Page "Roger I of Sicily" Paragraph 1

Roger was the youngest son of Tancred of Hauteville by his second wife Fredisenda, and by tradition the descendant of Norseman ( Viking ) named Hiallt who is said to have settled in Normandy in the 10th century.

Roger arrived in Southern Italy soon after 1055.

Geoffrey Malaterra, who compares Robert Guiscard and his brother to " Joseph and Benjamin of old ," says of Roger: " He was a youth of the greatest beauty, of lofty stature, of graceful shape, most eloquent in speech and cool in counsel.

He was far-seeing in arranging all his actions, pleasant and merry all with men ; strong and brave, and furious in battle.

" For a time Roger lived like a bandit in his castle of Scalea, on the Gulf of Policastro.

He shared the conquest of Calabria with Robert, and in a treaty of 1062 the brothers in dividing the conquest apparently made a kind of " condominium " by which either was to have half of every castle and town in Calabria.