This volume on Norman Italy (southern Italy and Sicily, c. 1000-1200) honours and reflects the pioneering scholarship of Graham A. Loud. An international group of scholars reassesses and recasts the paradigm by which Norman Italy has been conventionally understood, addressing varied subjects across four key themes: historiographies, identities and communities, religion and Church, and conquest. The chapters revise and refine our understanding of Norman Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, demonstrating that it was not just a parochial Norman or Mediterranean entity but also an integral player in the medieval mainstream.

Reviews

'This collection of essays is an excellent tribute to the work of Graham Loud in that it builds the knowledge of medieval southern Italy through precise histories that utilize close readings of charters and chronicles.'
Rethinking Norman Italy: Studies in Honour of Graham A. Loud, Drell, Joanna H., and Paul Oldfield

1 Introduction: rethinking Norman Italy - Joanna H. Drell
Part I: Historiographies
2 Norman Italy and Sicily through the eyes of British historians, 1912-76 - David Abulafia
3 The Norman Empire between the eleventh and twelfth centuries with special reference to the Normans in southern Italy - Luigi Russo
4 Historiography in the making: a name-list of Sicilian Muslims from the Rollus Rubeus cartulary of Cefalù cathedral - Alex Metcalfe
5 A fiscal provision of Count Roger of Ariano: traces of redactional variants in the Chronicon of Falco of Benevento - Edoardo D'Angelo
Part II: Identities and communities
6 Crucible of faith: fitna in the Travels of Ibn Jubayr - Joshua C. Birk
7 Bellum civile: urban strife and conflict management in early twelfth-century Benevento - Markus Krumm
8 Norman rulers and Greek-speaking subjects: the Vitae of Italo-Greek saints (twelfth and thirteenth centuries) and the negotiation of local identities - Eleni Tounta
9 Griffones and the city of Messina: urban encounters with crusading - Paul Oldfield
Part III: Religion and the Church
10 The foundation of St Euphemia in Calabria: a 'Norman' church in southern Italy? - Benjamin Pohl
11 King Roger II's legislation on the celebration of marriage - Elisabeth van Houts
12 The battle against simony in Norman Italy: perceptions, interpretations, measures and consequences - Lioba Geis
13 Some reflections on the women's monasteries of southern Italy in the eighth to twelfth centuries - Jean-Marie Martin
Part IV: Conquering Norman Italy and beyond
14 The Norman siege of Bari, 1068-71 - Charles D. Stanton
15 The past, present and future of Norman rule in Apulia: Roger II's silver ducalis - Sarah Davis-Secord
16 From Alexandria to Tinnis: the kingdom of Sicily, Egypt and the Holy Land, 1154-87 - Alan V. Murray
Index

Editors

Joanna H. Drell is Professor of History at the University of Richmond

Paul Oldfield is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Manchester