8. A Dangerous Warrior Princess
Few women of the Middle Ages were more dangerous than Sichelgaita of Salerno (circa 1040 – 1090), a Lombard warrior princess and the Duchess of Apulia in southern Italy. A six-foot Amazon, she met and married Robert Guiscard, an equally dangerous Norman adventurer who turned Sicily and southern Italy into a Norman domain. Sichelgaita rode armed and armored and went into combat at Guiscard’s side, or led men into battle on her own. Between them, the power couple roiled and terrorized the Mediterranean for decades during the second half of the eleventh century.
Sichelgaita was born into the ruling family of the Duchy of Salerno, and from an early age, she exhibited a passion for swordsmanship and horseback riding. After her father the Duke of Salerno was murdered in a palace coup, she helped her brother regain the duchy, and she regained her place as the duchy’s most privileged woman. Brother and sister then had to deal with encroachment from Normans to their south, who had settled in Italy after a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.