progress from Robert to Roger, and from Roger the great count to Roger the king. Here is a description of the latter by a contemporary, the Monk of Telesia — "He was a lover of justice, and most severe avenger of crime. He abhorred lying, did everything by rule, and never promised what he did not mean to perform. He was energetic, but not rash ,guarded in language, and self-controlled in action. He never persecuted his private enemies, and in war he endeavoured on all occasions to gain his point without shedding of blood, and to avoid risking the lives even (sic) of his own soldiers. He tempered his affability in such a way that familiarity might not breed contempt. Justice and peace were universally observed throughout his dominions." He possessed, too, the invariable Norman characteristic of attracting to his court men of learning and distinction of whatever race or language. His great compatriot, the first Norman king of England, may have surpassed him in the constancy of his married life, though Roger, judged by the standard of his country as well as of his age, was above the average in domestic morality. In other respects the Sicilian bears away the palm from the Englishman. The praises with which Williams latest panegyrist[1] has loaded him apply with equal force to the king of Sicily. And his memory is not sullied by a deed of cruel vengeance for a personal affront at Alençon, nor did he receive his death-wound amid the ashes of a Mantes.
Such was the Siculo-Norman character at its best, and we have but to turn to Roger's son to see it at its worst. William, not without reason called the Bad, was at once treacherous, vindictive, and cruel. He placed unbounded confidence in unscrupulous favourites, not so much through weakness as through indolence. He disregarded all the duties of his position, and made use of it merely as affording the means for giving himself up to the pleasures of the chase and the harem. When roused by danger from his sensual seclusion he showed himself an undoubted son of the house of Hauteville in the vigour and determination with which he attacked and subdued his enemies. But it was in his wiles alone that he resembled Guiscard, and his punishments were merciless without being just. It may perhaps safely be assumed that the average character of the Norman baron was midway between the vices of William and the virtues of Roger.
As regards the number of the conquering race Signor Amari estimates it at not more than one per cent. of the population,[2] and the immigrants belonged exclusively to the higher classes of feudatories and barons. An Arab chronicler describes the result of the conquest of Sicily as consisting in the establishment of the "Franks and Romans" in the island beside the Mahometans.[3] The Norman chroniclers are generally silent as regards the important part played by these foreign auxiliaries. Yet no immigration of knights or adventurers from Normandy proper appears to have taken place subsequent to 1060. Nay, the contemporary testimony of William of Apulia is of itself conclusive. The original Norman settlement at Aversa is described by him as an asylum for all bold and lawless spirits of whatever nationality: —
- Si quis vicinorum pernitiosus ad illos
- Confugiebat, eum gratanter suscipiebant.
Other states have had a not more distinguished origin, followed by a not less glorious history.
These lands which the Norman warriors conquered had ever been the debatable ground between East and West. In former ages the contest had been between Greek and Phœnician, Roman and Carthaginian, Aryan and Semite; latterly it had been between Christian and Moslem, Latin and Greek, Catholic and Orthodox. Southern Italy and Sicily had played the part of a Southern "middle-rice" between the lords 'of the old and the new Rome. The work of Belisarius on the mainland was speedily undone by the Lombards. Their power, weakened by the might of Charlemagne and internal dissensions, was finally broken by a combination between the Eastern and Western emperors. The allied empires were victorious; but owing to the untimely death of Lewis the fruits of victory remained with the Greeks, and captured Bari became the capital of the restored theme of Longobardia. Great in nominal extent, the Greek power had little reality except in the immediate neighbourhood of Bari and of the Terra di Otranto. Further Calabria had never been won by the barbarians, but it was subject to perpetual harryings by the Arabs of Sicily. Naples and Amalfi, virtually independent republics, acknowledged the distant supremacy of the Byzantine emperor rather than the protection of any
