e favour which the Popes accorded to the Normans gilded
the might and cunning of the adventurers with the specious splendour
of acknowledged sanctity. The time might come for casting off these
powerful allies and adding their conquests to the patrimony of S.
Peter. Meanwhile it costs nothing to give away what does not belong
to one, particularly when by doing so a title to the same is
gradually formed. So the Popes reckoned. Robert and Roger went forth
with banners blessed by Rome to subjugate the island of the Greek
and Moor.

[1] The Normans were lucky in getting hold of Popes. King
Roger caught Innocent II. at San Germano in 1139, and got
from him the confirmation of all his titles.

[2] Even the great Hildebrand wavered in his policy toward
Robert Guiscard. Having raised an army by the help of the
Countess Matilda in 1074, he excommunicated Robert and
made war against him. Robert proved more than his match in
force and craft; and Hildebrand had to confirm his title
as duke, and designate him Knight of S. Peter in 1080.
When Robert drove the Emperor Henry IV. from Rome, and
burned the city of the Coelian, Hildebrand retired with
his terrible defender to Salerno, and died there in 1085.
Robert and both Rogers were good sons of the Church,
deserving the titles of 'Terror of the faithless,' 'Sword
of the Lord drawn from the scabbard of Sicily,' as long as
they were suffered to pursue their own schemes of empire.
They respected the Pope's person and his demesne of
Benevento; they were largely liberal in donations to
churches and abbeys. But they did not suffer their piety
to interfere with their ambition.

The honours of this conquest, paralleled for boldness only by the
achievements of Cortes and Pizarro, belong to Roger. It is true that
since the fall of the Kelbite dynasty Sicily had been shaken by
anarchy and despotism, by the petty quarrels of princes and party
leaders, and to some extent also by the invasion of Maniaces. Yet on
the approach of Roger with a handful of Norman knights, 'the island
was guarded,' to quote Gibbon's energetic phrase, 'to the water's
edge.' For some years he had to content himself with raids and
harrying excursions, making Messina, which he won from the Moors by
the aid of their Christian serfs and vassals, the basis of his
operations, and retiring from time to time across the Faro with
booty to Reggio. T