Pope Clement IV, born Gui Foucois and also known as Guy le Gros, was bishop of Le Puy (1257–1260), archbishop of Narbonne (1259–1261), cardinal of Sabina (1261–1265), and head of the Catholic Church from 5 February 1265 until his death. His election as pope occurred at a conclave held at Perugia that lasted four months while cardinals argued over whether to call in Charles I of Anjou, the youngest brother of Louis IX of France, to carry on the papal war against the Hohenstaufens. Pope Clement was a patron of Thomas Aquinas and of Roger Bacon, encouraging Bacon in the writing of his Opus Majus, which included important treatises on optics and the scientific method.
Charles I, commonly called Charles of Anjou or Charles d'Anjou, was King of Sicily from 1266 to 1285. He was a member of the royal Capetian dynasty and the founder of the House of Anjou-Sicily. Between 1246 and 1285, he was Count of Provence and Forcalquier in the Holy Roman Empire and Count of Anjou and Maine in France. In 1272 he was proclaimed King of Albania, in 1277 he purchased a claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and in 1278 he became Prince of Achaea after the previous ruler, William of Villehardouin, died without heirs.
Year 1268 (MCCLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar.
The Battle of Benevento was a major medieval battle fought on 26 February 1266, near Benevento in present-day Southern Italy, between the forces of Charles I of Anjou and those of King Manfred of Sicily. Manfred's defeat and death resulted in Charles' conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily, effectively ending the rule of the Hohenstaufen dynasty in the Italian Peninsula and marking the rise of the royal Capetian House of Anjou. The engagement was part of the conflict which pitted Guelphs against Ghibellines.
Conrad III, called the Younger or the Boy, but usually known by the diminutive Conradin, was the last direct heir of the House of Hohenstaufen. He was Duke of Swabia (1254–1268) and nominal King of Jerusalem (1254–1268) and Sicily (1254–1258). After his attempt to reclaim the Kingdom of Sicily for the Hohenstaufen dynasty failed, he was captured and beheaded.
Frederick I of Baden, a member of the House of Zähringen, was Margrave of Baden and of Verona, as well as claimant Duke of Austria from 1250 until his death. As a fellow campaigner of the Hohenstaufen king Conradin, he likewise was beheaded at the behest of King Charles I of Naples.
Conrad, a member of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, was the only son of Emperor Frederick II from his second marriage with Queen Isabella II of Jerusalem. He inherited the title of King of Jerusalem upon the death of his mother in childbed. Appointed Duke of Swabia in 1235, his father had him elected King of Germany and crowned King of Italy in 1237. After the emperor was deposed and died in 1250, he ruled as King of Sicily until his death.
Manfred was the last King of Sicily from the Hohenstaufen dynasty, reigning from 1258 until his death. The natural son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, Manfred became regent over the kingdom of Sicily on behalf of his nephew Conradin in 1254. As regent he subdued rebellions in the kingdom, until in 1258 he usurped Conradin's rule. After an initial attempt to appease Pope Innocent IV he took up the ongoing conflict between the Hohenstaufens and the papacy through combat and political alliances. He defeated the papal army at Foggia on 2 December 1254. Excommunicated by three successive popes, Manfred was the target of a Crusade (1255–66) called first by Pope Alexander IV and then by Urban IV. Nothing came of Alexander's call, but Urban enlisted the aid of Charles of Anjou in overthrowing Manfred. Manfred was killed during his defeat by Charles at the Battle of Benevento, and Charles assumed kingship of Sicily.
The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting respectively the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor in the Italian city-states of Central Italy and Northern Italy during the Middle Ages. During the 12th and 13th centuries, rivalry between these two parties dominated political life across medieval Italy. The struggle for power between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire arose with the Investiture Controversy, which began in 1075 and ended with the Concordat of Worms in 1122.
The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in Sicily and the south of the Italian Peninsula plus, for a time, in Northern Africa from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of the southern peninsula. The island was divided into three regions: Val di Mazara, Val Demone and Val di Noto.
The Battle of Montaperti was fought on 4 September 1260 between Florence and Siena in Tuscany as part of the conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. The Florentines were routed. It was the bloodiest battle fought in Medieval Italy, with more than 10,000 fatalities. An act of treachery during the battle is recorded by Dante Alighieri in the Inferno section of the Divine Comedy.
The War of the Sicilian Vespers, also shortened to the War of the Vespers, was a conflict waged by several medieval European kingdoms over control of Sicily from 1282 to 1302. The war, which started with the revolt of the Sicilian Vespers, was fought over competing dynastic claims to the throne of Sicily and grew to involve the Crown of Aragon, Angevin Kingdom of Naples, Kingdom of France, and the papacy.
John of Procida (1210–1298) was an Italian medieval physician and diplomat.
Napoleone della Torre, also known as Napo della Torre or Napo Torriani, was an Italian nobleman, who was effective Lord of Milan in the late 13th century. He was a member of the della Torre family, the father of Corrado della Torre and the brother of Raimondo della Torre.
Conrad of Antioch was a scion of an illegitimate branch of the imperial Staufer dynasty and a nobleman of the Kingdom of Sicily. He was the eldest son of Frederick of Antioch, imperial vicar of Tuscany, and Margherita di Poli. He was thus a grandson of the Emperor Frederick II, a nephew of King Manfred of Sicily (1258–66) and cousin of King Conradin (1266–68). His surname, which is contemporary, comes from his paternal grandmother, a mistress of Frederick II from Antioch. He may be called "Conrad I" to distinguish him from his descendants with the same given name.
Swabian Sicily denotes the period in the history of Sicily during which it was ruled by the Hohenstaufen dynasty, lasting from Henry VI's's accession to the island's throne in 1194 until Manfred of Sicily's defeat by Charles I of Anjou in 1266. It has been particularly researched by German scholars such as Ernst Kantorowicz and Willy Cohn.
Andrew of Hungary was a Hungarian priest, diplomat and writer. He wrote an account in Latin of Charles of Anjou's conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily, conventionally known as the Descriptio victoriae a Karolo Provinciae comite reportate.
Crusades against Christians were Christian religious wars dating from the 11th century First Crusade when papal reformers began equating the universal church with the papacy. Later in the 12th century the focus of crusades century focus changed from non-christian pagans and infidels to heretics and schismatics. Holy wars were fought in northern France, against King Roger II of Sicily, various heretics, their protectors, mercenary bands and the first political crusade against Markward of Anweiler. Full crusading apparatus was deployed against Christians in the conflict with the Cathar heretics of southern France and their Christian protectors in the 13th century. This was given equivalence with the Eastern crusades and supported by developments such as the creation of the Papal States. The aims of this were to make the crusade indulgence available to the laity, the reconfiguration of Christian society, and ecclesiastical taxation.
The "Sicilian business" is a historiographical term used to describe the failed attempt by Henry III of England to claim the Kingdom of Sicily for his son Edmund, who had been offered the throne by the papacy. Sicily, established in the twelfth century as a theoretical papal fief, had been ruled by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II from 1198 until his death in 1250; Pope Innocent IV now sought to install an agreeable sovereign to succeed his longtime adversary. After failed negotiations with Edmund's uncles Richard of Cornwall and Charles of Anjou, the papacy formally offered the throne to the English prince in 1254. For the project, Henry III was tasked with delivering Edmund and armed forces to Sicily to claim it from Manfred, who was serving as regent for Frederick II's grandson Conradin; the papacy was to offer assistance.
The crusade against the Hohenstaufen was a series of wars launched against the rulers of the Hohenstaufen dynasty with the support and encouragement of the Papacy between 1240 and 1268. The campaigns followed the excommunication of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1239 and ended with the death of his grandson Conradin, a claimant to the Kingdom of Sicily.
