THE WESTERN lv!EDJTERR\NEAN KINGDOMS 1200-1500and hold this frontier area against the danger of an Islamic
resurgence.^11 The rights of the papacy in southern Italy and
Sicily can thus be summarised as an acknowledged claim
to sovereign papal authority over the entire area, which was
a detached part of the Patrimony of St Peter administered
on the pope's behalf by his Norman agents. Nonetheless,
within this area the Norman ruler of Sicily retained special
powers of control over the Church which in some respects
counterbalanced the awkward fact of ruling what was technic-
ally part of a papal province. Moreover, neither the German
nor the Greek emperor was especially willing to recognise
that the pope possessed those rights over southern Italy
and Sicily, which they continued to claim for themselves as
integral (though lost) parts of the ancient Roman empire to
which each laid his own claim. In other words, southern
Italy and Sicily stood at the point where the two Roman
empires, of East and West, lay closest to one another, and
the rulers of the Italian South had to pursue delicate policies
if they were to maintain their autonomy in the face of such
powerful rivals. Papal claims to suzerainty were themselves
of fundamental importance for the political history of the
Sicilian realm.^1 ~
The weakness of the duchy of Apulia in the early twelfth
century opened up for Roger II, count of Sicily, the oppor-
tunity to absorb the lands once conquered by his late uncle
Robert Guiscard, and to unifY the Norman domains, drawing
in even the extremely reluctant princes of Capua. In 1130,
taking advantage of a papal schism, Roger secured from Pope
Anacletus II, who was desperate for his support, the grant of
a crown, having already been begged by his barons, at his
suggestion of course, to become their king. Thus it remained
uncertain whether the pope or the assembly of barons was
the constitutive agency, a problem complicated when a later
pope dragged his heels over recognising Roger's son William
as the new king after Roger died in 1154. Hereditary claims
- S. Fodale, Comes et legatus SiciliaP (Palermo, 1970);]. Deer, Papsttum
und Normannen (Cologne, 1972), and the same author's handy source
collection: Die Papsttum und diP suditalienischen Nnrmannenstaaten, 1053-
1212 (Gottingen, 1969); also H. Houben, Tm Roma e Palermo. Aspetti
e momenti del Mezzogiorno mPrlioevale (Galatina, 1989). - Deer, Papsttum, gives one possible view of how this relationship was
expressed in the twelfth ccnturv.