• Robert Guiscard, the renowned Norman conqueror of southern Italy. Dante places him in the Fifth Heaven of Paradise, in the planet Mars. For an account of his character and achievements see Gibbon, Ch. LVI . Matthew Paris, Giles’s Tr. , I 171, AD . 1239, gives the following account of the manner in which he captured the monastery of Monte Cassino:⁠— “In the same year, the monks of Monte Cassino (where St. Benedict had planted a monastery), to the number of thirteen, came to the Pope in old and torn garments, with dishevelled hair and unshorn beards, and with tears in their eyes; and on being introduced to the presence of his Holiness, they fell at his feet, and laid a complaint that the Emperor had ejected them from their house at Monte Cassino. This mountain was impregnable, and indeed inaccessible to any one unless at the will of the monks and others who dwelt on it; however R. Guiscard, by a device, pretending that he was dead and being carried thither on a bier, thus took possession of the monks’ castle. When the Pope heard this, he concealed his grief, and asked the reason; to which the monks replied, ‘Because, in obedience to you, we excommunicated the Emperor.’ The Pope then said, ‘Your obedience shall save you’; on which the monks went away without receiving anything more from the Pope.” ↩