eror, each of whom held one end of the _gonfanon_,
or flagstaff, as a token that they asserted their right, and suspended
their quarrel. But such jealous friendship was of short and precarious
duration: the German armies soon vanished in disease and desertion: the
Apulian duke, with all his adherents, was exterminated by a conqueror
who seldom forgave either the dead or the living; like his predecessor
Leo the Ninth, the feeble though haughty pontiff became the captive and
friend of the Normans; and their reconciliation was celebrated by the
eloquence of Bernard, who now revered the title and virtues of the king
of Sicily.

As a penance for his impious war against the successor of St. Peter,
that monarch might have promised to display the banner of the cross,
and he accomplished with ardor a vow so propitious to his interest and
revenge. The recent injuries of Sicily might provoke a just retaliation
on the heads of the Saracens: the Normans, whose blood had been mingled
with so many subject streams, were encouraged to remember and emulate
the naval trophies of their fathers, and in the maturity of their
strength they contended with the decline of an African power. When the
Fatimite caliph departed for the conquest of Egypt, he rewarded the real
merit and apparent fidelity of his servant Joseph with a gift of his
royal mantle, and forty Arabian horses, his palace with its sumptuous
furniture, and the government of the kingdoms of Tunis and Algiers.
The Zeirides, the descendants of Joseph, forgot their allegiance and
gratitude to a distant benefactor, grasped and abused the fruits of
prosperity; and after running the little course of an Oriental dynasty,
were now fainting in their own weakness. On the side of the land, they
were pressed by the Almohades, the fanatic princes of Morocco, while
the sea-coast was open to the enterprises of the Greeks and Franks, who,
before the close of the eleventh century, had extorted a ransom of two
hundred thousand pieces of gold. By the first arms of Roger, the island
or rock of Malta, which has been since ennobled by a military and
religious colony, was inseparably annexed to the crown of Sicily.
Tripoli, a strong and maritime city, was the next object of his attack;
and the slaughter of the males, the captivity of the females, might
be justified by the frequent practice of the Moslems themselves. The
capital of the Zeirides was named Africa from the country, and Mahadia
from the Arabi