Roger II of Sicily
Later reign

Roger had now become one of the greatest kings in Europe. At Palermo, he gathered round him distinguished men from a variety of ethnicities and cultures, such as the famous Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi and the Byzantine Greek historian Nilus Doxopatrius or Neilos Doxapatres. Sicily, in the center of the Mediterranean and a natural stopping point for people traveling across it, had been run by several different groups in its history, and Roger welcomed the learned and practiced tolerance toward the several religions, ethnicities and languages of his realm. To administer his domain he hired many Greeks and Arabs, who were trained in long-established traditions of centralized government. He was served by men of several nationalities, such as the Englishman Thomas Brun, a kaid of the Curia, and in the fleet by two Greeks, first Christodulus and then George of Antioch, whom he made in 1132 ammiratus ammiratorum or "Emir of Emirs", in effect prime vizier. (This title later became the English word admiral). Roger made Sicily the leading maritime power in the Mediterranean.

A powerful fleet was built up under several admirals, or "emirs", of whom the greatest was George, formerly in the service of the Muslim prince of Mahdia. Mainly thanks to him, a series of conquests were made on the African coast (1146–1153). From 1135 Roger II started to conquer the coast of Tunisia and enlarge his dominions: Tripoli was captured in 1146 and Cape Bona in 1148. These conquests were lost in the reign of Roger's successor William, however, and never formed an integral part of the kingdom in southern Italy.

The Second Crusade (1147–1148) offered Roger an opportunity to revive attacks on the Byzantine Empire, the traditional Norman enemy to the East. It also afforded him an opportunity, through the agency of Theodwin, a cardinal ever-vigilant for Crusade supporters, to strike up a correspondence with Conrad III of Germany in an effort to break his alliance with Manuel I Comnenus. Roger himself never went on an expedition against Byzantium, instead handing command to the skillful George. In 1147, George set sail from Otranto with seventy galleys to attack Corfu. According to Nicetas Choniates, the island capitulated thanks to George's bribes (and the tax burden of the imperial government), welcoming the Normans as their liberators. Leaving a garrison of 1,000 men, George sailed on to the Peloponnesus. He sacked Athens and quickly moved on to the Aegean Islands. He ravaged the coast all along Euboea and the Gulf of Corinth and penetrated as far as Thebes, where he pillaged the silk factories and carried off the Jewish damask, brocade, and silk weavers, taking them back to Palermo where they formed the basis for the Sicilian silk industry. George capped the expedition with a sack of Corinth, in which the relics of Saint Theodore were stolen, and then returned to Sicily. In 1149, however, Corfu was retaken. George went on a punitive expedition against Constantinople, but could not land and instead defied the Byzantine emperor by firing arrows against the palace windows. Despite this act, his expedition left no enduring effects.

Roger died at Palermo on 26 February 1154 and was buried in the Cathedral of Palermo. He was succeeded by his fourth son, William.
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