War of the Vespers

Southern Italy Series

-----War of the Sicilian Vespers-----

On the evening of Easter Sunday, the 29th of March 1282 the citizens of Palermo gathered at the Church of the Holy Spirit just outside the city. They were there to celebrate the Vespers by praying from sunset on through the night till dawn on Easter Monday. But this was more than just a church service, for there was also wine and dancing in celebration of Christ’s rising.

Though it’s unclear exactly what happened, what we do know is that the Sicilians were drinking when a group of French officials from Palermo joined the festivity. According to one story a Frenchman tried to drag away a Sicilian woman from the festivities. Her husband then stabbed the Frenchman to death and a riot broke out at the church, just as the bells rang for the sundown prayer. The Sicilians rushed through Palermo that night killing anyone believed to be French or to have conspired with the French. By Easter Monday 2,000 were dead and the Sicilian rebels controlled Palermo.

The rebellion spread quickly, by month’s end most of the island was in the hands of the rebels. By the end of April they captured Messina, the last French stronghold on the other end of the island. The Sicilians then appealed to the Pope for protection, but Pope Martin IV was a Frenchman who had been elected largely with the help of Charles of Anjou, the king they had rebelled against. The Pope told the Sicilians that they ought to disarm and end their rebellion against king Charles. When they refused the Pope excommunicated them.

The Sicilians then turned to Peter III of Aragon. Through his wife Constance, who was the daughter of Manfred of Sicily, Peter could lay claim to the throne of Sicily. As it so happened Peter had an army and navy stationed off the African coast fighting the Hafsids Emirate for control of Tunis. The Aragonese sailed north and landed at Trapani on August 30th 1282. The first of many Spanish armies had landed on Italian soil. Just four days later Peter was crowned King of Sicily in Palermo.

The Papacy responded by calling a crusade against the Kingdom of Aragon [link] thus adding religious significance to the political struggle between Peter III of Aragon and Charles I of Anjou. The war between Aragon and France continued to drag on, by land and sea. Then in 1285 Peter III, Charles I and Philip I King of France all died. Sicily itself now passed to James II, son of Peter, while Aragon passed to Alfonso III, another of Peter’s sons. Naples passed to Charles II, son of Charles I.

In 1291 Alfonso III made peace with the French and the Pope [link] but Alfonso died shortly thereafter. Aragon passed to James II who made a second peace with the French [link] , but the Sicilian people refused to accept a return to French rule. They appointed Peter’s brother Frederick as their king and continued the war. The Aragonese and French then worked together to defeat the Sicilians and Frederick. But though they bested them at sea, the French were unable to land an army on Sicily.

In 1302 Frederick III of Sicily and Charles II of Naples agreed to peace [link] . Frederick would rule Sicily as King of Trinacria and Charles would rule Naples as King of Sicily. The Pope compensated James II of Aragon for the loss of Sicily by promising him the Kingdom of Corsica and Sardinia, then occupied by the Pisans.

Southern Italy Series

500 BC [link] Origins
264 BC [link] The Punic Wars
115 AD [link] The Roman Empire
405 [link] East and West
526 [link] Collapse of the West
565 [link] Reconquest
572 [link] Lombard Invasion
751 [link] Lombard Italy
814 [link] Charlemagne’s Empire
1000 [link] Italy and the Holy Roman Empire
1095 [link] The Norman Conquest
1154 [link] The Kingdom of Sicily
1250 [link] Hohenstaufen Italy
1280 [link] Anjou Sicily
1300 War of the Sicilian Vespers
1400 [link] Black Death
1492 [link] Renaissance Italy
1559 [link] Italian Wars
1715 [link] Habsburg Italy
1780 [link] Bourbon Italy
1799 [link] Revolutionary Italy
1812 [link] Napoleonic Italy
1860 [link] United Italy

2/19/12 EDIT:
map base source [link]
map base created by Citypeek [link]