How Charlie came to subjugate the Sicilians is a tale in
itself. It all began when the
Hohenstaufens, who ruled Germany, started stomping around in the north of the
Italian boot. Between the Germans up
north and southern Italy (all of which was called Sicily at the time) lay the
Papal States. Pope Innocent (sic) IV was
seriously displeased with the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II, and Il Papa
said so in 1245 by declaring Freddy deposed.
Frederick failed to step aside on
the Pope’s say so, but a higher authority intervened in 1250, and Frederick
died. The Pope might have rejoiced at
that, but as it happened he was nearly as ticked off with Conrad, who succeeded
when his daddy Big Freddy died. You
might think the Almighty was taking sides, because Conrad only lived another
four years. When Conrad kicked the
bucket, turmoil ensued.
Lurking in the background the whole while was Manfred, a son
old Frederick fathered without benefit of marriage. While the political scene was boiling in
Germany, Manfred saw his main chance and seized control of the Kingdom of
Sicily.
By then, new Popes had taken over, first Urban IV and then
Clement IV, neither of whom liked Manfred.
They cast around for help getting rid of the bastard. The papacy eventually installed Charles of
Anjou.
Charlie was a happy guy.
He had his sights set on becoming the Emperor of Byzantium, and what
better geography could he have as a jumping off point than Sicily.
But the Sicilian
noblemen were peeved when Charles left them out of the goodies he had to
distribute. They got no lucrative foreign
posts. Instead he taxed them and all the
Sicilian people to the hilt to bankroll his adventures in Byzantium and
elsewhere. The local population tagged
him for what he was, a foreign tyrant who was bleeding them dry. Charles should have known better than to piss
off an island full of people who had already endured centuries of ever
escalating oppression.
Charles’s rival, Michael VIII Palaeologus—the current
Byzantine Emperor—spotted unrest among the Sicilians and found an opening. He sent his agents provocateurs into the
mix. Insurrection was their aim.
The Sicilians got out their own whetstones. The Sicilian Vespers ensued.
At sunset on the eve
of Easter Monday 1282, at the Church of the Holy Spirit, just outside Palermo,
they began to slit throats and otherwise do away with the French interlopers
and their supporters. Over the next six
weeks, they massacred thousands of French inhabitants.
Eventually, the Pope tried to lend the French a hand, but
all attempts to retake the island were repulsed.
Michael VII in his autobiography tried to claim he was God’s
instrument in releasing the Sicilian people from tyranny. But most historians conclude that the
Sicilian people freed themselves.
The very best thing to come out of all this, to my way of
thinking, is Giuseppe Verdi’s opera I
Vespri Siciliani, of which I leave you a taste here:
Annamaria Alfieri
You are an amazing researcher! I stand in awe! tjstraw
ReplyDeleteThank you, Thelma. you are too kind. I imagine many historians would object STRONGLY to my tone. But most likely not to Maria Callas's!
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