Tancred’s rival for the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, descended
into Italy in 1194. He easily conquered both the
mainland and the island, and Tancred’s only son William III.
surrendered the crown to him. But with the excuse of a pretended
plot he put a number of the most conspicuous persons
in the kingdoms to death, and had William himself blinded.
He then returned to Germany, and during his absence an agitation
broke out, provoked by the cruelty of his lieutenants and
encouraged by his Norman wife. He hurried back to Italy,
and repressed the movement with his usual ferocity, but died
The emperor Frederick II.
in 1197. Costanza then had her son Frederick
(b. 1194) proclaimed king, and obtained the support
of the Holy See on condition that the kingdom should
be once more recognized as a fief of the church. The
whole history of the ensuing period of south Italian history
turns on the claims of the papacy over the kingdoms of Naples
and Sicily, based on the recognition of papal suzerainty in 1053.
The Hohenstaufen kings refused to admit this claim; hence the
persistent hostility of the popes and the calling in of foreign
potentates and armies. Costanza died in 1198, leaving Pope
Innocent III. regent and tutor to her son; the pope’s authority
was contested by various nobles, but in 1209 Frederick married
Costanza, daughter of the king of Aragon, with whose help he
succeeded in reducing a large part of Sicily to obedience. Two
years later he was elected king of the Romans at the diet
of Nuremberg in opposition to Otto IV., and in 1220 he was
crowned emperor in Rome by pope Honorius III., but continued
to reside in Sicily. He quelled a rising of Sicilian barons and
Saracens, and confined 60,000 of the latter at Lucera in Capitanata,
where they ended by becoming a most loyal colony.
After the death of Frederick’s wife Pope Honorius III. arranged
a marriage for him with Yolande, daughter of John of Brienne
(1225). But in 1227 Gregory IX. excommunicated him because
he delayed the crusade which he had promised to undertake;
and although he sailed the following year, and concluded a
treaty with the sultan of Egypt whereby the kingdom of
Jerusalem was re-established, the pope was not satisfied and
sent an army into Neapolitan territory. On his return Frederick
defeated the pontificals, and in 1230 peace was made at San
Germano and the excommunication withdrawn. In 1231 he
issued the celebrated Constitutions of the Sicilian kingdom at
the parliament of Melfi. He had further quarrels with successive
pontiffs, and was excommunicated more than once. In 1246 a
number of his own barons and officials of the mainland conspired
against his rule, but were crushed with great ferocity, and even
his faithful secretary, Pietro della Vigna, fell a victim to the
emperor’s suspicions. Frederick’s last years were embittered
by the hostilities following on the crusade which the pope proclaimed
against him and by rebellions in Naples and Sicily.
He died in 1250. His policy was anti-feudal and tended to
concentrate power into his own hands; hence the frequent
risings of the barons. His court at Palermo had been one of the
most brilliant in Europe, and attracted learned men from all
over the then known world; his somewhat pagan philosophy
was afterwards regarded as marking the beginnings of modern
rationalism. He opened schools and universities, and he himself
wrote poetry in Sicilian dialect.
His son Conrad IV. succeeded to the empire, while to his illegitimate son Manfred he left the principality of Taranto and the regency of the southern kingdom, to be held in Conrad’s name. By his political sagacity and moderation Manfred won a strong party to his side and helped Conrad to subjugate the rebellious barons. The emperor died in Manfred. 1254, leaving an infant son, Conradin (b. 1252), and Manfred was appointed vicar-general during the latter’s minority. Manfred, too, encountered the hostility of the popes, against whom he had to wage war, generally with success, and of some of the barons whom the papacy encouraged to rebel; and in 1258, on a rumour of Conradin’s death, he was offered and accepted the crown of Naples and Sicily. The rumour proved false, but he retained the crown, promising to leave the kingdom to Conradin at his death and to defend his rights. He now became head of the Ghibellines or Imperialists of Italy, and his position was strengthened by the marriage of his daughter Costanza to Peter, son of King James of Aragon. But he met with opposition from the turbulent nobility and the clergy, who had been deprived of many privileges, and he failed to conciliate the communes, which were oppressed by taxes and beginning to aspire to autonomy. Innocent IV., in his determination to crush the Hohenstaufens, offered the kingdom in turn to Richard, earl of Cornwall, to Edward, son of Henry III. of England, and to Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX. of France. After long negotiations with successive popes, Charles was finally induced by Clement IV. to come to Italy in 1265, agreeing to accept the kingdom of the Two Sicilies as a fief of the church, and in 1266 he marched southward with the privileges of Charles I. a Crusader (see Charles I., king of Naples and Sicily). The defection of many cities and nobles facilitated his task, and Manfred was forced to retire on Benevento, where, on the 26th of February, owing to the treachery of a part of his troops, he was defeated and killed. As a result of this victory Charles was soon master of almost the whole kingdom, and he entered Naples, which now became the capital instead of Palermo. He persecuted the nobles who had sided with Manfred, and established a military despotism which proved more oppressive than that of the Hohenstaufens had ever been. Old laws, customs and immunities were ruthlessly swept away, the people were ground down with taxes, and the highest positions and finest estates conferred on French and Provençal nobles. Although the southern Italians had long been ruled by foreigners, it was the Angevin domination which thoroughly denationalized them, and initiated that long period of corruption, decadence and foreign slavery which only ended in the 19th century.
Invited by Sicilian malcontents and Ghibellines, Conradin (Ital. Corradino), the last surviving Hohenstaufen, descended into Italy in 1267 at the head of a small army collected in Germany, and he found many supporters; but King Charles on hearing of his arrival abandoned the siege of Lucera and came to intercept him. A battle took place Conradin. at Tagliacozzo (August 23rd, 1268), in which the Imperialists were defeated, and Conradin himself was subsequently caught and handed over to Charles, who had him tried for high treason and beheaded (see Conradin). All who had assisted the unfortunate youth were cruelly persecuted, and the inhabitants of Agosta put to the sword. Thus ended the power of the Hohenstaufens. Although the picturesque figures of Manfred and Conradin awakened sympathy among the people of the kingdom, their authority was never really consolidated and their German knights were hated; which facts rendered the enterprise of another foreigner like the Angevin comparatively easy.
In Sicily, however, Charles’s government soon made itself odious by its exactions, the insolence and cruelty of the king’s French officials and favourites, the depreciation of the currency, and the oppressive personal services, while the nobles were incensed at the violation of their feudal constitution. Just as Charles was contemplating The Sicilian Vespers. an expedition to the East, the Sicilians rose in revolt, massacring the French throughout the island. The malcontents were led by the Salernitan noble Giovanni da Procida, a friend of the emperor Frederick and of Manfred, who had taken refuge at the court of Peter III. of Aragon, husband of Manfred’s daughter Costanza. He had induced Peter to make good his somewhat shadowy claims to the crown of Sicily, but while preparations were being made for the expedition, the popular rising known as the Sicilian Vespers, which resulted in the massacre of nearly all the French in the island, broke out at Palermo on Easter Day 1282. Peter reached Palermo in September, and by the following month had captured Messina, the last French stronghold. Pope Martin IV. now proclaimed a crusade against the Aragonese, and the War continued for many years. The Sicilian fleet under Ruggiero di Lauria defeated that of the Angevins at Malta in 1283, and 1284 in the Bay of Naples, where the king’s son, Charles the Lame, was captured. Charles I. died in 1286, and, his heir being a prisoner, his grandson, Charles
