The Normans in the Mediterranean

William of Apulia

William of Apulia (11th cent.).

Gesta Roberti Wiscardi.

We know very little about William of Apulia’s life - not even, for instance, whether he was a layman or an ecclesiastic. He wrote the Gesta Roberti Wiscardi, a poem in hexameters, in five books, narrating the story of the arrival of the Normans in southern Italy from their first encounter with Melus of Bari in Apulia, in 1016, to 1085, the year of the death of Robert de Hauteville, called Guiscard.

In contrast to Amatus of Montecassino’s account, William’s poem interprets events in southern Italy from an Apulian point of view, but also manages to present a critical overview of the Normans’ relations with the Church, the Byzantines and the Lombards. Indeed, his own evaluation of Guiscard was to have an important influence on subsequent history-writing. While there is a lack of rational explanations of events and circumstances, William’s account is certainly one of the most useful for understanding the Norman achievement in Italy. It is difficult to identify his sources: certainly he drew on oral tradition in a number of cases, but he also used written sources that may have since been lost.

 

MODERN EDITION

- Guillaume de Pouille, La geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. M. Mathieu, Palermo, 1961.

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