Sikelgaita, Medieval Warrior Duchess
Sikelgaita of Salerno (circa 1040 – 1090) was a warrior princess and the hereditary duchess of Apulia in southern Italy. A giantess for her day, standing six feet tall, she married Robert Guiscard, a Norman adventurer who turned southern Italy and Sicily into a Norman domain. Fighting alongside Guiscard, or leading men into battle on her own, Sikelgaita and her husband roiled the Mediterranean world.
Sikelgaita was born into the Duchy of Salerno’s ruling family, and grew up with a passion for swordsmanship and horseback riding. After her father, the duke, was murdered in a palace coup, she helped her brother regain the duchy, and her place as the duchy’s most privileged woman. Brother and sister then had to deal with encroachment from Normans to their south.
She met the Normans’ leader, Robert Guiscard in 1058, and the two fell passionately in love. Impressed by the six-foot Amazon who went into battle, armed and armored, Guiscard divorced his wife and married Sikelgaita. Over the next 18 years, she was Guiscard’s constant companion, on and off the battlefield, helping consolidate their family’s hold on southern Italy.
In 1076, clad in shining armor and mounted astride a stallion, Sikelgaita rode up to the walls of Salerno, which was ruled by her own brother, and demanded the city’s submission. When her brother refused, Sikelgaita and Guiscard besieged the city, and starved him into surrender. She then sent her brother into exile, and took command of the city.
Sikelgaita not only fought on her husband’s side, but also led men into combat on her own. She and Guiscard attempted to take over the Byzantine Empire by marrying one of their children into the imperial household, but a palace coup in Constantinople foiled those plans. So the power couple decided to take over Byzantium by conquering it.
Her greatest exploit came during the ensuing war, at the Battle of Durazo on the Albanian coast, in October of 1081. Sikelgaita led an advance force, and ran into a powerful Byzantine army. She pressed the attack in order to pin the Byzantines in place until Guiscard arrived with reinforcements, but her men faltered, and some fled. As described by near contemporaries: “Directly Sikelgaita, Robert’s wife … saw these soldiers running away. She looked fiercely after them and in a very powerful voice called out to them in her own language an equivalent to Homer’s words “How far will ye flee? Stand and fight like men!” And when she saw that they continued to run, she grasped a long spear and at full gallop rushed after the fugitives; and on seeing this they recovered themselves and returned to the fight.”
She was badly wounded during the fight, but held part of the battlefield until reinforcements arrived to turn the tide and win the hard-fought engagement. Despite the victory, the plans for conquering Byzantium came to naught. Guiscard took ill and died in 1085, and the campaign fizzled out. Sikelgaita retired to Salerno, where she died five years later, in 1090.
