William I (Count of Puglia)

First Steps in Italy

William was the eldest son of the Norman baron Tancred Otville and his first wife, Murriella. Around 1035, Wilhelm, together with his younger brother Drogo , and possibly also another brother Humphrey , arrived in Southern Italy and joined the Norman group led by Raynulf Drengo . Initially, he served the prince of Capuan, Pandulf IV , then he turned over to Gwemar IV of Salerno . In 1038, among the 300 Norman warriors who remained out of work after the expulsion of Pandulf, he joined the Sicilian expedition of the Byzantines under the command of George Maniac . During the military campaign of 1038-1040 , William distinguished himself by many feats, of which the most famous was the murder in a duel of the Syracuse emir Abdullah. For this feat, Wilhelm earned the nickname Iron Hand.

Election of the Count of Puglia

In 1040, the Normans and their Lombard commander Arduin quarreled with George Maniac and returned to the continent, where at that time the uprising of the Apulian Lombards against Byzantium began . Arduin entered into confidence in the Byzantine governor and received command of the mountain fortress Melfi from him. Soon Arduin, surrounded by the Norman garrison, switched to the side of the rebels (March 1041 ).

During the years 1041-1042 , the Normans inflicted three defeats on the Byzantines: at Cannes, Montemaggiore and Montepeloso , and in the last battle a katapan was captured. Thanks to the victories of the Normans, all the cities of Puglia, with the exception of Trani and the “heel” of Puglia, went over to the side of the rebels. Soon, from the Lombards to the Normans, the leading role in the uprising passed. The first rebel leader, Atenulf Beneventsky, was involved in behind-the-scenes deals with the enemy (freed a katapan from captivity and appropriated a ransom), the next - Argir, the son of Melus , switched to Byzantium half a year after his coronation in Bari (February 1042). The offensive of the Byzantines under the command of George Maniac brought confusion among the rebel Lombards, most of the Apulian cities returned to Byzantine rule again. At this moment, in September 1042, the Normans, at a meeting in Melfi, elected William Otville as their leader and assigned him the title of Count of Apulia.

Count of Puglia

So that the spontaneous appropriation of the count’s title did not seem like a usurpation , Wilhelm turned to Prince Salerno Gvemar IV to take supreme power over the areas freed from the Byzantines. At the end of 1042, Guemar IV arrived in Melfi and with the consent of the Normans accepted the title of Duke of Puglia and Calabria . The newly made duke of Apulia granted William the Otwil the title of count with the right to establish baronies on lands that would later be recaptured from Byzantium . Already liberated and held by the Normans, the lands were divided into twelve baronies, Wilhelm himself kept Ascoli , and his brother Drogo - Venozu . Wilhelm married Guid of Sorrent, the niece of Guemard IV, having become related, thus, with the Lombard nobility.

In the subsequent 1044 - 1045 years, the war of William of Apulia with Byzantium proceeded with alternating success. In 1044, William and Guemar IV founded the castle of Stridula in Calabria, which later became a stronghold during the Norman conquest of Calabria. In 1045, William was defeated by the Byzantine catapan Argir. At the beginning of 1046, William died, and his brother Drogo was recognized as heir by both the Norman barons and Gwémar IV. William was buried in the church of the Holy Trinity in Venos .

The following year 1047, Drogo took a vassal oath to Emperor Henry III as "Count of the Normans of Puglia and Calabria." Thus, Drogo became a direct vassal of the empire , legitimizing in hindsight the acceptance of the title of count by William.

• Ghisalberti, Albert (ed). Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani: II Albicante - Ammannati . Rome , 1960.
• Gwatkin, HM , Whitney, JP (ed) et al. The Cambridge Medieval History: Volume III . Cambridge University Press , 1926.
• Chalandon, Ferdinand . Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicilie . Paris , 1907.
• Gravett, Christopher, and Nicolle, David. The Normans: Warrior Knights and their Castles . Osprey Publishing : Oxford , 2006.
• Beech, George. A Norman-Italian Adventurer in the East: Richard of Salerno . 1993.
• Norwich J. Normans in Sicily. Second Norman Conquest. 1016-1130 / Transl. from English L. A. Igorevsky. - M .: Centerpolygraph , 2005 .-- 367 p. - 5,000 copies. - ISBN 5-9524-1751-5 .

• Wilhelm Iron Hand // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.