Comes Siciliæ." He died in 1101. He was succeeded by his son Simon, a child, under the Regency of his widow Adelaide. Simon reigned only four years (1101-1105), then he died, and was succeeded by his brother, Roger II. This Roger II finally gathered up all Southern Italy and Sicily into a great kingdom. One by one the other Norman possessions are first made dependent, then amalgamated into his territory. Naples, the last imperial possession, was taken in 1138. Roger II also sent across the water and added part of North Africa to his domain. It was time that so great a prince should have a prouder title than that of Great Count. In 1130 a Bull of the Antipope Anacletus II (1130-1138) makes Roger king. After swearing fealty and homage to the Holy See,[1] he was crowned at his capital Palermo, on Christmas Day, 1130. Cardinal Conti, the Antipope's nephew, anointed him, and Robert II, Prince of Capua, as first of his vassals, put the crown on his head. So begins the kingdom of the two Sicilies. From now all Southern Italy is one state, under Norman kings. Its further history no longer concerns us.[2]
But we must note something about the people. To be one state does not at all mean that all the people in these parts became one race. It was still many centuries before that final amalgamation took place.
The government of Roger II and of his successors gives a unique example of mediæval toleration. The Norman conquerors of Sicily, beginning with Roger I, found themselves reigning over people of two races, two languages, and two religions. There were Greek Christians and Moslem Saracens. To these we may add the Latin Lombards of the mainland. Meanwhile the kings were Norman Latins. From the beginning the Norman kings made no attempt to impose one language, one religion or civilization on their subjects. They, at least the two Rogers and the first William, were men of sceptical views and of immoral lives. They granted entire toleration to all races and religions. So the Norman kingdom
- ↑ This oath of fealty should be noted. Because of it, all through the history of the kingdom of Naples and the two Sicilies, the Popes consider that state as dependent politically on the Holy See. The only legal claim the Norman kings had was the grant by the Pope; their kingdom was founded as a fief of the Papacy.
- ↑ An excellent Life of Roger II and of the Norman state in Italy and Sicily is E. Curtis, "Roger of Sicily and the Normans in Lower Italy," Putnam ("Heroes of the Nations"), 1912; also A. H. Johnson, "The Normans in Europe" (Longmans, 1880); Gibbon, chap. lvi, Rodotà, op. cit., i, cap. viii.
