Roger II – multicultural crusader warrior!

Roger II was a crusader-era king who fought for the Catholic faith but created a kingdom that fused western, Byzantine, and Islamic culture in a fascinating multicultural mix that aroused suspicion and led to his excommunication by the pope. He’s a compelling character who deserves some scrutiny.

Take a look at this tombstone, below, from Sicily during the reign of Roger II (1095-1154). It dates to 1149 and was erected by a priest called Grisandus for his mother, Anna. The top inscription is Hebrew. On the left and right, you have Latin and Greek. Then below, the same oration is written in Arabic. Why have a multi-lingual tombstone?

The reason is that Sicily – that large island at the tip of Italy’s boot-shaped peninsula – had been ruled by the Greek-speaking Byzantine empire, then was invaded by the Islamic caliphate, before being taken by Normans who had migrated down from northern France. It was a place of many languages and cultures. I spent some time traveling around Sicily and there’s plenty of evidence of the different civilisations that governed the island.

We start with the ancient Greeks who ruled southern Italy and Sicily. They were succeeded by the Romans who then lost Sicily to the Vandals, followed by the Ostrogoths, and then the eastern Roman, or Byzantine empire took control for three centuries until the Muslim Aghlabid kingdom, based in modern Tunisia, invaded. By 965CE, all of Sicily was under Islamic rule.

The Normans were descendants of Vikings who had settled in northern France. They inserted themselves into the wars between Lombard Italians, Byzantines, and Muslims as mercenaries but then took the lead in conquering Sicily, creating a new Christian kingdom. The Islamic emirate was brought to a decisive end in 1071 when the Normans marched into Palermo, which is still the main city. But to govern Sicily effectively, the Norman kings had to integrate the different communities: Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic speaking.

Roger II crowned king of Sicily

Roger II was initially “count” of Sicily before becoming a full-blown king. He established a strong, centralised administration, implementing laws and administrative reforms that were seen as a model for other European kingdoms. And he continued the military conquests of his father, even establishing his own Kingdom of Africa – by conquering Tunisia.

Key north African cities like Tripoli, Cape Bona, Gabes, Sfax, and even the Zirid capital of Mahdiyya were taken under Norman rule. This African realm was short lived but shook the Muslim world for the sheer audacity. The territory was retrieved by the Almohads, a revivalist Muslim movement that sought to stiffen the resolve of the Islamic caliphate in the face of Christian advances.

Roger II and the “Jewish” pope

Despite being a combative Catholic monarch, Roger II was excommunicated by Pope Innocent II because of his support for a rival “antipope”, Anacletus II whose Jewish ancestry was well known. His great grandfather, named Baruch, was a moneylender in Rome who extended credit to both the pope and Roman nobles who were in conflict with each other. Baruch became so rich that he converted to Christianity, took the name Benedict, and married into the local aristocracy.

Baruch’s great grandson, Pietro Pierleoni, was pushed into the clergy by his ambitious father, becoming a cardinal and then being elected pope in a divided conclave. An opposing group of cardinals elected Innocent instead. Bernard of Clairvaux, the champion of the Knights Templar within the church, took Innocent’s side. Although he opposed persecuting the Jews, that did not make Bernard sympathetic to them, and he said of Anacletus “to the shame of Christ a man of Jewish origin has come to occupy the chair of St. Peter”.

In contrast, Roger supported Anacletus. He was rewarded by being crowned king in Palermo cathedral in 1130 with the blessing of a man dubbed the “Judæo-pontifex” by his enemies. Unfortunately, eight years later, Anacletus died and Innocent turned up in Rome to take the city without opposition. He immediately convened the Second Lateran Council and punished Roger by excommunicating him.

Roger shrugged his shoulders. This highly cultured monarch, educated by Greek and Muslim tutors, and ruling a very mixed population, was not in awe of the pope. In 1139, a year after his excommunication, he captured Innocent II and forced him to recognise his title as King of Sicily. Then he went back to discussing philosophy and mathematics with his court scholars, wearing Byzantine-style robes with Arabic inscriptions, and building the Palatine chapel in Palermo, which I visited recently and it’s a visually overwhelming spectacle of Byzantine, Norman, and Islamic art.

Here we can see the Byzantine influence very clearly.

Above is a ceiling that is very obviously Islamic influenced.

Byzantine again – below we see an early Christian story about Saints Peter and Paul appearing before the Emperor Nero and debating against the magician, Simon Magus. He flies from a tower to prove himself but Peter and Paul pray to God and cause him to fall to the ground, killed on impact. Rather unpleasant tale but very popular in the Middle Ages. First we see the trio appear before Nero (who looks like a medieval monarch)…

Then Simon Magus is killed through the power of Christian prayer…

This is a church in Sicily, below, that was owned by the military orders but looks more like a mosque.

Here I am on the roof of Palermo cathedral. This went from being a Byzantine basilica to the city’s main mosque, under Islamic rule, and then back to being a Christian place of worship. The piazza below was once an enclosed space within the mosque.

If you would like to know more about the Knights Templar, then get your hands on a copy of my book: The Knights Templar – History & Mystery. Published by Pen & Sword and available on Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, and WHSmith. Don’t miss out on your copy!