He was probably a younger brother of Count William of San Severino, the most powerful lord in the Cilento and a royal justiciar.
His high aristocratic lineage and monastic vows were both unusual for bishops of southern Italy at the time.
[1][2][3] In June 1180 Roger and five of his twenty-two suffragans and two other bishops visited Montecassino, where they issued an indulgence for one year's penance to visitors of the abbey and one year and forty days' penance to visitors on Saint Benedict's day.
[4] In 1199 Roger's own canons brought charges against him before Pope Innocent III, who sent a cardinal and the archbishop of Naples to investigate.
Among the charges was that Roger had encouraged the citizens of Benevento to destroy the castle (castellum) of a neighbouring baron with whom they were in dispute.