Drogo of Hauteville
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Drogo of Hauteville (born c.1010) (called Dreux or Drogon de Hauteville in French and Drogone d'Altavilla in Italian) succeeded his brother, William Iron Arm, with whom he arrived in southern Italy c.1035, as the leader of the Normans of Apulia. He received Venosa in the partition of Melfi of 1042.
With his brother, he took part in the campaign of the Byzantine catepan George Maniaches in Sicily (1038) and then in the campaign against the Greeks of Apulia with the Lombard prince Guaimar IV of Salerno. In 1042, the Nomans elected William as count at Melfi and Drogo received Venosa in a twelve-part division of the conquered territory.
In 1046, William died and Drogo was elected to replace him. In 1047, Drogo captured Benevento. It turned out to be a watershed year. First, he received a daughter of Guaimar III, named either Gaitelgrima or Altrude, as wife and secondly, Emperor Henry III confirmed him in his position and gave him the titular Dux et magister Italiae comesque Normannorum totius Apuliae et Calabriae, translating "Duke and Master of Italy and Count of the Normans of all Apulia and Calabria," the first legitimate comital title for a Hauteville. During his reign, his half-brother Robert Guiscard arrived in the Mezzogiorno (c.1047). He could not control his barons and stem the tide of brigandage and feudal warfare paralysing the Mezzogiorno. In 1051, Pope Leo IX received his promise to stop the Normans pillaging, but he was assassinated later that year (probably by a Byzantine conspiracy) at Montoglio and was succeeded by his younger brother Humphrey after a brief interregnum.
By his marriage, he had a son, Richard, who joined the First Crusade. Richard's son Roger was later regent of the principality of Antioch.
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Source
- Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016-1130. Longmans: London, 1967.
- Beech, George. A Norman-Italian Adventurer in the East: Richard of Salerno. 1993.
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