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Sicilian Genealogy & Heraldry. The only book ever published about Sicilian family history research is now available from Amazon and other vendors. Historiography, folk customs, religious practices, research strategies, records to consult. A definitive guide to Sicilian genealogy and a Sicilian identity. (300 pages on acid-free paper, ebook available soon) Read more.
"For the significance of a noble family lies entirely in its traditions, in its vital memories, and he,
the Prince, was the last of his house
to have any unusual memories, anything different from those of other families.
His grandson, Fabrizietto, would have only banal ones... embittered by the gadfly
thought that others could outdo him in outward show."
Like the Romans and Byzantines before them, Sicily's Saracens (Arabs) had an aristocracy, and while Sicily itself eventually became an emirate, the Arabs had nothing similar to the feudal system.
For several decades following their arrival in 1061, the Normans gradually introduced the feudal system throughout Sicily. By 1100, the transition was nearly complete. Except for demesnial towns, whose feudal rights and taxes appertained directly to the Crown, most of Sicily was a patchwork of towns and large farms (fiefs) belonging to the companions of Roger I and the various knights who followed him into Sicily. They held these estates in return for military service, but over the centuries it became common for the barons to render a tax (scutage) in lieu of this service.
An early twelfth-century record called the Catalogus Baronum lists the nobles of southern Italy and their feudal rights and duties. This is Italy's Domesday Book, but it deals only with the southern part of the peninsula, not Sicily. Nevertheless, it is clear from the Catalogus that the members of the new aristocracy based their surnames on toponyms. In other words, their surnames were in most instances the names of places they owned in Italy, rather than Normandy. This is why among the Sicilian aristocracy there are few surnames of Norman derivation. It is obvious that most of these knights, and even the de Hauteville dynasty itself, were of minor families of Normandy's nobility. Some might not have even been of the landed class of Normandy. Like their Viking forebears, many were simply adventurers in search of fortune. The more important families sent their sons to conquer England, not Italy. Over time, a number of Longobard families also arrived in Sicily.
In Sicily, feudalism did not entail serfdom. It did, however, permit the nobles (at first enfeoffed knights, then lords and vassals, and then barons) to tax and control the lands they held in fee from the King. This policy, however, applied only to feudal towns. Cities, and certain demesnial towns, such as Calascibetta and Piazza Armerina, appertained directly to the Crown, and thus fell outside the jurisdiction of the nobility.
The War of the Vespers (1282) spawned the earliest Sicilian "parliaments," most of which were little more than meetings of nobles. The first true parliament, a genuine legislative body, wasn't founded until the nineteenth century, based on the British model, and it included only the more important noblemen, designated "peers of the realm," whose estates had had particularly high revenues until feudalism was abolished in 1812.
The extinction of the de Hauteville and von Hohenstaufen dynasties by 1266 led to the brief Angevin rule of Sicily until the War of the Vespers. The Crown then passed, by consent of Sicily's nobles, to Peter of Aragon. This made it clear that the nobility, as a group, held effective control of Sicily, whomever the King or Viceroy might be.
Frankish succession (inheritance by male primogeniture) became the standard means of transmitting land and titles, though Longobard succession (inheritance by all heirs male) was practiced in certain