Roger I

Roger I, byname Roger Guiscard, (born 1031, Normandy, Fr.—died June 22, 1101, Mileto, Calabria [Italy]), count of Sicily from 1072. He was the last son of the second marriage of Tancred of Hauteville.

Roger went to Italy in 1057 to aid his brother Robert Guiscard in his conquest of Calabria from the Byzantines (1060). They began the conquest of Sicily from various Muslim rulers in 1061 with the capture of Messina, and they completed it in 1091. The turning point of the struggle was the capture of Palermo in 1072, when Robert invested Roger as his vassal with the county of Sicily and Calabria with a limited right to govern and to tax. After Robert’s death Roger acquired full right to govern from Robert’s son and in 1098 received the title of apostolic legate from Pope Urban II, which gave him control of the church in Sicily. At his death, Roger had created a centralized, efficient government, where the authority of the count was unchallenged.