peasants, administrators, and clergy--Lombard, Byzantine, and Muslim--who remembered other traditions and other lords. Rather than impose their own ways, the first generations of Norman settlers assimilated the political and cultural heritage of the regions they conquered. Though the Latin Church made steady headway, especially through the endowment of new monastic houses with the possessions of Greek monasteries, other religions were tolerated. The newcomers did not refer to themselves as 'Normans' and their kings were known as the 'king of the Sicilians'. The rulers took upon themselves the mantle of the most powerful Christian ruler of the Mediterranean: the Byzantine emperor. The autocratic powers, stiff ceremonial, and monopolistic management of the state economy were all continued in the Greek tradition. Many of the administrative organs of the state were Byzantine or Islamic in origin and although recognizably Norman officials such as justiciars, chamberlains, and constables made their appearance, they governed on behalf of a monarch whose all-pervading power was something not to be found in contemporary northern Europe.

It was this oriental outlook which was to dominate Sicilian culture in the twelfth century and to make its rulers an object of admiration and, it must be said, more than a tinge of suspicion in the eyes both of northerners and of visitors from the east. The Muslim writer, Ibn Jubayr, who was in Palermo in 1184, commented on the number of Muslims he found in high governmental posts and at court, and the fact that they seemed quite free to follow their own faith. The kings patronized scholars of eastern origin: the great Arab geographer al-Edrisi who wrote his Book of King Roger in honour of Roger II; the Greek scholar Eugenios, who translated Ptolemy's Optics from Arabic into Latin, and a certain Henry, known as 'Aristippus' after Socrates' Syracusan disciple, who translated Plato's Meno and Phaedo from Greek into Latin. Both these men worked at the court of King William I ( 1154-66). Many, such as Peter of Blois, the celebrated twelfth-century AngloFrench churchman, travelled to Apulia to study Greek philosophy, whilst others crowded to the leading medical school of Europe

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