The Sicilian Vespers

“Lord God, since it has pleased you to ruin my fortune, let me go down in small steps.”

This is a quote from Charles of Anjou, when he was informed of the massacre of the French inhabitants of Sicily in April 1282. The massacre is known as the Sicilian Vespers, since it began at the start of Vespers, the sunset prayer that marked the beginning of the night vigil on Easter Monday (30 March). Coincidentally, it occured just 24 hours after the rising of Prince Dafydd ap Gruffudd against Edward I in Wales.

The Sicilian Vespers

Edward was on the Welsh Marches when news reached him of trouble in Sicily. Ferrante of Aragon, writing from France, informed the king of the news in a most casual way:

“Also, my lord, know that I have learnt from certain merchants who lately came to Court that it is decided that the pope will soon arrive at Marseilles; they also told me as sure that five Sicilian cities have risen against King Charles and killed all the French living in them. There is no other news in Paris worth repeating”.

Charles of Anjou

The Vespers was apparently triggered by an incident involving a French soldier named Druet, who tried to chat up a woman outside the Church of the Holy Spirit near Palermo. She resisted - other sources say she pulled a knife on him - and then her husband got involved. A scuffle broke out, Druet was killed, and then his comrades were slaughtered by an angry mob. The news quickly spread and within hours the entire island was in revolt against the French occupiers. Within six weeks over five thousand French, soldiers and civilians, were put to death. Foreign clergymen who could not pronounce the word “ciciri” - a sound the French tongue could never accurately reproduce - were also butchered.

Despite the tales of Druet and his botched womanising, the Vespers was probably organised in advance. King Charles had planned to make Naples the capital of his empire of the Two Sicilies, and use the Mediterannean as a springboard for the conquest of Constantinople. He would thus become king and emperor, the heir to the Roman Empire, and the most powerful Christian ruler in the world.

Michael VIII

The Byzantine Emperor, Michael VIII, had seized the throne by deposing and blinding his nephew, John IV Laskaris, on the latter’s eleventh birthday. This supremely ruthless and competent man, who made Edward I and Philip le Bel look like schoolboys, wasn’t about to submit to some Angevin pretender. It is possible that the massacre was organised by Michael and Peter of Aragon via John of Procida, an Italian physician and diplomat: John had good reason to hate Charles of Anjou, since his wife and daughter had been raped by a French knight in Angevin service. Afterwards the knight murdered John’s son. It is theorised that John lay at the heart of a “vast European conspiracy” against Charles and his ally the pope.

Michael VIII made no effort to hide his role in the affair. In latter years he proudly declared:

"Should I dare to claim that I was God's instrument to bring freedom to the Sicilians, then I should only be stating the truth."

Climbing the walls

Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. At the start of September 1390 the city was besieged by Anglo-Prussian forces under Henry of Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), Konrad von Wallenrode and Marshal Engelhardt Rabe of the Teutonic Order. Also among the ‘crusaders’ was Prince Vitold of Lithuania, and the joint campaign or reyse was in fact part of a Lithuanian dynastic dispute; ironically against Vitold’s cousin, King Jogailo, who had just converted Lithuania to Christianity.

This left the Teutonic Order and their allies with no reason to attack Lithuania. Fortunately for them, the wilderness of Samogitia north of the River Neman remained fiercely pagan, so the bloodshed could continue. Bolingbroke’s participation was a family tradition: both his grandfather, Henry of Grosmont, and his father-in-law Humprey de Bohun had campaigned alongside the Knights of Prussia.

The story of the siege grew in the telling on its way back to England. It was reported that Vilnius had been taken due to the daring of Henry and his men, and one English chronicler reported that Henry himself climbed the walls and placed his standard there. Meanwhile his Prussian and Livonian allies stood by and watched in awe. In reality it was an Englishman of Henry’s company, a valet of Lord Bourchier, who raised the standard. He did not scale the walls of the city itself, but one of the outlying forts. Vilnius did not fall to the allies, who were forced to withdraw when their supplies of power and provisions ran low. King Jogailo wrote to his commander at Vilnius, Clemens of Mostorzow, vice-chancellor of Poland, congratulating him on the successful resistance.

Templars and Mamluks

Back to Eddie One's crusade.

The prince enjoyed a close relationship with the leaders of the Military Orders: the knights of the Temple, the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights. Edward’s need for men and materials in the Holy Land played a major role in this, as did his reliance on established communication networks and the political influence of the Orders.

His dependence on them was also dictated by finance. Edward and his followers borrowed about £15,000 from the Hospitallers and Templars, for example. He also enjoyed a long correspondence through the 1270s with the Masters of the Hospital and the Temple. Joseph Chauncy, treasurer of the Hospital since 1248, returned to England and became Edward’s own treasurer until 1281. Edward also gave custody of a tower he built in Acre, the Tower of the English, over to the lesser Order of St Edward of Acre.

The Military Orders were not the power of old. In 1268 the Hospitallers may have been able to field 300 knights in the whole of the Latin East, with a similar commitment from the Temple. It is unlikely that these men were ever gathered in force in one place. Nor were they particularly aggressive. Knights such as Oliver de Termes (a former Cathar) frequently advised caution against the Mamluks, and avoided direct confrontation when possible. This helped to preserve what was left of Christian forces in the East, but did nothing to recover lost territory. The Latin field forces in the East were simply no match for Baibars and the Mamluk army.

Acre

Edward and Gilbert

The most important English leader whom the Lord Edward tried to enlist for his crusade was Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester. How much Edward really wanted him along, despite Clare’s power and importance, is a moot point. Clare had taken the cross at Northampton in 1268, but afterwards his personal relations with the heir to the throne soured again. They had worked together to destroy Simon de Montfort, but it seems fairly clear the two struggled to get along.

Gilbert de Clare

Instead of courting the earl’s support, Edward went out of his way to antagonise him. In the summer of 1268 rumours swirled about the March, Clare’s power base, that Edward was paying too much attention to Clare’s wife, Alice de Lusignan. This was probably just gossip, but the prince took more serious steps to undermine Clare’s power.

In 1269, at the request of Prince Llywelyn, Edward came in person to the Marches and granted Llywelyn the homage and fealty of Maredudd ap Gruffudd, lord of Gwynllwg and Caerleon and one of Clare’s tenants. Maredudd was a descendant of the ancient princes of Deheuabarth, but his ancestors had lost most of their territories. Shortly before 1269, Llywelyn granted Maredudd the commote of Hirfryn in Ystrad Tywi. Llywelyn then claimed that Maredudd was a Welsh baron and ought to hold his lands as tenant-in-chief of the Prince of Wales. This was granted by Edward at the ford of Montgomery. Llywelyn was poised to attack Clare’s lands in Glamorgan and Gwent, so at this point Edward and Llywelyn formed a tag-team against the earl.

Clare went into a sulk and refused to attend a council in London, saying Edward ‘wished him ill’. He also refused to attend a conference in Paris to discuss the crusade in August, though it isn’t clear whether he was even invited. In February 1270 he went to Paris under his steam to meet with King Louis, only to return having rejected all of the French king’s proposals. He then refused to attend yet another parliament, and said he wouldn’t turn up unless letters of safe-conduct were granted to him and his men.

At last Edward’s uncle, Richard of Cornwall, intervened to heal the breach between his nephew and Clare. He brokered a remarkable agreement, whereby Clare was promised 2000 marks upon his departure from England to the Holy Land. This sum would be increased to 8000 marks if he personally accompanied Edward instead of going independently. The prince’s obligation was to pay the sums described and leave before September 1270. As extra insurance, both parties were to pay the massive sum of 20,000 marks if they broke the agreement, and Clare would have to surrender his castles of Tonbridge and Henley. These would be returned to him when it was known ‘he was on the Greek Sea’. In his absence the earl’s lands would have royal protection, and a threat of excommunication was added by the bishops in a separate document. It seems nobody had much confidence in this deal.

For good reason. After more rejections and arguments, Clare finally accepted the agreement on 127 June. In August he returned to the March to make preparations for departure - that, however, was the closest Clare ever got to the Holy Land. He refused to shift from his lands, and when the expedition finally left he wasn’t part of it. Richard of Cornwall’s contract proved so much worthless parchment, as Clare was never penalised for his failure to go East.

Jewish history

Some posts on Jews in Edward I's reign. I'm not too familiar with the subject, and will mostly be quoting from the late Robin Mundill's thesis on the Jewish community in England 1272-1290 (unless stated otherwise).

Some of Mundill's (edited) thoughts on contemporary attitudes towards Jews: "Joshua Trachtenberg observed in 1943 that 'the most vivid impression to be gained from a reading of medieval allusions to the Jews is of a hatred so vast and abysmal, so intense that it leaves one gasping for comprehension. What has been correctly termed 'Jew hatred' rather than anti-semitism had many aspects. In the records of chroniclers, deep odium was reflected by constant references to Jews as 'perfidious'.

The Jew was also commonly referred to as the 'Devil's disciple' and this association had not died out by Shakespeare's day. Was not Mephistophiles the Jew's master and the destruction of Christianity his mission? News of Joseph Cartaphilus, the Wandering Jew, and of strange happenings inthe East reached England in 1228 when an Armenian archbishop visited St Albans. Such news only confirmed the worst suspicions of Gentiles.

Then, as news of Mongol invasions reached the west, panic broke out and the belief that the Jewish legions were at hand was rife. Was not Antichrist to be born of Jewish parents and Armageddon ushered in by the Jews? The ritual murder allegations that first manifested themselves in medieval England are symptomatic of the vast, abysmal and intense hatred that the host majority had for the Jewish minority. As well as unpopular moneylender, the Jew was sorcerer, murderer, cannibal, poisoner, blasphemer, international conspirator and Devil's disciple."

Longsword IV is on the way...

The hooded men are coming...

Henry III is dead. The new king, Edward I, is thousands of miles away in the Holy Land. In his absence, former plan to shatter the fragile peace and plunge England into another civil war. Robert Ferrers, the outlawed Earl of Derby and Edward’s bitter enemy, raises the standard of revolt. He gathers an army of barons and outlaws and secretly dreams of seizing the crown itself. The men of Ferrers, led by captains known as the Hooded Men, threaten to overun the Midlands and northern counties.

Hugh Longsword arrives home in disgrace after his failure to protect Edward from an assassin’s blade. He is given one chance to redeem himself and sent to investigate disturbances in northern England. The scale of the conspiracy soon becomes apparent as Hugh encounters enemies old and new: Sir John d’Eyvill, the outlaws of Sherwood, and a mysterious knight who calls himself the King of the North Wind.

Longsword IV: The Hooded Men is the latest historical adventure novel by David Pilling, author of Reiver, Soldier of Fortune, The Half-Hanged Man, Caesar’s Sword and many more novels and short stories.

Longsword 3!

The third tale of Hugh Longsword, LONGSWORD (III): HOLY WARRIOR, is now available on Kindle!

“Deus Vult - God wills it!”

1271 AD. The civil wars in England are over, and the Lord Edward has sailed to the Holy Land to save what remains of the crusader states. Abandoned by his allies, Edward insists on pushing on to Acre, one of the few cities still in Christian hands. On the way his fleet is almost destroyed by a storm, and he arrives to find Acre threatened by the host of Baibars, the all-conquering Mamluk sultan of Egypt, known as the Father of Conquest.

Among Edward’s followers is Hugh Longsword. With Acre surrounded by the Mamluks, Hugh is sent on a vital mission across hundreds of miles of enemy territory. His task is to deliver a message to the Tartars, the only power on earth that can defeat Baibars. The journey is long and dangerous, and Hugh must survive battle, treachery and the lethal agents of the Qussad, Baibars’ spy network.

LONGSWORD (III) HOLY WARRIOR is the third of the adventures of Hugh Longsword, swordsman, spy and assassin in the turbulent, war-torn 13th century.

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LONGSWORD (III): HOLY WARRIOR on Amazon UK