Did Michael VIII Palaiologos organise the Sicilian Vespers?

[Kyriakos]

Following Strategopoulos' covert and swift play to take the walls of Constantinople, the Empire was restored in 1261, and the new Dynasty (remaining till its end around 2 aeons later) was the Palaiologoi, a line generated from the Empire of Nicaea autocracy. Of those the first, Michael VIII, is argued to have been by far the most able (although very later emperors would have to deal with an even smaller realm to begin with).
Michael VIII had an ongoing feud with Charles D'Anjou, who was ruler of Norman Sicily. D'Anjoy never gave up his plan to invade the Byzantine Empire, and so Michael VIII had to focus most of his life in securing the failure of such a plan. It all ended only with the so-called Sicilian Vespers, in 1282, a popular rise of local Sicilians which finished the Normans in southern Italy forever.

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I want to ask if that revolt was in some way organised- or helped- by Michael VIII. The articles i read were non-conclusive. I recall reading that Michael himself claimed he played no part in it, but obviously it is not like it would be intelligent of him to claim otherwise, with the power balances at play...

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

Yes. At least in part. We know that Michael VIII helped finance the Aragonese intervention.

The feud with Charles of Anjou was at a danger point. Pope Martin IV, Charles's handpicked choice for pope the previous year (1281), was a firmly Angevin creature, unlike his predecessors. He had excommunicated Michael VIII on ascension and gave the nod for Charles's assembly of a crusader army for an expedition to recover Constantinople. That army was already partially ready, and was forced by the Vespers (March 1282) to be diverted and lay siege to rebellious Messina.

The Aragonese fleet was already in the vicinity - intervening in Tunisia. They had originally set out in early 1282, ostensibly to assist a rebellion against their former client, the Hafsid sultan Abu Ishaq of Tunisia. However, that rebellion was already effectively over by the time the Aragonese disembarked in Collo (near Constantine), but they dilly-dallied there for a while, until July, when they were contacted and invited by the Sicilian insurrectionists, and set sail for Palermo.

Not sure exactly when Michael VIII put up the cash or promise of cash, whether in the Summer of 1282, or earlier or later. That Peter of Aragon just "happened" to be so nearby with such a great fleet was rather fortuitous. And a little eyebrow-raising. This might all have been already planned and coordinated, well in advance.

Pope Martin IV was, of course, furious. And excommunicated Peter & Michael (again) that November for the intervention, citing the latter's financing of it.

We think the main planner was Giovanni da Procida, a Sicilian nobleman closely linked to the Hohenstaufens, who was for a time physician and close counselor of the previous (anti-Angevin) pope Nicholas III. We know Procida and/or his agents traveled in the late 1270s to both Constantinople and Barcelona seeking assistance, diplomatic, material and financial, to drive out the Angevins and restore the Hohenstaufens in Sicily. So he was not only the principal figure behind the Vespers on the ground in 1282, but also in forging the Aragonese-Byzantine diplomatic links before it. The plans may have been all already in place during Nicholas III's tenure, before 1281. And the new Pope Martin IV's turn against Michael VIII and the nonsense about recovering Constantinople may have actually been provoked, or at least accelerated, by sensing the noose tightening around Charles of Anjou's position in Sicily.

EDIT: And, oh, the Sicilian Vespers didn't "finish" the Normans. If anything, it was Norman revivalist, and began in Palermo, the old capital and most Norman of the cities. The local old Norman families were quite fond of the Hohenstaufens, and became the party of Aragon. The Vespers were directed against the Angevins and the new crop of feudal lords imported from France and northern Italy, who were side-stepping and undermining the old bureaucracy, the bread-and-butter of the old Norman families.

 

[Semper Victor]

That king Peter of Aragon was involved in the planning of the "spontaneous" uprising of the Sicilian Vespers is quite obvious. He even had a legal claim to the Sicilian crown, as he was married to Constance of Sicily, daughter of king Manfred of Sicily, slain by Charles of Anjou during his conquest of the kingdom. He had a more or less lawful claim, internal supporters within Sicily, a warlike army, a well-trained fleet, had reached diplomatic agreements with Castile (but not with France) to cover his rearguard, but what he lacked sorely were funds. As well as Michael VIII's subsidies, he also borrowed a large sum from the Jews of his kingdoms (which would have pissed Pope Martin even more :rofl.

 

[Kyriakos]

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Thank you both for the great information