The Case of Geoffrey of Hauteville, Lord of Ragusa: A Story of Leprosy and Legitimacy from Norman Sicily

The identities of Count Roger I of Sicily’s sons and the succession crisis that threatened to envelop the state he had worked for some forty years to build have not yet been fully understood. This study offers a solution to the confusion that has obscured the identities of his two sons named Geoffrey, using Roger’s administrative documents and Geoffrey of Malaterra’s The Deeds of Count Roger of Calabria and Sicily and of His Brother Duke Robert Guiscard to demonstrate that the elder was an illegitimate son, while the younger Geoffrey, who was probably the product of the count’s second marriage, was the intended heir. The article then explores the fate of the elder Geoffrey, the son who would have become the next count of Sicily and Calabria had he not suffered from a severe form of leprosy. It argues that Roger’s concerns for his son and for the future of his state need to be more fully considered and posits that two of his most important foundations—the monasteries of St. Bartholomew of Lipari and the Holy Savior of Patti—were physical expressions of his anxiety as he contemplated his county’s future.