The Norman family whose sons conquered southern Italy and Sicily and founded the Crusader principality of Antioch.
The Hautevilles were a family of petty Norman lords from the Cotentin whose sons, lacking inheritance at home, sought their fortune as mercenaries in southern Italy in the early eleventh century. The most formidable, Robert Guiscard ("the Cunning"), carved out the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria from the Byzantines and Lombards, while his brother Roger I conquered Muslim Sicily.
From these conquests grew the Kingdom of Sicily, one of the richest and most cosmopolitan states of the Mediterranean, which the Hautevilles ruled until it passed by marriage to the Hohenstaufen.
Robert Guiscard’s son Bohemond joined the First Crusade and, after the long siege of Antioch, made himself its prince in 1098 — founding a Hauteville dynasty in the Crusader East. He became the most famous of the crusade’s leaders, and his wars against the Byzantines carried Norman ambition to the Balkans.
His nephew Tancred ruled Antioch as an able regent, and Bohemond’s son Bohemond II held the principality until his death in battle in 1130.
The Hautevilles were among the most successful adventurers of the age: from a minor Norman family they founded a Mediterranean kingdom and a Crusader principality. The Sicily they created blended Norman, Greek, Arab, and Latin culture into a brilliant court civilisation.
Through the marriage of the heiress Constance of Sicily to Henry VI, the Sicilian inheritance passed to the Hohenstaufen and their son Frederick II, carrying the Hauteville legacy into the heart of imperial politics.