f Logres and of Lyoness, Lancelot or Pelleas or Pellenore,' with
whose adventures our tawny-haired magnificent Plantagenets amused
their leisure, become realities. The manly beauty, described by the
Byzantine princess in words which seem to betray a more than common
interest in her handsome foe, was hereditary in the house of
Hauteville. They transmitted it to the last of the Suabian dynasty,
to Manfred and Conradin, and to the king Enzio, whose long golden
hair fell down from his shoulders to his saddle-bow as he rode, a
captive, into Bologna.

The story of the Norman conquest is told by two chroniclers--William
of Apulia, who received his materials from Robert Guiscard, and
Godfrey Malaterra, who wrote down the oral narrative of Roger. Thus
we possess what is tantamount to personal memoirs of the Norman
chiefs. Nevertheless, a veil of legendary romance obscures the first
appearance of the Scandinavian warriors upon the scene of history.
William of Apulia tells how, in the course of a pilgrimage to S.
Michael's shrine on Monte Gargano, certain knights of Normandy were
accosted by a stranger of imposing aspect, who persuaded them to
draw their swords in the quarrel of the Lombard towns of South Italy
against the Greeks. This man was Melo of Bari. Whether his
invitation were so theatrically conveyed or not, it is probable that
the Norsemen made their first acquaintance with Apulia on a
pilgrimage to the Italian Michael's mount; and it is certain that
Melo, whom we dimly descry as a patriot of enlarged views and
indomitable constancy, provided them with arms and horses, raised
troops in Salerno and Benevento to assist them, and directed them
against the Greeks. This happened in 1017. Twelve years later we
find the town of Aversa built and occupied by Normans under the
control of their Count Rainulf; while another band, headed by
Ardoin, a Lombard of Milan, lived at large upon the country, selling
its services to the Byzantine Greeks. In the anarchy of Southern
Italy at this epoch, when the decaying Empire of the East was
relaxing its hold upon the Apulian provinces, when the Papacy was
beginning to lift up its head after the ignominy of Theodora and
Marozia, and the Lombard power was slowly dissolving upon its
ill-established foundations, the Norman adventurers pursued a policy
which, however changeful, was invariably self-advantageous. On
whatever side they fought, they took care that the profits of war
should accrue t