Normans in Coastal Tunisia
Normans from Sicily raided the east coast of Ifriqiya for the first time in 1123. After some years of attacks, in 1148 Normans under George of Antioch conquered all the coastal cities of Tunisia: Bona (Annaba), Sfax, Gabès, Tunis
By the earlyy 12th century, Sicily and Ifrīqiya were linked through their economic interdependence. From 1135, Al-Mahdīya became a de facto Sicilian protectorate, and in the 1140s much of coastal Ifrīqiya was subjected to Roger II's overlordship while the Zirid state ceased to existIndeed the Norman king Roger II of Sicily was able to create a coastal dominion of the area between Bona and Tripoli that lasted from 1135 to 1160 and was supported mainly by the last local Christian communities.
These communities, remnants of the north African original population during the Roman Empire, still spoke the African Romance in a few places like Gabès and Gafsa: the most important testimony of the existence of the African Romance comes from the 12th century Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi, who wrote that the people of Gafsa (in central-south Tunisia) used a language that he called al-latini al-afriqi ("the Latin of Africa").
Read more about this topic: History Of Medieval Tunisia