County of Sicily with Robert Guiscard. In fact, the seat of Roger I's government was the Calabrian town of Mileto. According to the historians Agostino Inveges and Matteo Camera Roger I started to use the title ""Great Count of Sicily and Calabria"" since 1096. After the death of Roger I the major change was the transfer of the capital: Palermo became the capital in 1112, when Roger II was invested with the County, after the regency of the mother Adelaide del Vasto. With this change, Sicily come to be governed by the central government, while the Calabrian territories became a provincial administrative unit.
Emirate of Sicily had been unified by Ayyub ibn Tamim, the son of the Zirid emir of Ifriqiyya. In 1068 he left Sicily, and what remained under Muslim control fell under two qadits: one, led by Ibn Abbad (known as Benavert in western chronicles) in Syracuse, and the other under Hammud in Qas'r Ianni (modern Enna). By the 11th century mainland southern Italian powers were hiring Norman mercenaries, who were Christian descendants of the Vikings; it was the Normans under Roger I who captured Sicily from the Muslims. The Norman Robert Guiscard, son of Tancred, conquered Sicily in 1060 after taking Apulia and