- published: 07 Jul 2015
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Coordinates: 49°39′24″N 3°03′09″E / 49.6567°N 3.0525°E / 49.6567; 3.0525
Guiscard is a village in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.
Robert d'Hauteville, known as Guiscard, Duke of Apulia and Calabria, from Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, the Fox, or the Weasel (c. 1015 – 17 July 1085) was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily. Robert was from the noble Maison d'Hauteville of the Hauteville family, he went on to become Count (1057–1059) and then Duke (1059–1085) of Apulia and Calabria after his half-brother Humphrey's death.
From 999 to 1042 the Normans in Italy were mainly mercenaries, serving at various times the Byzantines and a number of Lombard nobles. Then Sergius IV of Naples, by installing the leader Rainulf Drengot in the fortress of Aversa in 1029, gave them their first base, allowing them to begin an organized conquest of the land.
In 1035 there arrived William Iron-Arm and Drogo, the two eldest sons of Tancred of Hauteville, a petty noble of the Cotentin in Normandy. The two joined in the revolt of the Lombards against Byzantine control of Apulia. By 1040 the Byzantines had lost most of that province. In 1042 Melfi was chosen as the Norman capital, and in September of that year the Normans elected as their count William Iron-Arm, who was succeeded in turn by his brothers Drogo, Comes Normannorum totius Apuliæ e Calabriæ ("the Count of all Normans in Apulia and Calabria"), and Humphrey, who arrived about 1044.