The Stag on the Rooftop

t all started with Humbert the White-Handed. I don’t know how he got his nickname, but I’d guess that his hands, though white, weren’t exactly clean. He was a supporter of the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II, back in the 11th century, and, as a reward for helping Conrad grab a lot of territory from the Archbishop of Milan, he was named Count of Savoy and given the counties of Maurienne and Aosta to rule. The latter gave him effective control of several key mountain passes in the Alps, so he could extort tariffs on goods travelling