7. A Dangerous Medieval Power Couple
In 1058, Sichelgaita met the Normans’ leader, Robert Guiscard, and the two fell passionately in love. Guiscard, a Norman knight who had settled in southern Italy in 1047, was widely known as the Wily or the Weasel, and was impressed by the six foot Amazon who went into battle, fully armed and armored. He divorced his wife and married Sichelgaita, and the duo became one of the medieval era’s most dangerous power couples. For the next eighteen years, she was the Weasel’s constant companion, both on and off the battlefield.
Sichelgaita helped Guiscard consolidate his and her family’s hold on southern Italy, and one of those consolidations was of her birthplace, the Duchy of Salerno. In 1076, clad in shining armor and mounted astride a stallion, she rode up to the walls of Salerno, which was ruled by her own brother, and demanded the city’s submission. When her brother refused, Sichelgaita and Guiscard put the city under siege, and starved it into surrender. She then took command of Salerno, and sent her brother into exile.
