No Sicilian Vespers

Hey everybody, so I'm new here but I've been interested in history for a long time and I've been writing in an amateur way for forever--well, since I was about eight years old--and I want some advice or thoughts on the Sicilian Vespers.

What if Charles of Anjou, upon becoming King of Sicily in 1266, realizes that the support of the nobility and people on Sicily is crucial to securing the island's wealth, and basically gives them the same privileges he gave his French nobles and knights, and learns their language, etc. Sources say that he was driven and ambitious, but I can't find a thing about any possible arrogance or chauvinism. Is it a stretch to imply he'd "go native", just a little bit? I know the language of his court would likely remain French, but he would at least include a few true Sicilians among his advisers...right?

Now he does that, and Sicily doesn't rebel in 1282, and a mighty Kingdom of Sicily that includes southern Italy exists, possibly taking Epirus, the Peloponnese, modern Tunis + surrounding coastline, and more. Even Constantinople is not out of the question, because before the Vespers Charles had a large, powerful fleet and a lot of money, and that was one of his goals.
 
I don't know a great deal about this period, but wasn't part of the rebellion about the freedom of the Sicilian cities? Would Charles be willing to grant privileges such as the cities in southern France had? That might help pacify the Sicilians but could also weaken his ability to wage war - Sicily would become a feudal state with many powerful nobles and town councils rather than a centralized kingdom that could maintain a standing navy for a long time.
 
I don't know a great deal about this period, but wasn't part of the rebellion about the freedom of the Sicilian cities? Would Charles be willing to grant privileges such as the cities in southern France had? That might help pacify the Sicilians but could also weaken his ability to wage war - Sicily would become a feudal state with many powerful nobles and town councils rather than a centralized kingdom that could maintain a standing navy for a long time.

As I see it Sicily + southern Italy was a very strong and wealthy land no matter what the case. I think the nobles' and merchants' main grievance wasn't that their cities weren't free enough, but that the trade boons and privileges given to the French weren't extended to the Sicilians. I can't see this having too much of an effect on the king's private wealth or public purse, and he'll surely have more support among the nobility.

He could say "alright lads, we'll take Epirus/Africa/Constantinople/Crete, and a bunch of property and trade rights in those lands will become yours...if you support me". Could something like that work?
 
He could say "alright lads, we'll take Epirus/Africa/Constantinople/Crete, and a bunch of property and trade rights in those lands will become yours...if you support me". Could something like that work?

Not entirely. Don't forget, the Sicilians have Frederick II in living memory, who preferred Sicily to the Holy Roman Empire when he governed. The grievances, as I understood, also included the fact that the Sicilians resented the overbearing French. Making Charles more like Frederick II - that is, more Sicilian in his outlook, or, in lieu of that, making his rule light and controlled more by Sicilian advisors, would likely avoid it.

Once Charles has support in Sicily, then the idea of a common foe would be more feasible. He just needs it to be "Let's do this together, for the common good" rather than "I'm going to force you to fight for me" (as it was OTL). A surviving French Sicily, from there, can go a number of directions.
 
As I see it Sicily + southern Italy was a very strong and wealthy land no matter what the case. I think the nobles' and merchants' main grievance wasn't that their cities weren't free enough, but that the trade boons and privileges given to the French weren't extended to the Sicilians.

They did demand free commune status after the rebellion, but maybe that was just an attempt to secure their position.

Actually, I'm now wondering what might have happened if, after a successful rebellion, the Pope had recognized the Sicilian cities as free republics the way they wanted. Francis would have disputed it, of course, but he wasn't able to take back Sicily in OTL so he might not have been able to do much about it. How would Sicily have developed during the late middle ages as a loose federation of noble-merchant republics - in effect an island of Genoas?
 
Actually, I'm now wondering what might have happened if, after a successful rebellion, the Pope had recognized the Sicilian cities as free republics the way they wanted. Francis would have disputed it, of course, but he wasn't able to take back Sicily in OTL so he might not have been able to do much about it. How would Sicily have developed during the late middle ages as a loose federation of noble-merchant republics - in effect an island of Genoas?

Meh, I don't think they would have done too well as independent city-states. The wealth of Venice and Genoa was in their fleets and in their distant overseas possessions, which acted as staging grounds and stepping-stones to more distant lands, and rare and valuable goods. During the Sicilian Vespers, they destroyed King Charles's fleet; a POD could be them simply murdering the crews and stealing the fleets themselves...but then you run into the problem of one large fleet needing to be divided among a hundred seaside communes, which gives each commune a tiny fleet incapable of creating decent trade of any caliber.

What I'm thinking is that those communes realize that they need to band together to be powerful, and thus have a mighty fleet compared to size (if it was a big fleet for Naples + Sicily, then it's even bigger for Sicily alone), the enormous grain wealth of Sicily (which will become mightily important in the 14th century as the Little Ice Age sets in and decreases crop yields worldwide), and less distance to trade compared to Venice and Genoa.

Problems are enemies on all sides (Naples, of course; Muslims in Africa who held Sicily just one or two hundred years ago; Aragon, whose wife has a direct claim on Sicily), and Papal illegitimacy. Then we have two POD's that make sense together--I don't think the butterflies from each would affect the other. The first POD is of course the acquisition instead of the destruction of Charles's fleet by the Sicilians; the second would be Pope Martin IV (who was French and thus pro-Charles) dying just before the Vespers and being replaced by his OTL replacement Honorius IV (or some other Italian), who was from Rome and so would be more in favor of a weak Naples and independent Sicily.
 
Not entirely. Don't forget, the Sicilians have Frederick II in living memory, who preferred Sicily to the Holy Roman Empire when he governed. The grievances, as I understood, also included the fact that the Sicilians resented the overbearing French. Making Charles more like Frederick II - that is, more Sicilian in his outlook, or, in lieu of that, making his rule light and controlled more by Sicilian advisors, would likely avoid it.

Once Charles has support in Sicily, then the idea of a common foe would be more feasible. He just needs it to be "Let's do this together, for the common good" rather than "I'm going to force you to fight for me" (as it was OTL). A surviving French Sicily, from there, can go a number of directions.

I think this is about right. Charles did not govern with a light hand ---heavy taxes, the Sicilian economy was milked for his ambitions elsewhere, and Sicilian lords were shut out from any real participation in Charles' empire. Pretty much the antithesis of Hohenstaufen rule.
 
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