 The pope wanted to re-take Sicily for Christianity, and he saw the Normans as the perfect force to crush the Muslims.The Normans were by this time firmly established in southern Italy, and later in the year 1059 the new alliance was cemented at Melfi, where the pope, accompanied by Hildebrand, Cardinal Humbert, and Abbot Desiderius of Monte Cassino, solemnly invested Robert Guiscard with the duchies of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and Richard of Aversa with the principality of Capua, in return for oaths of fealty and the promise of assistance in guarding the rights of the Church.This arrangement, which was based on no firmer foundation than the forged "Donation of Constantine", was destined to give the papacy independence from both the Eastern and Western Empires.