Sichelgaita of Salerno - a formidable sight in armor
Sichelgaita of Salerno (born ca. 1036) was an Italian princess who accompanied her husband on campaign and donned armor.
She was the daughter of Prince Guaimar of Salerno. In 1058, her brother arranged her marriage to Robert Guiscard (1020-1085), the Norman Duke of Apulia and Calabria. The son of a minor Norman noble, Robert was almost penniless when he had landed in Italia, but eventually gained power and influence. This marriage provided him with ties to a high-status family. She and Robert had 8 children together.
Sichelgaita’s military activity is reported by two writers: the chronicler William of Apulia (who was writing in the 1090’s) and the Byzantine princess Anna Comnena (1083-1153). William of Apulia wrote that in 1080, when a revolt rose against her husband, Sichelgaita took command of the siege of Trani while Robert headed south. Peter of Trani surrendered and begged for forgiveness.
Anna Comnena gives the following description of Sichelgaita: “She went on campaign with her husband and when she donned armor she was a formidable sight”. According to the princess, Robert waited for his wife to arrive before going out on his campaign against the Byzantine Emperor. She mentions that, in October 1081, during a battle for the possession of a Byzantine city, some of the Norman men were fleeing. Sichelgaita drove them back:
“There is a story that Robert’s wife Gaita, who used to accompany him on campaign like another Pallas, if not a second Athena, seeing the runaways and glaring fiercely at them, shouted in a very loud voice, « How far will ye run? Halt! Be men! » (…) As they continued to run, she grasped a long spear and charged at full gallop against them. It brought them to their senses and they went back to fight”.
According to an account of the same battle by William of Apulia, Sichelgaita was wounded by an arrow and narrowly escaped capture. Anna Comnena adds that Sichelgaita also avoided capture during the naval battle of Corfu in 1085, which implies that she could have been in the thick of the action. Valerie Eads notes that the troops that she commanded during these battles may well have been her own and that “her presence says as much as the limits of her husband’s authority as it does about her own vigor and courage”.
She managed to have her son Roger named as the heir after her husband’s death in 1085.The chronicler Oderic Vitalis (1075- c.1142) reported that she tried to poison her stepson Bohemond (Robert’s son by his previous wife) and poisoned her husband but those stories may be apocryphal or based on rumors spread by said stepson. Sichelgaita nonetheless remained politically influential, exercising a regency on her son’s behalf. She died in 1090.
Bibliography:
Eads Valerie,”Sichelgaita of Salerno”, in: Higham Robin, Pennington Reina (ed.), Amazons to fighter pilots, biographical dictionary of military women vol.2, pp. 399-400.
Skinner Patricia, ‘“Halt! Be Men!”: Sikelgaita of Salerno, Gender and the Norman Conquest of Southern Italy’ Gender & History, Vol.12 No. 3 November 2000, pp. 622–641.
