The Place Called Chiesazza: A Study of the Norman Monastic Foundation in Sicily.

The history of the Santa Maria di Campogrosso monastery, founded by Norman rulers in the 11th century, is poorly documented in written sources. The ruins of the church were the subject of archaeological research between 2015 and 2023 by the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Burials dating from the 12th to 14th centuries were discovered, including the remains of people from continental Europe. In the church's nave, the remains of an older building, dating from the 11th-12th century, were encountered. The time of construction of the younger church, thanks to C14 dating of mortar and human remains in correlation with coin finds, was determined to be the second half of the 12th and first half of the 13th century. Based on historians' descriptions of the 16th and 17th centuries, the monastery is considered Basilian. The results of the archaeological survey suggest that it was Latinised in the first half of the 12th century. GPR surveys revealed the outlines of the monastery walls, typical of Benedictine monasteries. The authors compare research on the history of medieval Poland and Sicily, pointing out the influence of 19th-century interpretations and over-interpretations in 20th-century historiography. On the one hand, it was made possible by the lack of numerous systematic excavations and by the impossibility of more precisely dating archaeological facts. Changes in dating methods at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century influenced new archaeological and historical research approaches in Poland and Sicily.