Basilicus Sicilia - A Hohenstaufen Sicily Timeline

[Justinianus Constansious]

Chapter 12: The Boy King, part 1
Robert I Hohenstaufen before Salerno​

Alfons I Hohenstaufen’s death at 46 led to the immediate ascension of his son, Robert Hohenstaufen, in 1291. Robert, only 14 at the time, seemed to many to be another case of instability following a regency [1]. However, to the surprise of many, Robert refused to appoint a regent. Instead, he chose to surround himself with a body of advisors, none with enough power to pose a significant threat. Among other changes, he officially made the Admiralus, who had previously been the de facto commander of Sicily’s armies, merely the high naval commander of the Kingdom. Meanwhile, he appointed a Commander of the Palace Guard and a High General to counterbalance the military power of the other two.

Most of these changes were the result of Robert’s collaboration with Simon de Amalfi, a university student who had become fast friends with Robert in their youth. Simon lived in the royal chambers of the Arx Fredericus Rogerus, causing rumors to swirl about the relationship between the two. Simon himself was placed in charge of the University of Palermo, a new campus dedicated to studying “the arts of Religion, War, and Medicine.” [2] This division of power was related to a number of factors. While much of it was to avoid the historical crises that came with a transfer of power [3], it was also tied to the growing number of Greeks in the Kingdom of Sicily.

Ever since the de Hautevilles had first come onto the scene over two centuries ago, there had been Greeks in Sicily and southern Italy. They had been slowly driven out by the preference of Catholics, but beginning around 1290 the number of Greeks immigrating to Sicily increased remarkably. Part of this was due to the death of Michael VIII, which led to even greater instability in the Nicene Roman Empire. With renewed turkish attacks on their borders, many Greeks sought a refuge. Trebizond, which was surrounded by the Mongols, was a dangerous choice, Venice was out of the question, leaving Bulgaria and Sicily. When Alfons defeated the Bulgarians in 1285, it largely cemented the idea that Sicily was the only safe place for Greeks to go.

The increased number of Greeks in the Kingdom of Sicily led not only to increased imitation of the later Roman division of power, but also in religious unrest. Muslims in the Kingdom had long been majorly in North Africa, where geography removed them from the Sicilian realm. Greeks, however, brought controversy to both the Catholics and Muslims that inhabited the kingdom. Constantine remained the only majorly Greek city in the Kingdom, and the excess Greeks seemed to invite trouble wherever they went.

Robert’s solution was Sardinia. The island, while still Catholic, had lost much of its population during the reign of Alfons I. This was largely due to the economic prosperity of the Lombard League and the Duchy of Provence. With little population, Sardinia was the perfect place for Robert to put the Greeks. By 1300, Sardinia was largely a Greek island, with Cagliari a major Greek port in the western Mediterranean.

Such tolerance was seen by many in foreign courts as weak, and multiple overseas forces attempted to dominate Robert’s Kingdom. By far the closest attempt was made by Guillaume Empéri, who married his beautiful 13-year old daughter Elisabéth to Robert in 1294. Meanwhile, King Alfonso of Aragon was furious at the usurpation of Robert’s wife, as his daughter, Antònia, had been promised to the young King. With much of Pisa’s nave under Aragon’s control, Alfonso made a bid to forcibly place his daughter on the Sicilian throne.

The legality of Alfonso’s war was dubious at best, but he had good reason to covet the Kingdom of Sicily. A shining example of power, wealth, and innovation, the kingdom was one of the pre-eminent powers in Europe. Alfonso, a student of history, also believed that it was time for the Hohenstaufen dynasty to go the way of their Hauteville predecessors - destroyed after a century of rule by the invasion of a foreigner with a claim on the throne.

Initially, Alfonso’s invasion did quite well. Using Pisa’s fleet to feign towards Sardinia, Alfonso managed to land nearly 13,000 troops near Trapani. Robert sent two screening forces of Italian crossbowmen and Muslim Horse Archers to slow Alfonso’s advance, but by the time the campaigning season was over, Alfonso was menacingly close to Palermo. Panicking, Robert gathered an army 16,000 strong, challenging Alfonso on the coast of Sicily. The resulting battle was a bloodbath. Alfonso’s experience resulted in a bloody attack on the Sicilian center, that only the quick thinking of the Muslim contingent managed to drive off. Although at the end of the day Robert held the field, blocking Alfonso’s advance on Palermo, his army was badly wounded by the fighting.

The rest of the year saw Alfonso and Robert fight a slow and painful war of attrition. Alfonso burned his way across the countryside, too strong to be defeated by Robert’s force but too weak to take any major strongholds. In early 1296, a second force of Sicilian soldiers arrived from Amalfi, and in a battle outside of Syracuse, Alfonso was decisively defeated. He made peace with the Sicilians, but although he failed to take Sicily itself, he returned to Aragon with loot from across the island.

Sicily was devastated by the attack. Much of the crops for 1296-1297 were ruined, leaving many of the peasants starving in the countryside. In an attempt to alleviate their suffering, Robert requisitioned food from the farmers in southern Italy, but this tactic only eroded his support on the mainland, while the food he received was only enough to feed some of the peasants in Sicily. That winter, much of Sicily was in ruin, and the peasantry could only blame their king for bringing on a needless war.

In 1298, Robert made an attempt to begin the repairing of relations with the Holy Roman Empire. He found an unlikely ally in Leopold the German, now nearing 70 years old. The former claimant to the Holy Roman Empire, and distant relative of Robert Hohenstaufen, had made a name for himself around Europe. leading his band of adventurers, he had fought at times for the Kings of England, Aragon, France, Hungary, and even the Bulgarians, if then only briefly. He now looked for a place to retire, and what better place than Sicily, the home of outcasts from across the known world.

Robert spied a unique opportunity in Leopold. Technically, he still held a claim to the Holy Roman Empire through his grandfather, Philip of Swabia. If Robert granted Leopold, as well as his sons and grandsons, land in Sicily, he could conceivably convince the aging commander to renounce his claims to the Holy Roman Empire, thus currying favor with the Emperor in Aachen, Otto VI. Thus, land outside of Salerno was offered to Leopold and his Viking companions, while the various followers he had incorporated into his band over the years were dispersed across the countryside [4].

While this did have the positive effect of not only bringing a living legend into the Kingdom of Sicily, but also winning Robert favor in a foreign court, it had a number of unintended negative effects. Chief among these was the discontent among the peasantry around Salerno. With wild, half-civilized Vikings suddenly descending on their land, condoned by their king, many wondered if the crowned boy in Palermo had gone insane.

At this point, trouble began to brew abroad. First was an attempted Marinid attack on Constantine, which was prompted by numerous attacks on muslim merchants by the French knights that had been settled near Mahdia. Abū Saʿīd ʿUthmān ibn Yūsuf al-Marīnī, or ʿUthmān [5], was the young Sultan of the Marinids, and in person led a force of 24,000 men into Sicilian North Africa. Robert managed to organize a defense, but Muslim ghazis launched attacks across the region, destabilizing the entire region. The next year, in 1300, Robert made an attempt to launch a counterattack against the Marinids, but much like his uncle 40 years before, Robert was frustrated in his attempts by a stout defense put up by the Marinid defenders. In 1301, the war returned to Sicilian territory, with ʿUthmān leading a second army on a whirlwind campaign against Robert.

It is here that Robert appears to have developed his phobia. He planned an ambush at a pass in the Atlas mountains, but a Marinid scout learned of the plot, and in the ensuing battle, Robert’s forces were dealt a bloody blow. This defeat seem to have broken something in Robert Hohenstaufen. The 24-year old refused to advance in the direction of the Marinids, instead insisting on retreat. While chronicles claim that he had become cowardly, it is likely that he had developed a severe anxiety disorder. Records tell of him nervously stuttering in the most casual of conversations, and he seemed to refuse to take risks, on the battlefield or otherwise, following this event.

With the King of Sicily thus refusing to fight, a peace was drawn up between the Sicilians and the Marinids. The conquests of Roger III were returned to the Sultan, and Robert was forced to send money to help the Sultan’s campaign against the Portuguese, who were looking to carve out territory from some of Marrakech’s coastline. The Sicilians were humiliated, but Robert’s division of power within the Kingdom prevented an immediate revolt. Instead, the discontent continued to simmer under the surface in Sicily.

The first attempt on Robert’s life was made in 1304, when a bridge in the Arx Fredericus Rogerus was destroyed in the middle of the day, due to sabotage. The Captain of the Palace Guard was found to be guilty, and executed for attempting to kill the King. Two years later, a second attempt was made. This time, it was by a mob in Campania.

The “Revolt of 1306” was a massive movement of many of the peasants in southern Italy. For years, tension had been building up between Robert and the region - from his food requisitions to the settling of Leopold’s Vikings to Robert’s apparent cowardice in the face of the Marinid invasion. The King had been on a trip Amalfi when his entourage was attacked. His guards, who had been bought off, rapidly turned on him, but the quick thinking of his carriage driver allowed them to escape. In Salerno, Robert met up with a number of his allies, and was welcomed into the city. However, within a week the mobs had arrived, placing the town under siege. Robert, with too few soldiers to attempt a sally, and at any rate unwilling to try, remained in the city, hoping that help would come.

As 1306 became 1307, the news only turned from bad to worse. Henry Hohenstaufen, a distant relative of Robert’s [6], had declared himself King of Sicily, and invaded with a Holy Roman army at his back. Meanwhile, Cesare Giustiani [7], a Genoese immigrant to Sicily, proclaimed himself King, and won a significant following in Sicily. Finally, a Calabrian man named Iacopo of Lecce rose to prominence in the mob outside of Salerno. The situation was desperate, and it would take a miracle for Robert to reclaim his throne. According to some, that was what he received.

[1] - Similar to the reigns of King Roger II, King William II, King Frederick I, and King Alfons I.

[2] - The University of Palermo was chartered in 1293, largely due to Simon’s influence over Robert.

[3] - The Kingdom of Sicily was notorious for this - changes in the monarch almost always led to foreign invasion, economic stagnation, and overall instability.

[4] - Leopold Magnus the German would become the national hero of the Kingdom of the Isles, much like Roland, El Cid, or King Arthur for France, Aragon, and the Angevins. His exploits are most famously recounted in Edward Bertran’s three-play series: Leopold the German, parts one (the tragedy of Vratislav), two (the triumph of Leopold), and three (the Defender of Christendom).

[5] - He ascended to power ten years earlier than OTL.

[6] - Allegedly, he was an illegitimate descendant from Frederick Barbarossa, although such a story is doubtful, and he was likely just chosen to provide the HRE with an excuse to invade.

[7] - From the same family as OTL’s Giovanni Giustiniani. His family will be returning.

 

[Justinianus Constansious]

Chapter 13: The Boy King, part 2
The Salernese Revolt​

One can’t help but feel sorry for Robert Hohenstaufen with the brewing of the Salernese Revolt. He was simultaneously assaulted by troops from Sicily, the Holy Roman Empire, and Calabria, and he could do nothing but sit within the walls of Salerno and wait. While the forces of Iacopo of Lecce continued to besiege the city, Henry Hohenstaufen and Cesare Giustiani met outside of Naples. The battle was short and far from decisive - a crossbow bolt struck Cesare Giustiani’s helmet, knocking him unconscious and causing a retreat by the Sicilian army.

On Christmas Day, 1307, however, something shocking upset the balance. In Amalfi, Henry Hohenstaufen received word two days later that Iacopo and Robert were marching - together - on his camp.

This was the result of the Constitution of Salerno, signed on Christmas Day, 1307. According to Robert’s personal historian, he sent carts full of provisions to the starving peasant army, then marched out to meet their leader. The two, over three days, set forth a number of agreements, satisfying many of the peasants’ demands for restrictions on the power of landlords. The result was a document that was raised to the same status as the Constitution of Melfi, signed by Robert’s grandfather, Frederick I.

The Constitution of Salerno was the final death blow to feudalism in Sicily. The Constitution of Melfi had established the Crown’s authority over the nobility, and the Constitution of Salerno established the common man’s rights as being close to that of the nobility. Together, these documents established the first society in Europe where the laws applied equally to all men since the days of the Roman Republic. To Robert, however, it was an inspired tactic of survival. He deferred to Iacopo for command of the army, which was rapidly swelling in size as word of the Constitution of Salerno spread among the peasantry. By the time Robert and Iacopo had reached Amalfi, they outnumbered Henry’s force nearly two to one.

The initial combat between the two forces in the Battle of Amalfi was indecisive. Two successive days saw skirmishes turned into infantry battles between the two sides, neither of which had particularly high-quality cores of infantrymen. On the third day, the knighthoods of both sides clashed for the first time, with the Sicilian force getting the better of the Germans due to the Mediterranean heat. Henry, however, retreated in good order, leaving it up to Iacopo to pursue him. In the eleven-day campaign through Amalfi, Henry led Iacopo on a great chase, but Iacopo’s knowledge of the terrain ultimately won the day for Robert Hohenstaufen, not through a climactic battle, but through a thousand cuts.

The German threat was dealt with, but Robert still had to deal with the threat of Cesare Giustiani in Sicily. The Muslim population os Sicily, always fearing powerful Christian monarchs in Palermo, had thrown their support behind Cesare, hoping that their support would win them further favor from the would-be King. In late 1308, Robert and Iacopo crossed the strait of Messina, entering Sicily, with a powerful piece of propaganda. An addition to the Constitution of Salerno, promising toleration to not only Muslims, but also Jews and Christian heretics, was rapidly spread to the population of Sicily. Many Muslims remained loyal to Cesare, but his fear of betrayal led to him keeping them in reserve.

As Iacopo and Robert made their way toward Palermo, they received a frantic envoy from Cesare. If the King would only grant Cesare pardon and an estate in North Africa for him and his young Muslim wife, the King could enter the capital unmolested. Such a deal was far too good for Robert to pass up. As such, Cesare was dutifully packed off to an estate on the Mediterranean coast, and Robert entered Palermo in triumph on April 4th, 1309. It had been three years since Robert had been assaulted by a mob in Campania. However, upon entering through the Royal Gate, Robert was met with nearly universal acclaim. Peasants from across the countryside had packed into the capital to catch a glimpse of Robert and Iacopo. The two had won incredible acclaim for the Constitution of Salerno, and word spread quickly of the new, radical development.

Upon returning, Robert was reunited with his wife, Elisabéth Empéri Hohenstaufen, and their twin sons, Frederick and Roger [1]. The Kingdom of Sicily had gone through its most turbulent period since the reign of Tancred of Lecce, and after years of fighting, the Kingdom finally knew peace. For that reason, this is the best time as any to discuss the cultural and economic developments of the Kingdom over the last hundred years of Hohenstaufen Sicily [2].

The official coinage of the Kingdom of Sicily was the Tari, a gold coin that was widely used in the Mediterranean world in both Christian and Muslim states. The dinar, solidus, and ducat, from the Arabs, Greeks, and Venetians, respectively, were all common sights in Sicilian markets, with exchange rates typically set at one tari to four dinars, six solidi, or eleven ducats. These gold coins were typically used for taxes and major transactions, but copper and silver coins were far more common in everyday life. The Follaris was the basic copper coin, with twenty equalling a single tari. Grani were silver coins, which were worth five follari. As copper and silver coins moved rapidly in and out of Sicilian markets, foreign coins of equal weight were commonly accepted. In a telling piece of legislation from the days of Alfons I, it was decreed that foreign copper and silver coins were to be accepted in common transactions, but all those payed to government officials were required to be quality-checked to ensure that no devaluation had occurred. The penultimate coinage in the Kingdom of Sicily was the Augustalis, a gold coin that Frederick I had initiated the minting of. Worth twenty-five tari, the Augustalis had an image of the coat of arms of Sicily on one face and a simple cross on the other.

The exclusive use of gold coinage in taxpaying gave rise to a significant amount of moneylenders in the Kingdom of Sicily. Although Greeks and Venetians took up some of the trade, much was done by Jews in the Kingdom. Judaism occupied a unique position in the Kingdom of Sicily, as the other major religious factions, the Catholics, Orthodox Greeks, and Arab and Berber Muslims, all had large enough populations to exercise political sway. The Jews, on the other hand, were largely unable to do so. However, the general toleration of dissident religious groups in the Kingdom greatly improved their lot. Reggio, the center of Jewish worship in the Kingdom, is said to have held seven temples, with four in Palermo, three in Syracuse, Amalfi, and Naples, and many more scattered throughout the Kingdom.

Much more prevalent were the houses of worship of the three main religions of the Kingdom of Sicily, Catholicism, Islam, and Orthodoxy. The adherents of Greek Orthodoxy were largely centered in Apulia and eastern Sicily, with Bari and Syracuse as their largest cities. Considered the best seafarers of the various races in the Kingdom of Sicily, Greeks often controlled the office of Admiralus, the head of the navy, as well as many influential positions in the Map Room. With the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade, and later the Venetians, many influential Greeks fled to Sicily, bringing with them valuable texts and trading contacts.

One of the most influential trading contacts came in the form of Antioch. Although the Principality of Antioch had fallen to the Mongol advance, the death of the great Kublai Khan, leader of the titanic Yuan Empire, had led to a resurgence of power in the old Crusader State [3] [4]. Resumption of trade with Antioch led to new goods from the Silk Road traveling through Sicilian ports.

Those ports had benefitted immensely from the stable rule of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. Between 1196 and 1309, only twice had a hostile force set foot on Sicily. The first, the Holy Roman invasion in the aftermath of Alfons I’s accession, was far too brief to do any lasting damage, and the Aragonese invasion of Sicily under King Alfonso had ravaged the countryside, but left many of the cities untouched. Thus, patronage, both royal and private, had immensely bolstered the Sicilian infrastructure. Chief was the roads system, created by Roger III. Initially it was meant to allow for faster gathering of troops in times of war, but the superb roads soon became highways for commerce. This flow of money, as well as mass immigration to the Kingdom, allowed for the agricultural industry in Sicily to rapidly pick back up. By 1310, Sicily was one again the leading producer of grain the the Mediterranean [5].

This agricultural production hinted at other economic activities in the region. Sicilian timber was of famously high quality - so high, that the Lateran Palace in Rome was repaired entirely with Sicilian wood [6]. Cloth, Gold, Iron, and Dye all flowed freely from Sicilian ports, with large amounts of coin coming in. Increasingly, the inhabitants of the wealthy, prosperous Kingdom started to look to the east. There, the high-quality Chinese silks, rich Indian spices, and fine Greek wines opened up an entirely richer market - one that the Sicilians were keen to get in to.

This put Sicily on a direct collision course with the Venetians. Between 1300 and 1350, the two states fought on and off trade wars, with piracy of one nation’s merchants carried out by those of the other. Conspicuously absent from this exchange was Genoa, which was increasingly looking to the west for wealth. Meanwhile, Sicily took the step in 1313 to establish a specific office for Privateering action under the Admiralus, which discreetly encouraged the harassing of Venetian merchants in the Adriatic and Aegean seas. Venice responded in kind, bringing Lombard League cities such as Ancona, Verona, and Ravenna against the Sicilians in this trade war.

Meanwhile, Sicilian culture was busy defining itself. In particular, Sicilian literature produced it’s first great work, Il Vittorioso (The Victorious). Working on aspects of such epic heroes as Aeneas, Beowulf, and Roland, Il Vittorioso tells the story of Roger Strenuo, a first-generation Norman Knight fighting alongside Robert Guiscard and Roger the Great Count [7]. Two versions of Il Vittorioso exist - one by a man named Tancred Jacono, and the other by Bohemond Zimmatore. Jacono’s version is more fantastic, in the style of the ancient Greek legends, with Roger Strenuo battling sea monsters, giants, and ultimately saving Sicily from an eruption of Mount Etna through his sheer force of will and piety. Zimmatore’s story, written years later, is much more toned-down and historical. In his version, Roger Strenuo is one of the Knights that accompanies Robert Guiscard to Italy. He is then present for every major battle the Hauteville brothers take part in, finally dying in a “pious, reverent sleep.” Both tales, however, created a national hero for Sicily - one that was strong and brave, but also intelligent, shrewd, and ambitious - everything the great Kings and Counts and Dukes of the nation, from Robert Guiscard to Frederick Hohenstaufen, had been [8]

The universities of Sicily were the envy of the world. With dedicated universities in Salerno, Palermo, Naples, and Amalfi, the culture of learning in the Kingdom far surpassed any Christian state in existence [9]. The Greek and Latin texts brought by fleeing Greeks from the former Rhomanion Empire bolstered the already thriving university system, and in 1314 the first School of Law opened in Palermo. There, Robert hoped to train future court officials and governors. Similarly, the University of Amalfi, the newest university in the Kingdom, rapidly created a Business school, patronized by wealthy merchants from the thriving port. While university educations remained expensive, the universities themselves were able to defray some costs by charging extra for foreign students, usually sent by their rulers to train as physicians or lawyers.

All of this characterized Robert I Hohenstaufen’s reign after the revolt of Salerno. Most historians categorize Robert’s reign into three sections. The first, pre-Salerno, is the rough period, where Robert was nearly thrown from his Kingship by a series of disasters. The second period, directly after Salerno, was a period of relative peace and consolidation. During this period, the peasantry rejoiced and Robert was secure on his throne. However, no status quo can survive with a King that cannot hold when force is needed. So, in 1319, when Robert was once again roused to war, the call was one that nearly shook Sicily to it’s core.

[1] - Taking their names, naturally, from Frederick Roger Hohenstaufen.

[2] - Frederick Hohenstaufen was crowned King of Sicily in 1196 and reached his majority in 1208, making 1309, at the shortest possible reckoning, the 101st year of Hohenstaufen Sicily. The Hautevilles, by contrast, lasted from 1038, when William Iron-Arm, Robert Guiscard’s and Roger the Great Count’s eldest brother, arrived in Italy, to 1189, with the death of William II, a span of 151 years, although the Hauteville kings only lasted for 59 years (1130-1189).

[3] - The Second Principality of Antioch was actually ruled by Bohemond VII Hauteville, a distant descendant of Robert Guiscard, and thus a distant cousin of Robert Hohenstaufen.

[4] - Kublai Khan, as well as the rise of the Mongols, has gone very much similarly to OTL, with a few differences. However, the Kublai Khan remains much the same as he was OTL, but more changes will arise after his death.

[5] - Due largely to an ongoing civil war in Egypt, severely curtailing the flow from that market. It’s a longer Qutuz-Baibars conflict, with the dueling lineages of both houses battling from their bases in Alexandria and Cairo. Increasingly, two states seem to be forming, although the desire to reclaim Syria from the Mongols has driven some unification effort.

[6] - As in OTL.

[7] - Strenuo means “Courageous”

[8] - Roger Strenuo is basically the Sicilian answer to King Arthur, Aeneas, Beowulf, El Cid, Roland, etc. - a great literary hero who defines national ideals.

[9] - Pre-1204 Rhomania could probably claim a greater culture of learning.

 

[luis3007]

Great story!!!! Your writing is very good and your history is well-made. Hope to see more!!

 

[Justinianus Constansious]

Great story!!!! Your writing is very good and your history is well-made. Hope to see more!!

Thank you! I hope I can keep up the quality, and I'm glad to have you as a reader! Let me know what you think of this update, if you don't mind.

Chapter 14: The Lord’s Wrath
The Boy Kings, Part 3​

In 1317, forces under the command of Kaisar Demetrios of the Trebizondian Empire placed the former Genoese colony of Kaffa, now a Venetian outpost, under siege. The presence of cannons in his siege train, something that was still a state secret in Trebizond, the beleaguered defenders surrendered within four months. Demetrios, in a show of mercy, allowed the Venetian populace to go, even giving them the chance to trade with the Mongolian element in his army for rich spices, silks, and rugs.

By spring 1318, those rugs had been sold to merchants in Constantinople, Ragusa, and Venice. By that autumn, they had entered the Genoese trading sphere, circling the western Mediterranean. Unbeknownst to the buyers of these rugs, they carried with them fleas infected with the same disease that had devastated China and India. The Black Death had arrived.

From the docks of Venice and Genoa, the plague spread like a wildfire across Europe. Venetian merchants brought it to Alexandria, which was nearly wiped out by the blight [1]. Both Constantinople and Venice were devastated by the plague, with the Jewish Ghetto in Venice nearly entirely dying out. Bulgaria’s rural nature prevented the plague from spreading en masse to the north, but the more populous south, particularly Adrianople and Thesselonika, fell victim to severe plague outbreaks. Genoese merchants brought the plague to Valencia, Cordoba, and Marsehla, leading to plague outbreaks in all three locations. From there, it spread to Marrakech, Lisbon, and up France to Rouen, Caux, and Paris. Oddly, the plague never spread in great force to the British Isles, largely sparing London from the terror [2]. The spread of the Black Death slowed upon its entrance to the Holy Roman Empire due to the less urbanized nature of the area, but the trading contacts of the Hanseatic League facilitated the spread of the disease along the coast of the North Sea and the Danube River. By 1325, Europe was united by something far stronger than any government or army. Death.

While people died from Novgorod to Marrakech, the Kingdom of Sicily suffered disproportionately due to its urbanized nature. Palermo, Messina, Syracuse, Reggio, Capua, Amalfi, Benevento, Naples, Salerno, Bari, Trapani, and more all dealt with major plague outbreaks, with most of the ports and towns dotting the countryside nearly all fell victim to the Black Death. Sicily the island suffered extremely, while the more agrarian southern Italy saw relatively less severe outbreaks. Still, it is estimated that nearly 35% of Sicily’s population was wiped out during the period of 1320 to 1340. Included in the casualties was King Robert I Hohenstaufen in 1326, at age 49.

Robert was succeeded by his 22-year old twin sons, crowned as King Frederick II and Roger IV Hohenstaufen. The two, along with the Commander of the Palace Guard George of Amalfi, attempted to alleviate the pain caused by the plague. In 1328, however, both Roger and George died of the plague [3]. Left along, on September 13th, 1328, Frederick II Hohenstaufen was crowned in Palermo as the sole King of Sicily.

Frederick took control of a state near total collapse. The state had lost valuable workers, farmers, soldiers, and taxpayers. Worse, the survivors had been convinced that divine favor had swung against the Hohenstaufen Kings of Sicily. The only silver lining in the situation was that Sicily’s neighbors were suffering from the same terrible clout of the Black Death. In 1330, a Marinid invasion force struck toward Tunis, only to be driven back when a terrible outbreak of the plague broke out in the army’s camp. They retreated, but only succeeded in bringing a renewed outbreak of the plague to Muslim North Africa, which devastated not only the invading army but also the cities of the area.

The period of 1320 to 1337 marked the end of the Hohenstaufen Kingdom of Sicily. In 1337, Frederick II Hohenstaufen died, with the cause unknown [4]. His four-year-old son was passed over in favor of his Admiralus, the bastard grandson of Frederick I, a man named John. However, the people of Sicily were thoroughly finished with the Hohenstaufen dynasty and the terrible plague that had brought. They found the perfect candidate for their own King in a North African noble that had claimed the throne thirty years ago - Cesare Giustiani.

Cesare, now in his sixties, determined that he was far too old to be off adventuring as he had been half a lifetime ago. His son, however, was in his twenties. Young, dashing, and charismatic, he seemed to be the perfect epicenter for revolt. Thus, Giovanni Giustiani set off for Palermo with a force of 200 well-trained men. He landed in Palermo’s harbor to be greeted by a massive mob, allegedly 2,000 strong. Giovanni contemplated turning around, until he realized that the mob’s chants were acclaiming him, urging him to land. Once he did, the mob escorted their new King to the Arx Fredericus Rogerus, where the remaining Hohenstaufen family was cowering in fear. Giovanni granted John a mercifully quick death, and the rest were sent into exile, ultimately ending up in Venetian Constantinople [5].

Thus, in April 1338, King Giovanni I Giustiani was crowned in the Cathedral of Palermo [6]. His situation was only marginally better than that of his predecessor. The Plague had largely abated by 1335, but in 1338 a new outbreak ravaged Sicily, continuing to demoralize the citizens of the Kingdom. The economy started to revive, slowly but surely, under Giovanni, but the Golden Age of Alfons’s reign seemed long gone to the people of Sicily.

Enhancing the cosmopolitan nature of Sicily was immigration from across Europe. Far and away the largest group were Bulgarians, whose homeland was both plague-ridden and poor, but Frenchmen, Italians, Aragonese, Greeks, and Muslims came en masse to the towns of Sicily. Due to that, the Kingdom recovered disproportionately fast to the wreckage of the Black Death. In 1349, the Kingdom had recovered enough for Giovanni to go on an offensive. He launched into Marinid territory with around 17,000 men. Unlike the ill-fated expedition of Giovanni’s predecessor Robert, Giovanni carried out his campaign with a great panache, sweeping aside three successive Marinid armies before symbolically repossessing Constantine [7]. In the resulting peace, the border was reset to the one determined with Roger III nearly a century earlier.

Sicily had regained her footing, and by 1350 much of Europe had passed through the painful blight of the Black Death. While nearly 30% of Europe’s population had died out in the plague, the effects proved to be more beneficial than many would have imagined at the time. The peasantry, by far the hardest hit, now numbered far less, forcing the feudal lords of Europe to acknowledge more formal rights. 1351-1356, known historically as the “Years of Revolts,” saw peasant revolts sweep into Paris, London, Aachen, Valencia, Lisbon, Pest, and Krakow. Many nations began adopting Charters of Liberties, based on the models provided by the Sicilian Constitutions of Melfi and Salerno, the Angevin Great Charter of Liberties, and the Aragonese Charter of General Privileges.

Similarly, the Black Death dramatically shifted the balance of power in Europe for the time being. Bulgaria, the Kingdom of England, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Kingdom of Castile had all suffered far less than their immediate neighbors, such as France, Aragon, and Venice. Ironically, the urbanized states that managed to largely escape the wrath of the Black Death were the Nicene Roman Empire and the Trebizondian Empire, the two states that the disease first entered through.

During the turbulent 40 years of the Black Death, few geopolitical changes occurred. The widespread death and destruction caused prevented many wars from breaking out, but some changes did transpire. The Trebizondian Empire, capitalizing off of the weakness of their neighbors and their advanced cannons, secured the entire northern coast of Anatolia, meeting the Nicene Roman Empire at the border port of Heraclea, deep into the region of Bithynia, which remained in Nicene hands. Meanwhile, a succession crisis in Georgia left a half-Trebizondian heir. By 1346, the United Empire of Trebizond-Georgia was born, setting the tone for the future of the Caucus Mountains.

Meanwhile, the Holy Roman Empire and the Pope battled again, resulting in the birth of a third Roman Empire. In 1339, Pope Innocent VI, a Venetian cleric, placed Emperor Leopold II and the city of Aachen under interdict, citing the fact that he had been using funds from desolate churches to fill his own treasury. Leopold, an aggressive man, wrote to the Pontiff, advising him,

“... to watch after your own flock, that they might not be led astray by the scheming and heresy that seems to be attracted to Rome. Should we need the help of old men who do not understand the hardships of Empire, I shall be sure to write for your words [8].”

Pope Innocent VI, not one to be upstaged by the Emperor, took two steps to humble the over-mighty Welf. First, he sent out a call for the knighthood of Europe to join a revitalized Knights Templar, which was set up to protect the Lateran Palace. From Poland to Portugal, Knights happy to get away from the plague flocked to Innocent’s banner, forming a powerful, if not particularly disciplined, force of heavy infantry and cavalry. Secondly, Innocent issued the “Bull of the Romans,” one of the most controversial documents in later Medieval history.

According to the Pope, the Roman Empire was split into Eastern and Western halves, and as per the agreement that bought Enrico Dandolo’s support for the Fourth Crusade, Venice received “Three-Eights of the Roman Empire.” The jump Innocent therefore made was that the last eight of the Roman Empire was controlled by the Papal States in the form of the city of Rome, and therefore the entirety of the Eastern Roman Empire was split between the Papacy and Venice. Therefore, the Western Roman Empire was vacant [9]. Innocent needed a strong King to balance out the aggressive Holy Roman Emperor, a thorn in the Papacy’s side for years [10].

There were only three serious candidates for the Pope’s protector. Sicily was close and powerful, but giving their mixed history with the Papacy and the rivalry between Innocent’s native Venice and Palermo, Giovanni Giustiani did not get the Imperial title. Next was Castile, which had grown significantly in power and prestige following the Black Death’s wreckage of Aragon’s twin great cities, Valencia and Barcelona. However, the distance between Rome and Castile, and between Castile and Aachen, made that option less appealing. Thus, on Christmas Day, 1342, Pope Innocent VI crowned King John II of England the “Angevin Emperor of the West,” sparking the great rivalry that would delineate the line between Western and Central Europe [11].

The Black Death had caused a cultural and economic shift in the Angevin Empire. Beforehand, the French possessions of the King of England had been the dominant portion of the Empire. However, the Black Death had caused far greater death among the people of France than it had in England. The result was a shift that was not only cultural, but also linguistic and economic. Ever since William the Conquerer had swept into London nearly three centuries previously, French had been the language of the upper classes in the Kingdom of England. With the Black Death, however, England became an equal economic producer to the French territories, and the English nobility outnumbered the French nobility. In an attempt to restore order in his French territories, John began to send lower tiers of English nobles to France to take over vacant estates. As a result, English culture began to overtake French culture. It would be many years until the Englaise culture took over across the Angevin Empire, but for the time, the English culture began to take hold once again.

Meanwhile, the various cities of the Lombard League began to reform their nations following the devastation of the Black Death. By 1350, the cities of Milan, Genoa, Venice, Ravenna, Ferrara, and Siena had come to dominate politics in Northern Italy. Venice and Genoa continued to look overseas for their dominance, thus leading to the jockeying for power between Milan, Ravenna, Ferrara, and Siena. Initially, the Milanese were distracted by preventing the Holy Roman Empire from reentering Italy, leading to Siena and Ferrara establishing themselves as the major powers in the Po valley. The cities of Northern Italy prospered immensely from the trade in the region, as the crossroads between the Papacy and Sicily to the south, France and the Holy Roman Empire to the north, Venice and Bulgaria to their east, and Genoa and Aragon to their west.

In Bulgaria, the armies of the Emperor Ivan IV managed to conquer Athens, completing their conquest of the Balkans. Venice had subjugated the Peloponnesus in the proceeding years, finally extinguishing the last vestiges of the Latin Duchies that had dominated the area after the Fourth Crusade. Ivan IV, the “Emperor of the Bulgarians and Greeks” found himself increasingly drawn toward his Greek subjects, with over 3/4th of the Empire’s population residing in the Greek portions of the Empire, even after the Black Death. The Bulgarian Empire continued to eye Constantinople, but Venetian arms as of yet deterred their attack. Meanwhile, the Vlachs, languishing under Mongolian control, continued to steadily trickle into Bulgaria, starting to transform the plains of the Danube into fertile farmland.

In the Duchy of Provence, the rulership of Duke Francois I Empéri marked the beginning of the area’s recovery from the Black Death. Despite being hit early on from Genoese trade routes, Marsehla managed to lose only 18% of its population to the plague. The Occitan state continued to be a major trading power in the Mediterranean, with Palermo and Marsehla drawing closer due to their trading ties [12]. One of the greatest developments of the Duchy of Provence came in 1352, when the Duchy faced starvation due to a lack of farmers to till the land and a poor harvest among those left. A royal edict commanded that farmers in the Duchy of Provence exclusively use the Three-Field system. Although it had existed for five centuries, the strategy of using three fields and rotating their usage had never caught major use, until Francois’s edict. As a result, the population and export of grain from Provence soared, bringing the area economic prosperity in the wake of the Black Death.

However, it is the newest addition to the Christian nations that was the most prolific during the period of the Black Death. The Second Principality of Antioch, under Princes Bohemond VII and VIII, had prospered and grown as a cosmopolitan society [13]. The overthrow of the Mongols led to general acceptance of Catholics, Armenians, Muslims, Jews, and Orthodox citizens, although they typically resided in separate quarters for the ease of worship [14]. The prosperity of Antioch, which rapidly grew as a major city in the Eastern Mediterranean, funded major building projects, epitomized in the Basilica of Saint Margaret the Virgin, a stunning mix of Islamic mosaics, Persian gardens, and Greek architecture, with it’s gold and turquoise dome radiating above the rooftops of the city.

Overall, the Black Death was a period of destruction and construction. While millions died as a result of the plague, it also marked the end of the High Middle Ages. The feudal system had begun to crack, under the weight of the Charters of Liberties that had become widespread across Europe and the labor shortage the plague caused. The Angevin Empire had appeared to challenge the Holy Roman Empire for dominance north of the Alps, and Bulgaria had finally achieved dominance over the Balkans. Sicily had regained her footing, and Provence had become the rising star of western Europe. With this, the High Middle Ages had ended. Europe was now poised to see the final stage of it’s evolution from the Medieval world into the Early Modern World.

[1] - Alexandria was full of refugees from the ongoing Mameluke civil war, leading to cramped, unsanitary conditions in the summer heat.

[2] - This was due to the fact that England had becoming increasingly backwater in the Angevin Empire’s trade, thus minimizing the amount of traffic crossing the Channel.

[3] - The two were allegedly having an affair, and one historian (admittedly a political enemy of the Hohenstaufens, Enrico of Trapani) claimed that their death was “The Wrath of God.”

[4] - His own historians claim poison, while Enrico of Trapani claims, dubiously, that he was struck by lighting. Both the poison story and the plague are likely causes.

[5] - John was never acclaimed Emperor, due to the complicated state of affairs, as the technical heir was Frederick’s son Alfons.

[6] - Originally constructed by Walter Ophamil, the Archbishop of Palermo and King William II’s minister.

[7] - Under Roger III, Constantine had become a thriving Greek community, and this had continued, despite the best efforts of the Marinids.

[8] - Pope Innocent VI had a conciliatory attitude toward the Waldensian heresy.

[9] - This assertion, while in practice used in the coronation of Charlemagne, has been challenged by Nicene Roman, Trebizond-Georgian, and Holy Roman sources, as all three claim to be the legitimate heir to the full Roman Empire. Innocent, of course, was merely playing the part of the politician, and thus the Roman Empire was split into another fragment.

[10] - The Welf Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire had been particularly aggravating to the Popes, due to their far greater German-mindedness and assertion that the Emperor, not the Pope, was the head of Christendom.

[11] - ITTL, The Holy Roman Empire and it’s successors will be the premiere power in Central Europe, while the Angevin Empire will be the great power of Western Europe.

[12] - As a result, Valencia and Genoa began to draw closer in opposition.

[13] - The Principality of Antioch has a history of leaders named Bohemond, so who am I to end this trend?

[14] - Muslims in Christian nations often resided in separate quarters for the ease of their prayer, as Christians often disliked the call to prayer five times a day dictated by Muslim worship.

Conclusion of Part I: The High Middle Ages

Next:
Part II: The Late Middle Ages

 

[Unknown]

Good updates, in spite of any delays.

Keep up the good work!!!

 

[Herzen's love-child]

This is a very well thought out TL-- particularly for one focussing on this era and practically unique for one with a surviving Hohenstaufen dynasty. Hope it goes forward at least another century or two.

I have forgotten what OTL survival rates in the Venetian Ghetto were from the Black Death but due to limited interaction with Gentiles wouldn't they do better than their Christian compatriots?

 

[Justinianus Constansious]

Good updates, in spite of any delays.

Keep up the good work!!!

Thank you! I hope to avoid any major delays in the future.

This is a very well thought out TL-- particularly for one focussing on this era and practically unique for one with a surviving Hohenstaufen dynasty. Hope it goes forward at least another century or two.

I have forgotten what OTL survival rates in the Venetian Ghetto were from the Black Death but due to limited interaction with Gentiles wouldn't they do better than their Christian compatriots?

Thank you for the reading! I'm currently planning on having at least four parts to this TL, The High Middle Ages, the Late Middle Ages, the Renaissance (probably with a new name), and the Age of Exploration. So, hopefully up to 1700. But that's just what I hope to do.

On the topic of the Jewish Ghetto, OTL you're exactly right. TTL has had generally more tolerance for Jews (Aragon's Charter of General Privileges grants tolerance Jews, and Sicily and Venice have both had "live and let live" attitudes), which has led to expanded Jewish moneylending in Constantinople, Alexandria, and Venice. That's where the plague entered the Ghetto, and from there the heavily urbanized nature of the Ghetto did the rest.

Again, that you all for reading! Is there any location that I haven't covered in detail that I should, in your opinions?

 

[Justinianus Constansious]

Chapter 15: Imperial Ambitions
The Angevin Empire of the West

Pope Innocent IV crowned John Plantagenet as Imperator John Arthur I Plantagenet on Christmas Day, 1342, in the pulpit Westminster Abbey. John, 31 years old at the time, was then wed to Elisabeth Kentwell, the 27-year old daughter of the Count of Kilkney [1]. The couple was greeted in the streets of London, along with the Pope, by a cheering crowd, and the Pope preached an electrifying sermon to the crowded masses on the “bringer of peace and unifier of nations.” The Imperial couple seemed poised to launch the Empire into a golden age. Young, energetic, and intelligent, the two seemed to be sent by God to lead the people of the Empire.

The couple, however, was acutely aware of the precarious position they were in, although they would not have admitted it. Angevin France had suffered heavily at the hands of the Black Death, and although the Kingdom of France had also suffered, it was far more centralized than the Empire, and threatened Aquitaine and Normandy. In the north, meanwhile, the Kings of Scotland and Mann continued to battle in a war of attrition, but should they make peace, both would have seasoned warriors and a bone to pick with London.

Luckily for the new Imperator, he had an influential Earl by the name of Edward Malroy. A scholar of Arthurian legend, Malroy was nearly 60 years old and had first cut his teeth battling raiders from the Kingdom of Mann in his late teens. Fiercely intelligent and still powerful for his age, Malroy proposed the creation of a Chivalric Order - The Knights of the Angevin Cross - to Imperator John Arthur. John, struck by the idea, authorized the creation, providing a modest subsidy and two castles - the abandoned Pevensie Castle, where nearly three centuries before William the Conquerer had landed, and the abbey of Mont Saint Michele. The two castles rapidly attracted two types of people - soldiers and scholars. Malroy, whose study of Arthurian legend became the basis for the order of scholasticism, created libraries for both castles, which were kept well-stocked by hordes of ambitious copiers. In 1345, a third castle - Kilkney castle, the ancestral home of the Imparess Elisabeth, thus giving the Order once castle in each of the three primary Kingdoms of the Angevin Empire. By 1347, three distinct devisions of the Order of the Angevin Cross had been established - the Order of the Table (knights), the Order of the Quill (scholars), and the Order of the Thatch (yeoman).

Ambitious men flocked to Malroy’s banner, swelling his ranks so significantly that Imperator John briefly considered Malroy a threat to the throne. However, a raid from the Kingdom of Scotland in 1348 was dispatched in a rapid campaign, with the Orders of the Table and Thatch working in brilliant tandem to feign toward York, then crush the raiding party on the shores of the Tees river, before counter-raiding as far as Lothian before retreating back into Angevin territory. The brilliant campaign flawlessly demonstrated the positive effects of the Order of the Angevin Cross, and on Christmas Day in 1348, Imperator John Arthur I Plantagenet awarded Edward Malroy, as well as 140 distinguished members of the campaign, with the Royal Seal of the Angevin Cross, a letter awarded only to the most distinguished soldiers of the Angevin Empire. To date, only one mass awarding of the Seal has surpassed the first ceremony in the number of men honored.

While Sir Edward Malroy forged together the Order, John focused on the recovery of his Empire. John’s French domains, which composed much of his land and population, had been devastated by the Black Death, and he would have to ensure the continued security and productivity of his French domains. Thus, he passed through the Oxford and Rouen Parliaments the Royal Assumption of Fallows, a document that placed into Royal hands any land in Angevin France whose owner had died during the plague [2]. With the sudden increase in the Royal demesne, John was able to offer any freeman in England multiple acres in France if he brought himself, a wife of childbearing age, a strong horse, and a longbow and sword. So long as the men pledged to use one-third of their land for a grove of yew trees, among others, they could apply for anywhere between three and ten acres of French land. The result was a distinct shift in the cultural flow in the Angevin Empire. For years, French culture had flowed into England. Now, for the first time, English culture began to flow back into France. According to Sir Harold Talabot, a chronicler of the Order of the Quill writing A History of the Angevin Imperators in 1464,

“For this was the first emergence of the Englaise culture over the Frankaise culture. As once the men of the Duke turned King brought Frankaise to England, now the men of the King turned Imperator took Englaise to France.” [3]

The effect on the army and on labor was electrifying. In both England and France, now, there were shortages of labor, leading to an erosion of the power of the landlords. In a case tried in the Imperator’s Court of Bordeaux in 1351, a group of peasants complained that their landlord wasn’t paying them fair wages. The court ruled that the peasants had as much a right “to starve as they chose,” but when the landlords returned a few months later, complaining of their own starvation, the court gave the same reply [4]. In 1352, thus, the Parliament of Bordeaux formally recognized the Estate of the Bourgeoisie, a house made up of wealthy merchants and freemen meant to represent the common man, instead of the landed nobility or the clergy. Although they initially abhorred the idea, by 1370 the Parliaments of Dublin, Rouen, and finally Oxford had implemented similar measures. Imperator John took notice of the changes, and enthusiastically supported the measures which allowed freemen and serfs to form billets and townships [5].

However, this progress was not without political instability. Imperator John Arthur I suffered from acute pneumonia after a hunting expedition in Ireland with his in-laws, and died in 1359, leaving behind a 15-year-old daughter named Mary and a 10-year-old son named William. Dutifully, William was crowned Imperator William I Plantagenet of the Angevin Empire [6]. His mother, Elisabeth, was named regent, and she was forced to search for powerful protectors. She found one in Sir Geoffrey Ramsey, one of the men her late husband had awarded the Royal Seal of the Angevin Cross to in 1356. A member of the Order of the Quill, he had become a well-spoken and well-respected moderate in the Oxford Parliament, and was soon named the protector of Imperator William I.

While it appeared that Sir Geoffrey would be willing to step down after William reached his majority, it became increasingly clear that he wanted his own family on the throne. He had a granddaughter named Margaret, and he ultimately had William and Margaret betrothed. However, here he met opposition from the very woman that had brought him to Imperial power, Queen Mother Elisabeth Kentwell. She favored the betrothal of William to an Irish girl named Amelia, and made every attempt to ruin Sir Geoffrey’s reputation at court. Ultimate, it would prove disastrous when, in 1362, a raiding force from the Kingdom of Mann, under their energetic new King Harald Magnus, stormed into Wales and sacked three successive castles. A rapid response from Sir Geoffrey was cut to ribbons, and Elisabeth’s slower, more methodical response won the tried-and-true accusations of her womanly cowardice.

Thus, in 1363, a collection of Earls, led by the Norman Robert of Falaise, reportedly descended from one of William the Conquerer’s bastards, carried out a coup d’etat in London. Swiftly arresting Elisabeth and the command structure of her Imperial guards on charges of plotting to eliminate William, they then moved on the Parliament of Oxford, where Sir Geoffrey found his supporters to be watched every moment by stoic guards [7].

With the coup complete, Robert of Falaise named himself the guardian of William I, and in two years when William reached his majority, granted himself the new title of Chancellor Officorium, making him the man in charge of bureaucratic offices in the Empire. Although the power of the Chancellor Officorium would wax and wane throughout the centuries, the struggle for power between him and the Imperator would come to symbolize the dynamic of power in the Angevin Empire. For now, however, Robert of Falaise could congratulate himself on securing his power and prestige.

A fitting conclusion to the first chapter of the Angevin Empire is not about the Empire at all, but about its neighbor. The Kingdom of Mann, once in decline, had recovered significantly, and under the Great Kings of Mann (the Magnus Kings), they had come to dominate the Irish Sea with their merchants and pirates. In recent years, the tomb of Harald Magnus has been uncovered, and with it a tome of his ambassadors’ travels. One, having toured the Angevin Empire for years, wrote this of his travels:

“Having inspected for many summers the lands of the King of the south, I reported to my King that they were abundant in all types of skill. In metalworking, in shipbuilding, in fletching and wheelwrighting and spinning. I must stress to my lord their proficiency in the art of war, and the art of statesmanship, for alone in the west are they so developed. But I also must profess their division. I could walk or ride for vast stretches before I came across even a small village, and a man in Northumbria could be vastly different in his thoughts and beliefs than a man in the far south. I therefore must advise my lord to be wise with the Imperator. He is a powerful man, but my lord can defeat him so long as he remembers that for all the resources the man in London possesses, he cannot forge a single kingdom, let alone shatter another.”

[1] - She was descended from Thomas Kentwell, the famed general of King of England Henry III. John’s first wife had died the previous year without having given birth to any children.

[2] - Remember, TTL there are four Parliaments - ones of Oxford, Rouen, Dublin, and Bordeax, which each represent a significant part of the Angevin Empire and all have, in theory, equal say in the goings-on of the Empire as a whole (in practice, the Parliaments of Oxford and Rouen are the “senior” Parliaments) and each can legislate its own quarter of the Empire.

[3] - Englaise and Frankaise being TTL terms for English and French, respectively. Frankaise is actually more of a mix between French, Breton, and Norman, with TTL French being more Burgundian-Occitan in nature, due to the split nature of France. Englaise will become a blend of English and French cultures, with a more English twist than French due to the generally better position of Englishmen from 1220 to 1380, a critical century and a half for the culture.

[4] - Bordeaux, which is more mercantile and urbanized than most other places in the Empire, is notoriously progressive, which likely explains this ruling and the later legislation it produces.

[5] - To clarify, the Declaration of Freemen Safety was a measure passed by all four Parliaments which allowed all freemen and serfs to form commune-style townships in which they lived in a small town and ran their own security and government, so long as they continue to serve the lords of the area and didn’t attempt to go against the will of the local lords or the Empire. John supported this measure so fervently due to his need to solidify defenses against the Kingdom of France, and the fact that townsmen would do so of their own accord allowed him to win a twofold victory - he could revolutionize defense (with the billets, which were functionally semi-professional militias) as well as administration with centralized townships.

[6] - His full title would have been “Angevin Imperator William I Plantagenet of the Western Empire, by the Grace of God and anointed by His Holiness, King of England and Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Gascony, Lord of the Channel and Protector of the People”

[7] - Allegedly, Elisabeth planned on eliminating the now 14-year old William in favor of her 19-year-old daughter Mary and her newborn son, Henry. Whether or not this is true is up in the air, but given the actions of Robert and his conspirators, it is likely that the entire story was fabricated in order to give the coup some semblance of legitimacy to the naked eye.

 

[Justinianus Constansious]

Chapter 16: The Khans of the Cross
The Rise of Sartaq Khan and Nestorianism in the Kipchak Khanate*​

When Batu Khan, the grandson of Chiggis Khan died in 1253, he was succeeded by his son Sartaq Khan [1]. While not as fearsome, brilliant, or power-hungry as his father, grandfather, or great-grandfather, Sartaq was nevertheless competent, and more importantly for posterity, he was a convert. Unfulfilled by the Shamanist practices of his ancestors, Sartaq converted to Nestorian Orthodoxy, and with him, many of his devoted soldiers did, as well. On August 31st, 1254, a letter from the Pope in Rome officially bestowed upon Sartaq Khan the title of Duke, and promised the title of baron to any soldier of his who converted [2].

Sartaq’s conversion brought him two powerful allies. The first was Alexander Nevsky, named Grand Prince of Vladimir by Sartaq in 1252 for his faithful duty. His martial ability made him a valuable ally to Sartaq, and in 1255, when a revolt of traditionalist Mongol chieftains was crushed in the Battle of the Volga, in which the heavier infantry of the Russians and the Mongolian Cavalry under Sartaq were able to outlast the successive attacks of the light cavalry under the rebels.

The Rebellion of 1255 was significant in its convincing of Sartaq that the old Mongolian way of life wasn’t sustainable for a lasting empire [3]. His first order of business was to enact a major building program in his capital of Sarai-on-the-Akhtuba, which came to be known as Sarai-al-Marqus [4]. Many of the camp followers that had come to the Kipchak Khanate, mainly women, children, and young men, were settled in Sarai-al-Marqus, with the city rapidly growing.

In 1256, Sartaq Khan visited the court of Möngke Khan, the Great Khan, in Mongolia, where he survived an assassination attempt carried out by his kinsman Hülegü Khan [5]. Enraged, he returned to Sarai-al-Marqus, where he gathered his armies, under the command of Alexander Nevsky, and marched through the Caucasus mountains into the territory of Ilkhanate [6]. In an attack that may or may not have been coordinated, the Fatimids launched an invasion of the Levant, forcing Hülegü to split his forces between the two fronts.

When Hülegü’s forces met Sartaq’s in May 1257, it was in the foothills of the Caucasus mountains. Both sides had cores of Mongolian cavalry, but the heavy Russian infantry of the Kipchak Khanate was matched by the light Arab infantry of the Ilkhanate. At the first charge of the Ilkhanate forces, they broke save for the elite Keshiks, who fought to the last man. The Arab portion of the army managed to reform and return to defend their camp. That night, Nevsky led 300 men into the camp, slitting the throats of the defenders and setting the tents on fire. The confused and disoriented soldiers were rapidly cut down, and Nevsky captured the entire year’s pay for the army.

Moving along the coast of the Caspian Sea, the force under Nevsky moved on Gilan, sacking the port city and carting off the spoils. They went to Sartaq’s coup de grâce, the Church of the Holy Trinity. Built between 1255 and 1269, the Church was based on the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, with four small domes surrounding a fifth. The plain exterior, made largely of brick, concealed a vibrantly decorated interior, with mosaics in the Rhomanion fashion glimmering on the walls [7]. The grand church ultimately came to house Sartaq’s second great ally.

Denha I had been proclaimed Patriarch of the East for only a few months when Nevsky’s army first entered Ilkhanate territory. Interred in Baghdad at the time, Denha heard of Sartaq’s conversion and trekked to meet the army. When he arrived, he began a correspondence with Sartaq, during which time he was convinced to take up residence in Sarai-al-Marqus [8]. In 1258, when Nevsky and his army retreated from Ilkhanate territory, they took with them Patriarch Denha I and a significant number of Greek and Persian Nestorians, who created the “Greek Quarter” in Sarai-al-Marqus.

The promotion and rapid proliferation of Nestorianism in the Kipchak Khanate did not go unnoticed, and in 1270, the Patriarch of Constantinople, then in Nicaea, called for the Ninth Orthodox Ecumenical Council, the First Council of Trebizond [9]. During the council, the four primary branches of Orthodoxy were established. The See of Sarai, or Nestorian Orthodoxy, the See of Constantinople, or Chalcedonian Orthodoxy, and the See of Alexandria, or Coptic Christianity, were all named “acceptable Sees” by the council. While not in communion with one another and still retaining doctrinal differences, each was considered an adequate representation of Christianity and Orthodox rulers were encouraged to accept members of any three Sees. Further heresies, as well as Catholicism, remained heretical in the eyes of the council.

Of course, a powerful Orthodox state didn’t sit well with some of the Kipchak Khanate’s neighbors. After Alexander Nevsky’s defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of the Ice, the northern crusades had come grinding to a halt, but with the appearance of the Patriarch of the East in the Khanate, it seemed as if the Knights had an excellent opportunity to strike at the enemies of Rome. In 1272, the Teutonic Knights launched an invasion of the western extremity of the Khanate.

With Alexander Nevsky long dead and Sartaq in failing health, it fell to Sartaq Khan’s 25-year-old son, Ulaqchi to lead the armies sent to oppose the Teutonic Knights [10]. As the campaigning season came to a close, and winter started to set in, the Teutonic Army found itself trapped within Kipchak territory. Attempting to maneuver out eventually led them to encamp in a small fortress along the Moskvá river. Cut off by the Kipchak army, the Teutonic Knights started to feel the chill of winter set in. In a desperate attempt to break out, they charged the Kipchak lines, making it out, but suffering significant losses in the process. Now caught in a northern winter, the Teutonic Army dragged itself back to the Baltic coast with less than a quarter of it’s original numbers [11].

Although he had not won any major battles, or even fought any major battles, Ulaqchi was revered as a hero as he returned from his campaign against the Teutons. He arrived in Sarai-al-Marqus to find his father in rapidly deteriorating health. Although he had yet to turn 50, Sartaq had caught an acute illness that would soon take his life [12]. Next to Ulaqchi’s dying father, steadfastly his companion, was Patriarch Denha I, who had come to play an increasingly major role in Sartaq’s government.

With the influx of Greeks and Persians, Sartaq had gained a class of citizens that were well-versed in imperial governance. Thus, the Nestorian church had become instrumental in bringing education and centralized government to the Kipchak Khanate [13]. The result was a mixed culture of successive nomadic groups - Slavs, Avars, Goths, Pechenegs, and Cumans, as well as Mongols and Russians, with Greeks providing a cultural influence that pulled the Kipchak Khanate’s attention south.

Such attention was lavished upon the south when, in 1273, Sartaq Khan finally expired after a 20-year reign, and in a double ceremony, Ulaqchi was named Khan of the Ulus of Jochi, and took over the Kipchak Khanate, and was married to Maria Megan Komnenos, the princess of Trebizond. Surely, with such a confident ruler, strong army, and recovering religion, bright times lay in store for the Kipchak Khanate.

That religion, however, did have one group that must be mentioned. At the First Council of Trebizond, the gathered bishops made note of those “true Christians” living under the rule of heretics. The main focus was on those ruled by the Venetians - the Orthodox men and women residing in Constantinople and Achaea, as well as the Greeks in Cyprus. However, few mentioned the last major nation with a significant Orthodox population. That is where we turn to next - what was once “Great Greece” and ruled by a man whose namesake was one of Rhomania’s greatest Emperors [14]. Next, we return to Sicily.

* - Author’s note - I’ll be using the term Kipchak Khanate instead of the Golden Horde, although the two terms are interchangeable.

[1] - Batu’s death comes two years earlier than OTL.

[2] - Not that the titles of Duke and Baron were particularly influential to the Mongols. More important was Sartaq’s offer of a village and surrounding territory to converts. The letter from the Pope is as in OTL, although it arrived two days later TTL. In my opinion, such a letter suggests very heavily that Sartaq’s conversion was legitimate.

[3] - Sartaq here is going to be the statesman to Chiggis Khan’s warrior (or the Roger the Great Count to Robert Gusicard). Because he died so early on into his reign, it’s hard to tell what kind of leader he’d have been, but based on his supposed conversion, it seems as if he had some western and progressive tendencies.

[4] - Which roughly means “The Blessed Palace”

[5] - OTL, he died from the assassination, although it was likely carried out by other relatives. Sartaq’s conversion likely didn’t sit particularly well with his shamanist relatives.

[6] - Nevsky lives into his sixties TTL, instead of dying at 43, as he did OTL.

[7] - The Kipchak Khanate was hardly a top destination for Greeks fleeing the Crusaders, but nonetheless some went, and more were attracted by Sartaq’s lucrative offers for Greek bishops (provided they preach Nestorian teachings) and Greek artists.

[8] - The great decline of Baghdad under the Mongols had already begun, and at any rate, Denha was called “Denha the Murderer” behind his back due to the widespread suspicion that he had murdered the Bishop of Tus.

[9] - There had been six ecumenical councils since the last universally accepted one, the Second Council of Nicaea; one is Constantinople, one in Lyon, and four in the Lateran, but the former one was recognized only by the Orthodox Church, and the latter five only by the Catholic Church.

[10] - Ulaqchi was the OTL successor to Sartaq, although it is unclear if he was Sartaq’s brother or son. For our purposes, he’s treated as the son of Sartaq.

[11] - Never invade Russia in the winter, folks.

[12] - I couldn’t find any exact birthdate for Sartaq, so I made a guess that he was between 25 and 30 upon his ascension.

[13] - “Centralized” is a loose term here. Compared to many of the nomadic groups that have wandered that region, the Kipchaks had come to stand among a select few, but compared to Venice, London, Constantinople, or Palermo, they were woefully decentralized and backwards.

[14] - Sicily and southern Italy were once known as “Magna Graecia,” which translates to “Great Greece.” Giovanni Giustiniani’s family is named for Justinian, the Rhomanion Emperor from 527 to 565.

 

[Justinianus Constansious]

Chapter 17: Justinian’s Dream
Sicily under the Giustiniani dynasty​

The triumphant campaign against the Marinids in 1349 marked what came close to the high water-mark for Giovanni’s reign. Shortly afterwards, in 1351, a group of Aragonese ships attacked a Sicilian merchant vessel, killing the crew and making off with the goods. Giovanni, not one to let such an act of aggression go unpunished, declared war on The Kingdom of Aragon [1]. The force gathered by the now 35-year old Giovanni numbered only around 4,400, but the force was able to overwhelm the defenders of Corsica and force them into submission [2]. Peace was concluded once Sicilian forces began to hammer at the walls of Pisa, with Sicily gaining Corsica in the negotiated peace.

The summer of 1353, therefore, was a joyous one. Since 1345, the plague had mostly left Sicily, and although it had left devastation in its wake, the Kingdom had stabilized and brought in a fresh wave of cosmopolitan citizens. The old Hohenstaufen dynasty, which seemed to have been past its prime ever since Robert I came to power in 1291, had been swept away by the new Italian dynasty of the Giustinianis, and the future seemed bright. However, such feelings cannot last, and that winter a small outbreak of the plague resurfaced in Palermo. The King was bedridden for weeks, often delirious, and during this time Admiralus William Opamhill, an energetic English-Italian aristocrat, began to take more and more power from the aging King. The cool of mountaintop monasteries in the Apennines seemed to help the King, and he returned to Palermo able to see that his son and wife had died.

Cesare Giustiniani, the son of Giovanni, had been groomed by his father to take command of the Kingdom after Giovanni’s death, and his untimely demise sent the King into shock. The King had three other children, but all three were daughters, and the prospect of a three-way succession crisis didn’t seem palatable to anyone in Sicily. A suitable second wife for the King was soon found in Mathilda, a noblewoman from the Lombard city of Ravenna, and a marriage was conducted late in the summer of 1354 [3]. However, the plague had done something to the King. His once-full head of hair was prematurely balding, he couldn’t walk without being supported on either side, and he seemed utterly incapable of producing an heir with Mathilda. Whether due to the plague or the death of his son, Giovanni Giustiniani seemed to be a broken man. Mathilda gave birth to a healthy son in February of 1356, but rumors abounded that the child was actually of William Opamhill and not of Giovanni. Regardless, the young Roger Giustiniani was named Giovanni’s successor. Less than a year later, merely hours after midnight on the first day of 1357, King Giovanni I Giustiniani was dead, whether by the remnants of the plague, the machinations of his wife, his Admiralus, or both, or simply the brokenness of his spirit being left unknown [4].

Roger was duly crowned King Roger V Giustiniani, with Mathilda and William Opamhill being named his protectors until his minority ended. Luckily for the stability for the stability of the Kingdom, no one was strong or energetic enough to attempt to displace the young Roger. Still wary of their shaky legitimacy, Mathilda and William quickly married one another (not doing much to dissuade the rumors that Roger was their child, not Giovanni’s), and then arranged the betrothal of Roger to Eleanor, the young niece of the Angevin Emperor John I Arthur. When, two years later, John died, Eleanor was brought to Sicily along with a group of retainers, and she and Roger spent much of their childhood together, reputably transitioning easily into their roles as husband and wife [5].

Sicily had been shaken by the Black Death, but the urbanized nature of the Kingdom and the influx of immigrants from the Mediterranean basin had allowed the Kingdom to recover disproportionately quickly to the devastation. For example, the Kingdom of Aragon lost roughly the same ratio of their population to the Black Death as the Kingdom of Sicily did. However, by 1360, the population of Sicily was roughly 75%-80% what it had been in 1300, while in Aragon that number stood around 65%-70%. Particularly depopulated were the cities of the Lombard League, which experienced political upheaval as a result of the Black Death.

The Lombard League had resulted in general chaos in northern Italy following Otto of Brunswick’s cessation of Imperial claims to the area, and numerous treaties had been made and broken in the various cities’ attempts to vie for power. Finally, in 1292, the Treaty of Cortona, signed in the small village in southern Tuscany, the political situation of northern Italy was stabilized. Genoese and Venetian claims to territory were respected, with Milan and Siena taking major slices of Lombardy and Tuscany, respectively. However, the fiercely independent city-states that composed nearly half of northern Italy pressed forward a concept that would go on to shape the League. Similarly to the Hanseatic League in the north, the Lombard League would function as a mutual defense and trading alliance. Within the League, individual city-states remained independent, but each sent a delegate to a Grand Council which would henceforth meet in Cortona [6].

The result was a loose confederation that vaguely resembled southern Italy before the rise of the Hautevilles. The areas outside of Milanese, Venetian, Ferraran, Ravennese, Sienese, and Genoese influence came to be known as the “patchwork baronies” due to their fragmented nature, with over 100 independent city-states officially recognized in the Treaty of Cortona. One of the biggest supporters of the move was Pope Luke I, a reformist Pope who, like many of his predecessors, desired clerical reform at the expense of the powerful monarchs that exercised control over religious matters. The relatively young coalition in northern Italy could provide a mercantile balance for the Popes against the increasingly powerful Sicily, and provide the Pope with an excellent testing grounds for his reform.

Unfortunately for Luke, the coming of the Black Death made many of his more ambitious plans impossible, and he died in 1331 having not accomplished his mission of reforming the church. However, his unflagging support for the Lombard League did its work well. When, in 1321, a Holy Roman invasion had swept into Lombardy, until outside the walls of Milan, a coalition of Lombard forces, with the Knights Templar anchoring the center, broke the German force and chased them out of Italy in full retreat. Even once Luke was gone, the message was clear: northern Italy was its own master.

Meanwhile, in Sicily, the regency of William and Mathilda Opamhill for King Roger V went fairly smoothly until Roger’s 14th birthday in 1370, when a faction of nobles rose up in an attempt to end Roger’s regency. The revolt, led mainly by French and Sicilian nobles, disliked the half-English William and the northern Italian Mathilda, and demanded that Roger’s regency be ended two years earlier than initially planned. As a result, a significant army formed and marched on Palermo. William and Mathilda, seeing that public sentiment had turned against them, abdicated in exchange for their lives, and fled to Naples. Roger V Giustiniani was dutifully crowned sole King of Sicily, with the office of Admiralus given to Marino Cassandro, William’s protégé. Suspicion of Marino’s wife, Francisca Hohenstaufen, who was descended from Roger III Hohenstaufen, was put aside when Marino swore loyalty to Roger V in a public ceremony in the Palermo Cathedral.

The copious writings of Eleanor Giustiniani give historians an excellent insight into the reign of Roger V. A childhood of being pushed around by his mother and a man that may or may not have been his father had certainly changed him, and he had developed a meek personality during his childhood. Nonetheless, he was able to act decisively on at least one occasion during his reign, and that action would be his most lasting legacy to the Kingdom of Sicily.

Following the revolt that swept him into absolute power, Roger began planning a way to create a balance of power between the King, Nobility, and Peasantry in Sicily. Although it was years in the planning, by 1378 the Sicilian Chancellory was officially chartered by the King of Sicily, and a new chapter in Sicilian legal history began. The Sicilian Chancellory, like the Angevin Parliaments or the French Estates-General, was meant to be a government behind the King. Members of the Sicilian Chancellory came in four flavors: one-half were noblemen from across the realm, one-third were representatives from the major towns of Sicily, and the remaining two-twelfths were composed of members of the Royal bureaucracy and the clergy. While the various lords of Sicily still controlled their lands, Chancellory-appointed “Direpadre”, or district governors, were appointed for the “Thema” of Calabria, Apulia, Molise, Campania-Nord, Campania-Sud, Basilicata, Sardegna-Nord, Sardegna-Sud, Corsigga, Tunis, Constantia, and Sicily, and the Chancellory was given the power to make laws and raise taxes - with Royal consent, of course. Similarly, the Kings of Sicily were legally able to create or repeal laws and create, repeal, or alter taxes, but two-thirds votes against such measures in the Chancellory were able to overturn such decisions. Finally, the Chancellor of Sicily, a head elected by the members of the Chancellory, was made one of the King’s “elite advisors,” a rank shared by the Commander of the Palace Guard and the Admiralus [7].

The great triumph of the creation of the Sicilian Chancellory surely improved the stability of Sicily, but King Roger V wasn’t able to enjoy his success for long. In early 1379, he caught a severe illness, and after a mercifully brief two-day battle with the speedy disease, he expired. He had two children, a five-year-old daughter named Anna and a two-year-old son named Robert. However, Eleanor was no Mathilda, and the Kingdom of Sicily was not as exhausted by the Black Death as it had been two decades earlier. Revolt would come, but the question was, from where?

A coup in June 1379 carried out by the conspiring Admiralus, Marino Cassandro, and the Chancellor, Fredrigo Pegliasco, sent Eleanor and her children into exile in Corsica, where a generous estate compensated them for their lost Kingdom. However, the Bishop of Palermo fled to Naples upon discovering the coup, where he and a group of conspirators launched a counter-coup. Robert Magno, a nephew of Giovanni Giustiniani and cousin of Roger Giustiniani, allied himself with the aging William Opamhill and the Bishop of Palermo, and took much of southern Italy with him. In North Africa, the charismatic son of a Berber woman and a half-Greek man whose illegitimate father had been King Frederick II named Rodrigo de Mahdia raised the Greeks and Berbers of Tunis, Mahdia, and Constantine in revolt against Palermo, but his lack of a navy prevented him from pressing his claim.

By 1380, the Kingdom of Sicily had been divided into four primary camps. Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica backed Marino Cassandro, while southern Italy sided with Robert Magno, and North Africa with Rodrigo de Mahdia, with Corfu and Bari supporting the claim of Giorgios Xenos, a wealthy Greek merchant who claimed to be descended from both the Hautevilles and Komnenos dynasty. With the lines in the sand drawn, the Kingdom of Sicily was about to be plunged into a civil war the likes of which it had not yet seen. The dream of Roger d’Hauteville, Frederick Hohenstaufen, and Giovanni Giustiniani had been shattered.

[1] – Some have speculated that the attack was part of an orchestrated plot by Giovanni to instigate war against the decimated Aragon. While Aragon hadn’t suffered any worse than Sicily due to the plague, Aragon didn’t have the immigration that allowed Sicily to regain its footing.

[2] – Corsica was an Aragonese possession after the Aragonese-Pisan union that had brought the Iberian state into northern Italian politics.

[3] – Ravenna had risen in prosperity in the chaos of the Lombard League by allying itself to Venice and remaining aloof during many of the struggles of Northern Italy. It has risen to be the most powerful satellite of Venice, and has a significant navy and treasury, as well as a growing Greek population.

[4] – More than likely, it was simply the massive damage the plague had caused his body.

[5] – We known this because Eleanor was an avid writer and chronicled her life in the waning days of the 14th century. In her accounts, she recalls much of Sicily’s history, including the life of her husband.

[6] - Cortona was on the periphery of Sienese, Ravennese, and Ferraran power, making it an ideal compromise location. While Genoa, Venice, Milan, and Siena took the most land in northern Italy, the cities of Ravenna and Ferrara remained the last two major powers in the region.

[7] - Such sweeping reforms didn’t happen overnight, and were really the product of a perfect storm. A mix of the nobility and peasantry wanting increased power, a ruler meek enough to give it, a powerful Angevin woman who is educated enough to propose a system modeled on the Parliaments of her homeland, and an entire situation where war, particularly civil war, was feared due to the horrors of the Black Death, all combined to allow the creation of the Sicilian Chancellory and the granting of such expansive powers to them.

 

[Will Kürlich Kerl]

Nice update. Keep it coming.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Wow. How's that for a civil war?

 

[Justinianus Constansious]

Chapter 18: The Isle in Flames
Sicily During the War of the Four Counts
​

Ironically, with the widespread pandemonium in early 1380, most of the campaigning season was spent making relatively tentative maneuvers. By the end of the season, the forces under Admiralus Marino Cassandro and Chancellor Fredrigo Pegliasco had secured the loyalty of the Sicilian Navy, and thus the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. The former two saw little to no fighting, with most people siding with the Admiralus due to their shared connections to the navy. However, Corsica put up stouter resistance, largely due to well-placed bribes from Giorgios Xenos, who managed to buy the loyalty of the defenders of Bastia, Porto, Roccapina, and Bonifacio. However, the attack on Bonifacio, during which Marino Cassandro personally sailed his flagship “San Michele” to the walls of the city and hoisted his marines onto the walls, leading to a rapid surrender, broke much of the island’s plans to put up an organized defense. Thus, much of the 1380 campaigning season was spent, by Marino Cassandro, cleaning up Corsica and establishing his and Fredrigo Pegliasco’s rule over the island. The positive feelings generated by the Chancellor fueled the Admiralus’s expansion to Corsica, but in public relations, Pegliasco was checked by another Italian; Francisco Vittoriti, the Bishop of Palermo.

Having fled to Naples following Cassandro’s coup, Bishop Francisco had made a point of supporting the claim of Robert Magno, who’s mother was the younger sister of the former King Giovanni I, and did so by courting his old ally, the former Admiralus William Opamhill. Together, the three had an easy time securing their support in southern Italy, with few choosing to resist as Corsica had against Marino. The only area that held out against Magno, Opamhill, and Bishop Francisco was the city of Bari, a heavily Greek city that supported the eldest “claimant” to the throne of Sicily, Giorgios Xenos. A fabulously wealthy Greek, Xenos had supposedly procured documents claiming his descent from both Isaac I Komnenos and Robert Guiscard [1]. Near the end of 1380, Xenos and Robert began a series of skirmishes. Although he lacked Arabs in significant numbers, Robert still had enough to employ Frederick I’s “double screed” tactic in the raids, with teams of Arab horse archers and Italian crossbowmen scouting for his main forces and seemingly effortlessly repulsing all attempts at subtlety by Xenos’s mercenaries.

As 1381 dawned, both Cassandro and Magno looked for ways to strike at one another. Like Athens and Sparta or Carthage and Rome before them, Cassandro had a navy that could prevent Magno from crossing the sea and striking at his island home, while Magno had an army strong enough to defeat anything that Cassandro attempted to throw at him. Neither man considered Giorgios Xenos in Bari or Rodrigo de Mahdia, the North African bastard of Frederick II, particularly threatening - Xenos had money and Rodrigo had land in North Africa, but neither had the experience, court support, or developed territory that the two of them possessed.

With the advantage of hindsight, neither man seems to have been a particularly bad choice for King. Marino was still a young man, in his thirties, and was reportedly particularly just - when groups of soldiers took to requisitioning food in Porto, he had swiftly punished the offenders and ordered that his army pay for food at fair prices - his landings in Corsica were liberation from the Greek usurper Xenos, not foreign conquests. While Marino Cassandro had no claim to the throne, his wife Francisca Hohenstaufen Cassandro did, and their young son, Réne, was already being proposed as the next King, with ideas of a joint Marino-Fredrigo regency until Réne reached his majority. Robert Magno, too, was no swaggering conquerer. Slightly older than Cassandro at 41, he was still an able military commander, having served under the Commander of the Palace Guard for much of Roger V’s reign, and seemed to have the discipline and decisiveness of a soldier. However, his stoic personality seems to have won him many supporters in the army. His rations, quarters, and privileges were notably equivalent to those of the lowliest soldier - he was an army man through and through. His track record of command was hardly impressive, having only ever fought the forces of Giorgios Xenos, but his successes there had emboldened his supporters - in particular William Opamhill - to seek a quick solution to the civil war.

Such a quick solution became apparent in the summer of 1381. The skirmishes between Magno and Xenos slowly stopped, and soon both were meeting within Bari. Finally, on June 6th, 1381, Giorgios Xenos dropped all claims to the Kingdom of Sicily, and was dutifully named Robert Magno’s Chancellor [2]. Together, the Robert Magno - William Opamhill - Francisco Vittoriti - Giorgios Xenos alliance boasted significant resources and wealth, as well as a large army, made up of both mercenaries hired by Xenos that included Genoese Crossbowmen, Bulgarian light infantry, and Hungarian light cavalry, and Robert Magno’s native Sicilian army. However, the lack of a navy still prevented them from bringing this army to bear against Marino Cassandro, and eventually Rodrigo de Mahdia.

Where internal politics had failed Robert Magno, however, diplomacy succeeded. The Kingdom of Sicily had no shortage of rivals, in particular Aragon, Genoa, and Venice, all of whom had significant navies and interests that conflicted with Sicilian interests. Were they to assist in Robert Magno gaining the throne of Sicily, their diplomats suggested, Palermo could bring its goals more into line with those of Valencia, Venice, and Genoa. To his credit, Robert searched for every other possibility to reunite the Kingdom, but finding none, he reluctantly agreed to allow Venetian, Aragonese, and Genoese merchants free, unlimited access to Sicilian ports in exchange for the use of their navies [3].

With business thus concluded, in 1382, 300 Venetian, Aragonese, and Genoese ships shuttled 12,000 Sicilian soldiers and mercenaries across the Strait of Messina and onto Sicily. At the head of the army was Robert Magno, with William Opamhill in command of the fleet and Giorgios Xenos and Henri Palomer leading an advance force that marched on Palermo. Marino Cassandro’s response was one of utter panic. His greatest defense - the navy - had been entirely unable to stop the crossing. Despite numerous attacks on the coalition fleet, the Sicilians had been beaten back and forced to watch as the foreign nave disgorged both native and foreign troops onto the island. However, although the situation was dire, Cassandro kept his head. Rallying a small force of merely 3,500 men, he set out to confront Xenos’s advance force.

The tow forces met on the plains just south of Milazzo, between the cities of Messina and Palermo. Xenos’s army held the advantage in numbers, with 5,200 men to Cassandro’s 3,500, but Marino Cassandro held the advantage in cavalry, with his Arab and Norman cavalry outnumbering Xenos’s Hungarian cavalry over 2-to-1. At around noon, fighting began when a thick fog that had hung over the plain that morning unexpectedly lifted, revealing that the two armies had strayed much closer to one another than expected. As a result, Xenos’s Genoese crossbowmen and Cassandro’s Greek composite bowmen opened fire on one another. The Greeks got the better of the exchange due to their higher rates of fire, but their smaller numbers forced them to retreat when Xenos sent reinforcements with pavaises.


Note: Marino Cassandro’s force is in blue, Giorgios Xenos’s force is in red.

Sensing the danger of allowing his right wing to retreat under Xenos’s attack, Cassandro ordered his right-wing cavalry to drive back the crossbowmen. Once this was done, however, the cavalrymen were left dangerously exposed to further attacks by Xenos’s army. With no other choice beyond likely losing half of his biggest remaining advantage, Marino Cassandro ordered a general advance toward the opposing army.

(see post below)
Note how, as Cassandro’s force advances, half of Xenos’s cavalry, which had been entirely on his right wing, shifts to the left wing in an attempt to catch Cassandro’s isolated cavalry detachment.

As Cassandro’s force advanced, he sent word to his Arab horsemen on his left flank to fire a volley into the ranks of Xenos’s remaining right wing cavalry, then draw them in by turning and fleeing. The gambit worked, and the remaining cavalry on the right wing of Xenos’s army was trapped and destroyed by the cavalry in Cassandro’s force.

(see two posts below)
With the right wing of Xenos’s army unprotected, Marino Cassandro was able to go in for the kill. Sending in his infantry, Cassandro outflanked the right wing of Xenos’s infantry and rolled up the entire line, ultimately shattering the morale of the mercenary force and routing Xenos.

The Battle of Milazzo, the first major battle of the War of the Four Counts, had ended in victory for Marino Cassandro, but a single battle doesn’t make a war. Robert Magno still had a vastly superior force on Sicily, and although the defeat of Giorgios Xenos was a setback, it by no means put Cassandro in a position to resist the 12,000-strong force that Magno had led into Sicily. It would seemingly take a miracle to save Sicily from the forces supporting Robert Magno, William Opamhill, Francisco Vittoriti, and Giorgios Xenos. Tellingly, the Sicilian Chancellory petitioned Fredrigo Pegliasco and Marino Cassandro to relocate to Cagliari, where they could regroup and wait for the inevitable infighting between Magno’s Sicilian forces and the foreign navies. At that moment, however, the one man no one had heard from for much of the war made his move.

When the initial coup of 1379 had occurred, one of the first groups to protest, aside from the Opamhills whose grandson was being usurped, were the Muslims and Greeks of North Africa [4]. They had found a natural leader in Rodrigo de Mahdia, an illegitimate son of King Frederick II Hohenstaufen and the Direpadre of Tunis [5]. A mere 27 yeas old at the time, Rodrigo had managed to unite all of Sicilian North Africa under his own leadership, with the Direpadre of Constantia fleeing to Naples and Rodrigo replacing him with his half-brother Leonardo. Half-Berber, Rodrigo boasted immense physical strength, reputably able to bend a horseshoe with his bare hands, and was an excellent horseman to boot [6]. Simultaneously charismatic and forceful, Rodrigo was a natural magnet for the people of North Africa.

However, his personal magnetism could only take his cause so far. He had a claim to the throne of Sicily, but it was through an illegitimate birth, which made his chances of being accepted as King rather slim. Similarly, although in Mahdia, Tunis, and Constantine he was a major power-player, he was largely considered a non-entity by the other three contenders for the throne. Marino Cassandro had the capital of Palermo, the navy, and the chancellory, while Robert Magno had the Bishop of Palermo, the army, and the area of southern Italy. Even Giorgios Xenos had wealth, but all Rodrigo had was the backwater overseas territory of Sicily, with too many heathens and not enough arable land. Surely, all three thought, this African rebel could be dealt with as soon as Palermo and Naples were united under a single King of Sicily again.

As it turned out, however, the result of the Battle of Milazzo resulted in Rodrigo de Mahdia being catapulted to center-stage. After both sides took stock of the battle, they realized that Rodrigo controlled the largest source of manpower in the Kingdom of Sicily that hadn’t been tapped yet [7]. Soon, Rodrigo was met in Mahdia by Marino Cassandro himself, offering an alliance between the two.

The deal between Aragon, Venice, and Genoa and Robert Magno had technically been for Robert to be able to utilize the fleets of those three nations until he was able to achieve peace in the Kingdom of Sicily, but as the Chancellory had predicted, the groups inevitable fell to infighting, with Genoa and Aragon stubbornly withdrawing their fleets from the coalition and Venice drastically reducing their presence. With the now significantly reduced coalition fleet still supplying Robert’s army so that he wouldn’t be forced to requisition food from the Sicilian people, Marino Cassandro and Robert de Mahdia were easily able to ferry Rodrigo’s force to Sicily over a matter of weeks. By the time it was fully assembled in Marsala, it was the heart of May, 1383, and Robert Magno’s army was hammering at the walls of Messina. With lighting speed, Rodrigo de Mahdia shot across Sicily and prepared to break the siege.

When the two forces met in the shadow of the walls of Messina, it was two very different armies that faced one another. One one side lay the largely Italian forces of Robert Magno, composed of men-at-arms, crossbowmen, and Norman Knights. One the other side was an Arab-Berber-Greek force of Rodrigo de Mahdia, which boasted light Greek spearmen, Arab archers, and Berber light cavalry. Again, the advantage of numbers lay with Robert Magno, and despite a well-timed sally by the defenders of Messina, the forces of Robert Magno were victorious, and Rodrigo de Mahdia was driven from the field.

Despite his victory at Messina, Robert Magno chose this time to retire from Sicily. His campaign had been an unsuccessful one, and he had started to realize from the seemingly endless siege of Messina that this civil war would be far longer than he anticipated. In Sicily, this gave some breathing room to Cassandro and Rodrigo, who were able to reorganize their forces and prepare to a counterattack against Robert Magno.

What happened next, by whose design, and why are up to debate. What is known is that, in August of 1383, Robert Magno fell grievously ill during an banquet and retired to his chambers. The next morning, his body was found, collapsed over a chamber pot, with his throat slit and his bowels hanging out. Theories ranged from a suicide over the intense pain caused by the loss of his bowels naturally [8] to the same cause of death, but due to poison, to clear-cut murder disguised as a suicide. Who killed Robert Magno is also open for debate. Theories range from disgruntled courtiers to assassins in the pay of Cassandro and Rodrigo to Xenos’s henchmen to even Pope Martin VI. Suffice to say, the death of Robert Magno continues to be a mystery, and his life continues to be one of the great “what ifs” of the Kingdom of Sicily.

With the death of Robert Magno, the shape of the War of the Four Counts changed dramatically. Some historians refer to his death as the end of the war, and that the subsequent battles are not part of a civil war so much as they are a rebellion against the crowned King. However, it would not be until 1386 that only one man claimed the title “King of Sicily” again - and until then, the civil war that had been brewing since the fall of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, and only put off by Giovanni Giustiniani, would rage on.

[1] - Specifically, he claimed that Isaac had sired a bastard son with an innkeeper’s daughter in Dyrrachium, and years later, that boy had joined William Iron-Arm in Sicily, where he had first met the young Robert Guiscard. From there, the man’s daughter was given to Guiscard’s son Guy, from whom Xenos was descended. Despite the obvious error of Guy’s later exploits with Bohemond in the Crusades, such a claim is almost universally doubted. More likely, Xenos was an aging and incredibly rich man who wanted to claim glory with all his riches.

[2] - Both Magno and de Mahdia had created their own staffs of Admiraluses, Chancellors, and Commanders of the Palace Guard. For Magno, William Opamhill had been reinstated as Admiralus, and his own protégé, an Occitan immigrant named Henri Palomer, as his Commander of the Palace Guard. Rodrigo de Mahdia’s staff will be expounded upon later.

[3] - Whether it’s Genoa using Sardinia as a way-station between Liguria and Granada. Aragon using Corsica as a base to patrol the area around Pisa, or Venice using Corfu and Brindisi as stopping points on their way to the east, using Sicilian ports toll-free would be a boon to the economies and treasuries of all three states. It would also hurt Sicilian merchants, hence Robert’s great reluctance to take the offer even though it would help win him the throne.

[4] - The waves of Greek immigration during the time of Roger III and Alfons I had created a thriving Greek community in Constantine and the surrounding countryside. Although the area has changed hands many times in the past century, the Greek community has steadily grown, to the point where a man from Nicaea or Athens could be reasonably at home in Constantine or any surrounding town.

[5] - Direpadre is a provincial governor appointed by the Chancellory.

[6] - A similar boast was made about William II “the Lucky.”

[7] - So far, troops had only really been drawn from Sicily and southern Italy, and North Africa was significantly more populous than Corsica, Sardinia, or Corfu.

[8] - The (in)famous Arius, founder of the Arian sect of Christianity, reportedly died by excreting his bowels, among other internal organs.

 

[Justinianus Constansious]

For some reason, I'm only able to put one picture per post - if I'm just missing something, please let me know. Anyway, here is the second image from the battle of Milazzo

 

[Justinianus Constansious]

And here is the third image:

 

[MerryPrankster]

Good update. I liked the bit about bending horseshoes with one's hands.

 

[luis3007]

Great story so far, hope to see more!!!

 

[Zioneer]

This is a great story; I haven't seen any other Hohenstaufen Sicily TLs.

Of course, I've been wanting to write a Norman Sicily TL, so your TL is preempting mine, but you're a better writer than I am and I enjoy reading your TL more than I enjoy writing my own, so it's all good.

 

[Justinianus Constansious]

Good update. I liked the bit about bending horseshoes with one's hands.

Great story so far, hope to see more!!!

Thank you both! The bit about bending horseshoes is either about William II or Basil I - I forget which. But thank you both for reading!

This is a great story; I haven't seen any other Hohenstaufen Sicily TLs.

Of course, I've been wanting to write a Norman Sicily TL, so your TL is preempting mine, but you're a better writer than I am and I enjoy reading your TL more than I enjoy writing my own, so it's all good.

I personally liked your TL, but we could always use more Norman Sicily TLs around these parts. Just out of curiosity, what sources were you using for your TL? I mainly use Lars Brownsworth's podcast The Norman Centuries, but since he stopped with Frederick II, I don't have too much beyond it, and as much as I love his work, he unfortunately skimps on economic development a bit too often. But anyway, thank you for reading, and thank you for your compliments!

 

[Zioneer]

Thank you both! The bit about bending horseshoes is either about William II or Basil I - I forget which. But thank you both for reading!




I personally liked your TL, but we could always use more Norman Sicily TLs around these parts. Just out of curiosity, what sources were you using for your TL? I mainly use Lars Brownsworth's podcast The Norman Centuries, but since he stopped with Frederick II, I don't have too much beyond it, and as much as I love his work, he unfortunately skimps on economic development a bit too often. But anyway, thank you for reading, and thank you for your compliments!

I use Lar Brownsworth's podcast, Wikipedia, and John Julius Norwich's Kingdom in the Sun books.

It's interesting to see how your Normans focus on the West, since my plans (I'm actually still slowly working on the TL) were for the Normans to focus on Croatia and Hungary, and to try and form an Empire of their own.