Vikings / Famous Vikings / Roger II of Sicily
Roger II of Sicily
First king of Sicily
- Lived
- 1095 – 1154
- Role
- First king of Sicily
Roger II, son of Count Roger I and nephew of Robert Guiscard, united all the Norman lands of southern Italy and Sicily and was crowned king at Palermo on Christmas Day 1130. His kingdom was among the richest and best governed in Europe, administered in Latin, Greek and Arabic. He issued the Assizes of Ariano, built the Cappella Palatina, and commissioned from the geographer al-Idrisi the world map and description known as the Book of Roger. His fleets also seized ports along the North African coast.
Known for
- Founded the Kingdom of Sicily, 1130
- Tolerant, multilingual court at Palermo
- Patron of al-Idrisi's world geography
In the story
On the timeline
Events that name Roger II of Sicily
4 events. Each opens in the timeline.
- 25 December 1130 Roger II Crowned King of Sicily Roger II of Hauteville, count of Sicily and duke of Apulia and Calabria, is crowned king in Palermo cathedral on Christmas Day…
- 1140 Assizes of Ariano With the mainland rebels beaten, Roger II holds an assembly at Ariano, in the hills east of Benevento, and issues a body of laws…
- 22 June 1148 Normans Take Mahdia A Sicilian fleet under the admiral George of Antioch appears before Mahdia, capital of the Zirid emirs on the coast of modern…
- 1154 Al-Idrisi Completes the Tabula Rogeriana After some fifteen years at the court of Palermo, the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi finishes a description of the known…
Sources
Wikipedia — Roger II of Sicily Wikipedia — Tabula Rogeriana Encyclopaedia Britannica topic lookup — Roger IIPicture: Martorana Palermo msu2017-0166, Matthias Süßen · CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.