Born: 1040, Italy
Died: 16 April 1090
Country most active: Italy
Also known as: Sichelgaita or Sigelgaita
Sikelgaita was a Lombard princess who commanded troops in her own right.
She married Duke Robert Guiscard of Apulia in 1058, likely as part of a strategy of alliance with the remaining Lombard princes, of whom her father Prince Guaimar IV of Salerno was chief. When relations turned sour, she tried unsuccessfully to mediate between her husband and brother.
Sikelgaita often joined her husband on his conquests. She led the 1080 siege of Trani while Robert moved against Taranto. Although she tried to convince him not to attack the Byzantine Empire, she nevertheless brought troops and joined him on his campaign against them. At the Battle of Dyrrhachium in 1081 she was on the field in full armour, rallying her and Robert’s troops after they were initially repelled by the Byzantine army. Byzantine historian Anna Comnena wrote that she was “like another Pallas, if not a second Athena.”
In 1083, Sikelgaita and her husband returned to Italy to defend Pope Gregory VII against the Emperor Henry IV. She joined Robert on a second campaign against the Byzantines, during which he died on Kefalonia in 1085 with Sikelgaita at his side.
Supposedly, she tried to poison her stepson Bohemond, although they eventually agreed that her son Roger Borsa would be allowed to succeed Robert in the duchy. With Roger, she put the Jews of Bari under that city’s archbishop. In his Historia Ecclesiastica, Orderic Vitalis writes that she had studied and learned about the use of poisons among the doctors of the Schola Medica Salernitana.