Guiscard

Guiscard, Robert (1015-85), was the sixth son of Tancred, Lord of Hauteville, in Lower Normandy. Enterprise and the love of adventure led him to join his elder brothers William, Drogo, and Humphrey, in South Italy. By his daring courage he greatly contributed to the Norman victory at Civitella (1053). In 1054 he became President and first count of the aristocratic republic of Apulia, an office which had been held by his three brothers successively. In 1060 Pope Nicholas II. granted him the title of duke. The territory over which he ruled was conterminous with the subsequent kingdom of Naples, including the Greek provinces of Calabria and Apulia, the Lombard principality of Salerno, the republic of Amalfi, and the iniand dependencies of Beneventum In the course of the same year he entrusted his younger brother Roger with the conquest of Sicily, a task which it took thirty years to accomplish. In 1081 he and his son Bohemund began a series of invasions of the Eastern Empire, terminated only by his death in the island of Cephalonia.