more sophisticated. Roger II occupied Malta and Tripoli and made Tunis pay him tribute.
He divided his diverse kingdom into judiciarates.
Under Roger’s son William I the Bad (r. 1154–66), domestic revolts and governmental
ineptitude caused the loss of Roger’s African conquests. His successor, William II the
Good (r. 1166–89), supported Pope Alexander III against the German and Byzantine
emperors. Both Wil-liams sought to dominate the Mediterranean from Tunisia and the
Adriatic from their possessions at Corfu, Durazzo, and Cephalonia.
William II’s marriage to Joan, the daughter of Henry II of England, proved childless,
and his death was followed by civil war. His preferred successor, his aunt Constance, was
married to Henry VI, soon to become emperor. Her half-brother, Roger II’s illegitimate
son Tan-cred, seized the throne and ruled with the support of Norman barons, but at his
death in 1194 Henry VI dispossessed his son William III, bringing an end to the Haute-
villes’ rule. At the death of Henry (1197) and Constance (1198), their child, Frederick II,
inherited the throne under the guardianship of Pope Innocent III. The population and
prosperity of Sicily continued to grow until the 1190s. Roger II was the richest sovereign
in Catholic Europe, and William II’s revenues rivaled those of the king of England. En
route to the Third Crusade, Richard the Lionhearted wintered in Sicily with his cousin
Tancred. Along with Spain, Sicily became the chief conduit of Arabic knowledge to the
West. Roger II and his successors patronized translators of Jewish and Arabic works into
Latin. Its Jew-ish physicians and Arabic learning made the old Lombard capital of
Salerno Europe’s leading medical center, considered by some to be the oldest university.
St. Benedict’s abbey of Monte Cassino, on the border between the Regno and the papal
states, and the Basilian monasteries of southern Italy, were centers of learning. To Monte
Cassino came Constantine the African, a monk who translated treatises by Greek and
Arabic doctors into Latin. Nowhere else did Arabic, Greek, and Latin culture coexist
together in such peace and toleration, and no kingdom contributed more to the cultural
renaissance of the 12th century. Roger II and his ministers, such as his grand-admiral,
George of Antioch, endowed churches built in the Arabo-Byzantine style peculiar to the
island, although the Gothic style predominated later with the cathedrals at Palermo and
Monreale. The court of Frederick II (r. 1197–1250) witnessed the culmination of Norman
scholarship.
William A.Percy, Jr.
[See also: ANJOU, HOUSES OF; CRUSADES; NORMANDY]
Bruhl, Carl Richard, ed. Rogerii II regis diplomata Latina. Cologne: Bohlau, 1987. [Codex
diplomaticus regni Siciliae sub auspiciis Academiae Panormitanae Scientiarum Litterarum et
Artium.]
Douglas, David C. The Norman Achievement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.
Matthew, Donald. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South. 2 vols. London: Longman, 1967.
The Encyclopedia 1269