ROGER II, King of Sicily. - Son of Roger I and Adelaide of Montferrat, born in 1095; having lost his father in 1101, he remained under the guardianship of his mother. A vigorous statesman of strong temper, as soon as he came of age R. II began a policy of Mediterranean expansion, which he suspended when the death without heirs of the last duke of Apulia, William, offered him the possibility of taking up his succession, not without conflicts.

Honorius II attempted to oppose the breaking of the balance among the three Norman states of Sicily, Apulia, and Capua, and placed himself at the head of a coalition that united the Normans of Capua and the Apulian lords, hostile to R.: but, defeated in battle, he had to grant him the investiture of the Duchy of Apulia. Having also defeated the recalcitrant Apulians, R. convened a diet at Melfi and issued a series of measures aimed at ensuring peace in his new domains. To prepare his own promotion to royal dignity with the approval of his most faithful followers, he adhered to the antipope Anacletus II and had himself solemnly crowned in Palermo on 25 Dec. 1130. But the bull, which extended his royal authority from Sicily and Apulia to the Principality of Capua and its dependencies, stirred up against him a coalition promoted by Pope Innocent II, in which, alongside the princes of Capua, entered the Emperor of the East and the Emperor of the West, in the name of their respective rights or claims, and the maritime Republics of Pisa and Venice, concerned about Norman Mediterranean expansion. After nine years of war and anarchy, R. succeeded in isolating and defeating Innocent II, who recognized and confirmed his royal title (22 July 1139), while Robert of Capua abandoned the principality. Having thus unified southern Italy, R. resumed the program of Mediterranean expansion with a series of successful expeditions against North Africa, which he succeeded in occupying from Tripoli to Cape Bon, and with actions against the Byzantine Empire. He died in Palermo on 26 Feb. 1145.

R. presented himself as the successor of the Basileus and continued the tradition, styling himself as crowned by God, and even having himself depicted in a mosaic in the act of receiving the crown directly from Christ Pantocrator. In the Diet of Ariano he clearly expressed the concept he had of his sovereignty by presenting to his great men a series of laws that are indicated as the Assizes of Ariano and that provided for the reorganization of public law and criminal law throughout the Kingdom.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: sources: Alessandro di Telese, De rebus gestis Rogerii Siciliae regis, and Falcone Beneventano, Chronicon, in G. Del Re, Cronisti e scrittori sinceri napolet., I, Naples 1845; Romualdo Salernitano, Chronicon, RIS, VII, edited by C. A. Garufi. For the diplomas, the indications already given for Roger I (v.) hold, but cf. the regestum of R. II in E. Caspar, Roger II., Innsbruck 1904. Studies: to the indications given for Roger I (v.), add G. M. Monti, Il testo e la stor. esterna delle Assise normanne, in Studi in onore di C. Calisse, Milan 1939; A. Marongiu, Lo spirito della monarchia normanna nell'allocus, di R. II ai suoi grandi, in Atti Congress. intern. di dir. rom. e st. del dir. di Verona 1948, IV, Milan 1951.

Gina Fasoli

@incollection{ec10_ruggero_ii_re_di_sicilia, author = {Fasoli, Gina}, title = {Ruggero II, re di sicilia}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {X}, pages = {1440--1441}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/ruggero-ii-re-di-sicilia} }

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Roger II, King of Sicily

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