ed into four classes--(1) A few independent
municipalities obedient loosely to the Greek Empire; (2)
tributaries who paid the Arabs what they would otherwise
have sent to Byzantium; (3) vassals, whose towns had
fallen by arms or treaty into the hands of the conquerors,
and who, though their property was respected and religion
tolerated, were called 'dsimmi' or 'humbled;' (4) serfs,
prisoners of war, sold as slaves or attached to the soil
(_Amari_, vol. i.).

No chapter of history more resembles a romance than that which
records the sudden rise and brief splendour of the house of
Hauteville. In one generation the sons of Tancred passed from the
condition of squires in the Norman vale of Cotentin, to kinghood in
the richest island of the southern sea. The Norse adventurers became
Sultans of an Oriental capital. The sea-robbers assumed together
with the sceptre the culture of an Arabian court. The marauders
whose armies burned Rome, received at papal hands the mitre and
dalmatic as symbols of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.[1] The brigands
who on their first appearance in Italy had pillaged stables and
farmyards to supply their needs, lived to mate their daughters with
princes and to sway the politics of Europe with gold. The
freebooters, whose skill consisted in the use of sword and shield,
whose brains were vigorous in strategy or statecraft, and whose
pleasures were confined to the hunting-field and the wine-cup,
raised villas like the Zisa and encrusted the cathedral of Monreale
with mosaics. Finally, while the race was yet vigorous, after giving
two heroes to the first Crusade, it transmitted its titles, its
temper, and its blood to the great Emperor, who was destined to
fight out upon the battlefield of Italy the strife of Empire against
Papacy, and to bequeath to mediaeval Europe the tradition of
cosmopolitan culture. The physical energy of this brood of heroes
was such as can scarcely be paralleled in history. Tancred de
Hauteville begat two families by different wives. Of his children
twelve were sons; two of whom stayed with their father in Normandy,
while ten sought fame and found a kingdom in the south. Of these,
William Iron Arm, the first Count of Apulia; Robert Guiscard, who
united Calabria and Apulia under one dukedom, and carried victorious
arms against both Emperors of East and West; and Roger the Great
Count, who added Sicily to the conquests of the Normans and
bequeathed