Walter of the Mill

Who was Walter of the Mill?

Walter of the Mill, Italianised as Gualtiero Offamiglio or Offamilio and Latinised as Ophamilius, was the archdeacon of Cefalù, dean of Agrigento, and archbishop of Palermo, called il primo ministro. He was long thought to be an Englishman who came to Sicily with Peter of Blois and Stephen du Perche at the direction of Rotrou, Archbishop of Rouen, cousin of Queen Margaret of Navarre, originally as a tutor to the royal children of William I of Sicily and Margaret. Today his sobriquet is thought to derive from the Latin protofamiliaris, meaning "first confidante [of the king]". His mother was Bona, a patron of the Abbey of Cluny and a devota et fidelis nostra of the king in 1172. His father is unknown.

Walter's first appearance in the historical record is at court as the Latin tutor of the children of William I in 1160. He rose through the ranks until he was a canon of the Cappella Palatina and a candidate for the vacant archiepiscopal throne of 1168, after the deposition of Stephen du Perche. According to Hugo Falcandus, Walter succeeded "less by election than by violent intrusion."