Re: two Sicilies

[Gordon Holmes <lafleur@home.com>]

I doubt this has anything to do with anything but the Muslims were
pretty civilized and sometimes we were in haste driving the heritic out.
My main thrill though, is the fact that names like "The Weasel" were in
use in Sicily even That far back..Gord..  :) (Da Family..)

Spirit One Email wrote:
> 
> Sinclair,
> You wrote:
> Niven often speaks of Sinclair guarding the
> approaches to great cities and productive areas. In the Norman Kingdom of
> the two Scillys the King is quoted by a Muslim historian say of Sinclair
> "These are my immortals, they are feared at the very gates of Hell"
> 
> Dictionary says: "Two Sicilies  a former kingdom including Naples (with
> lower Italy) and Sicily; united with the kingdom of Italy in 1861"
> Oh, just came across another interesting definition in "Medieval Warfare by
> Maurice Keen:
> This word was in the last message:
> MAGNATES= "is a catch-all term; it includes great secular officials like
> counts, great ecclesiastics like bishops and the abbots of royal abbeys
> (although prelates were not supposed to fight in person, they were expected
> to lead contingents of troops).  It aslo includes wealthy nobles who did not
> hold secular or ecclesiastical office.  Sucyh men undoubtedly acted as
> leaders, as Nithard's account of Fontenoy shows, and where narrative
> accounts mention casualties it is men of this type that they name.  Their
> importance for the cohesion of armies cannot be overestimated; the numerical
> contribution they and their own followings made to armies is, as more
> difficult to assess."
> 
> Now about the Normans in Apulia  according to the Medieval Warfare book:
> 20th century authors sometimes agree that the powerful mounted Norman
> knights swept all before them but this view has been challenged.  "Their
> normal technique was to seize a castle and use it as a base from which to
> terrorize the surrounding district into submission, as Robert of Hauteville,
> known as Guiscard, 'the Weasel', did from San Marco Argentano in Calbria.
> According to Amatus of Montecassino, another Norman, Richard of Aversa,
> 'carried off everything he could and gave it away (to his men) keeping
> little....in this way the land about was plundered and the number of his
> knights multiplied'.
>     Decades of this kind of brigandage made the Normans thoroughly unpopular
> and Pope Leo IX organized a coalition of Byzantines and Lombards against
> them.  This forced the various Norman bands to unite their forces and they
> managed to bring the Pope's army, which included a contingent of Swabian
> tgroops to battle at Civitate on 17 June 1053 (so our WIlliam Warlenc did
> not loose his Norman title until 1054-55.  But he could have been in Italy
> where he received his nickname and then returned to Normandy with a grand
> reputation to challenge Duke William).
>     At Civitate, it has been said, 'the old world of Germanic infantry
> tactics went down before the new chivalry of heavy cavalry.'  But according
> to William of Apulia's "Deeds of Robert of Guiscard", once the pope's
> Lombards had ridden away in flight, the 700 Swabian foot soldiers who
> remained put up a prolonged and stout resistance against several thousand
> Normans.  If anything Civitate demonstrates the stgrength in battle of
> infantry even when hugely outnumbered.  Leo IX was taken prisoner and forced
> to recognize the Norman acquitiions.  But the few lordships they had
> obtained by this date were hardly impressive.  As yet, apart perhaps from
> Humphrey of Hauteville's Melfi, they controlled none of the major centers.
>     Only after 1059 did the Normans make spectacular gains, and for this
> there were two principal reasons.  The first was the growing pressure of the
> Seljuk Turks on Anatolia.  As late as 1038 Constantinople had shown real
> interest in the West, sending an expedition to recover Sicily, Messina and
> Syracuse.  But with the push of the Turks in Anatolia, the Byzantine
> priority was to the East."   And the second reason was the continuity and
> cooperation of the brothers Robert Guiscard in Italy and Roger in Sicily.
> 
>     So these early Normans in Apulia used the same plundering tactics of
> their Viking ancestors and as our Rollo did.  Just determinly wearing down
> and exhausting the defenders, year after year.   Anna Comena, sister of
> Constantinople's emperor said of Robert Guisard, "That Norman braggart
> Robert, notorious for his power-lust, of obscure origin, over-bearing,
> thoroughly villainous, a brave fighter and very cunning, wonderfully built
> and utterly determined."   This was actually  praise coming from the
> Byzantines who were among the world's great connivers for that is how they
> were able to hold out so many centuries against the hoards from the East.
> And when Robert was almost at the gates of Constantinople one day with his
> armies, it was the revolt that the emperor was able to foment back in Apulia
> that drew Robert back there and saved Constantinople once again.
> 
> So, Sinclair, the Muslim historian, actually names the SInclairs as great
> enemies and warriors in the two Sicilies. Sounds like there were more than
> one of them there.  But who were they.  William Warlenc and sons or nephew
> William the Seemly???   I wish we had more access to the history of this
> region.  I am guessing that William Warlenc would have been born about 1008.
> What would you guess?
> 
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