Charles and Sicily, Part 1

Events were in place for Charles of Anjou, Count of Provence, to take over Sicily. His brother, King Louis IX of France, was behind him, as was Pope Urban IV. Charles' promise to Urban was that he would take over Sicily, but not the rest of the Regno, the combination of Sicily and southern Italy that Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II had established.

An illegitimate son of Frederick, Manfred, was acting as regent for Conradin in Sicily (son of Manfred's legitimate brother Conrad IV). Manfred had designs on enlarging his rule. He planned a coup in Rome to deal with papal power, but the Guelphs made Charles a senator to gain his support. This seemed to go against Charles' promise to Urban not to accept any power in Italy itself, and Roman cardinals complained about him to Urban. Urban wouldn't go back on his support of Charles, because he needed to rely on Charles' military might.

Urban declared a Crusade against Manfred, and two cardinals went to France to gain support for it. One of the cardinals, Guy Foulquois, became Pope Clement IV in February 1265 after the death of Urban. He convinced Charles to hold Sicily (if he could take it) as a vassal of the pope in exchange for 8,000 ounces of gold annually. Charles agreed to the money, since he'd rule Sicily as he saw fit anyway.

They even promised him the whole of the Regno as the pope's vassal, and on 21 June 1265 was formally installed as a senator. Clement helped him to borrow more from Italian bankers to finance the conquest of Sicily. To make everything formal, on 5 January 1266 he was crowned by five cardinals as King of Sicily (see illustration). Now all he had to do was take control of the island.

Several days later, thousands of soldiers and cavalry arrived in Rome from France and Provence. By the end of January, he was marching south from Rome with the army to start the conquest of the southern Italy part of the Regno. After crossing the Apennines to get to the town of Benevento, they were attacked by Manfred's army on 26 February. Charles defeated Manfred's army, and Manfred himself was killed.

The rest of the Regno quickly capitulated, including a Muslim colony in Lucera.

Charles sent Philip of Montfort to Sicily, where Manfred's widow and family were captured. The widow, Helena of Epirus, had come with a dowry of the island of Corfu. Charles had his troops seize Corfu within the year.

Conradin was still alive, though, and with a claim to Sicily from his father. He would have to be dealt with.

Let's have a short intermission, however, and talk about the sixth paragraph: the Muslim community of Lucera