Richard and Charlotte Allen Cosby Ancestry » Robert Guiscard d'Hauteville, Duke of Apulia I (± 1015-1085)

Personal data Robert Guiscard d'Hauteville, Duke of Apulia I 

• He was born about 1015 in Hauteville, Manche, Normandy, France.
• He died on July 17, 1085 in Cephalonia, Greece (During a seige).
• A child of Sir Tancred 'Guiscard', and Fredesende d'Normandy

Household of Robert Guiscard d'Hauteville, Duke of Apulia I

(1) He has/had a relationship with Segelgaita di Salerno.

Child(ren):

1. Matilda Regina de Pouille  ± 1077-> 1130 
2. Sybille d'Hauteville   

(2) He has/had a relationship with Albreda d'Burgundy.

Child(ren):

1. Prince d'Antioch Bohemond d'Hauteville  1057-1111 

Notes about Robert Guiscard d'Hauteville, Duke of Apulia I

-1- All of the following information was copied from J.K. Loren, World Connect db=lorenfamily:y villainous mind; he was a brave fighter, very cunning in his assaults on the wealth and power of great men; in achieving his aims absolutely inexorable, diverting criticism by incontrovertible argument. He was a man of immense stature, surpassing even the biggest men; he had a ruddy complexion, fair hair, broad shoulders, eyes that all but shot out sparks of fire. . . Homer remarked of Achilles that when he shouted his hearers had the impression of a multitude in uproar, but Robert's bellow, so they say, put tens of thousands to flight." The Alexiad, I, ii------e Empire), Norman adventurer who settled in Apulia, in southern Italy, about 1047 and became duke of Apulia (1059). He eventually extended Norman rule over Naples, Calabria, and Sicily and laid the foundations of the Kingdom of Sicily.h they were southern Italy's most flourishing regions, were plagued by political disturbances. These regions attracted hordes of fortune-seeking Norman immigrants, who were to transform the political role of both regions in the following decades.n Apulia, William ("Iron Arm") de Hauteville, Robert's eldest half brother, having successfully defeated the Byzantine Greeks who controlled that region, had been elected count of Apulia in 1042. In 1046 he had been succeeded by his brother Drogo.ing its people. In 1053, at the head of the combined forces of Normans from Apulia and Campania, he defeated the haphazardly led forces of the Byzantines, the Lombards, and the papacy at Civitate. Because of the deaths of William and Drogo and of his third half brother, Count Humphrey, in 1057, Robert returned to Apulia to seize control from Humphrey's sons and save the region from disgregating internal conflicts. After becoming the recognized leader of the Apulian Normans, Robert resumed his campaign in Calabria. His brother Roger's arrival from Normandy enabled him to extend and solidify his conquests in Apulia.ordat at Melfi with Pope Nicholas II. Until that time the papacy had been hostile toward the Normans, considering them to be an anarchist force that upset the political structure in southern Italy--a structure based on a balance of power between the Byzantines and the Lombards of northern Italy. The schism that took place between the Greek and Latin churches in 1054 worsened the relations between the Byzantine emperors and the papacy, and eventually the papacy realized that Norman conquests over the Byzantines could work to its advantage. Robert's plan to expel the Arabs from Sicily and restore Christianity to the island also found favour in Nicholas' eyes. This expedition into Sicily got under way in 1060, as soon as the conquest of Calabria was completed. Robert entrusted the command of the expedition to his brother Roger, but on particularly difficult occasions--e.g., the siege of Palermo in 1071--he came to his brother's aid.t always been amicable, since Roger, aware of both his own talent and Robert's dependency on him, would not settle for the subordinate role allotted him. Their differences were resolved when Robert invested Roger, after he had recognized Robert's supreme authority, with "the County of Sicily and Calabria" along with the right to govern and tax both counties.ounty left by Humphrey into a duchy, extending from the Adriatic to the Tyrrhenian sea. The capture of Bari in April 1071 resulted in the end of Byzantine rule in southern Italy. Robert turned next to the neighbouring territories of Salerno, controlled by the Lombards. Instead of fighting them, he dissolved his first marriage and in 1058 married the sister of Salerno's last Lombard prince, Gisulf II. Hostilities broke out between the two rulers, however, and Gisulf naively tried to bring about a Byzantine counteroffensive against Robert. Fearing that the Norman advances into Campania, Molise, and Abruzzi would threaten the papal dominions, Pope Gregory VII excommunicated Robert and gave Gisulf considerable military aid. The struggle came to a head when Gisulf, determined to display his power, advanced toward the prosperous city of Amalfi. Robert responded to the city's plea for help in 1073 and successfully defended it; in December 1076 he took Salerno from Gisulf and made it the capital of his duchy.e fretting under the restraints imposed upon them. The harshness with which Robert chose to deal with these rebels was intended to transform a heterogeneous population into a strong, sovereign state.e Concordat of Ceprano, which confirmed the commitments of the earlier Council of Melfi. Even the Byzantine court drew closer to him and went as far as trying to establish a familial relationship with Robert. The Byzantine emperor Michael VII, in need of Robert's help to uphold his unstable throne, married his son, Constantine, to one of Robert's daughters, Helen. The opposition party, however, deposed Michael and confined Helen in a monastery. To guarantee Apulia against attack from the new rulers of Byzantium, Robert wanted the territories on the Adriatic coast of the Balkan Peninsula, and he began to build a large navy. Michael's expulsion and Helen's confinement reawakened his unappeased spirit of adventure and hastened his long-considered expedition. Now his goal was even more ambitious: to march to Byzantium and crown himself emperor in place of the deposed Michael.s and their Venetian allies. The pope, however, suddenly recalled him to Italy to help him expel the German king Henry IV, who was marching on Rome en route to claiming southern Italy for the Holy Roman Empire. Having returned home and suppressed the revolts of the lords hostile to himself and to Pope Gregory VII, Robert moved toward Rome, defeated the pope's enemies, and escorted him to Salerno in the summer of 1084. Following this success, he returned to his campaign on the Adriatic coast. He died during the siege of Cephalonia on July 17, 1085.e and unscrupulous intelligence, a brilliant strategist and competent statesman, Robert had begun to organize a state composed of diverse ethnic and civil groups: Latin and Germanic in Lombard territories and Greek in Byzantine domains. The new political structure was built on a monarchial-feudal framework characteristic of the time, but it was controlled by the energetic and uncompromising Robert, who tried to use his ducal power to create a powerful and prosperous state. The other base on which he built was Roman Catholicism, the religion of the conquerors and most of the conquered, which he used to reconcile the subjected peoples. An extremely religious man, Robert was distrustful of the Greek clergy because of their ties with Byzantium. On the other hand, his generosity toward the Latin church was bountiful. He endowed it with territories and clerical immunities in order to tie it firmly to the feudal system. Splendid cathedrals and Benedictine abbeys were built in the hope that they would consolidate and diffuse Latin language and culture among the heterogeneous people and tie them into a new, unified state. Robert was kept from realizing this political vision only by his death. [Encyclopaedia Britannica CD, 1996, ROBERT GUISCARD]th Edition, by Frederick Lewis Weis, additions by Walter Lee Shippard Jr., 1999oup: soc.genealogy.medieval, at groups - google.com

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Timeline Robert Guiscard d'Hauteville, Duke of Apulia I

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