The Children of Adam and Eve

Guiscard, Robert (1015?-85), Norman adventurer, born near Coutances in
Normandy. Like many other impoverished Norman Knights, Guiscard went to
Italy, arriving there about 1046. After serving in the forces of the
prince of Capua, he organized an army to secure possessions for himself in
Calabria. When Pope Leo IX attempted to expel the Normans from Italy in
1053, Guiscard played an important role in defeating the papal forces at
Civitate, near the modern city of San Severo. After the Death of his older
Brother Humphrey Guiscard (died 1057), Robert became leader of the Normans
in Italy. The Pope, seeking independence from the Holy Roman Empire,
decided to enlist the Normans as allies. In 1059 Pope Nicholas II
(980?-1061) created Robert by the Grace of God and Saint Peter, duke of
Apulia and Calabria and, with their help, hereafter of Sicily. In return,
Robert acknowledged the Pope as his feudal overLord. Sicily was in
Byzantine hands at the time and so Robert and his Brother Roger (Roger I)
embarked on a series of campaigns, capturing Messina in 1061 and Palermo
in 1072. Turning his attention to the Balkans in 1081, Robert gained a
great victory over the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus at Durr?
Albania. His campaigns at Macedonia and Thessal?were being carried on,
meanwhile, by his son Bohemond I. Robert was recalled from his victorious
campaigns in 1085 to go to the aid of Pope Gregory VII, who was besieged
in the castle of Sant'Angelo by Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV. Robert drove
Henry from Rome, and reduced one-third of the city to ashes. Because of
the unpopularity of Gregory VII in Rome, he took the Pope to Monte
Cassino. Robert then went to the support of Bohemond in the Greek
campaign, but died of fever at Kefallin?a few weeks later.