newed his lordship for four years. In 1325, he sanctioned
an offer to make his son Charles of Calabria lord of
Florence. Both Charles and Robert opposed the expedi-
tion by Emperor Lewis of Bavaria, not least because an
alliance between Lewis and Frederick of Sicily posed a
threat to the Regno.
Robert was religious to the point of bigotry and
was detested by the northern Ghibellines, but in his
own kingdom he was the most popular of the Angevin
kings—a reputation for which his public works, es-
pecially in Naples, and his patronage of the arts and
literature may have been partly responsible. Among
those whom he patronized were Petrarch and Boccac-
cio. Simone Martini’s picture of Robert worshiping his
brother Louis is reputedly the fi rst painted portrait in
European art.
See also Boccaccio, Giovanni; Clement V, Pope;
Henry VII of Luxembourg; Petrarca, Francesco
Further Reading
Editions
Dominicus de Gravina. Chronicon de rebus in Apulia gestis,
1333—1350, ed. Albano Sorbelli. Rerum Italicarum Scrip-
tores, 12(3). Città di Castello: Lapi, 1903.
Mussato, Albertino. Historia Augusta: Liber IV, Henrici VII; Liber
V, De Gestis Italicorum post Henricum Septimum Caesarem.
Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 10. Città di Castello: Lapi.
Villani, Giovanni, and Matteo Villani. Croniche, 13 vols., ed.
Ignazio Moutier. Florence: Magheri, 1823–1826.
Critical Studies
Baddeley, St. Clair. Robert the Wise and His Heirs: 1278–1352.
London, 1897.
Bowsky, W. M. Henry VII in Italy: The Confl ict of Empire and
City State, 1310–1313. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 1960.
Caggese, Romolo. Roberto d’Angio e i suoi tempi, 2 vols. Flor-
ence: Bemporad, 1922–1930.
Housley, N. “Angevin Naples and the Defence of the Latin East:
Robert the Wise and the Naval League of 1334.” Byzantion,
51, 1981, pp. 548–556.
Léonard, Emile. Les Angevins de Naples. Paris: Presses Univer-
sitaires de France, 1954.
Monti, Gennaro Maria. Da Carlo primo a Roberto di Angio.
Trani, 1936.
Carola M. Small
ROBERT OF MOLESME (ca. 1027–1111)
The founder of the monasteries of both Molesme and
Cîteaux, Robert had spent much of his life trying to
fi nd or to establish a house where he thought the Bene-
dictine Rule was being practiced with suffi cient rigor.
He spent time in the abbey of Moutier-la-Celle, in the
diocese of Troyes; was briefl y abbot of Saint-Michel of
Langres, then prior of Saint-Ayoul of Provins; and for
a period lived as a hermit. In 1075, deciding to try an
entirely new Benedictine house, he and a small group
of monks founded Molesme, of which he became fi rst
abbot (r. 1075–1111). In 1098, believing that even this
house was not suffi ciently rigorous, he left with a few
brothers to found the New Monastery of Cîteaux. Al-
though the monks at Molesme, feeling destitute, had the
pope order Robert back to their house in the following
year, Cîteaux fl ourished even without him and became
in the 12th century the head of a large and infl uential
order. Molesme, meanwhile, although overshadowed
by Cîteaux, also acquired numerous gifts of property,
including many priories and cells.Further Reading
Bouton, Jean de la Croix, and Jean Baptiste Van Damme, eds.
Les plus anciens textes de Cîteaux. Achel: Commentarii
Cistercienses, 1974.
Laurent, Jacques, ed. Cartulaires de l’abbaye de Molesme. 2 vols.
Paris: Picard, 1907–11.
Lackner, Bede K. The Eleventh-Century Background of Cîteaux.
Washington, D.C.: Cistercian, 1972.
Spahr, Kolumban. Das Leben des hl. Robert von Molesme: Eine
Quelle zur Vorgeschichte von Cîteaux. Freiburg: Paulus-
druckerei, 1944.
Constance B. BouchardROGER I (1031–1101, r. 1085–1101)
Roger I, count of Sicily, was the brother of Robert
Guiscard and was largely responsible for the Norman
conquest of Sicily. Roger had been campaigning there
since at least 1061, when Messina had fallen, and he
took the last Muslim stronghold, Noto, in 1091. He is
said to have had only a handful of soldiers (just 130
knights at the battle of Cerami in 1063), but he became
the most powerful fi gure in the south after his brother’s
death in 1085. Most scholars agree that Roger I laid the
foundations for the later cohesion and wealth of the
kingdom of Sicily.
Roger’s comital activities can be partially recon-
structed from evidence in surviving charters, most of
which is published. At a meeting at Mazara in 1093,
Roger and his followers divided up the conquered Mus-
lims among their new lords using long lists known as
jara’ida. One such list in favor of the cathedral at Cata-
nia in 1095 is extant in its original form, containing 345
names including fi fty-three widows. A grant of peasants
made to Guiscard’s son, Duke Roger, was confi rmed by
his uncle to the cathedral of Palermo in the same year.
Another element of Roger’s documented activity was
granting the monks of Saint Philip at Fragalà judicial
rights over their peasants, a technique of local govern-
ment that would be taken up and repeated by Roger
II. Roger I’s activities were not confi ned to the island
of Sicily: his foundation of the monastery of the Holy
Trinity at Mileto in Calabria in 1080–1081, including
endowing the house with property and churches inROGER I