23. The Weasel Who Split Christianity
The Norman knights who experienced Italy on their way to Jerusalem found the sunny peninsula a welcome change from the rain and cold back home. Liking what they saw, they decided to stay. They found employment as mercenaries for Italian lords who were impressed by the Norman lancers’ cavalry charges. Their sons, of whom Robert Guiscard, the Weasel, was one, eventually formed an independent army. In 1047, Guiscard used them to make himself Duke of Apulia, and from there, he led an invasion of southern Italy in 1053.
The Weasel’s chief opponent was the Pope. He felt no religious compunctions about fighting, defeating, and capturing the Holy Father. He then made the Pope bless him as King of Calabria – the toe of the Italian boot. That papal blessing angered the Byzantines because the Weasel had designs on Bari, their chief naval base in Italy. An already existing rift between Rome and Constantinople widened. It ended with the Pope excommunicating the entire Eastern Church in 1054. The Weasel had thus triggered a schism between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches that endures to this day.