War of the Sicilian Vespers

War of the Sicilian Vespers
The War of the Sicilian Vespers, also shortened to the War of the Vespers, was a conflict waged by several medieval European kingdoms over control of Sicily from 1282 to 1302. The war, which started with the revolt of the Sicilian Vespers, was fought over competing dynastic claims to the throne of Sicily and grew to involve the Kingdom of Aragon, Angevin Kingdom of Naples, Kingdom of France, and the papacy.
Initially fought between Sicilian rebels and Charles of Anjou in Sicily and Southern Italy, the war expanded when Aragon invaded Sicily to support the rebels and claim the throne. After Aragonese successes, the war grew into the concurrent Aragonese Crusade as the Kingdom of France intervened against Aragon in Iberia. The crusade ended in defeat, but efforts to end the war failed despite several peace treaties. Aragon gave up the crown of Sicily in exchange for papal concessions in 1297, entering into an alliance with Angevin Naples and the papacy against Sicily, but the new alliance's campaign to invade Sicily saw no success. The war ended in 1302 in the Peace of Caltabellotta, by which Sicily became an independent kingdom ruled by the House of Barcelona.
The war resulted in the division of the old Kingdom of Sicily; the island of Sicily came to be ruled as the Kingdom of Sicily, while the mainland territories of the old kingdom became the Kingdom of Naples. The war led to an era of Aragonese expansion in the Western Mediterranean, as the kingdom gained suzerainty over the Kingdom of Majorca and Sardinia. Outlasting four kings and four popes, the twenty-year war showcased the decline of papal power in southern Europe and the rise of increasingly powerful kings in the late 13th century.
Background
Papal concerns & competing claims over Sicily
The island of Sicily had ruled as a medieval kingdom since the early 12th century, when Roger II of Sicily conquered the island and established the Kingdom of Sicily. Strategically located in the Mediterranean, the kingdom grew to include much of southern Italy, and was considered one of the wealthiest kingdoms in Europe. Grain produced in the kingdom's lands in Sicily and southern Italy contributed to feeding the northern Italian city states and the Holy Land, while the island of Sicily itself served as a staging ground for various crusades. Sicily was key to the defense of Rome and the papal states, and as such the papacy considered it vital that a friendly king occupied the throne of Sicily. Diplomatic relations between the papacy and Sicily were heavily intertwined; the pope had funded the Norman invasion of Sicily and sanctioned the establishment of the kingdom, and the king of Sicily officially held the throne as a vassal in the name of the pope.
In the 13th century, Sicily became the heartland of the Hohenstaufen empire of Frederick II of Sicily. Frederick and the pope bitterly disagreed on issues of papal authority, and his rule resulted in a flare-up of the centuries long conflict between the pro-pope Guelphs and pro-imperial Ghibellines. When Frederick died the kingdom of Sicily was claimed by Manfred I of Sicily, his illegitimate son, who quarreled with the pope over his legitimacy as king. Seeing the opportunity created by Manfred's contested claim to the throne of Sicily, in the 1250s the papacy began to look for a potential claimant to overthrow him.
Conquest of Sicily by Charles of Anjou
At papal invitation, in 1265 the kingdom of Sicily was invaded and conquered by Charles I of Anjou, a powerful member of the French royal House of Capet. Manfred of Sicily was drawn into a battle and killed, and Charles' victory allowed him to establish the Angevin Kingdom of Sicily and Naples, giving him control of Sicily and most of southern Italy. Using the ongoing conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines as a political wedge, Charles expanded his influence throughout Italy, cobbling together a formidable feudal state and forcing treaties on many Italian cities. With Sicily and Naples under his control, Charles and his brother, King Philip III of France, were able to greatly increase French influence in the western Mediterranean. The papacy heavily benefited from the Angevin conquest, as the usurping of Manfred's throne by Charles of Anjou ensured a pro-papacy king ruled over Sicily, and Manfred's death deprived the anti-papacy Ghibellines of one of their greatest supporters in Italy.
While Charles was consolidating his rule over southern Italy, he faced a foreign competitor; in 1268, Duke Conradin of Swabia claimed the crown of Sicily and invaded Italy with a multinational army. Conradin's invasion sparked most of Sicily to revolt against the Charles, before the former was defeated and captured by the Angevins at the Battle of Tagliacozzo. In the aftermath of his victory, Charles - ignoring objections from the pope - had the sixteen-year-old Conradin beheaded, extinguishing the Hohenstaufen line and earning Charles the outrage of much of Western Europe. With his immediate foes in Italy defeated, Charles cracked down on the rebellion in Sicily, executing many of the rebel leaders and sacking the city of Augusta. Charles began a new administration in Sicily that would better serve his interests; land confiscations were carried out to deprive Sicilian noblemen of their power, Frenchmen were given preferential status in government, Angevin garrisons were established on the island, and the capital of Sicily was moved from the traditional capital Palermo to Naples, where Charles held court. Over the next decade, Charles' rule over Sicily took on an increasingly oppressive character, with heavy taxes being levied on the populace. The Sicilian tax system - developed during Islamic, Byzantine, and Norman rule - offered many exceptions to taxes, but was replaced with a new, stricter taxation system which only offered tax exemptions for those of French origin. The invasion, revolt, and subsequent crackdown displaced much of the Sicilian noble class, with many of the exiles fleeing to the Kingdom of Aragon in Iberia.
Seizing on Sicily's wealth and strategic location, Charles used the island as base to project Angevin power. From 1272–1276, the Angevin kingdom fought against the Republic of Genoa after Charles detained Genoese merchants in his territory, while also sending troops to drive pro-Ghibellines out of Siena, Pisa, and Tuscany. The quartering of crusader troops on Sicily during the unsuccessful Eight Crusade, coupled with the forced conscription of Sicilian men into Charles' army, also strained tensions.
In addition to his campaigns in Italy, Charles had a longstanding ambition to act on the 1267 Treaty of Viterbo, which nominally gave him and his heirs the right to conquer large parts of the Byzantine Empire, and in 1271 he seized control of Corfu and Albania. For much of the later 1270s, Charles worked to prepare a large-scale invasion of Byzantium—these preparations were concentrated in Eastern Sicily and in Southern Italy, and while they stimulated the local economies there, the additional taxes raised to fund this campaign caused outrage in western Sicily. The papacy, originally a staunch ally, was critical of Charles' growing power in Italy and his strict rule over Sicily. However, it also saw the Angevin kingdom as a powerful tool to be used against the Byzantines and as a means to defend the Holy Land, and so several popes financially supported Charles' military buildup in the 1270s.
Aragonese interest in Sicily
Under James I of Aragon (reigned 1213–1276), the Iberian kingdom of Aragon had engaged in decades of military and commercial expansion. Aragon's seizure of the Beleric islands in 1232 and conquest of Valencia in 1238 opened the way for Aragonese influence to expand throughout the western Mediterranean. Seeing Sicily as the key to expanding Aragonese power eastward, James signed a treaty of alliance with King Manfred of Sicily in 1262, sealing the treaty by marrying his son and heir Peter to Manfred's daughter, Constance of Sicily.
James was outraged by Charles of Anjou's conquest of Sicily in 1268 and felt threatened when France and the Angevins invaded Tunis in 1270, seeing both invasions as a French attempt to curb Aragonese influence. James died in 1276 and his son ascended to the throne as Peter III of Aragon. Peter was adamant that Constance was the rightful queen of Sicily; he entreated Philip III of France to force his brother Charles to turn Sicily over to Constance, but this effort failed. Faced with a powerful France to the north and an aggressive Angevin kingdom to the east, Peter made efforts to strengthen his kingdom throughout the 1270s and 1280s, building up the Aragonese navy, reforming the army, and embarking on a diplomatic campaign to isolate the Angevins from potential allies.
A notable number of political exiles—driven out of Sicily, Tunis, and the Ghibelline cities of Northern Italy—joined the Aragonese, with many seeking revenge against the Angevins and the recovery of their former lands. Among the Sicilians who fled to Aragon was diplomat and physician John of Procida. A loyal supporter of first Manfred and then Conradin, John had fled to Aragon after Charles' conquest of Sicily, and by 1279 had impressed Peter enough to be granted lands in Aragon. John became vital to Aragonese foreign policy.
Sicilian Vespers
By early 1282, tensions in Sicily had become badly strained. Muslim victories against Christian fiefdoms in the Levant were destabilizing the Holy Land, and it became widely speculated that Charles and the Angevins would soon sail to invade Byzantium; both of these occurrences sparked fears of a renewed campaign of forced conscription and taxation in Sicily.
On Easter Monday, just prior to the start of the evening Vespers at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Palermo, a deadly riot broke out between Angevin soldiers and the Sicilian population. Accounts differ as to what sparked the riot; some sources note the harassment of a Sicilian woman by a Angevin soldier, others cited an attack by a Frenchman on a burgher or priest. The rioting spread throughout Palermo, which rose in revolt against the French. Starting in western Sicily, the revolt spread to the rest of the island, leading to the massacre of four thousand Frenchmen over the course of the next six weeks.
Rebels took control over most of the island, with only the key port city of Messina remaining under Angevin control. The home port of the Angevin crusader fleet, Messina was ringed with Angevin garrisons, was geographically close to Naples, and had benefited economically from Charles' aggressive shipbuilding program. However, failed attempts by the Angevin vicar, Herbert of Orléans, to reinforce Angevin troops outside of Messina eroded the city's support for the Angevins; on 28 April, Orléans and the Angevin garrison of Messina withdrew to the castle of Mategriffon, leaving the city to the rebels. Captain of the People took command of the city on behalf of the Sicilian rebels and rioters burned the Angevin crusader fleet stationed in the harbor, greatly hampering Charles' ambitions in the Mediterranean.
International reaction
The sudden outbreak of the rebellion of Sicily destabilized Angevin Naples, and so the enemies of Charles quickly worked to take advantage of the crisis. In Aragon, John of Procida worked to garner support for the rebels and rally the enemies of the Angevins. Contemporary chronicles and folk legends claim John travelled to Sicily, Constantinople, and Rome to stir up support for the revolt in Sicily, while more modern sources note these claims were likely exaggerated. Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, a staunch enemy of Charles of Anjou, supported the revolt as it destroyed Charles' ability to invade Byzantium. In Rome, the papacy was split; some members of the church (specifically those cardinals and papal officials from Italy) felt that Charles and the Angevins were growing too powerful, and so considered peace with the Sicilian rebels. However, Pope Martin IV was of French origin and a staunch ally of Charles of Anjou, and so the resources of the papacy were leveraged against the Sicilian rebels.
While his enemies maneuvered, Charles struck back at the rebels, raising an army in Calabria and laying siege to Messina. The various factions that made up the Sicilian rebels were initially divided politically; some cities supported independence, others supported Peter of Aragon, while others requested papal protection. The papacy, however, rejected diplomatic overtures and threatened excommunication for rebels that did not surrender to Angevin authority, thus inadvertently driving many Sicilians into the pro-Aragon factions. The leading cities of the island formed a parliament, which would go on to serve as the de-facto government of Sicily.
Aragonese intervention in Sicily
Opening moves
Soon after the Vespers revolt, the rebel-aligned Sicilians turned to Peter of Aragon for support against the Angevins and French. Peter's claim to the Sicilian throne through his wife, along with heavy pressure from wealthy Aragonese merchant communities, made an Aragonese invasion of Sicily a potentially profitable enterprise for Peter. In addition, depriving Charles of the Sicilian throne would weaken the Capetian dynasty and France, which Aragon struggled against in northern Iberia. According to one source, Peter likely intended to invade Sicily once Charles sailed to invade Byzantium, regardless if a revolt had erupted in Sicily or not. After ten weeks of preparation and, using the prospect of a crusade as cover, Peter's fleet of 140 ships sailed for Collo in North Africa.
The Aragonese fleet landed in Collo and soon received envoys from the Sicilian rebels. Accepting the offer of the Sicilian throne, Peter and his fleet then sailed for Trapani, landing unopposed before marching to Palermo to be crowned. In early October, Aragonese troops forced Charles to lift his siege of Messina and the remaining Angevin forces abandoned the island. Aragonese troops led by prince James of Aragon landed on the Italian mainland, marching toward Reggio without resistance, but no large uprising against Charles took place in wider Calabria. Charles' forces still controlled significant territories on mainland Italy, and decidedly pro-French Pope Martin IV excommunicated the Sicilian rebels, the Byzantine emperor and the Ghibellines of northern Italy in November. Most significantly of all, the pope excommunicated Peter of Aragon and his ruling House of Barcelona, depriving them of the Aragonese crown and giving the crown of Aragon to Charles of Valois, son of King Philip III of France and great nephew of Charles of Anjou.
Aragonese successes & widening conflict
Peter pressed his advantage and by February 1283 he had taken most of the Calabrian coastline. On the defensive, Charles sent letters to Peter demanding they resolve the conflict by personal combat. Peter accepted and Charles returned to France to arrange the duel. Both kings chose six knights to settle matters of places and dates. A duel between monarchs was scheduled for 1 June 1283 at English-controlled Bordeaux – one hundred knights would accompany each side, and Edward I of England would adjudge the contest. However, the English king, heeding a papal order forbidding the duel, refused to take part. Peter left Sicily and returned via his own kingdom to Bordeaux, which he entered in disguise to evade a suspected French ambush. No combat between the two took part, and Peter returned to Barcelona to stabilize his kingdom, while Charles returned to Naples to rally support in his southern Italian lands.
While Peter and Charles had been pursuing justice by duel in France, the Catalan admiral Roger of Lauria continued the war in Italy on behalf of Peter. Lauria ravaged the Calabrian coast and kept up a strong naval presence in the area, defeating several Angevin fleets. In the summer of 1283, Roger sailed to Malta and defeated the Angevin fleet at the Battle of Malta. Roger then drew Charles, Prince of Salerno, son and heir apparent of Charles I, out of Naples' port in the summer of 1284. In the ensuing battle, Roger utterly routed Charles' navy in the Battle of the Gulf of Naples. Roger took the prince and 42 ships captive to Messina. Though it maintained control over Naples and much of Southern Italy, the Angevin Kingdom lacked the funds and ships to launch a major counter offensive against Aragon, and with his son's capture, Charles had lost his heir. Charles died in early 1285, while Aragonese attention was diverted towards a brewing war with France in Iberia. With Charles dead and Peter distracted, Sicily became a secondary theatre in the conflict until the 1290s.
Aragonese Crusade
Border conflict & politics
In light of Aragonese successes against the Angevins in Sicily, France looked to support its dynastic ally and take advantage of the conflict. The court of Philip III was split on war with Aragon, for while the pope had granted the Aragonese crown to a French prince, war would be costly. Philip had vowed that an attack on Charles in Sicily would be treated as an attack on France, but the French nobility showed a reluctance to become involved and Philip was unable to respond to the Aragonese invasion in 1283. By early 1284, however, Philip had chosen to declare war; while he had little interest in Sicily itself, he saw value in seizing Roussillon and Montpellier, and in helping save his uncle Charles from defeat. Philip also hoped to expand his influence in northern Spain by securing the Val d'Aran and the Kingdom of Navarre, which was under his protection as per the Treaty of Orléans and nominally ruled by his son, Prince Philip the Fair. To spur an invasion Pope Martin IV declared a crusade against Aragon, citing King Peter's excommunication and granting an indulgence to any man who died fighting against Peter. Both France and Aragon prepared for war.
Through the winter of 1283–1284, both sides continued their war preparations. Though he had been successful in Sicily, Peter of Aragon's war in the east had divided his kingdom's resources, and he faced an increasingly hostile political situation in Aragon as many nobles opposed his wars of expansion. After negotiations with a noble faction, Peter was forced to cede some of his rights as king and release noble prisoners in exchange for the manpower needed to defend Barcelona, his family's seat of power. In France, Philip deployed the royal army to Toulouse and Navarra, while raising large sums of money from French merchants to pay for the war.
In late 1283 King James II of Majorca, Peter's younger brother, announced his intent to support the French crusade and recognized their suzerainty over Montpellier, while also giving the French army free passage through the Balearic Islands and Roussillon. James and Peter had a longstanding rivalry (Peter had opposed James' inheritance of Majorca after the death of their father), with both brothers desiring each-others kingdoms. While Majorcan support for France eased the French invasion of Aragon, James' actions inadvertently upset Philip's ambitions; the French king had hoped to annex Roussillon from Majorca, but now found himself awkwardly allied to James and therefore politically unable to seize the territory. Regardless of the Majorcan intervention, Philip resolved to move ahead with his invasion; on February 22, 1284, Philip's son Charles of Valois was crowned King of Aragon, a direct challenge to Peter.
French invasion
In the summer of 1285, the French crusader army under Philip and Charles of Valois entered Roussillon. Contemporary chronicles listed a huge force of between 80,000–100,000 men, while more modern sources estimate the size of the army as being around 1,500 mounted cavalry and 6,500 infantry. Regardless of size, sources have described the army as one of the largest assembled by France in the 13th century, possibly the largest French expedition into Iberia since the time of Charlemagne. Though the French had James of Majorca's support, the local populace rose against them and did not allow a quick French passage. When the French army reached the city of Elne, the city refused to open its gates. Elne was valiantly defended by the so-called bâtard de Roussillon ("bastard of Roussillon"), the illegitimate son of Nuño Sánchez, late count of Roussillon. Eventually the city was overcome and brutally sacked, with the French then continuing their advance south. Local nobles conducted a scorched earth campaign against the French, prompting Philip to order his army to isolate any Aragonese garrison they encountered and continue south quickly, fearful of running out of supplies. Peter and the Aragonese army fell back from the frontier, not willing to risk attacking the larger French army - Peter was also awaiting the return of the men and ships he had fighting in Sicily.
By late June 1285 Philip and the French army had reached Girona, laying siege to the city in the heat of the Catalan summer. Philip's army needed constant resupply, forcing the French to move supplies through contested countryside to their rear or to ship supplies by sea to the town of Roses, 20 miles from Girona. The Aragonese probed the French lines around Girona, and tried to cut the road to Rosas, but failed; Peter was still unwilling to risk an open battle with the French. While the respective royal armies maneuvered on land, clusters of armed merchant ships and Catalan pirates preyed on French shipping, conducting a successful guerilla war at sea. Frustrated by small squadrons of Catalans galleys raiding their supply lines, the French prepared to blockade Barcelona.
In early September, the main Aragonese fleet under Roger of Lauria arrived from Sicily. On 3 September, his fleet attacked and decisively defeated a French fleet at the Battle of Les Formigues, giving Aragon control of the Catalan coast and cutting the French army's ability to resupply by sea. Lauria followed his victory with a raid on Roses, capturing many French ships in the harbor and seizing the main supply depot for the French royal army. Girona fell to the French on 7 September, but the victorious army was fast running out of supplies. The French held a ceremony to officially crown Charles of Valois 'King of Aragon' there, but without an actual crown, and the French army was by this time suffering from an outbreak of dysentery. By mid-September, Philip had decided to end the campaign and began to withdraw back towards the French border.
As the French army withdrew, it suffered badly from attrition and guerilla attacks, while Philip himself was afflicted with dysentery. The heir to the French throne, Prince Philip the Fair of Navarre, opened negotiations with Peter for free passage for the royal family through the Pyrenees, and Peter agreed, not wanting to risk a protracted war with France. The French army was not granted this stay and was attacked and routed at the Battle of the Col de Panissars. Philip himself succumbed to dysentery, dying at Perpignan in October. James of Majorca, unable to resist the Aragonese advance without French support, fled his lands and Mallorca was occupied by an Aragonese army late in the summer.
Leadership changes
In Aragon, Peter died on 2 November 1285—thus, all three monarchs at the start of the conflict were dead by the end of 1285. Pope Martin IV was also dead, having been forced to flee Rome during a civil uprising, and then taken ill and died in March 1285. The new monarchs who had inherited the war had different priorities, but the end of the year marked a lull in the conflict. Prince Philip the Fair of Navarre, now Philip IV of France, did not support the war with Aragon, and was more interest in dealing with domestic issues. Prince Charles of Naples, heir to Charles of Anjou, was a prisoner of the Aragonese, with his government managed by the late Charles' councilors. The regent of Naples, Robert II of Artois, proved to be a capable administrator and used Aragon's war with France in Iberia as an opportunity to rebuild the Angevins' battered armies and fleets.
Peter of Aragon's kingdoms were split following his death, with the crown of Aragon passing to Alfonso III of Aragon and the crown of Sicily passing to James II of Sicily. The two monarchs hoped to consolidate the House of Barcelona's gains, and with annexing their uncle James' lands in Mallorca. Alfonso was also engaged in a border war with Castile, threatening the western flank of a still-unstable Aragon.
Angevin re-armament and diplomatic efforts
Intermittent warfare continued for several years, mostly in 1286 when Roger of Lauria raided Provence, and notably at the Battle of the Counts off the coast of Naples in June 1287, but diplomatic complexities hindered peace. After the defeats of 1287, the Angevin kingdom—though still possessing a formidable army—began to seek a diplomatic accord with Aragon, while still preparing to wage war in Sicily. Fears of Castilian, Genoese, Venetian, or Holy Roman intervention also drove the peace process forward; a tentative agreement was reached in 1288, and Charles of Naples was ransomed from Aragonese captivity, but Pope Nicholas IV annulled the peace treaty and demanded Philip and the newly-freed Charles invade Sicily.
In Aragon, king Alfonso was beleaguered by internal troubles and there were fears that the powerful Aragonese nobility (previously opposed to war with France) would demand that he seize control of Navarre, still ruled by Philip, and thus war with France would break out again. Sicily remained the key point of contention between the French/Papal parties and the House of Barcelona, but neither side was willing to abandon their claim. A change came in 1290, when Philip bribed one of Charles of Anjou's heirs to give up his claim on Sicily, thereby freeing France's papal obligation to invade. Charles of Valois, whom the papacy had granted the throne of Aragon, was pressured to give up his throne in return for papal promises to grant him lands in Sicily and perhaps a throne in the future; he would continue to seek a crown as a semi-independent prince. In 1291, seeking to further cool tensions, Alfonso and pope Nicholas signed the Treaty of Tarascon, in which Alfonso tentatively agreed to not hold Sicily against papal wishes and to remove Aragonese troops from the island. King James of Sicily was not a signatory but supported resolving the conflict. However, Alfonso died less than a month after signing the treaty, rendering it void.
Alfonso's death passed the crown of Aragon to James, who now ruled both Aragon and Sicily. Though he had been king of Sicily first, James was more interested in preserving the authority of the monarchy in Aragon, and so was willing to give up Sicily for a lasting peace with the papacy and France. However, the powerful Catalan merchant class, which had secured large trade concessions in Sicily, demanded the Aragon maintain some control over the island, and some Aragonese nobles had acquired fiefs Sicily and were remiss to give up the island to the Angevins. Complicating matters further, the Sicilians themselves (led by Queen Constance and the Sicilian parliament) were adamant that Sicily would not bow to papal or Angevin rule. With the issue still unresolved, James returned to Aragon to secure a peace with Castile, ordering an end to offensive action in 1293. James met with Charles II of Naples in November 1293, with James agreeing to renounce his claim to the Sicilian throne in exchange for compensation and the expectation that his excommunication would be rendered void. However, no official peace treaty could be signed without papal approval, and no pope was in power at the time due to election disputes in Rome.
Aragon changes sides, Sicilian resistance
Election of Boniface VIII and Papal overtures to Aragon
The 1295 election of Pope Boniface VIII opened a path to peace, as Boniface was keen to resolve the Sicilian issue. Eager to strengthen the temporal and political power of the church, Boniface was adamant that Sicily be returned to Angevin rule and that Sicily once more become a vassal state to the Holy See, the pre-war political privilege the papacy held over Sicily. To accomplish this Boniface made diplomatic overtures to the Aragonese leadership, hoping to win their support for an Angevin restoration in Sicily and to divide them from their Sicilian allies. The elderly John of Procida, infante Frederick of Barcelona (younger brother of James of Aragon and viceroy of Sicily), and Roger of Lauria met with Boniface in Velletri, where the pope offered them terms for an Aragonese withdraw from Sicily. In addition to offering a draft of a peace treaty, Boniface offered the Aragonese leaders personal concessions; to Roger of Lauria, the pope offered to grant a papal fiefdom over the island of Djerba, while to Frederick he offered a marriage to Catherine de Courtenay, who nominally controlled territories in the Greek islands and had a claim to the throne of the Latin Empire. According to some sources, the pope also offered Frederick an army and a papal sanction to invade the Byzantine Empire in exchange for the Aragonese prince's abandonment of Sicily.
After negotiations resumed, James agreed to the 1295 Treaty of Anagni, by which he forfeited the crown of Sicily to the papacy and agreed to marry a member of Charles II's family, Blanche of Anjou, thus securing peace between Aragon and the Angevin kingdom. Aragon also took on Mallorca as a vassal, ending its military occupation but gaining effective control of the Kingdom of Majorca. Aragon also received substantial monetary compensation (12,000 livre tournois), Charles of Valois was forced to give up his claim to the throne of Aragon, and the order of excommunication was lifted from James. Boniface took the treaty to mean the end of the Sicilian rebellion and re-affirmed Charles II's right to rule Sicily, who began to plan a new invasion of the island to re-install Angevin rule.
Crowning of Frederick III
Despite the changing diplomatic situation, the Sicilians objected to any return of Angevin rule over Sicily and so considered the treaty to be invalid. Led by Queen Constance of Sicily and the Sicilian parliament, the island prepared to continue the war. Pope Boniface's offer of a lucrative marriage partner for Frederick fell through, and soon after the Aragonese prince re-affirmed his desire to rule Sicily. In late 1285, Frederick announced that Aragon had abandoned the island and in December he was declared "Lord of the Island", pending a plebiscite to install him as king. After a gathering of its delegates in Palermo, in March 1296 the Sicilian parliament crowned Frederick as Frederick III, King of Sicily. Frederick, although still a prince of Aragon, resolved to defend the island.
With Frederick's ascension as king, relations between Aragon and Sicily became more strained. Aragon was pressured by treaty to assist Angevin Naples and the papacy in reconquering Sicily, but James did not invade immediately, instead recalling all Aragonese and Catalans from the island. The rift between allies split the loyalties of many nobles; years of war and conquest had resulted in many wealthy nobles and merchants, notably admiral Roger of Lauria, possessing lands in both Aragon and Sicily. Aragonese and Sicilian crews often served on the same warships, and many Aragonese soldiers were garrisoned in Sicily. When James recalled his fellow Catalans from Sicily, thousands chose to stay loyal to Sicily and Frederick.
As the year 1296 progressed, James became distracted in Iberia as Castile devolved into civil war, and so Frederick and his newly-independent Sicilian forces went on the offensive in Calabria, harassing Angevin forces. Pope Boniface demanded that James support the Angevin's war against Sicily, but James was in no rush to do so; instead, he attempted to schedule a series of peace summits with Frederick in an attempt to convince his brother to peacefully give up Sicily. Frederick countered his brother's overtures by consulting the Sicilian parliament on what the island kingdom's course of action would be. As it became increasingly apparent that Aragon, Angevin Naples, and the papacy would only accept the submission of Sicily, Frederick and the Sicilians furthered their military preparations to maintain Sicilian independence.
Aragonese–Angevin−Papal coalition against Sicily
In the summer of 1296 Frederick continued his offensive against Angevin forces in Calabria, capturing Catanzaro and Squillace, while Crotone rose up against the Angevin garrison and submitted to the Sicilians. However, disputes between Frederick and Roger of Lauria began to show during the campaign as the two disagreed on Sicilian strategy. In October a small Sicilian squadron intercepted and routed an Angevin fleet trying to raid Ischia, enraging Charles II and causing him and Boniface to redouble their efforts to have James and Aragon re-enter the war on their side. After a final peace overture to his brother failed in February 1297, in March James travelled to Rome to confer with Boniface. In Rome, James negotiated a new treaty in which he agreed to make war on his brother and Sicily in exchange for further compensation, namely money and a papal sanction to annex Sardinia and Corsica. Roger of Lauria, now out of favor with Frederick, left Sicily to attend the wedding of Yolande of Aragon to Robert of Naples, a political marriage designed to bind Aragon to Angevin Naples. Roger subsequently re-entered James' service and the king named him 'High Admiral for Life' of the Aragonese fleet.
With their new alliances secured, Aragon and Angevin Naples prepared to go on the offensive against Sicily in 1297. With Aragon requiring time to re-deploy its navy from Iberia, Angevin Naples struck first, seeking to drive Frederick from Calabria. Led by Angevin general Pietro Ruffo and Roger of Lauria, the Angevin army marched on and besieged Cantanzaro, which the Sicilians had taken the previous year. Frederick dispatched a Sicilian army to break the siege, and in the ensuing battle the Angevin army was defeated and forced to retreat. Having secured his gains in Calabria, Frederick encouraged revolt in Naples, negotiated with the anti-papist Ghibellines of Tuscany, Lombardy, and Genoa, while assisting the House of Colonna against the pope. The Sicilian army had years of experience, and so was still a capable fighting force without Aragonese assistance. Frederick also worked to build up the Sicilian navy, while in Naples the Angevins did the same.
1298-1301 invasion of Sicily
By 1298, James had re-organized the Aragonese navy and was prepared to have Aragon re-join the war in force. A combined allied fleet of 50 Aragonese and 30 Angevin galleys was assembled in Naples, while the Sicilians were able to raise 64 galleys led by former Genoese admiral Corrado Doria. To secure a beachhead on Sicily, James (who commanded the Aragonese-Angevin army) needed a secure port for the allied fleet to use during the winter months. In the summer of 1298 the allied fleet sailed to and captured Patti in northern Sicily, but an attempt to push inland was abandoned in the face of local resistance. Later in the summer, the allied force embarked on a major campaign to capture Syracuse, succeeding in capturing several nearby towns and laying siege to the city. However, Frederick and his commanders kept up a successful campaign of guerilla warfare, using cavalry raids to strike isolated allied garrisons and supply lines. Winter set in and cost both sides valuable manpower through attrition, while Patti rose in revolt and expelled the allied garrison. Roger of Lauria led a ground force to retake Patti, but a small fleet sent to help relive the fortress was surprised and defeated by a Sicilian squadron, costing the allied fleet 16 ships and granting the Sicilians near-parity with the Aragonese-Angevin fleet.
In March 1299, James was forced to lift his siege of Syracuse. Though the allies retained control over several costal towns, the siege had sapped Aragonese-Angevin manpower and supplies. James sent out peace feelers to Frederick, but was rebuffed by his brother, who also had a relative of Roger of Lauria's executed. James sailed for Naples and then Barcelona, returning to the theatre in May with a fresh army. By July a second allied invasion fleet was ready to depart Naples. Sailing to northern Sicily, the fleet rounded the Cape of Orlando and landed at the town of San Marco d'Alunzio. The allied fleet, again headed by Roger of Lauria, took up defensive positions on the beach. Frederick and the Sicilian fleet arrived soon after to disrupt the invasion, and despite being outnumbered, attacked the allied position. In the ensuing Battle of Cape Orlando on 4 July, the Sicilian fleet suffered a major defeat, granting the allies command of the sea. James - having been informed of growing unrest in Catalonia - returned to Aragon soon after the victory, leaving Lauria and the Angevins to continue the war in Sicily. Some sources have alleged that James, tired of expending Aragonese resources fighting a fellow member of the House of Barcelona and his former subjects, intentionally shifted his attention back to Iberia and away from Sicily, and James would never return to the theatre.
Having secured a beachhead on Sicily, the Angevins began landing troops on the island. Led by Charles' son Robert and Roger of Lauria, the Angevins spread out to seize control of towns and fortresses. The Angevin army moved to besiege Randazzo, but faced stiff resistance and so proceeded south along the western edge of Mount Etna, marching south towards the key port city of Catania. As they advanced across the countryside, the Angevins captured several towns while also decimating the fiefs of those nobles known to support Frederick. Catania was soon besieged, and after several weeks an internal coup resulted in the city being occupied by the Angevin army. A major victory for the allies, the fall of Catania resulted in several nearby towns also surrendering to Robert and Roger of Lauria. The loss of the city also forced Frederick to relocate his court, as the Angevin position in Catania threatened Syracuse and Messina. Retreating to the central highlands of Sicily, Frederick chose the city of Enna as his base of operations. Frederick's new position in the central Sicilian highlands moved him away from the larger costal cities, but also strengthened his internal lines of communication, as from Enna's commanding plateau he was able to send out forces to counter the Angevins wherever they chose to attack.
Having captured Catania and isolated Messina and Syracuse in the east, the Angevins now prepared an invasion of western Sicily, hoping to catch Frederick's remaining forces in a pincer. In November 1299 a second Angevin army led by Charles' second son, Philip of Taranto, landed on Sicily and besieged Trapani. Faced with a choice of waiting in heavily-fortified Enna to be trapped between the eastern and western Angevin armies or going on the offensive, Frederick consolidated his forces and marched to attack Philip in the west. Philip, unable to capture Trapani, marched to besiege Marsala; the two armies encountered each other near the city, and in the ensuing Battle of Falconaria the Angevin army was routed and Philip captured. The battle was a major victory for Frederick and boosted the morale of the Sicilians. With the western Angevin army destroyed, Roger of Lauria and Robert in the east were forced to stop their advance until spring, with Roger sailing to Naples to collect reinforcements.
In February 1300, an advance force of 300 Angevin knights, lured by the promise of a weak fortress at Gagliano, were destroyed in a Sicilian ambush at the Battle of Gagliano, further blunting Robert's ability to advance in Sicily. While the ground campaign stalled, on 14 June 1300 Roger of Lauria and the allied fleet defeated the Sicilians at the Battle of Ponza, crippling the Sicilian navy and relegating it to small-scale attacks. The allied fleet sailed to the south coast of Sicily, raiding towns and castles but failing to land additional allied troops.
In early 1301 Robert, frustrated by the stalemate on land, took command of half of the allied fleet while Roger maintained the other half. In July a deadly storm struck both fleets, resulting in the loss of nearly 30 galleys. The loss of ships and skilled crews to weather and disease sapped allied naval power, and an abortive attempt to besiege Syracuse also resulted in the loss of several ships. With any westward movement blocked by Frederick's armies, the Angevins chose instead to strike north towards Messina, laying siege to the strategically important city in August. The allied fleet blockaded the city, while Angevin soldiers burned the countryside that fed the populace. Realizing the need to relieve Messina, the Sicilians conducted two overland campaigns to open a supply line to the city, the second commanded by Frederick himself, while a small flotilla under the command of Roger de Flor harassed Roger of Lauria's blockading fleet. The Sicilian resupply missions kept up morale in the city, and while famine devastated the population and Sicilian garrison, Messina refused to surrender. Seeing that Messina could not be starved into submission and facing a blistering series of small Sicilian attacks, Roger and Robert agreed to withdraw all Angevin soldiers on the island to Catania. A peace compact was brokered between Frederick and his sister Yolanda, which the Angevins agreed to abide by.
Invasion of Charles of Valois
In 1302, Prince Charles of Valois marched into Italy at the behest of Pope Boniface. Acting independently as a French prince, he received significant financial backing from the papacy and the French court, using his army to crush supporters of the anti-papal Ghibellines in Tuscany and Florence. Once in Naples, Valois signed an accord with the pope and Angevins offering him support for a future venture to restore the Latin Empire if he were to successfully conquer Sicily. In the summer of 1302, the peace combat between Sicily and Angevin Naples expired, allowing the Angevins to begin providing men and ships to Valois' invasion force. Faced with Charles of Valois' large and professional French army, Frederick chose to fortify coastal towns and scour the countryside of food, planning to wear down the invaders in a war of attrition.
The allied fleet, now laden with Valois' army, landed at Termini on the northern coast, encountering no resistance. While Roger of Lauria raided the coastline near Palermo, the Valois army marched inland in an attempt to seize the Sicilian heartland. The army besieged Caccamo, but found it too well defended, and so moved on to Corleone, which also resisted Valois. Seeking to resupply his army by sea, Valois then marched to Sciacca on the southwest coast of Sicily, arriving in July. As the allied army moved, Frederick and the Sicilians shadowed them through the countryside, choosing not to engage them directly. Disease, famine, and the hot Sicilian summer devastated Valois' army, which was unable to break through the defenses at Sciacca; by August 1302, Valois chose to send envoys to Frederick to discuss peace. In mid-August, Valois agreed to evacuate the island, and the Angevins agreed to evacuate their remaining garrisons in eastern Sicily in return for Frederick withdrawing his forces from the Italian mainland. With Charles of Valois defeated, Charles II unable to mount a successful invasion, and James being unconcerned with invading, all sides began to seek peace.
Conclusion and Peace
Peace of Caltabellotta
On 19 August, the Peace of Caltabellotta was signed. The treaty confirmed Frederick as King of Sicily and Charles as King of the Mezzogiorno, known thereafter as the Kingdom of Naples. In May 1303 the pope ratified the treaty and Frederick paid him tribute to smooth the peace process. Marriage was also arranged between Frederick and Charles' daughter Eleanor. A clause in the treaty mandated that Frederick's throne would pass to the House of Anjou upon his death, and Frederick agreed to provide military assistance to Charles of Valois if he moved to invade Byzantium.
Now recognized as king over Sicily, Frederick adopted the title of King of Trinacria, but to keep the Ghibelline legacy of the Staufer alive he subsequently preferred to call himself "King" without any territorial reference in his chancellery acts from 1304 to 1311, then used "King of Sicily" from 1315 to 1318, and struck coins throughout his reign as rex Sicilie.
Aftereffects
The War of the Sicilian Vespers, and the several treaties drawn up to end it, would continue to effect regional politics for decades. Aragon had gained and then given up the crown of Sicily, but its gaining of mercantile interests in Sicily and control over Mallorca and Sardinia (annexed by Aragon in 1323) made it a major power in the Mediterranean. The crownlands of Sicily itself had been split between Sicily and Naples, with different dynasties ruling each half. Frederick III's crown was not restored to the House of Anjou on his death, and so the House of Barcelona maintained rule of the island until the 15th century. The kingdoms of Sicily and Naples would remain separate until 1734, when the crowns of both kingdoms were held by Charles III of Spain, and would remain politically separate until the formation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1815.
The Catalan Company, a mercenary company formed by veterans of the war, would play a major role in the history of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Using the chaos of the war as cover, the Republic of Genoa declared war on its rival Pisa, crushing the Pisan fleet at the Battle of Meloria in 1284, sending Pisa into decline and temporarily establishing Genoa as the pre-eminent naval power in the Western Mediterranean.
The war, fought between Christian powers over claims to European thrones, is seen by some sources as a sign of the end of the Crusading era, and an indicative sign of the degradation of papal powers over excommunication and indulgence.
Popular culture
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy references several historical figures from the war, negatively portraying what Dante saw as the avarice of the involved monarchs.
The 1838 French play Les vêpres siciliennes written by Eugène Scribe and Charles Duveyrier. In 1855 Giuseppe Verdi set it to music as the opera I vespri siciliani. In 1949 an Italian film Sicilian Uprising was released, directed by Giorgio Pastina.
A popular theory holds that the Mafia began with the Sicilian Vespers and is an abbreviation for "Morte ai Francesi, Italia Anela!" ("Italy desires the death of the French"). However, this is highly unlikely since the first reference to the term Mafia dates from 1862.
Notes
Sources
Primary
The Rebellamentu di Sichilia, a Sicilian tract of 1290, is available online in three editions:
Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia. Codice della Biblioteca regionale di Palermo. Edited by Filippo Evola (1882).
Le vespro siciliano. Cronaca siciliana anonima intitolata Lu rebellamentu di Sichilia, codice esistente nell' Archivio municipale di Catania. Edited by Pasquale Castorina (1882).
Sicily's Rebellion against King Charles. Translation of the text of the "Rebellamentu" by Louis Mendola (New York 2015) .
The Vinuta di lu re Iapicu in Catania, another Sicilian history, by Atanasiu di Iaci, is available online:
Romanzo siculo del 1287. Edited by Bernardino Biondelli (1856).
The contemporary Catalan chroniclers:
Bernat Desclot, Crònica, ed. Ferran Soldevila, Jordi Bruguera and Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol, Barcelona 2008
Ramon Muntaner, Crònica, ed. Ferran Soldevila, Jordi Bruguera and Maria Teresa Ferrer i Mallol, Barcelona 2011 (English tr. Anna Kinsky Goodenough, Chronicle of Muntaner, London 1920)
Note also:
Bruni, Leonardo. History of the Florentine People. 1416. (Harvard, 2001)
Secondary
(vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3) (English tr. of 2nd (?) edn. Francis Egerton, History of the War of Sicilian Vespers, 3 vols., London 1850: vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3)
(vol. 1, vol. 2)
1280s conflicts
1290s conflicts
1300s conflicts
13th century in the Kingdom of Sicily
Military history of Catalonia
Warfare of the Middle Ages
Wars involving the Kingdom of Naples
Wars involving France
13th-century military history of France
14th-century military history of France
1280s in Europe
1290s in Europe
1300s in Europe
Military history of Sicily
Wars involving the Byzantine Empire
Charles I of Anjou