Sources
| Preceded by Robert II | Count of Loritello 1137 | Succeeded by Robert III |
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William was an Italo-Norman nobleman, the son and successor of Count Robert II of Loritello in 1137.
He reigned only briefly, because, immediately after his succession, the Emperor Lothair II descended the peninsula to fight the royal pretensions of Roger II of Sicily in the Mezzogiorno. On the river Tronto, William did homage to Lothair and opened the gates of Termoli to him. In this he joined Count Hugh II of Molise.
William did not last long in this state. As the first to openly welcome the emperor to the south, the royal furor landed on him with especial swiftness. His county was seized by the crown. It was not regranted until Roger's death, when William I of Sicily granted it to Robert II, Count of Conversano.
| Preceded by Robert II | Count of Loritello 1137 | Succeeded by Robert III |
| | This biographical article of a European noble is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Year 1135 (MCXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.
Lothair III, sometimes numbered Lothair II and also known as Lothair of Supplinburg, was Holy Roman Emperor from 1133 until his death. He was appointed Duke of Saxony in 1106 and elected King of Germany in 1125 before being crowned emperor in Rome. The son of the Saxon count Gebhard of Supplinburg, his reign was troubled by the constant intriguing of the Hohenstaufens, Duke Frederick II of Swabia and Duke Conrad of Franconia. He died while returning from a successful campaign against the Norman Kingdom of Sicily.
Roger II was King of Sicily and Africa, son of Roger I of Sicily and successor to his brother Simon. He began his rule as Count of Sicily in 1105, became Duke of Apulia and Calabria in 1127, then King of Sicily in 1130 and King of Africa in 1148. By the time of his death at the age of 58, Roger had succeeded in uniting all the Norman conquests in Italy into one kingdom with a strong centralized government.
William I, called the Bad or the Wicked, was the second King of Sicily, ruling from his father's death in 1154 to his own in 1166. He was the fourth son of Roger II and Elvira of Castile.
Constance I was Queen regnant of Sicily in 1194–98, jointly with her spouse from 1194 to 1197, and with her infant son Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1198, as the heiress of the Norman kings of Sicily. She was also Holy Roman Empress and later Dowager by marriage to Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.
The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in the south of the Italian peninsula and for a time the region of Ifriqiya from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of the southern peninsula. The island was divided into three regions: Val di Mazara, Val Demone and Val di Noto; val being the apocopic form of the word vallo, derived from the Arabic word wilāya.
Robert II was the count of Aversa and the prince of Capua from 1127 until his death.
Alfonso, also called Anfuso or Anfusus, was the Prince of Capua from 1135 and Duke of Naples from 1139. He was an Italian-born Norman of the noble Hauteville family. After 1130, when his father Roger became King of Sicily, he was the third in line to the throne; second in line after the death of an older brother in 1138. He was the first Hauteville prince of Capua after his father conquered the principality from the rival Norman Drengot family. He was also the first Norman duke of Naples after the duchy fell vacant on the death of the last Greek duke. He also expanded his family's power northwards, claiming lands also claimed by the Papacy, although he was technically a vassal of the Pope for his principality of Capua.
Ranulf II was the count of Alife and Caiazzo, and duke of Apulia. He was a member of the Italo-Norman Drengot family which dominated the Principality of Capua for most of the century between 1050 and 1150. Ranulf's wife, Matilda, was the sister of King Roger II of Sicily.
The Battle of Rignano was the second great defeat of the career of Roger II of Sicily and, like the first, the Battle of Nocera, it too came at the hands of Ranulf II, Count of Alife. The prime difference was the position of the two combatants.
Roger III was the eldest son of King Roger II of Sicily and Elvira of Castile. He was the Duke of Apulia from 1134 until his death.
Robert II was the son and successor of Count Robert I of Loritello. His father died in 1107. He married his second cousin Adelaide, a daughter of Roger II of Sicily and Elvira of Castile. They had a son, named William, who succeeded him.
Robert of Selby was an Englishman, a courtier of Roger II and chancellor of the Kingdom of Sicily. It is likely that his name indicates that he was from Selby in Yorkshire. He probably journeyed to Sicily about 1130. In his train was Thomas Brun.
Richard of Mandra was a Norman nobleman in the Kingdom of Sicily appointed count of Molise and chancellor by the queen regent Margaret of Navarre.
Robert of Bassunvilla was the count of Conversano and Loritello. His family had a long history in Vassonville, near Dieppe.
The Hauteville was a Norman family originally of seigneurial rank from the Cotentin. The Hautevilles rose to prominence through their part in the Norman conquest of southern Italy. By 1130, one of their members, Roger II, was made the first King of Sicily. His male-line descendants ruled Sicily until 1194. Some Italian Hautevilles took part in the First Crusade and the founding of the Principality of Antioch (1098).
The Norman conquest of southern Italy, also known as The Kingdom In The Sun, lasted from 999 to 1139, involving many battles and independent conquerors.
The County of Apulia and Calabria, later the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria, was a Norman country founded by William of Hauteville in 1042 in the territories of Gargano, Capitanata, Apulia, Vulture, and most of Campania. It became a duchy when Robert Guiscard was raised to the rank of duke by Pope Nicholas II in 1059.
Robert of Lauro was the Count of Caserta, a powerful nobleman and administrator in the Kingdom of Sicily, "effectively the king's viceroy on the mainland" between 1171 and his death. He was a close colleague of Count Tancred of Lecce, the future king. His influence helped his cousin Roger become Archbishop of Benevento (1179–1225).
Richard was the Italo-Norman count of Rupecanina.