Book Review - The Normans in the South 1016-1130 by John Julius Norwich

If you ask about the Normans, most people will talk about William the Conqueror's invasion and conquest of England and the Battle of Hastings. A few will have heard of Rollo the Viking who created Normandy, or more likely, will have seen the TV series "Vikings" which presents a largely fictionalised version of the story.

But the Norman story went far beyond that, with conquests in Italy, Sicily, Spain, Outremer, North Africa, Asia Minor, Asia Minor, and the Greek Islands. Some of their conquests were ephemeral, but many weren't, and in those they occupied for any length of time they achieved a surprisingly vigorous and open-minded merging of Norman and local cultures.

Photo by me, of my copy of this book

This book focuses on Norman activities in Southern Italy and Sicily. Much of it preceded the Norman conquest of England and to a great extent created the template which enabled it to be successful. The Normans came to Italy as mercenaries, and by 1163 were effective rulers of the southern half of the country.

At the time, the Normans were the premier warriors of Europe. They were famed for devastating impact of their massed cavalry charges. But the reality of the fighting in Italy was that it was often more of a guerrilla war, where an "army" might consist of no more than half a dozen knights and (if they were lucky) a dozen or two supporting infantry. The martial spirit, confidence and tactical flexibility of the Normans enabled them to excel in this kind of bandit warfare.

It's largely the story of the de Hauteville family, and especially Robert Guiscard. He arrived in Italy as the impoverished sixth son of a middle-ranking noble family. His life was a wild adventure; a crazy mix of intelligence, opportunism, charisma, ruthless drive, force of arms and almost unlimited self-confidence.

By the end of it, he was Duke of Apulia and had started the conquest of Sicily which allowed his brother and nephew (both called Roger) to conquer and rule the island. Robert Guiscard's life would make an incredible adventure film, if Hollywood was brave enough to make it !

The book is actually quite an old one, originally published in 1967, although my copy is from a more recent 2018 print run released by Faber & Faber to commemorate the death of the author. The author's research is meticulous and he tells the story in a thoroughly engaging manner.

The text in this book is dense and goes into a lot of detail. In that respect it's a product of it's time. Modern history books tend to simplify events and focus on interpreting them in light of current thinking, while older ones like this can be strong on detailed events and dates and let the reader think for him or herself about what it all means.

It can be hard to follow the complex threads of all the assorted political machinations that went on. The Norman conquest of Italy was as much about multi-factional politics as it was a force of arms conquest !

Although the author tells the story in a basically chronological order, there were a lot of powerful personalities involved over quite a wide geographical area. It is worth making a few notes as you read the book just to remind yourself of who the key players are, where their power bases were, and how they interact (or are related) with each other.

While this book is by no means a light read, I found the writing style was so good that I really didn't want to put it down !

It's also added rather a lot of interesting places to my "must have a holiday to that area so I can visit them" list....

Published 1967, my edition Faber & Faber 2018, 355 pages including black & white photos, maps and family trees. ISBN 978-0-571-34024-8