Normans in Southern Italy

• Arenga


  Diplomatic term for the introductory formula setting a charter within a religious, moral, or legal framework, often drawing upon scriptural, patristic, or liturgical material
• Diwan


  A Muslim council chamber or law court
• jara id (villens)


  a feudal tenant entirely subject to a lord or manor to whom he paid dues and services in return for land
• Porphyry


  A hard igneous rock containing crystals of feldspar in a fine-grained groundmass, considered a symbol of great prestige and royalty. It was often used for columns, statues, floors, official buildings, and other royal objects
• The Norman conquest of Sicily began when Roger de Hauteville and his brother Robert de Guiscard crossed the strait from Calabria and with only a handful of men seized Messina


  1061
• Ruler's autonomy


  • Suppressed by the domination of Christian ideology
• Not a church and state problem but rather a 'problem that concerned the effective range of governmental activity of the two segments within the church - the higher clergy (ordained) and the kings (unordained)
• Norman conquerers themselves were Christian and imposed onto a mainly Christian Sicily although they did have some Arabs. Norman policies were very flexible
• Norman government


  • Imposed a 'sternly monarchic' government, manifested centralisation of the governmental machinery
• At this point "rulership was wholly seen within the framework of the papally conceived ecclesiology"
• Roger II: ''omnes possessions regni meni meae sunt' (All the possessions of the kingdom are mine)'
• Southern Italy remained attached to the Justinian imperial legislation
• Normans used Roman law to their benefit and to compliment their monarchic themes</b>
• Norman monarchy was justified in law while English monarchy went on vibes
• Arenga of Roger II: ''gratias omnibus subditis donat' (Monarch imparts life and direction to his kingdom)'
• Imagery of the sun from the same Arenga invokes Constantine the Great
• No evidence Norman Kings were sacerdotes, but rather they governed over religion for the good of society as a whole (similar to Roman Emperors)
• Pre-12th Cent. Norman territory was ruled by princes who were under refreshed administration which worked to the Normans' advantage
• Roger II of Sicily unifies all of Norman principalities


  1105-54
• Stopped the papal routine of supporting Norman princes and putting them against each other ('dividing and ruling')
• By 1139 this was in ruins
• George of Antioch was the first to hold the office of ammiratus ammiratorum in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. He was a Syrian-born Byzantine Christian of Greek ancestry
• Conquest and organisation went hand in hand for Roger II
• Alexios I Komnenos was Byzantine emperor


  1081-1118
• Sicily as point of intersection between East and West
• Byzantine law developed from Justinianean Roman Law which allowed for 'fruitful legal-constitutional growth'
• Adsorbed the Byzantine intitulation that was applied to the King (feature not found in the rest of Western Europe)
• The king was a Deo coronatus (crowned by God)


  1131
• Byzantine insignia


  • Globe
  • Iorum
  • Camelaucum
  • Mantum
  • Sceptre
  • Ring
  • Sandals
  • Mitre
• William I successor of Roger II wore the alb (a vestment worn by secular rulers and bishops)
• Globe


  Symbolised world domination
• Iorum


  Byzantine imperial scarf which was covered in gold and diamonds
• The wearing of these insigniae associated the kings with Byzantium and 'signified that the Norman King in Sicily played the role which the emperor or princeps played in Roman law books'
• In Byzantium these symbols were linked to the supreme governorship of the Autokrator
• Symbolism was not intended to suggest the leader was a rex sacerdos but simply their 'power over the externa of the ecclesiastical body'
• The term 'ecclesiastical' was not identified with the idea of spirituality
• The 'monopolistic Byzantine concept of Basileus' was adapted to the exigencies of a mere royal government in the West
• The Norman term of rex terrae which the King of Sicily claimed was not geographically confined like the idea of a princeps
• 'Territorial and personal sovereignity was fully developed within the confines of the Sicilian kingdom'
• The idea of co-rulership resulted from the Byzantine practice of having a co-emperor