Diritto, religione e sovranità nel Regno di Sicilia in età normanno-sveva

Between the 12th and 13th centuries, the Regnum Siciliae emerged in Europe as an institution that provided strong political cohesion, under the idea of a unified public power, to a vast territorial area with a multi-ethnic and multi-religious population. The Roman Church gave religious legitimacy to the military campaigns of the Normans in southern Italy and Sicily, and to their political rise, which culminated in the establishment of the Kingdom in 1130. In textual and iconographic representations, the sovereignty of the kings of Sicily is placed at the crossroads of the biblical conception of kingship and the idea of maiestas inherited from the Roman-Byzantine tradition. From Roger II to Frederick II, legislation was the primary and essential expression of the Norman-Swabian conception of the duties of royalty. This is the context in which the Apostolic Legation, an institution that characterised the history of relations between ecclesiastical and political power in Sicily from the 11th century until 1871, was established. Above the recurring conflicts between the Kingdom and the Papacy, religion and the idea of an alliance between throne and altar were conceived as fundamental instruments of government.