High Middle Ages · Europe · War

1091

Normans complete conquest of Sicily

1091

With the surrender of Noto, the last Muslim holdout, Roger de Hauteville completed a thirty-year campaign and became count of all Sicily. His multicultural court mixed Arabic administrators, Greek monks, Latin clergy, and Norman knights under one ruler. Palermo was the richest and most tolerant capital in Latin Europe, a place where Arabic poetry and Norman architecture flourished side by side without contradiction.