Southern Italy in the eleventh century

Abstract

When c. 1000 men from northern Europe whom the contemporary sources call Normans began to arrive in the south of Italy, the region was both temptingly prosperous and also unstable, particularly in the area of Lombard rule in the west and centre. The conquest of southern Italy fell into three stages. First, up to the early 1040s the Normans acted as mercenaries, selling their swords to almost every power in the south, except for the Arabs, fighting for the purpose of gain in Malaterra's succinct phrase. From 1042 onwards they acted in their own right, extending their operations from the Lombard zone into Apulia, and in the 1040s and 1050s employment turned into conquest. The papal investiture was a sign that the Normans were there to stay, and it recognized that by then their takeover was inevitable. The third phase was one of consolidation on the mainland, mopping up the last bastions of Byzantine rule in Apulia and Calabria.

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