With the Normans, Sicily would come into her golden age. Unfortunately for Sicily, that golden age ended 800 years ago. 

In 911, Rollo, a Viking, first rowed up the Seine river in France. By a hundred years later, his followers had most of the eastern half of Normandy (a section of northern France) under their control. The descendants of these men were quick-witted, adaptable, and seemingly blessed with an inexhaustible energy. The early Norman adventurers were also enormously, um…. prolific. They were ready adventurers for the Crusades, and generations made the treks to the Holy Land through the Mediterranean. One of the pilgrimage stops on the way to the Holy Land was at Monte Sant’Angelo on the Italian side of the Adriatic. There, in 1016, a Lombard told the visiting Normans of a considerable territory that was now under Greek Byzantine occupation. Perhaps, e suggested, a joint Norman/Lombard army venture could dislodge the Greeks, such help being the kind of thing the Lombards would not forget. The opportunity proved irresistible to the adventurous Normans. They returned to Normandy to restock and get some more guys, then they came back and made themselves a force in southern Italy. An obscure Norman baron there, Tancred de Hauteville, bore something like 3 daughters and 12 sons. One of those sons, Robert Guiscard, proved himself to be one of the great military adventurers of all time.  

For the first generation of Normans, Sicily was of little interest. But in 1035, a civil war between the Arab clans that had been bubbling, finally came to a boil, and the Emir al-Akhal of Palermo found himself desperate for help. He appealed to Emperor Michael of Constantinople, and Michael, who had considered the Greek speaking population of Sicily a birthright of the Byzantine empire, saw an opportunity to insert himself back on to the island. The Greek force stopped in Salerno to pick up more soldiers, and while there, they attracted the attention of the Normans, who were just milling around looking for something worthwhile to do. 

Around 1038, the Byzantine forces arrived on Sicily, including the Hautevilles. The Greeks succeeded in dislodging the Arabs, but divisions among the Greeks caused problems and, realizing they were in no shape to continue on, they beat a hasty retreat. There was a dispute among the Normans and the Greeks over the fairness of the spoils, the Normans considering they weren’t quite getting what they were owed.  

The Normans returned to the mainland disgruntled and even the Pope was concerned by the group of discontented soldiers in his proximity. Pope Leo IX decided the best defense was a good offense and  led an army against the Normans, but the Pope was defeated. The Normans, however, treated them with respect and, for a reward, the Pope awarded Robert dukedoms in Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily.  

Though Sicily had never been under Papal control, that didn’t stop the Normans from looking to the island they had now seen and fought over. Roger Hauteville was only 26 at the time, but he was a fighter to match any,  and in 1060 he had forced the surrender of the Greeks across from Messina. By 1072 the brothers had fought their way to Palermo. Robert claimed suzerainty over the island, but his brother Roger would be the one effectively in control. 

Sicily had been in Muslim hands, but would now be transformed. 

The first order of business was establish Norman rule, but with only a few hundred knights, he knew he couldn’t just bully his way to sovereignty. He would need to persuade the Muslims to voluntarily accept the new rule. This would require tolerance and understanding. So, Arabic was declared an official language, on equal footing with Latin, Greek, and Norman French. Roger won over the confidence of the people, and many who had fled the island beforehand came back. 

The new Christian subjects, on the other hand presented a more difficult problem. The Greeks welcomed the Normans at first, but found the new guys more uncivilized than the Muslims. That plus they brought in a bunch of Latin priests and monks who were schismatics through and through. Though the Greeks had been promised their language and traditions would be respected, Roger would have to do more to gain their trust. So he rebuilt Greek churches and personally endowed Greek speaking foundations.  

From these earliest days, Roger laid the foundation of a multiracial and polyglot society in which Norman, Greek, and Arab would, under a firm central government, follow their own traditions in freedom and concord. 

By the end of the 1000s, Roger had the most enlightened kingdom in all Europe. We know little about his personal and private life, other than he lived up to the famed Norman fertility, producing between 13-17 offspring. He died in 1102. Sicily had exploded economically and merchants from all over the Mediterranean came to the island. 

His son Roger II took control in 1108. He wanted to increase the size of his rule and make his power and presence felt in mainland Europe, Africa, and Asia too.  

On Christmas 1130, the Pope granted Roger II the royal crown of Sicily, Calabria, and Apulia. 

Roger, at this time, ruled the third largest kingdom in Europe. He was born in the south of an Italian mother, educated by Greek and Arab tutors, and grown up in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of tolerance and mutual respect created by his father. He instinctively understood the complex system of checks and balances on which the internal stability of the country depended.  

While the feudal barons on the mainland would cause problems, things were much easier in Sicily. Feudalism had not existed there. Things depended on mutual respect and religious and ethnic tolerance.  The Arabs were entrusted with the state finances since their math was more advanced than anyone else’s. The navy was run by the Greeks since they produced the best sailors. The art and architecture of the time is truly a wonder to behold: Latin, Byzantine, and Islamic traditions blended. 

We can keep in mind that this time period was 100 years after the great schism which saw blood drawn between the Byzantine and Latin church. The Crusades were also in full swing, with both Christian and Muslim blood flowing in the Holy Land. Yet here in Sicily, the three civilizations came together and harmonized. 

The court at Palermo was the most brilliant in Europe. By the 1140’s, Roger had given a permanent home to the foremost scholars, scientists, doctors and philosophers, geographers and mathematicians in Europe and the Arab world. Roger himself was famous for his insatiable intellectual curiosity, and could converse in French, Latin, Greek, or Arabic.  

Roger II died in 1154.