Angevin Dynasties of Europe 900-1500

by Jeffrey Anderson

  Some near contemporaries like Giovanni Villani, the 14th-century Florentine chronicler, said the real reason Charles accepted the papal mission to conquer Sicily was because of his wife, who was jealous that her three sisters were queens and she was only a countess:

  She pledged all her jewels and invited all the bachelors-at-arms of France and of Provence to rally round her standard and to make her queen. And this was largely by reason of the contempt and disdain which a little while before had been shown to her by her three elder sisters, which were all queens, making her sit a degree lower than they, for which cause, with great grief, she had made complaint thereof to Charles, her husband, which answered her: ‘Be at peace, for I will shortly make thee a greater queen than them’, for which cause she sought after and obtained the best barons of France for her service, and those who did most in the emprise.41

  This flies in the face of everything we know about Charles’s character, and is a typical medieval slur against the avariciousness and flightiness of women, who were always accused of being a bad influence, going back to Adam and Eve. As we know, the pope’s ‘Sicilian Business’ had been in progress for more than ten years, and Charles was under consideration from the beginning. As a Crusader who had distinguished himself militarily and a strong ruler who had shown administrative and diplomatic skill in taking over Provence, Charles was an obvious choice.

  Once news of the agreement spread and it became clear that an invasion might actually take place, the pro-papal Guelf and pro-Hohenstaufen Ghibelline forces in each Italian city sprang into action. Manfred’s adherents tried to have him appointed Senator of Rome, so in response the Guelfs offered the title to Charles. This explicitly violated Charles’s agreement with the pope, which stated that he must not accept any other office in Italy, and Charles was quick to reply that he would not accept it without papal approval. However, the eruption of unrest in Italy was a real threat to the pope, and Charles pressed for a renegotiation of the agreement. Not only should he be allowed to hold the office of Senator, he wanted a reduction in the tribute owed to the pope, permission to accept offices and titles in Italy as long as he was willing to relinquish them on the pope’s request, a provision that if he or his descendants became Emperor, Sicily should pass to the next heir in his line, and – critically – that the throne should pass to his female as well as male heirs.

  The pope had little room for manoeuvre, since his position had deteriorated quickly in 1264. Manfred and his agents imposed Manfred’s authority over Tuscany and the regions around Rome, encircling the pope and preparing the way for a full-scale invasion from Naples. Papal rhetoric reached its most hysterical pitch yet, with Urban IV saying that Manfred was ‘plunging his savage hands into the bowels of the Church’, and even more shockingly, using Muslim troops in his preparations for war:

  For behold the heathens have entered the inheritance of the Lord, they are polluting and profaning the churches and other sacred and pious places … Behold the followers of the law of Mahomet daring to invade and shake the Church, the bride of Christ, and the Catholic Faith, in their very foundations … Continually they attack the vicar of Christ, the successor to the prince of the apostles, the rector of the Faith, the father of all Christians, the pilot of Peter’s bark.42

  In the ‘political’ Crusades against Frederick II and Manfred (and others), the rhetoric of the ‘normal’ Crusades against the Holy Land was still used. Faced with this apocalyptic scenario, Urban agreed to all Charles’s terms. An unpopular levy on the French clergy was also raised to support the invasion, and Urban even intervened with Queen Margaret, securing her consent that she wouldn’t do anything to hinder Charles.

  As was so often to happen with Charles on the verge of a great campaign, there was a sudden dramatic change: Urban IV died on 2 October 1264. This could have thrown the whole plan into disarray if a new pope failed to ratify the updated terms of the agreement, but Charles took bold action. He was already in Provence preparing his forces, and he undertook a course of action which seems to have been designed to impress his potential enemies with his resolution and ruthlessness. Although his position in Provence had been fairly secure for some time, the previous year he had imprisoned several nobles and rich merchants who had been involved in treasonable activities or otherwise opposed him. He suddenly had them publicly executed in Marseilles and confiscated their property. He then openly continued his preparations for the invasion, which would make it difficult for a new pope to stop the proceedings.

  This was seen as a distinct possibility, since many cardinals had already expressed disquiet about the proposed overthrow of Manfred, and an evenly divided College of Cardinals could easily have chosen a new pope who would decide to call off the invasion. Manfred was aware of what was happening, and chose to withdraw his forces to avoid frightening the cardinals into supporting Charles. This turned out to be the wrong course of action, since after months of deliberation the College elected a French cardinal who had formerly been the chief adviser to Alphonse of Poitiers. The new pope, Clement IV, supported the agreement with Charles and swiftly approved his appointment as Senator of Rome, urging him to come to Italy as quickly as possible. The cardinals and pope were now residing at Perugia, as Rome was too dangerous for them.43

  Charles’s preparations were nearly complete. He had built a network of alliances throughout northern Italy and secured the neutrality of Genoa, a former ally of Manfred, so that his army could pass from Provence to Italy. As the situation in Rome was desperate, and Manfred could easily have launched an attack on the city, Charles took a few hundred men and sailed from Marseilles to Ostia. This was not without peril, since Manfred was allied to the naval power of Pisa, whose galleys were patrolling the sea. Villani reports that Charles’s ships were scattered in a storm and he was driven into the Pisans’ port, but when Manfred’s vicar in Pisa attempted to capture Charles, the Pisans rose up against him and refused to open the city gates until he returned certain of their fortresses to them, and Charles had time to escape.

  He arrived in Rome on 23 May 1265, one day before Manfred wrote a letter that attempted alternately to flatter and threaten the citizens of Rome to accept him as their Emperor without reference to the pope. Charles was welcomed by the citizens, and crassly moved into the papal palace at St John Lateran, but when the pope complained he then moved to the Senatorial palace at the Capitol.44

  Manfred was initially pleased by this development, because Charles had only a small force and Manfred had been preparing an attack on Rome for some time. Nevertheless, Charles was formally invested as Senator on 21 June and King of Sicily on 28 June. Manfred’s supporters in and around Rome began to defect to Charles as they sensed he might be the ultimate victor. Manfred marched into central Italy and threatened Rome, but Charles and his small force took up a strong position against him, and Manfred feared treachery from his local allies too much to risk a battle. Manfred then inexplicably gave up the campaign entirely and returned to his heartland of Apulia. Villani says Manfred believed that his Ghibelline supporters throughout Tuscany and Lombardy would protect the route into Italy, and Charles’s army would not be able to force its way through the Alps.

  Charles was now an established power in central Italy, with unwavering papal support and a hint of glamour from this early success against Manfred, but he still needed to raise enormous sums of money to prepare an army to drive Manfred out of Sicily. He now suffered a reverse where he least expected it: Louis IX refused to provide any more money from France to support the invasion, since he wanted to use all his resources on a Crusade to the Holy Land. Even Alphonse of Poitiers only provided a small sum, and the French clergy were resisting demands to pay the money they owed. The pope was already heavily indebted to bankers in Tuscany, but he and Charles raised additional huge loans, especially in Florence and Siena, using church property and plate as security. Florence was to become intimately involved in the Sicilian business, and one of the chief reasons for this was that the cit
y had bet heavily on Charles of Anjou’s success and would lose all the money given to the pope if Charles failed.

  Charles gambled that he now had enough money to pay his troops for a sufficient time and ordered the army to set off. This was precisely the risk run by the previous papal forces sent against Manfred, and both times the papal armies had melted away from lack of pay. This time things were different: the army had a seasoned military commander who was not a hired soldier, but a prince personally committed to the success of the expedition, and who had involved many other nobles from France and Provence.

  The army assembled at Lyons and set off across the Alps in early October 1265. Chroniclers reported that it consisted of 6,000 horse, 600 mounted bowmen and 20,000 infantry, and although these numbers must be exaggerated, it was clearly a substantial force. Now Charles’s patient diplomacy of the previous ten years bore fruit, as the army could pick its way from ally to ally across northern Italy. Even some Ghibelline towns defected to Charles, and there were rumours of bribes to some of the governors to allow the French army through (for which Dante placed at least one of the leaders in hell to rue his behaviour). By January 1266 the army had arrived in Rome.45

  Charles already bore the title King of Sicily, but on 6 January 1266 he and Beatrice of Provence were crowned in St Peter’s in a ceremony presided over by five cardinals (Clement IV was still too fearful to leave Perugia). In all this time, Manfred had done little. Charles had moved extremely quickly and Villani says that Manfred was furious that his allies in the north had allowed Charles’s army to cross the Alps, but his inactivity still seems incredible. Charles was the opposite: he immediately led the army from Rome on 20 January and soon reached the border of Manfred’s kingdom.

  Manfred finally responded to the news that the Angevin army was approaching, and marched his own army to the border to await them at Capua. Villani now reports a famous encounter. Manfred sent ambassadors to seek a truce with Charles, and Charles reportedly replied in French: ‘Go and tell the Sultan of Nocera [Lucera] for me that today I will send him to hell or he will send me to paradise.’46 This reply reminds us that, although the impact of religious sanctions may have been diminished by overuse, Manfred was excommunicated, and the war against him was a papally sanctioned Crusade. Moreover, Hohenstaufen patronage of the Muslim colony at Lucera allowed Charles and the pope to portray this Crusade as a war of Christians against Muslims, which was basically inaccurate, but contained a grain of truth that papal rhetoric could magnify.47 The battle cries the two sides used during the battle are especially telling: Charles’s forces cried ‘Montjoie’, the name of the hill from which the Crusaders first saw Jerusalem as well as Charlemagne’s battle cry, whereas Manfred’s troops used the much less compelling cry ‘For Swabia’. Charles had positioned himself as the instrument of God in a holy war against evil, and whether he won or lost the battle he had no doubt that he was on the right side.

  For the moment Charles seemed more likely to gain a spiritual reward than an earthly one. Manfred held the stronger position, and his nephew also had a force further north that was marching down to meet him. Charles was too quick for them, and outflanked Manfred by passing a string of Manfred’s castles whose garrisons either did nothing or defected to Charles. Manfred moved his army to the city of Benevento, where Charles arrived on 25 February. The amazing feat of getting the army from Lyon to Italy in winter had come at a cost: the Angevin army had suffered in the cold and supplies were low, and Manfred’s force was protected behind a river. Manfred’s strategy would seem to have been simply to wait for his nephew to join him and then overwhelm the Angevins, who would only get weaker as time passed.

  Yet this is not what Manfred did. The endless treachery of his garrisons may have made Manfred suspicious of his own army, or perhaps Charles’s army seemed to be in such a bad state that Manfred thought it wouldn’t put up much resistance. Villani says that Manfred decided to attack before the Angevin army had time to rest, though he says that this was a poor choice because the Angevins had no food or money to buy more, so they would have starved if he had left them. Either way, Manfred brought his army across the river and attacked on 26 February.

  Both armies were divided into three groups with a reserve, but Manfred’s army was more disparate, being composed of a contingent of German horsemen in newly developed plate armour, Muslim archers and light cavalry, northern Italian mercenaries and the army from his own kingdom. Manfred initially had the best of the battle, especially when the German cavalry’s plate armour proved to be impregnable to the French swords. But then Villani reports that the French discovered a weakness: if they struck at the German horses, they could bring down the knights and then stab with their daggers through chinks in the armour. The Germans were beaten, and although Manfred brought up his reserve in a counterattack, various contingents began to flee or desert him.

  Villani praises Manfred for choosing to ‘die as a valiant lord, who would rather die in battle as king then flee with shame’, and Manfred indeed plunged into the battle with a small force. He seems to have exchanged his coat with a lieutenant to avoid capture, which Villani spins into a story about Manfred’s crest of a silver eagle prophetically falling off just as he entered the fray. There was great slaughter, and Manfred was killed.

  Charles took the city of Benevento and captured many of Manfred’s leading captains. Manfred himself was discovered on the battlefield three days later by a camp follower, who threw his body on an ass and rode to the French camp crying ‘Who buys Manfred?’ When the identity of the corpse was verified, many of the French felt that Manfred should be given a proper funeral, and Charles replied that he would have done so willingly, if only Manfred hadn’t been excommunicated. Instead, Manfred was placed in a grave by the bridge of Benevento and each soldier laid a stone on it to build a cairn.48

  Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily

  Charles was now master of the kingdom, and rode into Naples with his queen on 7 March. He had met no resistance in taking over the rest of Manfred’s possessions, and Sicily, the Muslim colony at Lucera and Manfred’s navy all surrendered without further armed struggle. Charles also captured Manfred’s wife and children. Manfred’s wife and sons died in prison, though his daughter Beatrice was freed in 1284 and married the Marquis of Saluzzo. Manfred’s daughter Constance was already married to King James of Aragon, which would have enormous implications for Charles in the future. Even Manfred’s closest allies made their peace with Charles, and there were no immediate reprisals. The only blot on the conquest was that Charles’s army had sacked Benevento, a papal city, which particularly irritated the pope. After months of marching through the Alps and down through Italy it is not surprising that the army felt entitled to take what they wanted from Benevento, but this action was a sour note in what had otherwise been a remarkably smooth exercise in regime change.

  In fact, what is most striking about Charles’s victory is how quickly the transition from Hohenstaufen to Angevin rule proceeded. Charles did not despoil the new kingdom to reward his supporters, and he was scrupulous in establishing procedures for his tax collectors to ensure they weren’t abusive. He left many of Manfred’s officials in place, and he quickly set up an effective administration.49

  Perhaps this is where he went wrong. We have already seen the resistance Henry II met in England when he increased the efficiency of royal administration. ‘Efficient administration’, ‘order’, ‘effective royal authority’ – all these may sound like good things, but in a kingdom that had gone through a period of disruption and then Manfred’s lackadaisical rule, the new regime must have seemed harsh, meddling and oppressive. Charles also had massive debts to Tuscan bankers and owed punitive tribute payments to the papacy, so however well supervised his tax collectors were, they were still making enormous demands on Charles’s subjects, and ordinary people are never enthusiastic about the efficiency of tax collectors.

  Charles was also a Capetian by birth, and adhered to the austere Fren
ch model of kingship. This was in notable contrast to Manfred and Frederick II, though it is fair to say that most of our descriptions of Manfred are coloured by his tragic end, and he is described by Dante and others as practically perfect: blond, handsome, gentle of aspect, valorous, joyous and virtuous. The jolly youth who loved nothing more than to go hunting on his estates in Apulia is the perfect foil to the remote, militaristic, serious conqueror that Charles had become. Of course Manfred had also spent his time hunting instead of properly preparing to meet Charles’s invasion, so there was a downside to this happy indolence.

  Yet even Clement IV almost immediately began to complain, without any sense of irony, that Charles’s methods of fundraising were too oppressive and he was hearing bad reports of him. Clement finally wrote to Charles that his subjects found him ‘neither visible nor audible nor affable nor amiable’.50 There may have been a degree of unreality in the expectations of the Sicilians and southern Italians of what a strong king would do. Frederick II had too many other obligations and ambitions to be an oppressive ruler – at least early in his reign – and before him there had been more than thirty years of unrest since the death of ‘Good King William’. No one alive had any recollection of what this mythical ‘good kingship’ would look like.

  Hindsight has shaped views of Charles, and since he ultimately faced a revolt over his oppressive taxes he was traditionally portrayed as grasping and unsympathetic. More recent studies, though, have considerably modified this image and shown his chivalric education as well. He wrote poems in Provençal and inventories of his library in Naples shows his interest in medicine and chivalric stories. Charles also had a reputation for loving tournaments, and Ptolemy of Lucca said that Louis IX was happy to see him go off to Italy in 1265 because he would stop disturbing the peace with them.51 The strain of preparing the invasion of Italy certainly didn’t curb his love for the sport: Andrew of Hungary reports that during the Italian campaign, Charles defied the warnings of his men and challenged a Neapolitan professional at a tournament. He entered the lists with him and was overthrown, breaking his ribs, causing the Neapolitan to rush from the field for fear of reprisals. Charles had to be led to his tent by his son, but declared that he would return to the combat as soon as he could get to his feet. Adam de la Halle said of him – in a description very similar to what was said about Henry II a century earlier – ‘Under arms he had so good a figure, he was stronger and more compact than a bird in its feathers, and more assured on his horse than in the tower of a castle’.52