| Roger Borsa |
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| 1060s births | |
| 1111 deaths | |
| dukes of apulia | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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:"''...Roger—nicknamed Borsa, the purse, from his early-ingrained habit of counting and recounting his money. He was a weak and hesitant thirteen-year-old who gave the impression that a childhood spent with Robert and Sichelgaita had been too much for him.''" His father died in 1085 at Corfu. It happened that when Robert Guiscard died, Bohemund was elsewhere in Italy, so Roger Borsa and his mother were able to seize power. His Lombard heritage also made him a more attractive candidate than his Norman half-brother. Roger was not as adept as Robert Guiscard, and most of his reign was spent in feudal anarchy. Bohemund contested lordship of Apulia with him, and actually seized Apulia in 1085 . Though described as a powerful warrior (he took the cities of Benevento, Canosa, Capua, and Lucera by siege) Roger Borsa was never able to check Bohemund's power or bring him under his control. In 1089 Roger Borsa was officially invested with the duchy of Apulia by Pope Urban II . In May 1098 , at the request of his first cousin once removed, Prince Richard II Of Capua , Borsa and his uncle Count Roger I Of Sicily began the Siege Of Capua , from which the prince had long ago been exiled as a minor. In exchange for his assistance, the duke received the homage of Richard, though he seems to have made no use of it, for Richard's successors paid no heed to Roger Borsa's. Capua fell after forty days of notable besieging, for Pope Urban II had come to meet Roger of Sicily and Archbishop Anselm Of Canterbury had come to meet the pope. Roger Borsa married Adela of Flanders, the daughter of Robert I, Count Of Flanders , and was succeeded by their son William . However William proved to be as weak a ruler as his father, and the domain was ultimately inherited by a cousin, Roger II Of Sicily . SOURCES
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