Just a few questions on the Sicilian Normans, and their military structure...
What influences did the Muslims and Byzantines have on the armament of the Normans of the South? I had seen a picture of a Siculo-Norman Knight, and he looked somewhat Eastern in appearance to me (compared to Knights of Western Europe). If they did adopt weapons and armor from those two peoples, what did they adopt and why?
I had read that Roger II had adopted a thoroughly Byzantine view on warfare and his military, how did this effect the Norman Knights and Norman barons of Southern Italy and Sicily?
Were Norman Knights growing up during this period expected to speak several languages? I had read that some of the Hauteville's and their vassals had spoken Scandinavian as well as Norman French, did that practice survive? Or did they become Greek/Arabic/Latin speakers?
At the height of Norman controlled Sicily, would Norman Knights of the South resemble Knights? Or were they more similar to Muslim Faris'?
Did the aristocratic class, or barons rather retain somewhat of a cultural identity by dressing in French garb? Or did they begin to dress like other Muslims, and Byzantines? Didn't Roger dress in Byzantine clothing?
How much of an impact did the Byzantines, Muslims, and Lombards have on the architecture and Government of Norman controlled Sicily?
Did the Normans eventually intermarry with the locals? Or were the Normans thoroughly Norman so to speak?
And what is considered to be the definitive work/source on Norman controlled Sicily?
Thanks.
Academic sources tend to be in Latin or medieval vernacular. Graham Loud, who has taught Norman Sicily at the University of Leeds since 1989, has produced two translated sourcebooks of Norman Sicily and has written numerous articles and studies of the period.
I would note that you are not actually interested in military structure but cultural identity. Identity in frontier societies are fascinating but complex concepts to interpret. This has been a major field of study since the late 1970s and still one being fully explored. There is no definitive study that I know of.
Primary
Houts, E. van, The Normans in Europe, (Manchester, 2000).
Loud, G.A. and Wiedemann, T., The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by 'Hugo Falcandus', 1154-69, (Manchester, 1998).
Loud, G.A., Roger II and the Creation of the Kingdom of Sicily, (Manchester, 2012).
Secondary
Abulafia, D., The Two Italies. Economic Relations between the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Northern Communes, (Cambridge, 1977). | ‘The Norman kingdom of Africa and the Norman expeditions to Majorca and the Muslim Mediterranean’, Anglo-Norman Studies 7 Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1984, ed. R. Allen Brown, (Woodbridge, 1985), 26–49.
Backman, C.R., The Decline and Fall of Medieval Sicily. Politics, Religion and Economy in the Reign of Frederick III, 1296–1327, (Cambridge, 1995).
Houben, H., Roger II of Sicily. A Ruler between East and West, trans. G.A. Loud and D. Milburn, (Cambridge, 2002).
Howe, J., Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-Century Italy: Dominic of Sora and his Patrons, (Philadelphia, 1997).
Johns, J.‘The Norman Kings of Sicily and the Fatimid Caliphate’, Anglo-Norman Studies 15 Proceedings of the Battle Conference 1992, ed. Marjorie Chibnall, (Woodbridge, 1993), 133–59. | Arabic Administration in Norman Sicily: The Royal Dīwān, (Cambridge, 2002).
Loud, G.A., Church and Society in the Norman Principality of Capua 1058–1197, (Oxford, 1985). | Conquerors and Churchmen in Norman Italy, (Aldershot, 1999). | The Age of Robert Guiscard. Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest, (Harlow, 2000).
Metcalfe, A., The Muslims of Medieval Italy, (Edinburgh, 2009).
Oldfield, P., City and Community in Norman Italy, (Cambridge, 2009).
Takayama, H., The Administration of the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, (Leiden, 1993)