geographers, and astronomers the patronage of the Norman king. The very monuments of art show the same strange juxtaposition of the stern romanesque of Neustria with the mosaics of the Byzantines, and the brilliant decorations of Arabic architects. Roger made Naples and Sicily one of the best-governed states in Europe, and with the happy quickness of sympathy and readiness to learn and borrow, which was the best mark of the Norman genius, combined elements the most diverse and unpromising into a happy and contented whole. [Sidenote: Roger’s later wars.] Despite his energy at home, Roger pursued an active external policy. He remained a faithful but an unruly ally of the Papacy. Like Robert Guiscard he turned his ambition against Constantinople, and Europe saw the strange spectacle of Manuel Comnenus allied with Conrad III. in withstanding the aggressions. But Roger’s most important wars were those against the Saracens, whom he pursued into Africa. His first and most permanent conquest was Malta, which remained until the sixteenth century a part of the Sicilian realm. [Sidenote: Conquest of North Africa.] The Mohammedan princes of North Africa recognised him as their lord and opened their ports to his merchants. In 1146 his admiral conquered Tripoli, and in 1148 Roger himself led a large expedition to Africa. After the capture of Tunis, the whole coast line from Cape Bon to Tripoli was subject to the Norman king, who boasted that the African obeyed him as well as the Apulian, the Calabrian, and the Sicilian. After a long reign, he died in 1154, with the reputation of one of the greatest kings of his time. [Sidenote: Growth of municipal autonomy in Lombardy.] While southern Italy settled down into a well-ordered state, a very different process was at work in the north, where the feudal nobility had never been strong, and the towns had always been important. As the contest between Papacy and Empire became chronic, the general tendency was for the feudal nobility to uphold the Empire, and the townsmen the cause of the Church. As in the days of the early Church, each Italian town of any importance was the seat of a bishop, who became the natural leader of the citizens in their struggle against the rustic nobility. This tendency was particularly strong in Lombardy, where the logic of facts and lavish grants of imperial privilege had conferred on the bishops the power of the ancient counts, or had subordinated the imperial officers under the episcopal authority. In Lombardy therefore the municipal revolution broke out, though it soon spread to all northern and central Italy.