In particular, three or four eleventh-century Swedish Runestones mention Italy, memorialising warriors who died in 'Langbarðaland', the Old Norse name for southern Italy ( Langobardia Minor). Other contact between Italy and the Viking world occurred via Eastern Scandinavians coming to Italy via the Austrvegr (the river routes from the Baltic to the Black Sea) and working as Varangian mercenaries fighting for Byzantium. Dudo's account, however, probably adds no historically reliable information to the brief contemporary annals. Building modern speculation on medieval invention, some scholarship has identified the leaders of this expedition as Björn Ironside and Hastein. The Vikings then move another 100 kilometres (60 miles) down the Tuscan coast to the mouth of the Arno, sacking Pisa and then, following the river upstream, also attack the hill-town of Fiesole above Florence and win other victories around the Mediterranean (including in Sicily and North Africa). Some modern scholars have connected this event with a much later account by the infamously unreliable Dudo of Saint-Quentin, who had a Viking fleet led by one Alstingus land at the Ligurian port of Luni and sacking the city. Ermentarius of Noirmoutier and the Annales Bertiniani provide contemporary evidence for Vikings based in Frankia (France) proceeding to Iberia and thence to Italy around 860. There is little evidence for Viking activity in Italy as a precursor to the arrival of the Normans in 999, but some raiding is recorded. Compared to the conquest of England, it was unplanned and disorganised, but equally complete. Many territories were conquered independently, and only later were unified into a single state. Unlike the Norman Conquest of England (1066), which took a few years after one decisive battle, the conquest of southern Italy was the product of decades and a number of battles, few decisive. These groups gathered in several places, establishing fiefdoms and states of their own, uniting and elevating their status to de facto independence within 50 years of their arrival. Itinerant Norman forces arrived in southern Italy as mercenaries in the service of Lombard and Byzantine factions, communicating news swiftly back home about opportunities in the Mediterranean.
In 1130, the territories in southern Italy united as the Kingdom of Sicily, which included the island of Sicily, the southern third of the Italian Peninsula (except Benevento, which was briefly held twice), the archipelago of Malta, and parts of North Africa. The Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1139, involving many battles and independent conquerors.
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