La diaspora normande vue par les marges : la principauté d’Antioche entre histoire et historiographie

The contribution aims to analyze the ways that characterized the Norman expansion in the Latin East in the decades after the First Crusade. Particular attention will be given to the events of the settlement of family groups or individuals of Norman origin in the principality of Antioch, founded by Bohemond of Hauteville in 1098. The confrontation between the Western crusaders and the local population has been interpreted in a very different way from the modern historiography that has applied categories borrowed from concepts of religious identity poorly applicable to medieval sources. The Normans who dominated the political scene of the principality of Antioch in the first decades of the twelfth century were faced with a majority which had to build collaborative relationships. However, just the documentary framework at our disposal tends to convey the image of a warlike world, radically opposed to the fragmented Islamic world and the Byzantine Empire.