Normans of the South The Normans

Savagery and piety.

Conquest and colonisation.

The Normans used every weapon in their armoury to reshape northern France and the British Isles.

They were powerful rulers and state-builders.

And their legacy can be seen all around us.

But this wasn't just a French and British story.

The Normans' explosive ambition and Christian fervour

also took them south to the Mediterranean and beyond.

All the way to the Holy Land.

In the summer of 1099, an international force of 12,000 Christian soldiers

stormed through the streets of Jerusalem.

This would be the most divisive part of the Norman inheritance -

the First Crusade.

Among their leaders were Norman knights,

including the son of William the Conqueror.

As the Crusaders tore through the Holy City they cut down thousands of Muslims.

According to one chronicler, "the slaughter was so great that men waded in blood up to their ankles."

This was a massacre so terrible that Islam never forgot nor forgave.

It permanently deepened the divide between Christians and Muslims.

The Norman Conquests in Italy, Sicily and the Middle East

were bloody and destructive,

but the Normans of the South went on to create powerful

states and kingdoms, where different cultures and religions mixed

in an atmosphere of relative tolerance.

The result was an extraordinary flourishing of art,

architecture, science and learning.

The Norman legacy in England is widely known,

but their impact in the South was just as powerful and long lasting.

These great Norman campaigns in the Mediterranean and the Middle East

were their most ambitious ventures of all.

Their influence spread far beyond the borders of duchy of Normandy and these Norman Conquests

left a political, cultural and religious legacy, with consequences that are still felt to this day.

In 1017, a group of pilgrim knights came here to worship at

the shrine of the Archangel Michael in Monte Gargano, south-east Italy.

SINGING

The chronicler, William of Apulia,

records that they were known as, "Normans - men of the north wind."

The Normans were fervent Christians

and the shrine here at Monte Gargano was of especial importance to them.

It was here that the Archangel Michael was said to have first appeared in western Europe

and Michael was the Normans' favourite saint.

As a warrior saint he was the perfect combination of holiness

and military prowess for a race of warriors.

A thousand years later, pilgrims are still coming here.

Like the Normans before them, they descend these steps and touch

the door to the shrine,

which is said to represent the entrance to heaven.

The shrine itself is built into a cave.

You can feel that the rock surface has been rubbed smooth

by the hands of thousands of pilgrims touching the rock

on which the Archangel stood when he appeared here,

and beneath that statue are said to be the footprints of the Archangel himself.

The Norman knights who came here in 1017 weren't driven by Christian piety alone.

There were also plenty of opportunities for plunder and conquest.

Southern Italy was the meeting place of three competing civilisations.

The old Roman empire had split into two.

The western half was divided into barbarian kingdoms

with the Pope ruling over the western Christian church.

The eastern half was the Byzantine empire

with its own Christian leaders. Its inhabitants spoke Greek,

but they preserved the traditions of imperial Rome.

The empire stretched from southern Italy in the west to the borders of Armenia in the east.

The southern Mediterranean was dominated by Muslims

and as these three groups fought for supremacy,

southern Italy was torn apart by war.

This volatile situation was a golden opportunity for the Normans.

The knights visiting Monte Gargano were soon approached

by a local noble who asked them to serve him as mercenaries.

The chronicler, William of Apulia, records that they agreed

and then returned home to recruit a greater force amongst the knights

of Normandy, stirring up their minds to come to Italy,

they were all united in their lust for gain.

In the years ahead, hundreds of Normans returned

to fight as mercenaries in wars between the Italians, the Byzantines, and the Muslims.

These independent knights weren't fighting in the name of Normandy but for their own private gain.

The Norman knights were enticed south partly by a display

of what the exotic Mediterranean had to offer - lemons,

almonds,

elaborate objects decorated in gold, clothes fit for an emperor,

even, it's said, an elephant's tooth and a griffon's claw,

but what the Normans were really hungry for was territory

and the fertile plains of southern Italy

must have presented a tempting sight.

Southern Italy was a promised land, ripe for the picking.

According to one chronicler, the Normans joined battle

against the Byzantines and "performed great feats of war and knighthood."

They were richly rewarded.

An independent Norman settlement was established here in 1030,

and this was only the start.

Within a century, a few hundred migrant Norman knights

were to become the most powerful force in southern Italy.

Among the new arrivals from Normandy were the sons of a landowner called Tancred de Hauteville.

His estate in Normandy was too small to support his 12 sons,

so they roamed across Europe looking for new territories.

'By all accounts, the de Hauteville boys were very successful.

'This single family of warriors

'would lead the Norman conquests of Italy.'

One of Tancred's sons, Robert, arrived in 1046 and made his home

here at Scribla, in the poor, mountainous region of Calabria.

These towers are all that's left of his desolate castle.

Robert struggled to survive here.

The chronicler Amatus wrote, "His knights were few, he was poor

"in the things necessary for life, he lacked money in his purse."

Indeed he lacked everything, although he had plenty of meat.

As the children of Israel survived in the desert, so Robert lived on his hilltop.

But Robert was a true Norman.

He lived as a bandit chief, terrorising the countryside

and ruthlessly plundering Byzantine towns across the region.

According to the Byzantine historian, Anna Comnena,

Robert had a heart full of passion and anger, and among his enemies

he expected that either he would drive through his opponent with a spear or else himself be destroyed.

Robert was a fighter, but he was also a clever strategist.

He eventually earned the nickname "Guiscard," meaning "the crafty."

William of Apulia tells how Robert came up with a cunning strategy to breach the defences of one city.

Robert commanded the Normans to say that one of his men had died

and he then requested the monastery inside the city to arrange a funeral service for the dead man.

But once safely inside the church, the man they were about to bury

suddenly jumped out of the coffin.

Hidden beneath him were swords.

The fake mourners then grabbed the swords,

set about the men in the city and captured it.

Seven years after Robert Guiscard arrived in Italy,

the Byzantines were still living in constant fear of Norman attack.

In desperation, they turned for help to the Normans' own spiritual chief, Pope Leo IX.

In 1053, the Byzantines sent envoys to Leo

to complain about the Normans.

They begged him, in the words of William of Apulia, "to liberate Italy, that now lacked its freedom,

"and to force that wicked people, who were pressing Apulia under their yoke, to leave."

Pope Leo was angered by the Normans' plundering, by their burning of churches

and the slaughtering of civilians, and so he enthusiastically entered

into an alliance with the Byzantines.

Pope Leo IX was a German aristocrat and the powerful secular ruler of central Italy.

He gathered troops from across southern Italy,

but also brought in Swabian mercenaries from his native Germany

to help sort out the Norman problem.

They were fierce warriors, who fought with long, sharp swords

and could cut a man in half at a stroke.

Pope Leo led the army himself.

A contemporary noted with astonishment that he was the first

Pope since the time of St Peter

to go to war with a body of armed troops.

The Normans were facing a formidable enemy.

Just a few decades after they'd first come to Italy,

it looked as though they might well have to retreat back to Normandy.

But the Normans weren't going to give up so easily.

They mustered all their forces, including 3,000 mounted knights

under the command of Robert Guiscard and the other Norman leaders.

As the Pope marched south to meet his Byzantine allies,

the Normans intercepted him here at the old Roman city of Civitate.

'They were ready for battle, as ever.

'But this time they were struggling with a dilemma.'

As fervent Christians, the Normans were reluctant to fight their spiritual leader.

They tried to sue for peace, declaring that they were willing

to obey the Pope, but the Swabians mocked them and told the Pope

to "command the Normans to leave the land of Italy,

"to lay down their arms and return to their own country."

Battle was now inevitable.

The Normans climbed this hill to gauge the size of the enemy camp.

The Swabian troops were drawn up down there on the left hand side.

Opposite them were Robert Guiscard's men.

On the right hand side were the Italians.

The battle began with a Norman cavalry charge.

According to William of Apulia, the Italians fled in all directions.

Now it was time for the Normans to confront the Swabians.

First they launched their spears.

Then, Robert Guiscard led another cavalry charge.

Robert was unhorsed three times,

but three times he climbed back up again

and returned more fiercely to the fray.

William of Apulia writes that, "he cut off the feet and hands of some,

"decapitated others, pierced belly and chest."

The Swabian troops were wiped out.

And Pope Leo fled back to Civitate, pursued by the Normans.

But they weren't after the Pope's head. They wanted his forgiveness.

It's said that the Normans prostrated themselves before him, kissing his feet and begging pardon.

The Pope reprimanded them but blessed them.

But once they'd been pardoned, the Normans held Pope Leo hostage

for nine months, until he acknowledged their conquests in Calabria and Apulia.

The Normans' Christianity rarely got in the way of their driving ambition.

Robert Guiscard's enemies in Calabria and Apulia had been defeated,

and Pope Leo died soon after the Normans released him from captivity.

Robert now went on to conquer town after town.

In 1071, he finally captured the last Byzantine stronghold, the city of Bari.

Southern Italy belonged to the Normans.

Robert Guiscard was quickly becoming one of the richest and most powerful Normans leaders in Europe,

and he was already looking beyond the shores of Italy to Sicily,

the wealthy island just three kilometres away across the Straits of Messina.

Robert's territorial ambitions would bring a new type of conflict to southern Italy -

Holy War.

This narrow strait was the frontier of Christian civilisation.

Sicily was a Muslim stronghold, conquered by Islamic armies 250 years earlier.

Pope Nicholas II wanted to reclaim Sicily for Christianity

and he saw the Normans as the perfect force to crush the Muslims.

In 1059, Robert Guiscard agreed to swear an oath of allegiance to the Pope.

If successful in battle, power over Sicily would be his reward.

The papal oath launched Robert into a Holy War against the Muslims of Sicily.

The Normans would receive a Papal banner in recognition of the special

religious nature of this war and it's said that in one battle,

St George himself appeared on the Norman's side,

mounted on a white horse and carrying a flag and the cross.

For three years, the Normans fought and plundered their way across the island in the name of Christ.

But even with St George on their side, Muslim Sicily was a difficult island to conquer.

'Finally in 1064, they reached the outskirts of the Sicilian capital,

'the great Muslim city of Palermo.'

The army made camp on a rock outside the city.

This turned out to be a terrible mistake.

The hill would later be called Monte Tarantino because it was crawling with tarantulas.

The chronicler Geoffrey of Malaterra describes them,

"the tarantula is a spider-like creature with a poisonous sting.

"Those who are stung swell with poisonous wind

"and they are in such an agony that they cannot prevent themselves

"expelling the wind from their anus with a disgusting sound."

It's said that unless a hot pan or some object is applied immediately,

they are in danger of their life.

Faced with these ferocious insects and with fierce resistance

from the Islamic garrison, the Normans were forced to retreat.

The Normans were more successful in 1068, when they met the Muslim

forces at Misilmeri, just 12 kilometres outside Palermo.

They were lead by Roger, a younger brother of Robert Guiscard,

yet another of the successful de Hauteville brothers

who came south from Normandy.

He was described as a powerful man and a fierce soldier.

'In the terrible battle that followed,

'the Muslims were defeated.'

The Muslim army used homing pigeons

to send messages back from the front.

As the people of Palermo waited anxiously,

the Normans used the old tactic of spreading terror to demoralise them.

Roger came up with a dark plan.

He knew the women and children were waiting for news in Palermo.

He had accounts of the Norman victory attached to the pigeons.

Accounts that were written in the blood of the dead Muslims.

The birds were then released

to fly back to the city.

The chronicler Geoffrey of Malaterra

describes how the whole city was shaken.

The sorrowful voices of the women and children

were raised up to heaven.

Roger was a merciless warrior

and Palermo finally fell to the Normans in 1072.

Six years after William the Conqueror had taken England,

the Normans ruled over another new realm.

Sicily was a wealthy and powerful state, right at the heart of Mediterranean trade routes.

Greeks, Italians and Muslims had all settled here.

Under the Muslim rulers, different cultures and religions lived side by side,

but Sicily was now under the Christian rule of the Normans.

Would Roger enforce his religion and banish the non-Christians?

Quite the contrary. He was magnanimous in victory.

All the peoples of Sicily were treated with tolerance.

The Muslims were allowed to continue to practise their religion and some even joined Roger's army.

Geoffrey of Malaterra describes him as "prudent in organising the things that needed to be done,

"cheerful and friendly to everyone,"

because of these qualities, in a short time

he won the favour of all.

Under Roger's rule, the Normans in Sicily adapted and assimilated

into the local population, just as they had done with great success in France and England.

In 1130, 100 years after they first arrived,

the Normans united southern Italy and Sicily

into a single powerful state.

It would last over 700 years.

The Pope decreed that Roger's son

should be rewarded in return for his loyalty.

He was crowned Roger II, King of Sicily.

This was a remarkable achievement for a man whose grandfather had been

a poor Norman knight, worried about how to provide for his many sons.

Here in the church of La Martorana, in Palermo, is a spectacular mosaic

of Roger's coronation on Christmas Day 1130.

Above him is the inscription in Greek letters,

"Rogerios Rex," King Roger.

And one of the most striking things about this mosaic is that Roger is being crowned, not by the Pope,

but by Christ himself.

64 years after the Battle of Hastings,

God had given this warrior race yet another new kingdom to rule.

And this was no ordinary kingdom.

It was ruled by a Norman, but its inhabitants spoke three different languages

and came from three different religious traditions.

This illustration by a contemporary poet, Peter of Eboli,

shows the variety of peoples in Sicily.

The Greeks, who made up the majority of the population

in the east of the island, can be recognised by their dark beards.

In the centre, are the Saracens, as the medieval Christians called Muslims,

with neat beards and turbans.

And, on the right, are the western Christians, clean-shaven and with uncovered heads.

All the faiths lived in relative harmony.

Like the Normans in northern France and England, Roger built spectacular monuments to display his power.

He commissioned his palace chapel, the Cappella Palatina in Palermo, to celebrate his monarchy.

But it's also a great symbol of multi-cultural co-operation.

Craftsmen of three different religious traditions worked alongside each other here.

These marble pavements were created by western Christian craftsmen from across Italy.

Up in the dome, there is a mosaic of Christ Pantocrator,

Christ ruler of the universe, surrounded by a garland of winged angels.

That was produced by the finest Greek craftsmen.

And there is a wonderful wooden stalactite ceiling produced by Muslim craftsmen.

It shows scenes from paradise, with people riding camels,

ladies in carriages...

..and mythological beasts.

'Sicily became a great centre of culture and learning.'

Western, Greek and Muslim intellectuals flocked to the court of King Roger.

In 1139, a Muslim scholar arrived from north Africa.

His name was Abdullah Mohammed al Idrisi.

Roger commissioned him to create one of the most remarkable works of medieval geography.

For 15 years, al Idrisi questioned sailors and travellers in Sicily's

many ports about their knowledge of other parts of the world.

The results of his researches are in this book.

It's known as The Book of Roger

and it's a combination of 70 maps of the regions of the world

combined with a description of the whole known world.

The Book of Roger is a powerful testament

to the Normans' curiosity and vision.

When put together, the 70 maps show their huge geographical knowledge.

From the Canary Islands and Spain in the west,

to India and China in the east.

From Britain and Scandinavia in the north, to Africa in the south.

This was the most accurate map of the medieval world

and it would remain so for the next three centuries.

The Book of Roger also collects together everything that was known

about the world's geography and culture.

And it's truly global in its scope, containing accounts

of the caste system of India, rice cultivation in China

and even a not unrecognisable account of England.

"England is the shape of the head of an ostrich.

"It is very fertile. Its inhabitants are brave, active and enterprising,

"but all is in the grip of perpetual winter."

The book is a symbol of the intense cultural ambition of Roger's Sicily.

The King himself had copies of these maps engraved on a silver disc

weighing 400 kilos.

King Roger was establishing himself as one of the great medieval patrons of art, architecture and learning.

Collaboration and assimilation had allowed the descendents

of Tancred de Hauteville to build one of the most powerful kingdoms in Europe.

But events in the Middle East provoked the more aggressive side of the Norman character.

The flame of Holy War was about to ignite beyond Europe,

and the Normans would be at the heart of it.

Christendom was under attack.

In the 1060s, the Seljuk Turks burst into the Middle East, defeating the Byzantines in their eastern empire.

In 1071, they captured Jerusalem and its Christian holy places.

Atrocity stories spread about the fate of Christian pilgrims.

Robert the Monk, the chronicler, says, "the Seljuks Turks pierced

"their navels, pulled out their entrails and nailed them to a tree,

"then whipped the pilgrims round the tree until their intestines came out and they collapsed."

Christendom felt under siege.

In 1095, Pope Urban II confronted the crisis

at a council at Clermont in France.

Before a huge crowd, the Pope announced the launch of a holy war between Christendom and Islam.

In an impassioned speech, he urged all good Christians, rich and poor,

"Take the road to the Holy Sepulchre,

"wrest that land from the wicked race and subject it to yourselves."

And for those died on the expedition,

the Pope held out a special promise,

"All who die, on land or sea, or in battle with the pagans,

"will earn immediate remission of sins."

The crowd responded ecstatically, "God wills it! God wills it!"

The First Crusade had begun.

The Christians would present the First Crusade

as a tournament between heaven and hell.

Here was the perfect opportunity

for the Normans to combine piety and conquest.

Robert, Duke of Normandy, eldest son of William the Conqueror,

marched his men to war from northern France.

Robert would prove a true son of his father.

During one fierce battle, the Normans were on the point of retreating

when Duke Robert rallied them shouting out the war cry,

"Normandy!" and pushing back his helmet to reveal his face, just as

his father, William the Conqueror, had done at the Battle of Hastings.

The Pope's message also stirred up the Normans in southern Italy.

One of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Crusade was the eldest son of Robert Guiscard.

His name was Bohemond.

Like most Normans, Bohemond wasn't inspired by religion alone.

Despite being the eldest son, he had not inherited his father's lands.

He was eager to take new territory in the east and set off on the long march to Jerusalem.

Bohemond was joined by another fierce warrior.

His nephew, Tancred, also left south Italy to go on the First Crusade.

But Tancred had more religious qualms than his uncle.

He was deeply worried that warfare might be in conflict with Jesus' command to turn the other cheek,

but the Pope's message from Clermont reassured him.

On their way to Jerusalem, the Crusaders arrived in the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

Constantinople was one of the greatest cities of the medieval world.

Strategically situated on the borders of Europe and Asia,

successive emperors had strengthened its defences...

..and the Normans weren't welcome here.

Constantinople was a Christian city.

At its heart was the magnificent church of Aya Sophia, the holy wisdom.

So why didn't the Byzantines welcome the Christian Normans fresh from their conquest of Muslim Sicily?

The problem was the Normans had been enemies of the Byzantines

ever since their first arrival in southern Italy.

And Bohemond himself was particularly unwelcome.

A decade before the Crusade, he'd inflicted a humiliating defeat

on the elite troops of the Byzantine Empire, the Varangian guard.

This had been a bitter confrontation between old enemies.

Many of the Varangian guard were Anglo-Saxons who'd fled England after the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Since Bohemond's assault on Byzantine Empire took place

only 15 years later, it's likely that amongst the guard

were warriors who had fought at the Battle of Hastings.

It must have been a curious replay of that earlier battle against

the Normans and with the same outcome -

the Normans were triumphant.

Now the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius,

found tens of thousands of westerners

pouring into his capital, among them many Normans.

He needed their help in the battle against the Seljuk Turks,

but he was determined to keep them under control.

Alexius made the Crusade leaders, including Bohemond, swear an oath of allegiance to him.

They all had to promise to return to his empire

any former Byzantine towns they managed to liberate from the Muslims.

This was a condition for his support of the Crusade.

The whole episode was recorded by the Emperor's teenage daughter

Anna Comnena, the first female historian

whose work has come down to us.

She seems to have been fascinated by this strange warrior from the North.

Anna notes how Bohemond, "wore his hair in the Norman fashion -

"no beard and hair razor-cut to the ear."

She also describes his "broad shoulders, deep chest and powerful arms."

This teenage girl had mixed feelings about the Norman warrior.

"It's true", she wrote, "that there was something appealing about the man,"

but this was outweighed by his terrifying qualities.

"His whole being was harsh and brutal. Even his laugh sounded like a snort of rage."

Anna was well aware that the Normans were not to be trusted.

She records Bohemond's reputation for treachery.

It was said that he had perjury in his blood,

and it would be a miracle if he kept his oath.

The Crusaders fought their way south across Anatolia, modern Turkey.

In October 1097, they reached Antioch,

one of the great Holy cities of the Christian world.

St Peter himself was said to have become the first ever bishop here.

Antioch had been a major prize in warfare between Christians and Muslims since the 7th Century.

Just ten years before the Crusade, the city had been captured by the Seljuk Turks.

It must have been a spectacular sight.

The huge walls carried 400 towers.

They climbed up the steep slopes of a mountain to a citadel 1,000 feet above the town.

The Crusaders now had to capture this great fortress.

Thousands of knights laid siege to the city walls,

but they faced a formidable Muslim defence.

After a few months, the Crusaders had eaten all their supplies of food.

Horses died by the thousand and the Christian army was riddled with disease.

Earthquakes and strange lights in the sky were interpreted as signs of coming doom.

Some of the Crusaders, including several of the leaders, simply crept away.

The first Crusade was close to collapse.

Bohemond saw his chance to win valuable territory and decided it was time to act.

He summoned a council of the Crusade leaders and proposed a plan of action.

If any one of us can gain possession of the city by any stratagem,

let us unanimously grant him the city.

The council rejected Bohemond's offer of leadership,

but when news arrived that a huge Muslim army was on its way

to relieve Antioch, they changed their tune.

If Bohemond can gain possession of the city,

by himself or with others, we grant it to him freely and unanimously.

The council didn't know that Bohemond had a secret agent inside the city,

Firouz, one of the commanders of the city's defences.

He was willing to betray the Muslim garrison by leaving a tower undefended.

Bohemond's troops prepared to attack.

Bohemond told them, "Go with confidence

"and climb the ladder into Antioch,

"which we will quickly have in our possession, if it pleases God."

Just before dawn on June 3rd 1098,

they arrived at the Tower of the Two Sisters.

One of Bohemond's knights reports, "They came to a ladder which was

"securely fastened to the city walls and about 60 of our men went up it."

They quickly seized the tower and then opened the great gates of the city to the Crusader army.

After a siege lasting seven months, the Crusaders had finally taken Antioch

and the Normans were triumphant.

Bohemond had outwitted the other Crusaders.

He raised his standard alongside the citadel

and took control of the city.

Ignoring his oath of allegiance to the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius,

he set himself up as an independent Christian prince.

Bohemond established a new Norman state, the principality of Antioch.

Having conquered with terror, Bohemond followed the well established Norman strategy.

Assimilation and adaptation.

Like Sicily, this was an ethnically mixed state

and it would flourish under Norman rule for the next 200 years.

As Bohemond began to consolidate power in Antioch,

his nephew Tancred marched on with the army of Crusaders...

to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is one of the most holy cities in the world, the meeting place of three great religions.

For Christians, it's the site of Christ's resurrection,

the Holy Sepulchre, the most sacred place in Christendom.

The Crusaders had come to take it back from the Muslims.

But Jerusalem was strongly fortified.

To the east, the city was protected by ravines.

To the west, by a great fortress, the Tower of David.

The Muslims were prepared for the coming of the Crusaders.

They had driven off all flocks of sheep,

which could have been slaughtered for food

and poisoned the wells near the city.

Thirst was the great menace.

One Norman knight records how the Crusaders had to

"sew up the skins of oxen and buffalo and carry water six miles.

"We drank the stinking water from these containers.

"We suffered great affliction every day."

On June 13th 1099, Tancred led the first assault on the city walls.

But the Crusaders were easily driven back.

The Crusade was saved by the arrival of six Genoese ships in the port of Jaffa.

They provided timbers to construct siege towers and ladders to scale the walls of Jerusalem.

A month after the siege had begun, the Crusaders made plans for a final assault.

In preparation, they fasted and went in barefoot procession around the city.

As they did so, the Muslim defenders mocked and jeered at them from the walls.

On the night of July 13th 1099, the Crusaders attacked in force

from both north and south, using battering rams and siege towers.

For two days the conflict hung in the balance.

Then the Crusaders broke into the city.

Tancred was amongst the leaders.

Pillage and massacre followed.

The Crusaders rampaged through the city, seizing gold and silver as they went.

The slaughter of the Muslims was savage.

Chroniclers record that thousands were killed,

piles of hands, feet and heads could be seen in the streets.

The Normans rushed to take possession of the sacred site

of Christ's burial and resurrection, the Holy Sepulchre.

One observer recorded that "they rejoiced and cried for joy

"to worship at the sepulchre of our Saviour Jesus."

After the slaughter, the Crusaders established a Christian kingdom here

and divided up the land they had conquered.

Tancred, the grandson of Robert Guiscard, became Prince of Galilee.

Norman power was now firmly established far beyond the borders of Europe,

but this military triumph in the east would deepen

one of the world's greatest political and cultural divides

and its impact is still being felt to this day.

The bloody conquest of Jerusalem left a deep rift between Christians and Muslims.

The Normans had taken part in a slaughter that would never be forgiven.

Even today, Islamic fundamentalists refer to their enemies in the West

as "the Crusaders."

2,000 kilometres away across the Mediterranean, in Sicily,

the Normans were still bringing Muslims and Christians together.

This encouraged an astonishing exchange of ideas and learning.

In the court of King Roger II, multi-lingual scholars shared and translated ancient works,

which had been lost to western Europe for centuries in the chaos

that followed the fall of the Roman Empire.

Among them was one of the most influential scientific works in history,

Ptolemy's Almagest.

Written in Greek in the 2nd Century, the Almagest was made up of 13 books

containing the most advanced mathematical and astronomical discoveries of the Classical world.

It had been preserved in the libraries of Constantinople.

In the 12th Century, an anonymous author in Norman Sicily,

translated a copy of the Greek text into Latin.

The Almagest is the most important work of ancient Greek astronomy,

allowing scientists to predict

the patterns of the planets and to chart the night skies.

In books six and seven, there are charts of the fixed stars,

explaining their different patterns over the course of the year.

The arrival of this knowledge into western Europe

transformed the study of mathematics, astronomy and navigation.

It remained a huge influence on European thought throughout the Middle Ages and beyond.

Under Roger, Sicily grew into a kingdom more prosperous than Norman England.

He conquered Malta, moved into northern Africa and invaded Greece

and the Norman dynasty continued for many generations.

This great cathedral at Monreale outside Palermo was built by Roger's grandson in the late 12th Century.

Like the Norman cathedrals of northern Europe, Monreale is spectacular in scale.

It marks the high point of the marriage between

Norman Romanesque architecture and Byzantine craftsmanship.

The Byzantine mosaics are among the most magnificent in the world.

The inside of the cathedral is overwhelming.

There are two acres of mosaic decoration and it's been calculated

that something like 2,200 kilograms of gold were used here.

One of the jewels of the island is this huge image of Christ Pantocrator.

This striking image celebrating Christ's omnipotence

is a powerful assertion of the Normans' Christian faith.

But the cathedral at Monreale is also a magnificent symbol of this

multi-cultural society that would become a legend in Italian history.

When Italian historians talk about Il Regno, The Kingdom, it is always clear what is meant.

Sicily, one of the most powerful kingdoms of the medieval world.

For 300 years, the Normans

were among the most dynamic forces in Europe.

They colonised countries,

and created new states and kingdoms.

They became patrons of art and learning.

And they transformed the landscape with magnificent cathedrals and castles.

But the age of the Normans wouldn't last forever.

In England, the Norman dynasty founded by William the Conqueror

gave way to the Plantagenets in 1154.

40 years later, the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI,

conquered the Kingdom of Sicily.

After 300 years of Norman rule, Normandy itself was lost to the French King.

And finally, in 1268, Antioch, Bohemond's great eastern prize...

..was recaptured by the Muslims.

The Normans simply disappeared. This might sound like failure,

but in fact it was the key to their success.

They weren't interested in the purity of their blood.

They came, they saw, they conquered.

Then they married the locals, learnt the language and assimilated themselves out of existence.

But their legacy lived on.

The Normans created a medieval blueprint

for aggressive colonialism, but they also showed that sometimes

people of different languages and different religions can live side by side.

If you'd like to walk in the steps of the Normans,

you can download maps of Norman walks all over the UK at -

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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