ROGER IL king of Sicily: b. about 1095; d. February 1154, second son of Roger I. His elder brother, Simon, died in 1102, and during his minority the government was administered first by his mother, Adelheid, a daughter of the Margrave Boniface of Montserrat, and then by Prince Robert of Burgundy. The free barons of the land, howevereagued with Pope N Honorius II to break the Dorman ascendency. They had no success, and the pope voluntarily confirmed Roger in the possession of Apulia and Calabria. Pope Anacletus extended the confirmation to Capua and Naples ; and in 1130 Roger received the title of king. He now pressed so hard upon the barons that Rainulf of Avellino, Robert of Capua, Servius of Naples and others revolted, receiving support from the German and Greek emperors, Lothar and Em manuel, and the influence of the Innocent, who excommuniacted the Sicilian monarch, Roger in 1132 was defeated by them in an engagement; but having promptly as sembled a new army suddenly recovered all he had lost, and although the revolt lasted till 1136 it terminated to Roger's advantage. He
took Malta and the adjacent islands, and after ward made himself master of Tripoli. With a second fleet he sailed to Madia, and took it in 1148. At the same time he led an expedition against the kingdom of Greece, in which he took Corfu and Thebes,.and plundered Corinth, Athens, Cephalonia and Negropont. In 1152 he extended his dominion from Tripoli to Tunis, and from the desert of Mohrab to Kair wan. The peace which followed he turned to good account, reforming the law, introducing order into the administration and patronizing science. Consult (Geschiehte der Normanen in Sieilien) (1889) ; Caspar, E. L. E., 'Roger II' (Innsbruck 1904) ; Curtis, E., 'Roger of Sicily) (New York 1912).