roger I sicily
born:
died: 1101
father: tancred d'hauteville[1]
spouse: [1]
child: [1]
while it is said that roger was a brother of robert, malaterra goes to great length to stress his lowly background as an impoverished petty thief. yet, he also seems to have married directly into the norman aristocracy, which indicates some blue blood. contradiction. i don't see any evidence of it, but i have to wonder if this roger isn't a combination of two people - one who was a norman bandit in the south of italy that resisted guiscard's conquests and one who was actually guiscard's brother. fwiw, there are many rogers spoken of in malaterra's history.
the roger that is important to history is the roger that conquered sicily from the muslims over a period of 30 years in the second half of the eleventh century. when guiscard was made duke of apulia by the pope, it included the island of sicily. guiscard then appointed roger as the count of sicily, possibly to rid himself of a challenger to his own rule. sicily was also undergoing internal turmoil. the conquest was launched in this context.
[1]: the deeds of count roger of calabria & sicily & of duke robert guiscard his brother , books I-II