The formidable force of the Normans at sea has been frequently
overlooked. This volume shows their dominance over the Mediterranean,
and its far-reaching effects.
The rise of Norman naval power in the central Mediterranean in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries prompted a seminal shift in the balance
of power on the sea. Drawing from Latin, Greek, Jewish and Arabic
sources, this book detailshow the House of Hauteville, particularly
under Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger, used sea power to
accomplish what the Papacy, the German Empire and the Eastern Empire
could not: the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily from Islam. The
subsequent establishment of an aggressive naval presence on Sicily,
first by Roger de Hauteville and then by his son Roger II, effectively
wrested control of the central Mediterranean from Byzantine and Muslim
maritime hegemony, opening the sea to east-west shipping. The author
goes on to describe how this development, in turn, emboldened the West
Italian maritime republics, principally Genoa and Pisa, to expand
eastward in conjunction withthe Crusades. It was, quite literally, a sea
change, ushering in a new period of western maritime ascendancy which
has persisted into the modern era.
Dr Charles D. Stanton is a former US naval officer and airline pilotwho,
after retirement, studied medieval Mediterranean history at Cambridge
under David Abulafia. He has written extensively on medieval maritime
history, including, most recently, Medieval Maritime Warfare.
