Cover photo: The Sicilian Vespers by Erulo Eroli, oil on canvas 1890-1891, acquisition by the Municipality of Palermo at the National Exhibition of Palermo 1891-1892.

After the defeat of Manfred at Benevento and the decapitation of the last of the Hohenstaufens, Conradin, in Naples on October 29, 1268, the Kingdom of Sicily had definitively been handed over to the French leader Charles I of Anjou. Despite promises of fair and lenient governance, the Angevins showed no sensitivity to any request and implemented a vile fiscal system, engaging in confiscations, abuses, and violence, as well as ruthless exploitation of the province for Charles’s campaigns mainly in central and northern Italy but also for his ambitious plans for a new grand campaign in the Eastern Roman Empire of Michael VIII Palaiologos. The latter, having received information about his opponent’s preparations, had already entrusted his hopes and abundant gold to his agent John of Procida since 1279.

The event took its name from the uprising that began with the start of Vespers, at the beginning of the evening vigil and service of Vespers, on Easter Monday, March 30, 1282, at the Church of the Holy Spirit just outside Palermo. While the congregation awaited the commencement of the service, a group of French officials, arrogant and partially intoxicated, began to harass local women. ”They mingled in the groups, joined in the dances, familiarly approached the women: here a handshake; there others crossing the line of propriety; to the more distant ones, words and inappropriate gestures.’‘¹ One of them, a lieutenant named Drouet, pulled a married woman towards him and harassed her.

It was his last act in life. The woman’s husband immediately fell upon him with his knife, and soon the Frenchman was dead. The remaining Frenchmen moved to assist their compatriot, but they were quickly surrounded by an enraged crowd armed with stilettos and swords, and soon all of them were dead. The spark of the uprising had been lit. The bells rang for Vespers, heralds poured into the streets shouting ‘death to the French!’, slaughtering everyone, men, women, and children, even monks who couldn’t correctly pronounce the word ‘ciciri’, a common oral difficulty for the French. Only on that day, approximately 2,000 Frenchmen met their end. Judge John of San Remi barricaded himself in the castle of Vicari with a few survivors, but the next day the Sicilians captured it without leaving any defenders alive.

At the same time, as news of the uprising spread throughout the island, by April 13, 1282, only the city of Messina remained in Angevin hands, to fall on April 28. The revolution had been a complete success. In his autobiography, Michael wrote, ‘If I dared to claim that I was the instrument of God who brought freedom to the Sicilians, I would only speak the truth.‘ Indeed, agents and Byzantine gold played a significant role, but the success of the uprising was purely a result of the abilities of the Sicilians.

Crushed, Charles, with the complete loss of Sicily, with 6,000 dead and with his campaign plans postponed indefinitely, exclaimed, ‘Lord and my God, since it pleases you to destroy me, at least let me fall slowly.‘ Meanwhile, he organized his forces for a large and fierce counterattack, having the spiritual support of the Pope and reinforcements from fresh French forces, a military corps from Provence, one from the Guelphs of Florence, and ships from Venice, Pisa, and Genoa.

These would attempt harsh but failed attacks on the Sicilian defenders of Messina on August 6, 8, 15, September 2, and 14, losing in the final attack two noblemen who stood beside him, struck by thrown stones. However, the worst had come from the western side of the Mediterranean. Peter III of Aragon, married to Constance, daughter of Manfred, king of Sicily, and granddaughter of the Emperor of the Hohenstaufens, disembarked with a large army on August 30 at Trapani in western Sicily after a call from the Sicilians. The uprising had now become a European war.

Footnotes

1. Bartholomew of Neocastro, Historia Sicula, Chapter IV, p.116. ↩︎

Bibliography

S. Runciman, «The Sicilian Vespers», publ.Cambridge University Press, 1958.