1826), LXV, under the year 1071.
82 Gesta, III.23536, pp. 17677.
83 Malaterra, 2.45; Gesta, III.207, p. 174.
84 Amatus, VI.16; Malaterra, 2.45; Gesta, III.21124, pp. 17476.
Theotokis 399

adequately prepared for a siege. Rogers diversionary expedition to Catania had perhaps
brought results.85 William of Apulia writes about a naval battle between the Norman and
a united Sicilian-Tunisian fleet of unknown size outside the port of Palermo, when the
Normans forced their enemies to retreat back inside the port, inflicting on them several
casualties by forcing an entry through the chain guarding the entrance.86 Finally, Guiscard
entered the city by the simple trick of diverting the enemy to one part of the city, while an
elite unit climbed the walls elsewhere.87 Roger attacked from the landward side of the city
with the main army, making it look like the Normans main effort to get into the city, and
Robert with some 300 knights made a careful approach through the gardens on the side of
the sea. Rogers attack was repulsed by the defenders, but by diverting the Muslims it
allowed Robert to climb the walls unnoticed.88 The last line of defence, in the original old
city of al-Kazar, lasted for only a few days: it fell on 10 January 1072, and the defenders
agreed to surrender their city to Guiscard on condition that he spared their lives and
allowed them to continue to practise their religion unimpeded.89

VI. Conclusions
The conquest of Sicily enabled the Normans to secure their domains in mainland Italy,
which had suffered from Muslim raids in the past, and protect the Amalfitan commerce
which had been severely affected by increasing pirate activity in the areas of the
Tyrrhenian Sea and the straits of Messina. While the conquest of a fertile island so
close to the mainland made sense to the Normans, we must not forget the role of Rome
in this decision. Already by 1059 Guiscard had been invested as the future Duke of
Sicily by Pope Nicholas II. Rome wanted the island within its sphere of influence, after
so many centuries of overlordship by Constantinople.
Robert Guiscard managed to take advantage of the divisions among the Kalbite emirs
and invaded Sicily in 1061, initiating a military operation that was to last for three dec-
ades. Indeed, the progress of subduing the island was very slow, with a period of advance
often followed by lengthy standstills which gave the Muslims time to regroup or to call
for reinforcements from North Africa. The main reason for this stalemate was not, as
might seem obvious, the stiff resistance of the Muslims, although we have many exam-
ples where the defenders fought bravely. These pauses need to be set in the context of
what was taking place in Italy at the same time. Between 1064 and 1068 Robert Guiscard
was reducing the Byzantine strongholds in Apulia while also fighting his rebellious
Apulian vassals. An uprising led by some of his closest relatives almost cost him his
dukedom in 1072 and 1078. As a result Roger rarely had an army that exceeded 200 men.

85 Amatus, apart from clearly stating that the city lacked provisions, describes how the
Normans lured the inhabitants of the city with loaves of bread, and then made them prisoner:
see Amatus, VI.17.
86 Gesta, III.22554, pp. 17678.
87 Similar tactics were used by the Crusaders during the capture of Jerusalem in 1099: see
France, Victory in the East, pp. 32566.
88 Amatus, VI.19; Gesta, III.296320, p. 180; Malaterra, 2.45.
89 Gesta, III.324, p. 182.
400 War in History 17(4)

There were two very important military achievements of the Normans during the
conquest of Sicily. First, we have the amphibious operation conducted by a Norman
fleet that transported hundreds of soldiers through the straits of Messina in just 13 ships,
a revolution in Norman standards of military campaigning that, according to many schol-
ars, greatly influenced the naval invasion of England in 1066. For the Messina landing
the Normans simply used the ships and experience of the subdued Greek and Lombard
populations in the coastal ports of Calabria and Apulia. The second great achievement
was the conquest of the key city and capital of the island, Palermo, which came after a
three-year siege of Bari, an invaluable experience for the Normans. Bari and Palermo
were large, densely populated and heavily defended ports, and the strategy that was
applied at Bari was also chosen for Palermo, meaning both a land and naval blockade.
But the Normans got into the city simply by applying a trick that later worked for the
besiegers of Jerusalem in 1099 during the First Crusade.
For the rest of the Sicilian operation the Normans, because of their lack of provisions
and distance from their home bases, were desperately trying to lure the Muslims into
open battle, something that they succeeded in doing only three times, when the Norman
cavalry charge triumphed, but with no significant results for the continuation of their
campaigns. In general the Normans avoided any major and long-term sieges that would
cost time, money, and men. What they did in most cases was to isolate a stronghold and
later accept its surrender on fairly loose terms, for example an oath of obedience and an
annual tribute, without, in many cases, even installing a garrison. However, the lack of
manpower and lack of money, and the fact that Sicily definitely constituted a secondary
theatre of operations in comparison with Guiscards preoccupations in Apulia, Campania,
and Illyria (opposite the Byzantine coast), were the main causes that delayed the complete
conquest of the island for two more decades.
As was proved at least three times between 1061 and 1068, discipline in battle,
strong leadership, and great religious enthusiasm, along with the appropriate military
tactics, could overcome sheer weight of numbers. In the three pitched battles fought in
the period the Normans adjusted their battle tactics to the enemy they had to face. They
must have been aware of the quality of the troops they had to fight, meaning their dis-
cipline, morale, and, of course, equipment, and to make up for their numerical inferior-
ity they were deployed not in three separate divisions side by side, as in Civitate in 1053
when their numbers allowed such a deployment, but one behind the other, forming
two or three attacking waves. Further, they chose relatively broken, hilly, or marshy
terrain, which was also dominated by a river or a hill fort, to diminish the numerical
advantage of their enemies and the mobility of their cavalry. On the other hand
the Muslim armies that fought against the Normans, either local Sicilian troops or
reinforcements from Tunisia, found themselves engaging an enemy more powerful than
any other. In no other time in their history had the Muslims faced a cavalry charge so
powerful, with the possible exception of the Byzantine campaign of 103841, and the
mere sight of the Normans galloping towards them in close ranks would have been
tremendous to an army which lacked discipline, morale, and strong leadership. The
Norman expansion in Sicily between 1061 and 1072 shows that military tactics can
play a much more important role than numbers in the outcome of a battle. And after
the Muslims stopped offering the Normans a chance to give pitched battle and locked
Theotokis 401

themselves up in their heavily fortified cities and castles, in 1072, the Norman expansion
dragged on for 20 more years.
A final point that needs to be addressed concerns the role of religion and the religious
enthusiasm displayed by the Normans during their invasion of Sicily in the 1060s.
Although we cannot characterize the Norman invasion of Sicily as a crusade, we can
identify it as a holy war and place it among other holy wars of the eleventh century,
such as the Spanish Reconquista.90 We have already seen the role played by Rome in
encouraging the Normans to invade the island, but what specific examples of religious
enthusiasm can we identify in the histories of Amatus and Malaterra?
Amatus notes that Guiscard called his knights to take Sicily, saying, I should like to
deliver the Christians and Catholics who are bound in servitude to the Saracens ... and
wreak vengeance for this injury to God.91 The most important evidence comes from
Malaterra regarding the battle of Cerami in 1063. In his attempt to encourage the heavily
outnumbered Normans to attack the Muslims, Roussel of Bailleuil is reported to have
said, It is certain that, with God leading us, the enemy will not be able to stand before us.
These people [the Muslims] have rebelled against God, and power which is not directed
by God is quickly exhausted.92 And it was while rushing against their enemies, inspired
by this speech as they were, that the Norman knights reportedly witnessed St George
leading the charge on his white horse and carrying a white standard with a cross tied to
the tip of his lance, hence their battle-cry God and St George. St George is the best-
known warrior-saint of Christianity, and the white banner with the cross may be a refer-
ence to Constantines labarum carried at the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312. What is
crucial is what Malaterra writes about the aftermath of the Norman victory at Cerami:

The Pope [Alexander II] sent both his apostolic blessing and absolution from sin to the count
[Roger] and to all others who were helping him to win Sicily from the pagans. The Pope also
sent a banner from the Roman see ... under which the count and his men were to rise up and
wage war against the Saracens.

Absolution from sins was a significant development, though not a novelty as it was used
by Leo IV and John VIII as early as the ninth century, while the banner of St Peter
reminds us of William IIs invasion of England three years later.93
What is interesting about our chroniclers accounts of the Norman expansion in
Sicily is that, even though they stress numerous times the religious toleration that was

90 Robinson uses the term Proto-Crusade: I.S. Robinson, The Papacy, 10731198 (Cambridge,
1990), pp. 324ff.; for the debate on the terminology of holy war and crusade and what
applies to the eleventh-century religious wars, see: Christopher Tyerman, Gods War: A New
History of the Crusades (Massachusetts, 2006), pp. 4357; Jonathan Riley-Smith, What Were
the Crusades?, 4th edn (Basingstoke, 2009), pp. 126.
91 Amatus, V.12.
92 Malaterra, 2.33.
93 C. Erdmann, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens (Stuttgart, 1955), pp. 23, 13940,
17273, 18183. There is an English translation: The Origin of the Idea of Crusade, trans.
Marshall W. Baldwin and Walter Goffart (Princeton, 1977).
402 War in History 17(4)

demonstrated by Guiscards and Rogers men throughout the conquest of the island,
their struggle to highlight the religious nature of their fight against the infidels is clear.
Of course, the pre-battle speeches that dominate Amatus and Malaterras narratives are
a topos, even though similar morale-boosting speeches might have been made. But
the exact words reflect how the Italian-Norman chroniclers perceived the fight against
the Muslims as a holy war to recover lands that were once Christian.94

94 Loud, Age of Robert Guiscard, pp. 15557.


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