The Battle of Civitate (also known as Battle of Civitella del Fortore) was fought on 18 June 1053 in Southern Italy, between the Normans, led by the Count of Apulia Humphrey of Hauteville, and a Swabian-Italian-Lombard army, organised by Pope Leo IX and led on the battlefield by Gerard, Duke of Lorraine, and Rudolf, Prince of Benevento. The Norman victory over the allied papal army marked the start of a conflict that ended with the formal recognition of the Norman conquest in South Italy by Pope Nicholas II in 1059, with Robert Guiscard as Duke of Apulia, Calabria, and Count of Sicily.