Maio of Bari
Maio of Bari () (died 10 November 1160) was the third of the great admirals of Sicily and the most important man in the Norman kingdom of Sicily during the reign of William I (1154–66). Lord Norwich calls him "one of the most influential statesmen in Europe." Rise to the rank of admiral Maio was born in the first decades of the twelfth century to Leo of Rayza and Kuraza, members of the urban upper class in Bari. Leo is documented as a judge in Bari between 1119 and 1135, as a royal justice from 1141 and as a regalis supra iudex ("royal superior judge") or protoiudex ("first judge") from 1142 to 1147. He was dead by 1155. The death of Maio's mother, Kuraza, is recorded in the necrology of the cathedral of Salerno as falling on 26 July 1158. The contemporary Liber de regno sicilie, a partisan source, falsely claims that Maio was the son of an oil merchant. In his Chronicle and Annals, Romuald Guarna (died 1181/2), a partisan of the other side, calls Maio "certainly an eloquent, fully honest and discreet man" (vir utique facundus, satis providus et discretus). Maio is first documented as the royal scriniarius,