The Norman Campaigns in the Balkans, 1081–1118, by George Theotokis

‘The Norman expansion in Europe in the eleventh century was a movement of enormous historical importance’, writes the author, George Theotokis, at the start of this book. The way the Normans established themselves in Southern Italy deserves particular attention, he goes on, because a small number of ‘mercenaries’ managed to make themselves masters of Apulia and Calabria at the expense of local lords and that of the Byzantine and Muslim powers which had long-established interests in this region. Theotokis sets out to tell the story of what happened after the conquest of Bari in 1071, when the Normans, under the inspirational leadership of Robert Guiscard, turned their attention to the western flank of the Byzantine Empire. A major attack across the Ionian Sea in 1081 placed a cordon around the city of Dyrrakhion, forcing an immediate response from Alexios I Komnenos, the new emperor, who had just taken power in Constantinople. Despite his military experience, Alexios launched a poorly executed attack, on the advice of ‘the younger and hot-headed officers of his army ... probably raising issues of pride and honour against a barbarian duke’; the result was a catastrophic defeat that led to the surrender of Dyrrakhion to the Normans, and opened up the interior to the invaders.

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