Roger Borsa inherited the Duchy of Apulia from his father Robert Guiscard in 1085 under deeply contested circumstances — his half-brother Bohemond, the more militarily capable of the two, disputed the succession and retained control of significant territories in southern Italy for years. The tarì itself was not a Norman invention but a direct continuation of the Fatimid quarter-dinar, adopted wholesale by the Norman rulers of southern Italy who understood that disrupting the existing gold coinage would collapse trade with Byzantine and Arab merchants across the Mediterranean.
Roger Borsa's issues are notably scarcer than those of his father, reflecting both his shorter effective rule and the political instability that plagued his duchy throughout.
Roger Borsa inherited the Duchy of Apulia from his father Robert Guiscard in 1085 under deeply contested circumstances — his half-brother Bohemond, the more militarily capable of the two, disputed the succession and retained control of significant territories in southern Italy for years. The tarì itself was not a Norman invention but a direct continuation of the Fatimid quarter-dinar, adopted wholesale by the Norman rulers of southern Italy who understood that disrupting the existing gold coinage would collapse trade with Byzantine and Arab merchants across the Mediterranean.
Roger Borsa's issues are notably scarcer than those of his father, reflecting both his shorter effective rule and the political instability that plagued his duchy throughout.