Norman North Africa?

What if the conquests of Roger III, King of Sicily and self proclaimed "King of Africa" managed to stick in the 1140s, and the Normans then expanded out across modern Tunisia and Libya? What would the impact be on the Reconquista and the Crusades of a well organised and belligerent Christian state right in the middle of North Africa? Could a Sicilian based state concievably hold these regions indefinitely?
 
What if the conquests of Roger III, King of Sicily and self proclaimed "King of Africa" managed to stick in the 1140s, and the Normans then expanded out across modern Tunisia and Libya? What would the impact be on the Reconquista and the Crusades of a well organised and belligerent Christian state right in the middle of North Africa? Could a Sicilian based state concievably hold these regions indefinitely?

That's a very good question. I can imagine a majority Christian state based in North Africa would serve as a precedent for other ambitious lords and kings in their domains in Europe wishing to expand their own political and economical control while looking good with the Papacy. Whoever out of the Christian states in Hispania comes out on top [and unites much of the peninsula] and expels the Muslims is going to go expand into the Muslim states in Morroco. It's going to be hard to hold control of the lands if you have Muslim powers on either side. That requires heavy colonization by settlers from his other domains like Sicily and southern Italy.

This could all very much connect if Roger has dominions in the Levant.
 
What if the conquests of Roger III, King of Sicily and self proclaimed "King of Africa" managed to stick in the 1140s, and the Normans then expanded out across modern Tunisia and Libya? What would the impact be on the Reconquista and the Crusades of a well organised and belligerent Christian state right in the middle of North Africa? Could a Sicilian based state concievably hold these regions indefinitely?
Sicily was not terribly belligerent aside from the landgrabs, at least in the Norman Era. While holding the place is possible with skilled politics, the cleansings we knew from the Spanish Reconquista are less likely.

HTG
 
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