Manfred, King of Sicily

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Manfred
Charles I
BornManfred Lancia
1232
Venosa, Kingdom of Sicily
Died26 February 1266 (aged 34)
Benevento, Kingdom of Sicily
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1247; died 1259)​
​
​
(m. 1259)​
Hohenstaufen
FatherFrederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
MotherBianca Lancia

Manfred (

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.

Early life

Manfred was born in

will named him as Prince of Taranto.[3] Frederick named Manfred's half-brother Conrad IV king of Germany, Italy and Sicily, but Manfred was regent of Sicily while Conrad was in Germany.[4] Manfred, who initially bore his mother's surname, studied in Paris and Bologna
and shared with his father a love of poetry and science.

At Frederick's death in 1250, Manfred, although only about 18 years old, acted loyally and with vigour in the execution of his trust. The Kingdom was in turmoil, mainly due to rebellions spurred by Pope Innocent IV. Manfred was able to subdue numerous rebel cities, with the exception of Naples.[5] Manfred attempted in 1251 to make concessions to Pope Innocent to stave off the prospect of war, but the attempt failed.[6] When Conrad IV, Manfred's legitimate brother, appeared in southern Italy in 1252, his authority was quickly and generally acknowledged.[7] Conrad quickly stripped Manfred of all his fiefs by limiting his authority solely to the principality of Taranto.[6] In October 1253, Naples fell into the hands of Conrad. Conrad made the pope the guardian of Conradin, his infant son, and named the Margrave Berthold of Hohenberg, a powerful German baron,[6] as Conradin's regent.[8][A]

In May 1254 Conrad died of

Ghibelline communes in Tuscany, in particular Siena, to which he provided a corps of German knights that was later instrumental in the defeat of Florence at the Battle of Montaperti. He thus reached the status of patron of the Ghibelline League. Also in that year Innocent died, succeeded by Alexander IV, who immediately excommunicated Manfred.[11] In 1257, however, Manfred crushed the papal army and settled all the rebellions, imposing his firm rule of southern Italy and receiving the title of vicar
from Conradin.

Kingship

Coronation of Manfred at Palermo in 1258, Nuova Cronica

On 10 August 1258, taking advantage of Conradin's rumoured death, Manfred was crowned King of Sicily at

abdicate and pointed out to Conradin's envoys the necessity for a strong native ruler. The pope, to whom the Saracen alliance was a serious offence, declared Manfred's coronation void. Undeterred by the excommunication Manfred sought to obtain power in central and northern Italy, where the Ghibelline leader Ezzelino III da Romano had disappeared. He named vicars in Tuscany, Spoleto, Marche, Romagna and Lombardy. After Montaperti he was recognized as protector of Tuscany by the citizens of Florence, who did homage to his representative, and he was chosen "Senator of the Romans" by a faction in the city.[7] His power was also augmented by the marriage of his daughter Constance in 1262 to Peter III of Aragon
.

Terrified by these proceedings, the new

Richard of Cornwall and his son, but in vain. In 1263 he was most successful with Charles I of Anjou, a brother of King Louis IX of France, who accepted the investiture of the kingdom of Sicily at his hands. Hearing of the approach of Charles, Manfred issued a manifesto to the Romans, in which he not only defended his rule over Italy but even claimed the imperial crown.[7]

Charles' army, some 30,000 strong, entered Italy from the

Garigliano River, outside of the boundaries of Naples and the Papal States.[7][15]

At the Battle of Benevento Charles captured Helena, Manfred's second wife, and imprisoned her. She lived five years later in captivity in the castle of Nocera Inferiore where she died in 1271. Manfred's son-in-law Peter III eventually became King Peter I of Sicily from 1282 after the Sicilian Vespers expelled the French from the island again.

The modern city of

Sipontum
. The Angevines, who had defeated Manfred and stripped him of the Kingdom of Sicily, renamed it Sypontum Novellum ("New Sypontum"), but that name never imposed.

Marriages and children

Manfred was married twice. His first wife was

Amadeus IV, count of Savoy, by whom he had a daughter, Constance, who was married to the heir to the Aragonese throne, the future King Peter III of Aragon, on 13 June 1262.[6]

Manfred's second wife was

Manfred IV, Marquis of Saluzzo.[citation needed] The eldest son, Frederick, escaped his prison and fled to Germany. He spent time in several European courts before dying in Egypt in 1312.[17][21]

Manfred had at least one illegitimate child, a daughter named Flordelis (d. 27 February 1297), who married Ranieri Della Gherardesca, Count of Donoratico and Bolgheri.[17]

Legacy and reception

Manfred holding a falcon from the 13th-century De arte venandi cum avibus
See also: History of Swabian Sicily

Medieval reception

Contemporaries praised the noble and magnanimous character of Manfred, who was renowned for his physical beauty and intellectual attainments.[7]

In the

atone for his contumacy by waiting 30 years for each year he lived as an excommunicate, before being admitted to Purgatory proper. He then asks Dante to tell Constance about him being in Purgatory. With this statement, Manfred reveals that one's time in Purgatory can lessen if someone still alive can pray on their behalf, anticipating one of the recurring themes in Purgatorio.[22] Family connections, whether by blood or by marriage, are heavily referenced throughout this section of the Divine Comedy. Dante uses these relationships to demonstrate that earthly connections impede souls in Purgatory from reaching Paradise.[23]

Dante's placing of Manfred in Purgatory is surprising given Manfred's excommunication by multiple popes.[24] Manfred's placement in Purgatory is indicative of Dante's dislike of popes' use of excommunication as a political and policy tool.[24] According to Dante, Manfred's excommunication does not make it impossible for him to make it through Purgatory and, eventually, into Paradise. Dante adds to this characterization of Manfred and the Church by describing how the Church ordered Manfred's bones unearthed after his death and thrown into a river outside the kingdom in fear that his gravesite would inspire the development of a cult around it.[24][25]

Manfred's presence in Purgatorio also holds a more general symbolic value. Robert Hollander argues that Manfred's time in Purgatory should be seen as a symbol of hope, given that Manfred's final statement in Purgatorio, Canto III is that "hope maintains a thread of green" (speranza ha fior del verde) (Purgatorio III.135), which is paraphrased as death not eliminating hope so long as even a bit of hope is there.[26]

Modern reception

Manfred formed the subject of dramas by

Palermo, 1732).[7]

Manfred's name was borrowed by the English author Horace Walpole for the main character of his short novel The Castle of Otranto (1764). Montague Summers, in his 1924 edition of this work, showed that some details of Manfred of Sicily's real history inspired the novelist.[27] The name was re-borrowed by Lord Byron for his dramatic poem Manfred (1817).[28]

Inspired by Byron's poem, Manfred was adapted musically by Robert Schumann in 1852, in a composition entitled Manfred: Dramatic Poem with Music in Three Parts, and later by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in his Manfred Symphony (1885).[29]

King Manfred (König Manfred), Op. 93 is a grand romantic opera in 5 acts by Carl Reinecke to libretto by Friedrich Roeber Friedrich Roeber [de]. It was composed in 1866 and staged in 1867.[30][31]

Notes

  1. ^ Lomax (2013, p. 440) gives Berthold's title as bailiff. Venning & Frankopan (2015, p. 335) asserts that Berthold was Conradin's regent over Apulia but Pietro Ruffo the regent over Sicily.

References

  1. ^ Barber 2004, p. 233.
  2. ^ Lock 2013, p. 179.
  3. ^ Runciman 1958, p. 27.
  4. ^ Abulafia 1992, p. 406.
  5. ^ Runciman 1958, pp. 28–29.
  6. ^ a b c d e Lomax 2013, p. 440.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Chisholm 1911, p. 568.
  8. ^ Previté-Orton 1975, p. 696.
  9. ^ Fried 2015, p. 282.
  10. ^ Venning & Frankopan 2015, p. 335.
  11. ^ a b Kelly & Walsh 2010, p. 195.
  12. ^ Berg 1993, p. 113.
  13. ^ Domenico 2002, p. 25.
  14. ^ Runciman 1958, pp. 92, 94.
  15. ^ a b Runciman 1958, p. 94.
  16. ^ a b Runciman 1958, p. 43.
  17. ^ a b c Koller 2007.
  18. ^ Bennett & Weikert 2016, p. 144.
  19. ^ a b Gregorovius 2010, p. 537, n. 1.
  20. ^ Bennett & Weikert 2016, pp. 145–46.
  21. ^ Haverkamp 1988, p. 267.
  22. ISBN 978-0385497008
    .
  23. ^ Parker, Deborah (12 August 2020). "Regeneration and Degeneration". Dante Society.
  24. ^
    OCLC 193827830.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  25. ^ "Manfred". danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  26. ISBN 0385497008
    .
  27. S2CID 153695496
    .
  28. ISSN 1844-4369
    .
  29. S2CID 194043894
    .
  30. ^ Preface by Christoph Schlüren, 2003 – Final paragraph by Bradford Robinson, 2007
  31. ^ Klaus Tischendorf. Booklet notes to Marco Polo 8.223117 / Naxos 8.555397 Archived 22 April 2022 at the Wayback Machine

Sources

Further reading

External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Manfred, King of Sicily.
Regnal titles
Preceded by
King of Sicily

1258 – 26 February 1266 		Succeeded by
Charles I
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