Roger was already in Sicily when Robert crossed the straits, and hearing of his brother’s advance he seized and fortified Catania, of which the alliance had been uncertain since the assassination of Ibn‑at‑Timnah. Roger now took command of the land forces and marched to Palermo through the heart of Sicily, only turning aside to visit his wife Judith in Troina, where he was joined by two nephews. Duke Robert, who seems to have feared the heat in the month of August, sailed with fifty ships to Palermo. With the loss of a few men who were killed while collecting forage, and whose death was amply avenged, Roger reached the entrance to the Golden Shell; and as he gazed down upon the groves of oranges and lemons and carob trees, the villas, and the Moorish palaces, and the gardens of roses that filled the fertile valley then, as now, and as he beheld the walls and minarets and domes of Moslem Palermo beyond, his keen eye may well have descried the white sails of his brother’s fleets in the offing, for Duke Robert reached the city almost at the same time. It is certain that the people of Palermo were surprised by the simultaneous appearance of the Normans, both on land and sea, and the invaders took possession of the gardens and orchards and pleasure houses, almost without striking a blow. The few Moslems who fell into their hands were immediately sold as slaves, and what they found they divided among themselves, after choosing for Roger and the princes his nephews ‘delectable gardens abounding with fruit and water; and the knights were royally lodged in an earthly paradise.’
The Saracens had built a tower, or castle, at the mouth of the small river Oreto eastwards of the city, by the sea, and as Roger at once saw the necessity of commanding the point, in order that Norman ships might enter the stream, he went up to the walls and defied the Saracens in a loud voice. So they came out and fought, and the Normans killed thirty of them and took fifteen prisoners, and held the tower. Robert Guiscard now landed his army and encamped between the mouth of the Oreto and the quarter still called the Kalsa, which has been already described in the words of Ibn Haukal. Roger took up his position on the south side of the city in the direction of Monreale, and opposite the gate now called Porta Nuova, in the neighbourhood of the papyrus swamp. As the army was not numerous enough to invest Palermo from that point to the sea on the west, the besiegers patrolled the country in order to cut off communication between the inhabitants and the small bay westward of Monte Pellegrino, which the Carthaginians had so successfully utilized in the days of Hamilcar Barca. This fact is to be inferred from our information regarding the famine that soon prevailed in the city. The siege began about the first of September, and was varied by many incidents during the next four months. The people of Palermo invoked the help of the African Arabs, who sent a strong fleet to attack Robert’s ships; the Normans protected their own from the stones and darts of their adversaries by means of great pieces of thick red felt, of which they seem to have seized a great quantity in some dyeing establishment in the suburbs; but some writers say that this was an ancient Scandinavian custom. The Arabs ranged their ships in battle order, and came on with a tremendous blare of clarions and trumpets, while the Christians performed their devotions in silence. We do not know how the African ships had succeeded in entering harbour to join those of their allies, though it is clear enough that fifty small vessels could not blockade such a place as Palermo; but we know that the combined fleets of the Moslems sailed out against the Normans and were driven back in a short and furious battle. Some ships were captured and some were sunk, and when the Normans reached the great chain which was drawn against the entrance of the harbour, they broke through it and fired the vessels that lay within.
Now also famine came to the help of the besiegers, and the bodies of the starved dead lay unburied, and poisoned the air. Then the Normans laid loaves of bread upon the ground before the walls to tempt the people out; some came out and took the bread and ate it ravenously and ran back. But on the next day the besiegers placed the bread a little farther away, and farther still on the day after that, and then they caught the miserable people and sold them for slaves.
There were also brave deeds done in single combat. A certain Moslem knight in full armour used to sit upon his horse in one of the gates when it was open and well defended; and one of Roger’s nephews rode at him amain, and drove him in and killed him; but when the Norman turned the Moslems had shut the gates, and he was alone within the city. With incomparable courage, seeing that his retreat was cut off, he set spurs to his horse and rode at full speed through the heart of Palermo to another gate, where he slew the guards and let himself out unhurt.
During the long siege Robert received bad news from the continent. The Norman nobles who had refused to join the enterprise, Richard of Capua and many others, after at first making a semblance of neutrality, made incursions into the dukedom, seized the castle of Sant’ Angelo in Calabria, and set the whole country in a blaze. A weaker man would have divided his forces and would have sent back a part of them to avenge the outrage and to repel the invaders; but Robert well knew that if he held Palermo and made himself lord of Sicily he could chastise his enemies at his leisure, and he never hesitated in pursuing his purpose. And now the time was come for a general assault, for the Arab fleet had been destroyed, and the garrison was weak from famine and sickness. So Robert prepared fourteen great scaling ladders, seven for Roger’s men and seven for his own, and he gave Roger the honour of the first assault.
At dawn on the fifth of January, 1072, Roger made the attempt; the bowmen and slingers went before, bearing the ladders, while the cavalry moved behind them in even order. The Saracens fearlessly opened their gates and rode at Roger’s infantry, which gave way under the shock, but the knights soon drove the Moslems back before them in wild confusion, trusting that in the rush they might suddenly enter the city. The defenders within, seeing the great danger, shut the gates and sacrificed their unhappy comrades to save the city. Then the Normans brought up their scaling ladders and set them against the high ramparts, while Duke Robert stood in their midst calling upon them to take that city which was hateful to God and subject to devils, and bidding them know that, though he was their general, Christ Himself was their leader. Then one man, whose name was Archifred, made a great sign of the cross and set his foot upon the ladder, and two others went up with him; but the deed was so fearful that no others would follow. The three reached the rampart and stood upon it, and fought till their shields and swords were broken in their hands; and then, being defenceless, they turned and leaped for their lives, and slipped and rolled and fell down the escarpment, and by a miracle they reached the ground unhurt. Now others, and many, came forward to do as these had done, but the walls were high and the defenders staunch, and Robert saw that he was sacrificing good men for no good end. He therefore ordered Roger to pretend to carry on the assault, while he himself rode round through the gardens to a point of the Kalsa where the enemy expected no attack, and where he had hidden three hundred chosen men with their ladders among certain trees. He was successful at last. Hardly an enemy was upon the walls, and in a few minutes his men were rushing through the streets to open the nearest gate for him. The day had been spent in the long assault, but as the sun went down the Normans were masters of the Kalsa, while the surviving Saracens retired within the Kasr, leaving their heaps of dead where they had fallen in the streets. All night long the Norman soldiers marched up from the encampments and filled the Kalsa, and many of them spent that first night in sacking the rich outer town, slaying the Moslems where they found them, but sparing the children for slaves. Within the fortress the half-vanquished Saracens sat all night in debate, and when the morning came most of them were for surrendering, and they sent out ambassadors to treat with Duke Robert and Count Roger for terms of peace.
The conquerors had learned the worth of mercy and the wisdom of forbearance, and they gave the great city very honourable terms. The Saracens were not to be disturbed in the exercise of their religion; not one of them was to be exiled from Palermo; they were not toº be oppressed by new and un
just laws; and finally, they were to enjoy the right of being judged at law by tribunals of their own.
These points being settled, Roger took a large force, entered the Kasr, and occupied the fortifications, but it was not until the tenth of January that he made his solemn entry. A thousand knights lined the streets through which the army was to pass; Robert Guiscard and his wife Sigelgaita headed the triumphal march, with Count Roger and the others of the house of Tancred, and Guy of Salerno, who had quarrelled with his nephew Gisulf, was also there. So the duke and all the princes and the clergy rode up to Saint Gregory’s Church of Our Lady, of which the Saracens had made a mosque, and a solemn mass was said by the Christian Archbishop of Palermo, who had suffered much at the hand of the Saracens. ‘Then,’ says the devout chronicler, ‘a great marvel appeared in this church, for certain good Christians heard in that church the voices of the angels, and very sweet song, which praised God on high, and at divers times this church was lit up with heavenly light, more bright than any light of this world.’
The fall of Palermo did not mean the immediate conquest of all Sicily; lofty Castrogiovanni still held its own, and Marsala, ‘the harbour of Allah,’ and many strong and good places in the west; but it meant that the Saracen domination was at an end, and then and there the Guiscard and his brother divided Sicily between them. The duke, generous to himself, kept the suzerainty of the whole island with Palermo, the Val‑Demone, and Messina, and Roger received the rest of Sicily, conquered already, or still to be subdued, keeping his vast possessions in Calabria as recognized by his brother. From this time he is known in history as Roger the Great Count.
One of the two principal vassals who were to hold the new country under the brothers was their nephew, Serlo, the other was a certain Arisgot of Pozzuoli, a relative of the house of Tancred; but the former’s days were numbered, and not long after the taking of Palermo he came to an untimely end by treachery. He was at that time keeping the peace in Cerami against the incursions of the Arabs of Castrogiovanni. But there was a certain Arab with whom he had sworn brotherhood, by touching ear to ear after the manner of the Saracens; and this man betrayed him and told him treacherously that on a certain day he should not ride to a place named, because a small party of seven Arabs had determined then to make a raid in that direction. But Serlo laughed loud, and rode out with a few companions; and his enemy indeed sent the seven Saracens to the place, but he hid seven hundred in an ambuscade hard by. So Serlo and his comrades were suddenly surrounded and they sprang upon a boulder and fought for their lives. When they had slain many, and their weapons were all broken, they still hurled down stones and earth upon their assailants; but at the last they were all killed, save two, who lay wounded and half dead under the piles of slain. The Saracens cut off Serlo’s head and sent it as a present to the emir in Africa; but with their knives they cut out the brave man’s heart and apportioned it among them and devoured it, trusting that thereby his courage might enter into their own bodies.
Even then, Robert and Roger did not march against Castrogiovanni, for the place was very strong; but they took hostages of the Saracens, lest such evils should befall again, and slowly strengthened themselves in their possessions. In Palermo they built two fortresses, the one on the site of the modern royal palace at Porta Nuova, and comprising the Saracen fortress that already stood there; and still a lordly vaulted room is pointed out, and the traveller is told that after the siege Count Roger chose it for his own. Also the duke saw that the poor little Church of Saint Mary ‘was like a baker’s oven’ amid the splendid Saracen palaces, and he caused it to be torn down, and gave great sums of money to build a better church on the spot; and still in the porch of the later cathedral one may see the pillars of the mosque, with verses from the Koran graven in the cufic character. In the last months of the year 1072 Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, of Calabria, and of Sicily, returned to the mainland laden with spoil.
While Robert and Roger were conquering Sicily, the Normans of the mainland were engaged in ceaseless dissensions and involved in the complicated history of the Papacy. A large part of their story concerns the doings of Richard of Capua and of a certain William of Montreuil, to whom he gave his daughter in marriage, who quarrelled with his father-in‑law, repudiated his wife, attempted to marry the widowed Duchess of Gaeta, and failing in his plan was reconciled with Richard and took his wife back; who allied himself with Pope Alexander the Second in his struggle against the antipope Honorius, at one time commanding a force of several thousand men, and who would have continued to cause trouble during many years had he not been providentially removed from history by the malarious fever of the Roman Campagna. In the inextricable confusion of small events two principal figures stand out; that of Richard, determined to extend his principality of Capua, and even marching upon Rome itself, from the gates of which he was driven back by the appearance of the Duke of Tuscany with a large army, and, on the other hand, the gigantic personality of Hildebrand, soon to be Pope Gregory the Seventh, fighting, as only he knew how to fight, for the independence of the Papacy and of the Church itself. It would be fruitless for the purposes of the present work to follow the many entangled threads; the story is one of raids and counter-raids, of ruined crops and blazing towns, and of castles won by assault or betrayed by treachery. It ended in a solemn and peaceful ceremony at Monte Cassino at the very time when the Normans of the south were fighting under the walls of Palermo. The devout and indefatigable Abbot Desiderius had built the great church of the abbey, and at its consecration by Pope Alexander himself there were present with Richard of Capua all the great Norman and Lombard nobles who had refused to take part in the conquest of Sicily, besides a vast multitude of nobles and tenants and countrymen, clerks, laymen, monks and soldiers, Campanians, Apulians and Calabrians who, during more than a week, thronged up the steep mountain side to pray at the tomb of the holy Benedict and to receive the Pope’s absolution and blessing. The splendid basilica, with its lofty nave and aisles, its double ranks of columns, and its grand choir, in the midst of which rose the tomb of the saint, eight steps above the floor, was totally destroyed by a great earthquake in the year 1349. Desiderius had spared neither pains nor treasure in the work, and had brought columns from Rome and rich marbles from other parts of Italy, and had called artists together, Latins, Greeks, and even Saracens, from Constantinople and from Alexandria. Moreover, a great noble of Amalfi had ordered the bronze doors to be cast and chiselled in Constantinople, and what remains of these is all that is left of Desiderius’ abbey church.
The consecration was, however, a favourable occasion for an interview between Richard and all those who were jealous of the house of Tancred, and it is certain that Richard of Capua profited by it to plan his attack upon Apulia, while Gisulf agreed at the same time to make a raid upon the western coast, from Policastro to Sant’ Eufemia. The surprise and disappointment of the malcontents at the news that Palermo was taken may be more easily imagined than described, and when Duke Robert came back in triumph to Melfi and convoked his great vassals, more than one of them must have wished that he had been with the Guiscard and Roger at Palermo. He seems to have satisfied himself by visiting his wrath upon the Count of Trani, who had flatly refused to send any help for the Sicilian expedition, and who at first declined to meet the suzerain at Melfi. Being forced to do so, however, he gave haughty answers to all Robert’s questions and commands, and the duke was obliged to make war upon him. It was during this short struggle that, having taken the count prisoner, he made use of him in besieging the castles that remained loyal, for when the defenders began to shoot arrows and hurl stones from the ramparts, Robert set the count himself, loaded with chains, in front of his besieging force, and the prisoner, in terror for his life, besought his own people to abstain from defending themselves, lest they should kill him.
As for Richard of Capua, who had advanced as far as Cannae in Apulia, it is merely recorded that when he perceived himself opposed by Divine Providence, he quietly re
turned to Capua. Robert pardoned him at the time, promising himself to be avenged at a more convenient season; and when, after entirely reducing the south to submission, he forgave the Count of Trani and gave him back most of his possessions, he prepared to make war against the Capuan prince. But at this juncture he fell dangerously ill, and lay long between life and death in Bari; his wife Sigelgaita herself believed that he was at his last gasp, and hastily calling together the Norman knights, she caused them to choose for her husband’s successor her own son, the young Roger, to the exclusion of Bohemund, the duke’s eldest born by his first marriage. After this election the news went abroad that Robert was dead, and Gregory the Seventh, who had just ascended the pontifical throne, wrote a characteristic letter of condolence to Sigelgaita. The pontiff spoke of the death of Duke Robert, the most beloved son of Holy Church, as a source of grief irremediable to himself, to the cardinals, and to the Senate of Rome; he expressed his goodwill to the widowed duchess, and requested her to bring her son to Rome, in order that he might receive from the hands of the Church’s head those possessions which his father had held from former popes.
At this point, when every one who was with the duke believed that he was about to expire, and when even the Pope himself believed him to be already dead, the Guiscard’s iron constitution prevailed against the sickness; he suddenly was better, in a few days he was out of danger, and in an incredibly short time he was completely restored to health, to the great joy of his friends, and to the bitter disappointment of his enemies. As the Abbé Delarc says in the closing lines of his valuable work, the Guiscard was still to live twelve years, astonishing and upheaving Italy and Europe from east to west by his daring deeds and by the surprising energy of his restless life.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1444