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Geoffrey Of Taranto
Geoffrey, Godfrey, or Goffredo (died 1068x1072), called Lofredus in Latin, was an Italo-Norman military leader and the first Count of Taranto. He was the second son of Peter I of Trani, though of his elder brother, Amicus, nothing is known. He succeeded his father in the territory of Trani and was in control of it in 1064, though the city itself remained with the Byzantine Empire. His younger brother, Peter II, took the city from the Byzantines in 1054 and, taking advantage of Geoffrey's absence, took control of the patrimony. Geoffrey married a daughter of Drogo, lord of Mottola and Castellaneta. When Count Drogo of Apulia was assassinated in 1051, Geoffrey was put in charge of his young son, Richard. Geoffrey founded, probably on the site of an existing hermitage, the monastery of Santa Maria di Colonna, populating it with Cassinese monks and building it a defensive tower that still stands. In May 1063 Geoffrey conquered Taranto, which he eventually made his chief city. H ...
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Santa Maria Di Colonna Trani
Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a Legend, legendary figure originating in Western Christianity, Western Christian culture who is said to Christmas gift-bringer, bring children gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Christmas Eve of toys and candy or coal or nothing, depending on whether they are "naughty or nice". In the legend, he accomplishes this with the aid of Christmas elf, Christmas elves, who make the toys in Santa's workshop, his workshop, often said to be at the North Pole, and Santa Claus's reindeer, flying reindeer who pull his sleigh through the air. The modern figure of Santa is based on folklore traditions surrounding Saint Nicholas (European folklore), Saint Nicholas, the English figure of Father Christmas and the Folklore of the Low Countries, Dutch figure of ''Sinterklaas''. Santa is generally depicted as a portly, jolly, white-bearded man, often with spectacles, wearing ...
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Strategikon Of Kekaumenos
The ''Strategikon of Kekaumenos'' ( el, Στρατηγικὸν τοῦ Κεκαυμένου, la, Cecaumeni Strategicon) is a late 11th century Byzantine manual offering advice on warfare and the handling of public and domestic affairs. The book was composed between 1075 and 1078 by a Byzantine general of partly Armenian descent. In it, he offers advice, based on his own personal experience and drawing upon numerous historical examples from the events of the 11th century. It is divided in six parts: * Part 1 (Chapters 1-8) survives incomplete, as its beginning has been lost. It concerns the duties and services due to a superior lord. * Part 2 (Chapters 9-34) is the ''Strategikon'' proper, and contains advice to a general. * Part 3 (Chapters 35-71) contains advice on domestic matters, the rearing of children, management of the house and the family and social relations. * Part 4 (Chapters 72-76) contains advice on the proper course of action in the event of a revolt against the Emp ...
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Italo-Normans
The Italo-Normans ( it, Italo-Normanni), or Siculo-Normans (''Siculo-Normanni'') when referring to Sicily and Southern Italy, are the Italian-born descendants of the first Norman conquerors to travel to southern Italy in the first half of the eleventh century. While maintaining much of their distinctly Norman piety and customs of war, they were shaped by the diversity of southern Italy, by the cultures and customs of the Greeks, Lombards, and Arabs in Sicily. History Normans first arrived in Italy as pilgrims, probably on their way to or returning from either Rome or Jerusalem, or from visiting the shrine at Monte Gargano, during the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. In 1017, the Lombard lords in Apulia recruited their assistance against the dwindling power of the Byzantine Catapanate of Italy. They soon established vassal states of their own and began to expand their conquests until they were encroaching on the Lombard principalities of Benevento and Capua, Saracen- ...
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Speculum (journal)
''Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies'' is a quarterly academic journal published by University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Medieval Academy of America. Established in 1926 by Edward Kennard Rand, it is widely regarded as the most prestigious journal in medieval studies. The journal's primary focus is on the time period from 500 to 1500 in Western Europe, but also on related subjects such as Byzantine, Hebrew, Arabic, Armenian and Slavic studies. , the editor is Katherine L. Jansen. The organization and its journal were first proposed in 1921 at a meeting of the Modern Language Association, and the journal's focus was interdisciplinary from its beginning, with one reviewer noting a specific interest in Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned .... R ...
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Amatus Of Montecassino
Amatus of Montecassino ( la, Amatus Casinensis), (11th century) was a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Montecassino who is best known for his historical chronicles of his era. His ''History of the Normans'' (which has survived only in its medieval French translation, ''L'Ystoire de li Normant''), is one of three principle primary sources for the Norman Conquest of southern Italy--the other two being the histories of William of Apulia and Geoffrey Malaterra. Amatus describes the Normans from the perspective of his abbey, one of the most important religious and cultural centers in Italy at the time. His history is the earliest extant account of the Norman sieges of Bari and Salerno, their conquest of Sicily, and the careers of both Robert Guiscard and Richard Drengot, as well as the Gregorian Reforms seen from the papal point of view. Background Nothing is known for certain about Amatus before he became a monk. Possibly having been born in Salerno, Graham Loud suggests that he m ...
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Andria
Andria (; Barese: ) is a city and ''comune'' in Apulia ( southern Italy). It is an agricultural and service center, producing wine, olives and almonds. It is the fourth-largest municipality in the Apulia region (behind Bari, Taranto, and Foggia) and the largest municipality of the Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani. It is known for the 13th-century Castel del Monte. Geography The city is located in the area of the Murgia and lies at a distance of from Barletta and the Adriatic coast. Its municipality, the 16th per area in Italy, borders with Barletta, Canosa di Puglia, Corato, Minervino Murge, Ruvo di Puglia, Spinazzola and Trani. History Different theories exist about the origins of Andria. In 915 it is mentioned as a " casale" ("hamlet") depending from Trani; it acquired the status of city around 1046, when the Norman count Peter enlarged and fortified the settlements in the area (including also Barletta, Corato and Bisceglie). In the 14th century, under the An ...
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Robert Guiscard
Robert Guiscard (; Modern ; – 17 July 1085) was a Norman adventurer remembered for the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. Robert was born into the Hauteville family in Normandy, went on to become count and then duke of Apulia and Calabria (1057–1059), Duke of Sicily (1059–1085), and briefly prince of Benevento (1078–1081) before returning the title to the papacy. His sobriquet, in contemporary Latin and Old French , is often rendered "the Resourceful", "the Cunning", "the Wily", "the Fox", or "the Weasel". In Italian sources he is often Roberto II Guiscardo or Roberto d'Altavilla (from Robert de Hauteville), while medieval Arabic sources call him simply ''Abārt al-dūqa'' (Duke Robert). Background From 999 to 1042 the Normans in Italy, coming first as pilgrims, were mainly mercenaries serving at various times the Byzantines and a number of Lombard nobles. The first of the independent Norman lords was Rainulf Drengot who established himself in the fortress of ...
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Michael Maurikas
Maurex or Maurikas ( el, Μαύρηξ/Μαυρίκας) was a Byzantine naval commander active in the latter half of the 11th century, chiefly in the Byzantine–Norman Wars. His identity is not certain, as several different people are habitually identified as the same person: a "Maurex" who was a wealthy sailor and magnate from Heraclea Pontica, an admiral called in Latin sources Mambrita or Mambrica who was active against the Normans in the 1060s and 1080s, and Michael Maurex, a general and governor known through his seals. According to Nikephoros Bryennios, Maurex was of humble origin, a native of Heraclea Pontica, and extremely experienced in naval matters. This made him, in Bryennios's words, "indispensable" to the Byzantine Empire, and he was given many gifts by the emperors, amassing a huge fortune. The general Michael Maurex is first attested in as carrying the lowly dignity of ''ostiarios'', and a number of seals trace his gradual advancement, to '' hypatos'' and ''patr ...
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Bari
Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples. It is a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas. The city itself has a population of 315,284 inhabitants, over , while the urban area has 750,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area has 1.3 million inhabitants. Bari is made up of four different urban sections. To the north is the closely built old town on the peninsula between two modern harbours, with the Basilica of Saint Nicholas, the Cathedral of San Sabino (1035–1171) and the Hohenstaufen Castle built for Frederick II, which is now also a major nightlife district. To the south is the Murat quarter (erected by Joachim Murat), the modern heart of the city, which is laid out on a rectangular grid-plan with a promenade on the sea and the majo ...
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Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the whole of Bulgaria. The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the northwest, the Ionian Sea in the southwest, the Aegean Sea in the south, the Turkish Straits in the east, and the Black Sea in the northeast. The northern border of the peninsula is variously defined. The highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala, , in the Rila mountain range, Bulgaria. The concept of the Balkan Peninsula was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, who mistakenly considered the Balkan Mountains the dominant mountain system of Southeast Europe spanning from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea. The term ''Balkan Peninsula'' was a synonym for Rumelia in the 19th century, the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire. It had a ge ...
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Rus' People
The Rusʹ (Old East Slavic: Рѹсь; Belarusian language, Belarusian, Russian language, Russian, Rusyn language, Rusyn, and Ukrainian language, Ukrainian: Русь; Old Norse: ''Garðaríki, Garðar''; Greek language, Greek: Ῥῶς, ''Rhos'') were a people in Early Middle Ages, early medieval eastern Europe. The scholarly consensus holds that they were originally Norsemen, mainly originating from present-day Sweden, who settled and ruled along Trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks, the river-routes between the Baltic and the Black Seas from around the 8th to 11th centuries AD. In the 9th century, they formed the state of Kievan Rusʹ, where the ruling Norsemen along with local Finnic peoples, Finnic tribes gradually assimilated into the East Slavs, East Slavic population, with Old East Slavic becoming the common spoken language. Old Norse language, Old Norse remained familiar to the elite until their complete assimilation by the second half of the 11th century, and i ...
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