Robert Crispin (french: Crépin, died 1072), called Frankopoulos, was a

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

mercenary A mercenary, sometimes also known as a soldier of fortune or hired gun, is a private individual, particularly a soldier, that joins a military conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any ...

who fought in the

Reconquista The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...

and the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

Early life

Robert was the son of Gilbert Crispin. He had two older brothers, Gilbert, lord of Tilliers, and William, who became lord in Neaufles ( Neaufles-Saint-Martin or Neaufles-Auvergny), as well as two sisters, Emma and Esilia. As the youngest son without an inheritance he left

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

and seems to have gone to Southern Italy which was being conquered by fellow Normans under the

Hauteville family The Hauteville ( it, Altavilla) was a Norman family originally of seigneurial rank from the Cotentin. The Hautevilles rose to prominence through their part in the Norman conquest of southern Italy. By 1130, one of their members, Roger II, was ma ...

. In 1064, he participated in a military expedition to Barbastro, which has been called sometimes a proto-crusade, where he played a major role and might have been the leader of the Norman contingent.

Service in the Byzantine Empire

Robert then returned to Southern Italy and entered the services of the

some three or four years after the expedition. The next information about his life is that he became the leader of a corps of his countrymen stationed at Edessa under the command of the general Isaac Komnenos. Robert became leader of the Frankish mercenaries and was arrested by the Emperor Romanos Diogenes in 1069 after a brief rebellion, feeling he had not been rewarded appropriately for his services. He fought against the invading

Seljuk Turks The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; fa, سلجوقیان ''Saljuqian'', alternatively spelled as Seljuqs or Saljuqs), also known as Seljuk Turks, Seljuk Turkomans "The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes by the Turk ...

and later under

Michael VII Doukas Michael VII Doukas or Ducas ( gr, Μιχαήλ Δούκας), nicknamed Parapinakes ( gr, Παραπινάκης, lit. "minus a quarter", with reference to the devaluation of the Byzantine currency under his rule), was the senior Byzantine e ...

against Romanos after the latter had been disposed in 1071 after the Battle of Manzikert. Having defeated Romanos, he returned to Constantinople were he was supposedly poisoned around 1072. His successor as leader of the Frankish mercenaries was

Roussel de Bailleul Roussel de Bailleul (died 1077), also known as ''Phrangopoulos'' ( gr, Φραγγόπουλος, , son-of-a-Frank) and ''Norman Chief Roussel'' (lit. tr, Norman Reisi Ursel), or in the anglicized form Russell Balliol was a Norman adventurer (or ex ...

References

Sources

* * * * * * 1071 deaths Byzantine mercenaries Norman mercenaries Norman warriors Byzantine rebels Year of birth unknown {{Byzantine-bio-stub