Roger II

Roger II c.1095-1154, count (1101-30) and first king (1130-54) of Sicily, son and successor of Roger I. He conquered (1127) Apulia and Salerno and sided with the antipope Anacletus II against Pope Innocent II . In 1130, Anacletus crowned Roger king. Innocent rallied Holy Roman Emperor Lothair II and other allies against Roger but was defeated in 1139. Naples and Capua recognized Roger's sovereignty; Innocent was obliged to invest him with the lands that, for the next seven centuries, were to constitute the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. Roger also conquered the coast of Africa from Tunis to Tripoli. He established a strong central administration and attempted to fuse the disparate ethnic groups in his kingdom. Prosperity returned to Sicily, and Roger's brilliant court at Palermo was a center of the arts, letters, and sciences. Roger was succeeded by his son, William I.

Bibliography: See E. Curtis, Roger of Sicily (1912, repr. 1973); J. J. Norwich, Kingdom in the Sun (1970).

Roger II (or Roger Guiscard) (c.1095–1154) King of SICILY (1130–54). The NORMAN expansion into southern Italy and Sicily was begun by the brothers Robert and Roger GUISCARD, initially in defiance of the pope, but subsequently with his grudging cooperation. The Treaty of Melfi (1059) empowered them to take south Italy from the Greeks and Sicily from the Muslims and by the time of Roger Guiscard's death, Sicily was in Norman hands. His son Roger II effectively ruled Sicily from 1113 but had to assert control over the anarchic Norman barons who threatened his rule, especially when backed by the pope in 1129. From 1130 Roger supported the ANTIPOPE's cause; despite excommunication by Pope Innocent II and internal revolt, he consolidated his power by 1140. He took Malta, Corfu, and many cities on the Greek mainland as well as controlling most of the land in North Africa between Tripoli and Tunis. In 1140 he issued a revised code of laws and in his later years he ruled one of the most sophisticated governments in Western Europe. His court at Palermo enjoyed a high artistic and scholarly reputation.