Robert Guiscard (The Cunning)

Robert Guiscard (c. 1015–1085), whose moniker Guiscard derives from the Old French Viscart ('The Cunning' or 'The Weasel'), was a Norman knight of the Hauteville dynasty who arrived in southern Italy with little more than horse and sword. Through brilliant guerrilla leadership, siegecraft, and audacity, he rose to become Duke of Apulia and Calabria.

Guiscard extinguished the remaining Byzantine catapanates in southern Italy by capturing Bari in 1071 and assisted his brother Roger I in conquering Muslim Sicily. In 1081, he invaded the Byzantine Empire, shattering Emperor Alexios I Komnenos at the Battle of Dyrrhachium. In 1084, Guiscard marched on Rome to rescue Pope Gregory VII from Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, capturing and burning much of the Eternal City before dying on campaign in Cephalonia.