Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Part I General Themes
- Part II The States of the West
- 13 The British Isles
- 14 France
- 15 Italy in the age of Dante and Petrarch
- (a) The Italian North
- (b) Florence and the Republican Tradition
- (c) The Italian South
- 16 The empire
- 17 The Low Countries, 1290–1415
- 18 The Iberian Peninsula
- Part III The Church and Politics
- Part IV Northern and Eastern Europe
- Appendix Genealogical Tables
- Primary Sources and Secondary Works Arranged by Chapter
- Index
- Frontispiece
- Plate section
- Map 4 Europe's trade, c. 1300
- Map 5 Europe's trade, c. 1400
- Map 7 The Hundred Years War to 1360
- Map 15 Russia, c. 1396
- Map 17 The Byzantine empire in the 1340s
- References
(c) - The Italian South
from 15 - Italy in the age of Dante and Petrarch
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Part I General Themes
- Part II The States of the West
- 13 The British Isles
- 14 France
- 15 Italy in the age of Dante and Petrarch
- (a) The Italian North
- (b) Florence and the Republican Tradition
- (c) The Italian South
- 16 The empire
- 17 The Low Countries, 1290–1415
- 18 The Iberian Peninsula
- Part III The Church and Politics
- Part IV Northern and Eastern Europe
- Appendix Genealogical Tables
- Primary Sources and Secondary Works Arranged by Chapter
- Index
- Frontispiece
- Plate section
- Map 4 Europe's trade, c. 1300
- Map 5 Europe's trade, c. 1400
- Map 7 The Hundred Years War to 1360
- Map 15 Russia, c. 1396
- Map 17 The Byzantine empire in the 1340s
- References
Summary
in the fourteenth century two kingdoms of Sicily vied for influence in Italian affairs, and one, that based on the mainland, also sought again and again to reabsorb its island rival. Such conflicts were a severe drain on the resources of the combatants; they also necessitated increasing reliance on powerful regional nobles and on foreign banking houses. The dissolution of political power was accompanied, as a result, by economic dislocation, particularly in the countryside. The fourteenth century saw, therefore, a significant change in the character of the southern realms; the open question is how permanent the damage was, the more so since the calamity of war was compounded by the mortality of plague. In Sicily, recovery was stimulated by the arrival at the end of the century of the royal house of Aragon-Catalonia, which took advantage of the extinction of the cadet Aragonese dynasty of Sicily to reimpose its authority, with growing success and with beneficial effects on the island’s economy. On the mainland, recovery was hindered by the persistence of weak government, characterised by serious internal strife within the ruling Angevin dynasty itself.
This discussion lays emphasis on the role of the Angevin kings of Naples and the Aragonese kings of Sicily in the wider political conflicts within Italy and the Mediterranean. Particular attention has to be attached to Robert of Naples, whose reign marks the culmination of Angevin attempts to act as the arbiters of Italian politics.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The New Cambridge Medieval History , pp. 488 - 514Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000
References
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