THE ORIGINS OF THE SICILIAN KINGDOMAmbitious foreign adventures under the Normans pre-
figured later expeditions by Sicilian rulers into Mrica, the
Balkans and elsewhere. Roger in the 1140s managed to gain
control of several key towns on the facing shore of Mrica,
among them Tripoli and Mahdia, the terminus for the trans-
Sahara gold routes. This 'kingdom of Mrica' was lost by
William the Bad; hence, in part, William's unpopularity.^18
The dream of dominating the facing shores of Mrica did
not go away in later centuries, as will become plain. But
William II followed in the footsteps of both Robert Guiscard
and Roger II in launching invasions of the Byzantine Empire.
In a daring campaign in 1185 William the Good seized
Durazzo and Thessalonika, and seemed poised to capture
Constantinople.^19 Yet the massive Sicilian fleet rarely secured
the victories that King William sought, off Alexandria and
the Holy Land, or at Majorca, which was fruitlessly attacked
in 1181-82. The prime success of the fleet was, rather, in
creating a cordon sanitaire around the kingdom, but even
then ambitious German kings, mindful of their own claim
to rule the south of Italy, penetrated time and again into the
region: Emperor Lothar faced Roger II, Frederick Barbarossa
faced William I, finally Henry VI succeeded in conquering
the south in 1194 on behalf of his Norman wife Constance.
Sea power was one of the great strengths of Norman
Sicily, but there were other powerful contenders for mastery
of Mediterranean waters, notably the fleets of the rising
Christian republics of Genoa, Pisa and Venice. An important
aspect of the history of the Norman kingdom is the gradual
intrusion of the merchants from these cities into the eco-
nomic life of Sicily and southern Italy, following treaties
with the Norman kings which were intended to prevent the
north Italian navies from joining the king's enemies.^20 Thus
in 1156 a particularly generous privilege was granted to the
Genoese, in order to dissuade them from alliances with the
western and the Byzantine emperors, offering in addition
tax exemptions and rights of access to the wheat, cotton
- David Abulafia. 'The Norman Kingdom of Africa', Anglo-Norman Stud-
ies, 7 (1985), pp. 26-49. - C.M. Brand, Byzantium confronts thP West, 1180-1204 (Cambridge, MA,
1968). - David Abulafia, The Two Italies. £ronomic relations between the Norman
Kingdom of Sicily and the northern communes (Cambridge, 1977).