possess a fair portion of Gaul which might become his, six centuries later when Emmanuel Downing thought it sin to tolerate the devil-worship of the Narragansetts "if upon a Just warre the Lord should deliver them" to be exchanged for the "gaynefull pilladge" of negro slaves;[1] nor is the doctrine without advocates in our own day. We may think of the conquest of Sicily as a sort of crusade before the Crusades, decreed by no church council and spread abroad by no preaching or privileges, but conceived and executed by Norman enterprise and daring. Like the greater crusades in the East, it profited by the disunion of the Moslem; like them, too, it did not scruple to make alliances with the infidel and to leave him in peaceful cultivation of his lands when all was over.
The conquest of Sicily began with the capture of Messina in 1061 and occupied thirty years. It was chiefly the work of Roger, though Guiscard aided him throughout the earlier years and claimed a share in the results for himself, as well as vassalage for Roger's portion. The decisive turning-point was a joint enterprise, the siege and capture of Palermo in 1072, which gave the Normans control of the Saracen capital, the largest city in Sicily, with an all-anchoring harbor from which it took its name. The Saracens, however, still held the chief places of the island: the ancient Carthaginian strongholds of the west and centre, Eryx and 'inex-
- ↑ Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, fourth series, VI, p. 65.
