Roger Borsa

Encyclopedia : R : RO : ROG : Roger Borsa

Roger Borsa (1060/1061 – February 22,1111) was the son and successor of Robert Guiscard, the Norman conqueror of Southern Italy and Sicily. His mother was Sikelgaita, an imposing warrior Lombard noblewoman. His ambitious mother arranged for Roger to succeed his father in place of Robert Guiscard's eldest son by another wife, Bohemund of Taranto. According to John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich:

. . . Roger—nicknamed Borsa, the purse, from his early-ingrained habit of counting and recounting his money. He was a weak and hesitant thirteen-year-old who gave the impression that a childhood spent with Robert and Sichelgaita had been too much for him.

In 1073, Sichelgaita had Roger proclaimed heir after Guiscard fell ill at Trani. Roger's cousin Abelard was the only baron to dissent from the election of Roger, claiming that he was the rightful heir to the duchy. Duke Robert died in 1085 at Corfu. It happened that when he died, Bohemund was elsewhere in Italy, so Roger Borsa and his mother were able to seize power. His Lombard heritage also made him a more attractive candidate than his Norman half-brother. Roger was not as adept as Robert Guiscard, and most of his reign was spent in feudal anarchy. Bohemund contested lordship of Apulia with him, and actually seized Apulia in 1085. Though described as a powerful warrior (he took the cities of Benevento, Canosa, Capua, and Lucera by siege), Roger Borsa was never able to check Bohemund's power or bring him under his control. In 1088, Bohemund and Roger came to an agreement and Taranto was ceded to the elder son. In 1089 Roger Borsa was officially invested with the duchy of Apulia by Pope Urban II.

Borsa planned to urbanise the Mezzogiorno by granting charters to various towns and encouraging urban planning. In 1090, he and Urban encouraged Bruno of Cologne, founder of the Carthusian Order to accept election to the archbishopric of Reggio.

In May 1098, at the request of his first cousin once removed, Prince Richard II of Capua, Borsa and his uncle Count Roger I of Sicily began the siege of Capua, from which the prince had long ago been exiled as a minor. In exchange for his assistance, the duke received the homage of Richard, though he seems to have made no use of it, for Richard's successors paid no heed to Roger Borsa's. Capua fell after forty days of notable besieging, for Pope Urban II had come to meet Roger of Sicily and Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury had come to meet the pope.

In 1092, Roger Borsa married Adela, the daughter of Robert I, Count of Flanders, and widow of Canute IV of Denmark. He was succeeded by their son William. However William proved to be as weak a ruler as his father, and the domain was ultimately inherited by a cousin, Roger II of Sicily.

One of the prime sources for Roger's reign is the work of William of Apulia, who dedicated his chronicle to Guiscard and his son.

|- style="text-align: center;"

Sources

Norwich, John Julius. The Normans in the South 1016-1130. Longmans: London, 1967.
Norwich, John Julius. The Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194. Longman: London, 1970.
Matthew, Donald. The Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Cambridge University Press: 1992.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.