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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS

XIV. THE NORTHMEN AND THE NORMANS TO 1066 A.D.

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

» Contents of this Chapter

Scandinavia and the Northmen   * The Viking Age   * Scandinavian Heathenism   * The Northmen in the West   * The Northmen in the East   * Conquest of England by the Danes; Alfred the Great   * Norman Conquest of England; William the Conqueror   * Results of the Norman Conquest   * Norman Conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily   * The Normans in European History

Page 27

NORMAN CONQUEST OF SOUTHERN ITALY AND SICILY

NORMAN EXPANSION SOUTHWARD

The conquest of England, judged by its results, proved to be the most important undertaking of the Normans. But during this same eleventh century they found another field in which to display their energy and daring. They turned southward to the Mediterranean and created a Norman state in Italy and Sicily.

CONQUESTS OF ROBERT GUISCARD

The unsettled condition of Italy gave the Normans an opportunity for interference in the affairs of the country. The founding of Norman power there was largely the work of a noble named Robert Guiscard ("the Crafty"), a man almost as celebrated as William the Conqueror. He had set out from his home in Normandy with only a single follower, but his valor and shrewdness soon brought him to the front. Robert united the scattered bands of Normans in Italy, who were fighting for pay or plunder, and wrested from the Roman Empire in the East its last territories in the peninsula. Before his death (1085 A.D.) most of southern Italy had passed under Norman rule.

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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents

url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp

IN PRINT

Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy