graphy of the seven climates was translated into Latin; and Roger, after a diligent perusal, preferred the work of the Arabian to the writings of the Grecian Ptolemy.[1] A remnant of Christian natives had promoted the success of the Normans; they were rewarded by the triumph of the cross. The island was restored to the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff; new bishops were planted in the principal cities ; and the clergy was satisfied by a liberal endowment of churches and monasteries. Yet the Catholic hero asserted the rights of the civil magistrate. Instead of resigning the investiture of benefices, he dexterously applied to his own profit the papal claims: the supremacy of the crown was secured and enlarged by the singular bull which declares the princes of Sicily hereditary and perpetual legates of the Holy See.[2]
Robert invades the Eastern empire. A.D. 1081.
To Robert Guiscard, the conquest of Sicily was more glorious
than beneficial ; the possession of Apulia and Calabria was inadequate to his ambition; and he resolved to embrace or create
the first occasion of invading, perhaps of subduing, the Roman
empire of the East.[3] From his first wife, the partner of his
humble fortunes, he had been divorced under the pretence of
consanguinity; and her son Bohemond was destined to imitate,
rather than to succeed, his illustrious father. The second wife
of Guiscard was the daughter of the princes of Salerno ; the [sigeigaita]
Lombards acquiesced in the lineal succession of their son Roger;
their five daughters were given in honourable nuptials,[4] and
- ↑ John Leo Afer, de Medicis et Philosophis Arabibus, c. 14, apud Fabric. Bibliot. Græac. tom. xiii. p. 278, 279. This philosopher is named Esseriph Essachalli, and he died in Africa, a.h. 516—A.D. 1122. Yet this story bears a strange resemblance to the Sherif al Edrissi, who presented his book (Geographia Nubiensis, see preface, p. 88, 90, 170)10 Roger king of .Sicily, A.H. 548—A.D. 1153 (d'Herbelot, Bibliotlièque Orientale, p. 786 ; Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, p. 188 ; Petit de la Croix, Hist, de Gengiscan, p. 535, 536; Casiri, Bibliot. Arab. Hispan. tom. ii. p. 9-13), and I am afraid of some mistake.
- ↑ Malaterra remarks the foundation of the bishoprics (1. iv. c. 7) and produces the original of the bull (1. iv. c. 29). Giannone gives a rational idea of this privilege, and the tribunal of the monarchy of Sicily (tom. ii. p. 95-102) ; and St. Marc (.'breg6, tom. iii. p. 217-301, ist column) labours the case with the diligence of a Sicilian lawyer.
- ↑ In the first expedition of Robert against the Greeks, I follow Anna Comnena (the ist, iiird, ivth, and vth books of the Alexiad), William Appulus (1. ivth and vth, p. 270-275), and Jeffrey Malaterra (1. iii. c. 13, 14, 24-29, 39). Their information is contemporary and authentic, but none of them were eye-witnesses of the war. [Monograph : Schwarz, Die Feldziige Robert Guiscards gegen das byzantinische Reich, 1854.]
- ↑ One of them was married to Hugh, the son of Azzo, or Axo, a marquis of Lombardy, rich, powerful, and noble (Gulielm. Appul. 1. iii. p. 267), in the xith century, and whose ancestors in the xth and ixth are explored by the critical in-
