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It's a great insight to the little known history (to me) of southern Italy. But, as any medieval history it is dense. All in all Norwich makes the ride easy and sometimes funny!
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The Normans in Sicily #1-2
The Normans in Sicily : The Magnificent Story of 'the Other Norman Conquest'
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In 1016, a rebel Lombard lord appealed to a group of pilgrims for help-and unwittingly set in motion "the other Norman Conquest." The Normans in the South is the epic story of the House of of Robert Guiscard, perhaps the most extraordinary European adventurer between Caesar and Napoleon; his brother Roger, who helped him win Sicily from the Saracens; and his nephew Roger II, crowned at Palermo in 1130. The Kingdom in the Sun vividly evokes this "sad, superb, half-forgotten kingdom, cultivated, cosmopolitan, and tolerant," which lasted a mere 64 years. It concludes with the poignant defeat of the bastard King Tancred in 1194, bringing to a close this extraordinary chapter in Italian history. With a comprehensive listing of all of Sicily's surviving Norman monuments, the result is a superb traveler's companion and a masterpiece of the historian's art.
816 pages, Paperback
First published January 1,1970
This edition
- Format
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816 pages, Paperback
- Published
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September 1, 2004 by Penguin Global
- ISBN
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9780140152128
- ASIN
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0140152121
- Language
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English
Characters More characters
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Roger Ii Of Sicily
Roger II (22 December 1095 – 26 February 1154) was King of Sicily, son of Roger I of Sicily and successor to his brother Simon. He began his rule as Count of Sicily in 1105, later became Duke of Apulia and Calabria (1127), then King of Sicily (1130). It i...
About the author
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John Julius Norwich was born in London and served in the Royal Navy before receiving a degree in French and Russian at New College, Oxford. After graduation, he joined the Foreign Service and served in Belgrade, Beirut, and as a member of British delegation to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva. In 1954, he inherited the title of Viscount Norwich. In 1964, he resigned from the Foreign Service to become a writer. He was a historian, travel writer, and television personality.
His books included The Normans in the South, A History of Venice, The Italian World, Venice: A Traveller's Companion, 50 Years of Glyndebourne: An Illustrated History, A Short History of Byzantium, Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy, Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History, and A History of France. He and H. C. Robbins Landon wrote Five Centuries of Music in Venice.
Norwich was the host of the BBC radio panel game My Word! from 1978 to 1982. He wrote and presented more than 30 television documentaries including Maestro, The Fall of Constantinople, Napoleon's Hundred Days, Cortés and Montezuma, Maximilian of Mexico, The Knights of Malta, The Treasure Houses of Britain, and The Death of the Prince Imperial in the Zulu War.
In 1993, he was appointed CVO for having curated an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum to mark the 40th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne. In 2015, he was awarded the Biographers' Club award for his lifetime service to biography. He died on June 1, 2018 at the age of 88.
His books included The Normans in the South, A History of Venice, The Italian World, Venice: A Traveller's Companion, 50 Years of Glyndebourne: An Illustrated History, A Short History of Byzantium, Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy, Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History, and A History of France. He and H. C. Robbins Landon wrote Five Centuries of Music in Venice.
Norwich was the host of the BBC radio panel game My Word! from 1978 to 1982. He wrote and presented more than 30 television documentaries including Maestro, The Fall of Constantinople, Napoleon's Hundred Days, Cortés and Montezuma, Maximilian of Mexico, The Knights of Malta, The Treasure Houses of Britain, and The Death of the Prince Imperial in the Zulu War.
In 1993, he was appointed CVO for having curated an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum to mark the 40th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne. In 2015, he was awarded the Biographers' Club award for his lifetime service to biography. He died on June 1, 2018 at the age of 88.
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I read this a while ago and really enjoyed it. I can't remember how I came across it but it introduced me to an area of history I knew absolutely nothing about - I didn't know the Normans ever went to Italy. I found it fascinating.
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In the early years of the 11th century a number of landless Norman knights made their way south into Italy working as mercenaries, at least that's what they told the nobility who hired them. In fact, the Normans were always working for their own benefit and over the years managed to supplant all the rulers of southern Italy and Sicily - a lengthy list including Lombards, Byzantine Greeks, the German emperor, and the Saracen rulers of Sicily. These dynamic and colorful adventurers had an incredible run of success for many years and their fascinating stories are told in this book. My favorite characters were Robert Guiscard, his brother Roger, and Roger's son, also called Roger. No one would believe what they accomplished if you tried to make it up in a novel.
This lengthy 800 page book was a pleasure to read. The author's perceptive descriptions of the people and places he is writing about make them come to life in a way that only the best historians can do. I've had to add Sicily to my lift of places to visit because of it. I cannot recommend this highly enough for those with an interest in this period. The author has a new book, a history of Sicily, coming out in the US in July. This book will be a good lead in for it.
This lengthy 800 page book was a pleasure to read. The author's perceptive descriptions of the people and places he is writing about make them come to life in a way that only the best historians can do. I've had to add Sicily to my lift of places to visit because of it. I cannot recommend this highly enough for those with an interest in this period. The author has a new book, a history of Sicily, coming out in the US in July. This book will be a good lead in for it.
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Not his best but it was one of his early books. dDeals with a bit of history that is not well know in Brittan, what else the Norman's were doing about 1066 besides conquering southern Italy and Scicily. Read the book and wonder if there was ever any doubt. The Norman's were the big boys. Delivered in a dead pan mater of fact way make it hard sometimes to scale the importance of events, interesting all the same.
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Norwich is an excellent historian and a natural born story-teller. This book is 3 inches thick, but Norwich kept my interest all the way through.
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If you like history and as a bonus are planning to visit Sicilly, this is a mustread. A wonderful narrative style that draws you in to one of the key periods that shapes the island even today. Your visits to Monreale and other Norman castles and citadels will be enriched by this details filled but easily digestible masterpiece.
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While far from being an unbiased narrative, it is wildly entertaining and a fun read, serving as an excellent source if one is interested in learning about the Normans.
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Norwich writes of three chapters in the epic of the Norman domination of South Italy: (1) the 1043 assembly of pioneer Norman barons at Melfi when the early arrivees "divided their conquered territories into the twelve counties of Apulia" (p. 321); (2) when Robert Guiscard had received his three duchies from Pope Nicholas II; and (3) when Robert's younger step-brother, Roger, gathered his vassals ("all the bishops, abbots and counts of Apulia and Calabria to a solemn Court at Melfi" (p. 320) to have them swear a great oath both to him but also to his sons and to a general peace to uphold order and justice (in short, establishing a penal code). Thus was his son, Roger II, able to crown himself King of Sicily on Christmas Day, 1130. If the above is meaningless to you, it will not be after reading this fascinating, rewarding volume that fills in a gap of European history usually neglected in today's university curricula.
The story of the Normans in Sicily is one of those periods in history that was unusually rich in events and personalities (not that the two are easily distinguishable), but in the hands of author John Julius Norwich, the tale is a page-turner overflowing with tales of deceit, treachery, cunning, diplomacy and the machinations of 11-12C European history. This work is a true historical epic--so colourful, so rich, and so laden with Norwich's wit and wry phrasing that it has rightfully long been regarded as one of the great tomes on Sicily, which is far too narrow a category for this work. Clearly it is 'must' reading for anyone interested in European or Mediterranean history, or for that matter, the Normans (successors of the Vikings of the north who settled in France ['Normandy'] and then made world history in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings), the Crusades, the Papacy, Venice .... Maps and a family tree are necessities and this volume includes both, plus the added treasure of a list of Norman ruins that can still be seen in Sicily today.
The book is hard to find; none of the libraries I searched in had a copy (which I eventually found in the library of a well-travelled friend) but worth the search. Now to find a copy of his History of Venice.
The story of the Normans in Sicily is one of those periods in history that was unusually rich in events and personalities (not that the two are easily distinguishable), but in the hands of author John Julius Norwich, the tale is a page-turner overflowing with tales of deceit, treachery, cunning, diplomacy and the machinations of 11-12C European history. This work is a true historical epic--so colourful, so rich, and so laden with Norwich's wit and wry phrasing that it has rightfully long been regarded as one of the great tomes on Sicily, which is far too narrow a category for this work. Clearly it is 'must' reading for anyone interested in European or Mediterranean history, or for that matter, the Normans (successors of the Vikings of the north who settled in France ['Normandy'] and then made world history in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings), the Crusades, the Papacy, Venice .... Maps and a family tree are necessities and this volume includes both, plus the added treasure of a list of Norman ruins that can still be seen in Sicily today.
The book is hard to find; none of the libraries I searched in had a copy (which I eventually found in the library of a well-travelled friend) but worth the search. Now to find a copy of his History of Venice.
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