Roger II – Biography of Roger II

by
Roger IIA member of the Norman dynasty of Hauteville, who arrived in Italy at the beginning of the 11th century, he was the first king of Sicily. Roger II was the son of Roger I, the Grand Count of Sicily and Adelaide of Savona. Count Roger was the younger brother of Robert “Guiscard” (“the cunning”) of Hauteville, lord of Sicily and much of the Italian peninsula south of Rome, with Salerno as his largest city.

Roger II He was born on December 22, 1095, in Miletus, Italy, and was educated by learned Greek and Arab tutors, with occasional contributions from Italian or Anglo-Norman enlightenment; Italian and Norman French were spoken at court as well as Greek and Arabic. Young Roger had a natural ability for languages, the arts, and to some extent science. He was naturally curious and comfortable among ordinary people, whose languages ​​and dialects he also spoke. He spent some of his early years in San Marco d’Alunzio, in the Nebrodi Mountains, and was knighted in 1112 in what is now known as the Norman Palace in Palermo. His chivalry led him into public life.

While his father and uncle were warrior knights and conquerors, Roger II, who succeeded his older brother, Simon (1093-1105), in 1105 and effectively ruled Sicily from 1112, spent much of his time in public service in Palermo, with the occasional foray into peninsular Italy to convince the unruly vandals Normans, of their feudal authority. In 1127, he succeeded his cousin William (Robert Guiscard’s grandson) as Duke of Apulia, and was soon recognized by Pope Honorius II as ruler of other southern dominions. Roger was crowned King of Sicily in the Cathedral of Palermo in 1130, with the blessing of Pope Anacletus II and, by the end of 1139, after the death of Anacletus (in 1138) and the last feudal rebels, his undisputed authority was recognized. by Pope Innocent II. Fearing the growing political power of Roger, the holy Roman and Byzantine emperors joined forces and met in Constantinople to discuss ways to thwart their geopolitical influence.
In 1118, Roger he married Elvira (died 1135), daughter of Alfonso VI El Bravo de Castilla. In 1149 he married his second wife, Sibyl of Burgundy (died 1151). In 1153 he married his third and last wife, the much younger Beatrice de Rethel.

During the reign of Roger, Palermo (the splendid Arab city of Bal’harm) emerged as one of the richest royal capitals in Europe and the Mediterranean. Only Palermo’s income exceeded that of the entire Norman Kingdom of England. There were close connections between the Sicilian (or southern Italian) kingdoms and the English, although the authority of Roger it was more like that of a Byzantine emperor or Arab emir than that of any northern European monarch. While the king of Sicily spoke Arabic, he had a harem and frequently found himself at odds with the Roman Church, Roger (and later his grandson Frederick II) were sometimes called “baptized sultansThe fact that both sovereigns refused to carry out open crusades against Muslims only engendered further suspicion in papal circles. Like his grandson Frederick II, also an independent-minded intellectual, Roger II he was considered one of the most enlightened rulers of his time.

The Kingdom of Sicily under Roger II it was characterized by its multi-ethnic nature and religious tolerance. Byzantine Greeks, native Jews, Muslim Arabs, Normans, Lombards, and the “native” Sicilian peoples lived in harmony. Feudalism was introduced in a slightly different form than Norman England, with more emphasis on royal authority, and slavery was practically abolished. Freedom of worship was preserved, with mosques, synagogues, Byzantine (Orthodox) churches and Latin (Roman Catholic) cathedrals. Personal rights were respected and the legal code allowed the accused to be tried according to the laws of their own ethnic culture. The “Norman-Arab” style of art and architecture flourished. It was the golden age of Sicily.

Unfortunately, none of this would last long. As early as the reign of Frederick II (in the first half of the 13th century), the Church in Sicily was completely Westernized (with fewer Orthodox communities), while the influence of Islam was rapidly diminishing. Roger I had accepted the duty of Apostolic Legacy, effectively “protector” of the Roman Church in Sicily, in 1098, allowing the sovereign a voice in ecclesiastical affairs and preceding by decades similar claims of Henry II of England in his Clarendon Constitutions. (1164). The hereditary apostolic legacy of the Sicilian sovereign was exercised throughout the reign of Frederick II, finally being formally abolished only many centuries later.

Always a curious intellectual Roger supported numerous academic projects, including the Roger’s Book of Al-Idrisi, one of the greatest geographical achievements of the Middle Ages. Foreign lawyers were always welcome at court. Like the multicultural society of Sicily, Roger’s administration was unique in its time. The Norman administration coexisted with older Arab institutions, and official documents were published in Greek, Latin, Arabic, and occasionally Hebrew and Norman French. Raids into the Byzantine territories of the Balkans and the Arab territories of North Africa, augmented by the capture of Malta and Corfu, further extended the kingdom. In Italy, the Norman kingdom soon became known simply as “Regnum”, the Kingdom.

Roger II He died on February 26, 1154, shortly before the birth of his last daughter, Constanza (mother of Frederick II). The king begat numerous sons, legitimate and otherwise, and was succeeded by his son William I, crowned co-monarch in 1150. This was a common Norman practice, followed by Henry II of England twenty years later, to ensure the unopposed succession. For about a century after Roger’s death, Palermo remained in every way the royal capital of southern Italy, and Sicily was a true kingdom where the monarch ruled a multicultural society. The Palatine Chapel, the Martorana Church and other Palermo monuments are testimonies of the creative reign of Roger II.