Roger III of Apulia
Italo-Norman duke
Roger III (1118 – 2 or 12 May 1148) 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.
Roger's first public act took place at Melfi in 1129, where, though still a child, he accepted the fealty of some rebellious barons along with his father and his younger brother Tancred. His father was crowned king of Sicily the next year on 25 December. It is possible that Roger received the Duchy of Apulia at this time. He had certainly received it from his father by 1134. He was perhaps put under the tutelage or guardianship of Robert of Selby. He took part in his father's campaigns beginning in 1137, when he distinguished himself in the campaign against Ranulf of Alife, whom Pope Innocent II and the Emperor Lothair II had invested as rival duke of Apulia. His first major engagement was the Battle of Rignano on 30 October; a battle in which more experienced warriors, like his father, fled and some, like Duke Sergius VII of Naples, died. Roger's bravery, and success in the first charge, at Rignano solidified his martial reputation early.
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This entry incorporates text from “Roger III of Apulia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.