[6] The best-surviving source of information for the battle is found in Geoffrey of Malaterra's De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi Ducis fratris eius.

As a result of increasing pressure exerted on the papacy by the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry IV, during the Investiture Contest, Pope Nicholas II was looking for allies.

After one reconnaissance raid in 1060 and one abortive attempt in early 1061, Roger captured Messina ahead of a Norman army under the command of Robert Guiscard.

[9] The population the Val Demone region of Sicily, of which Messina forms the northeast corner, was largely made up of Greek-speaking Christians despite two centuries of Islamic rule and they welcomed the Normans as liberators.

The following year, while his brother was tied down with Apulian rebellions and Byzantine resurgences, Roger plundered to Agrigento and solidified Norman holdings in the Val Demone.

Ibn al-Hawas struck eastwards at the head of this large army towards Roger's position at Troina with a single-minded ambition, to destroy the Norman presence on the island.

[4] Roger's force consisted of 136 mounted Norman knights who were highly disciplined and well versed in the Frankish tactic of the heavy cavalry charge.

Norman notables at the battle included Roger I of Sicily, Serlo II of Hauteville, Roussel de Bailleul and Arisgot du Pucheuil.

This would later cause significant rifts between the two allies as increased Zirid control in Palermo and their successive defeats at the hands of Normans led to many Sicilians resenting their interference.

Upon discovering the proximity of the Muslim army, Roger immediately sent Serlo and his knights as an advance force to secure the strategically vital position offered by Cerami.

Roger's force, however, was drawn up into a tight body of men forming a vanguard and a rearguard, in a similar fashion to the Norman tactic used at Castrogiovanni in 1061.

Malaterra records how the Norman cavalry chased the mass of routing troops back to their camp, which they sacked and pillaged, killing all they found.

He also claims that the Norman cavalry wanted to stop and rest their horses at the Muslim camp and enjoy the spoils of war, but Roger ordered the chase to be continued into the surrounding mountains so that he could capitalize on the rout.

Roger, in the immediate aftermath, sent four camels as a gift to the Norman suzerain, the reigning Pope Alexander II, who in return blessed the expedition and offered certain spiritual indulgences, such as remission of sins, for those who had fought at the battle.

The following decades would see increasing papal involvement prompting and sponsoring wars to recover once-Christian lands that had been lost to the Muslims as long ago as the 7th and 8th centuries.

In 1095, 4 years after Sicily's conquest by the Normans definitively came to an end, Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade to recover the holy city of Jerusalem for the Christians, ushering in the next epoch of Mediterranean history.