Roger II of Sicily: Family, Faith, and Empire in the Medieval Mediterranean World - Medieval History Book for Scholars & History Enthusiasts | Perfect for Academic Research & Medieval Studies

This is a useful entry in what is rapidly becoming a rather crowded academic field, the study of the Normans of southern Italy and their kingdom. In identifying some of the cultural and ideological influences on the reign of Roger II, who died in 1154, Professor Hayes adroitly makes the case that his policies and orientation were essentially western (Latin) and European rather than Muslim Arab or Byzantine Greek. This she does very well, citing various Mediterranean sources.Roger's Assizes of Ariano, drawn largely from the Code of Justinian, are a fine example, though hardly the only one. Historians usually date Roger's laws to around 1140. Of course, Sicilian law was more complicated than this, and it was not entirely Western, Latin Christian or even European. In an insightful treatise, the legal scholar John Makdisi posits that English common law was likely influenced, via close contact with Sicily through people like Thomas le Brun (who ended up at the court of Henry II), by Maliki Law, of which there seem to have been rather few traces in Italy by the time most of the Muslims were christianized.Although this book reflects solid work, one may question whether many competent historians ever questioned the point the author so eloquently makes. Here I'm thinking about people like Carlo Alberto Garufi and (among those writing in English) Evelyn Jamison and Lynn Townsend White. That a Latin monoculture dominated southern Italy by 1300, or even by 1200, is not widely contested (indeed it is all too obvious) and the Normans' support of Catholicism over Orthodoxy was no secret, even though Robert and Sichelgaita, Roger and Adelaide initially supported some Greek churches such as, apparently, Saint Peter la Bagnara in Palermo and the ironically-named Cattolica at Stilo, in Calabria, to mention just two, while banishing Nicodemus, the Orthodox bishop of Palermo, to a chapel outside the city. Not many surviving charters refer to these churches specifically and many, such as the Greek churches of Saint Pancras and Saint Barbara that stood in the capital until the fifteenth century, are not even a memory.Sicilian multiculturalism reflected a fleeting moment in time. Leaving aside various social realities, such as the royal diwan, the Greek community that founded the Martorana church, and the influential Arabs at court into the reign of William II, the fact remains that churches like Monreale Abbey and the Palatine Chapel are testaments to multiculturalism as it existed in the Kingdom of Sicily throughout the Hauteville era, into the 1190s. Founded as Catholic churches, they are nonetheless very unlike the "typical" Latin churches erected in Europe during the twelfth century. The Fatimid muqarnas ceiling of the Palatine Chapel and the Islamic-inspired geometry of the exterior of Monreale's apse speak for themselves, and so do the Byzantine icons rendered in mosaic. (That Thomas Becket is the only saint depicted in a Byzantine mosaic in Sicily who is not venerated by Orthodox Christians tells us something about non-Latin influences, and perhaps even the nature of religious devotion, into the 1180s.) This syncretic movement ended with the Norman era, and by the 1190s we find Queen Constance, the daughter of Roger II, enserfing Muslim smallholders in the environs of Palermo; her son, Frederick II, eventually transferred many to peninsular Italy. Nevertheless, such Byzantine vestiges as the crown of Frederick's first wife, Constance of Aragon, serve to remind us of the Sicilian court's eclectic artistic influences into the thirteenth century.On a more arcane note, Professor Hayes seems to be the only author besides myself (in a paper published in London in 1994) to interpret the crosslets depicted in gold on the blue robe of Roger II in a famous mosaic in the Martorana church as fleurs-de-lis. This opens the door to a complex heraldic discussion.One of the things that stands out in this work is that Professor Hayes, who is Sicilian, knows the former Kingdom of Sicily (which included the island and much of southern peninsular Italy) quite well. She is not a xenocentric visitor; this is her culture and she is very familiar with it. That's a pleasant change from the typical historian writing such a monograph in English, who has spent just a short time on the island and may not even be very conversant with the Catholicism which, in the end, shaped the policies of Roger II and his descendants.It would be nice for the publisher to make available a less costly edition of this book (although I did not pay for my copy).This volume is well worth having, and it will be an invaluable aid for scholars beginning their research in the field.