Ch. II THE NORMAN CONQUEST OF SICILY 57 
 
 
Slays. The flow of immigration continued throughout the tenth century. As
late as 1005 a famine in Africa drove hungry crowds off to Sicily; in ioi8
and 1019 many Shicite heretics found shelter in the island. Conversions also
swelled the Moslem element, especially in the western and southern provinces;
in eastern Sicily, which was conquered last, the overwhelming superiority
of Greek Christians was never shaken and there was a strong Latin minority.
Judging from very meager sources, differences between Moslems and "infidels"
were sharp only at the extremes. The aristocracy of fighters (Arabic, fund)
who lived on stipends was exclusively Moslem; the slaves were unconverted
descendants of Byzantine slaves, unransomed Christian war prisoners, and
strangers imported by slave merchants. The rustic masses consisted of hardworking
tenants, often bound to the land, and of small proprietors who paid heavy
taxes and were too busy making a living to be ardent supporters of any faith
or party. The infrequency of peasants' revolts even in times of civil war
and invasion shows that their lot was nc~t unbearable, and that they were
resigned to it. We catch glimpses of their feelings in the account of a chronicler
which shows the Christians of Val Demone as bringing "gifts" to count Roger
while assuring the Moslem authorities that they had been forced to do so.4
During World War II there were Sicilian farmers who, caught between two armies,
endeavored to escape punishment by similar acrobatics. 
 Leadership rested with the military, civil, and commercial upper class in
the towns. Palermo, long the capital of the provincial governors sent from
Africa and then that of the virtually independent Kalbid emirs, was now ruled
by its own assembly of notables (Arabic, jamã~ah) where Arabs of old
noble stock held first place. It was the religious metropolis of both the
Moslems and the Christians, one of the largest cities in the Moslem world,
and larger than any Christian town except Constantinople. Hundreds of school
teachers, lawyers, scholars, and poets made it one of the greatest intellectual
centers in the world. It was a port of the first rank, an active center of
ship-building and other crafts, and the residence of wealthy Jewish, Moslem,
and Christian businessmen. Its stately buildings of stone, marble, and bricks
sprawled from the old fortified center to many new suburbs brightened by
gardens and fountains. Along the sea shore were the quarters of voluntary

 
 ~ Malaterra, De rebus gestis, II, 14. Unfortunately most of the information
on the rural classes comes from documents of the Norman period, which to
some extent reflect the earlier conditions. See now E. Besta, "Le classi
sociali," in 11 Regno Normanno.