Customer Reviews

The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century (Canto)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the early spring of 1282 a great fleet lay at anchor in the harbor of Palermo, Sicily. The commander of the fleet, Charles of Anjou, brother of King (and later Saint) Louis of France, and by the blessing of the Pope and his own political machinations, King of the Two Sicilies, planned to attack the Byzantine capital of Constantinople and re-establish the Latin Empire, with himself as Emperor. For Charles, a man of formidable military and administrative talent, and considerable political ruthlessness, the possibility of being an emperor, of dominating the Mediterranean world, must have seemed so close that he could not fail to grasp the opportunity. And then everything changed.

The Sicilian Vespers, by the late Sir Steven Runciman, is the story of the late 13th century European world that created Charles of Anjou. Runciman describes in considerable, and very interesting detail, the interplay of politics and religion at that time, especially the bare knuckle politicking of the Popes, whose attempts at creating a universal Christendom ruled by the papacy eventually lessened respect not only for the individual popes involved, but for the papacy as an institution as well. The interweaving lines of narrative come together on the evening of March 29th, Easter Monday, of 1282, when a group of drunken Frenchmen arrived outside the Church of the Holy Spirit in Palermo just as the crowd of worshippers was going in for the Vespers service. One of the Frenchmen made advances, or actually tried to rape, a young Sicilian woman. Her husband killed the Frenchman, and when the Frenchmen's friends drew their swords, the crowd jumped them and killed them as well. The oppressed Sicilians then went on a rampage through the streets of Palermo, screaming Moranu il Franchkisi [Death to the French!] and slaughtering every Frenchman they could find, including French priests, nuns, and monks, as well as Sicilian women who had married Frenchmen. The rebellion rapidly spread to other cities across Sicily.

Runciman expertly weaves together the story of what happened and why it happened and what the consequences of the great rebellion were for Charles and the Sicilians and for a papacy more interested in politics than religion. There might be a better book on this subject somewhere, but I tend to doubt it; Runciman writes in clear and understandable English, a talent not usually cultivated by academic historians in the United States, and he knows his subject backwards and forwards. I would recommend this book highly to anyone interested in the Middle Ages, and to anyone interested in how history ought to be written.

Sir Steven Runciman was one of the leading scholars of the Middle Ages. He also had a profound understanding of diplomacy and warfare. He is not only the author of this book, but also several books on the Crusades and Byzantium. However, this I feel is his best book. First of all it is a wonderful story. This is how the Byzantine empire managed with no army, no navy, very little money, but with a great deal of diplomacy and intelligence to prevent a planned invasion from the mightiest power in 100 years. This book should be required reading for all statesmen, would be statesmen, and military planners. Runciman describes here how things can go wrong regardless of ability, manpower, and money when one is faced with a very clever foe.

I was pleasantly surprised to find this a well-informed piece of modern historical anayalsis of the later thirteenth Mediterranean history. The book focuses primarily on the careers of both Manfred and Charles and their struggle to maintain an outdated concept of ancient imperialism. More than anything this book clearly shows the final transistions from an autocratical imperial Europe to a papal-dominated fractured set of European vassal states.
It is interesting for its succinct prose and deliberate factual outlay. Rather than seeking to impress upon his own ideas, Runciman deliberately tells us the history from a Latin perspective without impression of telling a story with all its propagandistic baggage. Don't be fooled by the usual publisher gumph on the back. The incident in Palermo in 1282 is used as a focal point for the history rather than being the main point of discussion and the work succeeds all the more for it.
A hugely impressive piece of scholastic history and, I would think, a vital book for any serious student of thirteenth century Mediterranean history.

I am a fan of Sir Steven Runciman's books. This one must rank together with the same author's account on the "Fall of Constantinople" and the "History of the Crusades". In this case, Sir Steven provides an ample spectrum of separate developments, along the whole Mediterranean, from Spain to Constantinople, that drove, first to Charles of Anjou's accesion to the Sicilian throne, and later on to his downfall, with the due assistence of the Eastern Roman emperor. The origins of the now famous uprising are not simple, and are extremely well explained by Sir Steven, in an easy to understand language. But, considering the very good comments provided by other readers, there is not so much I can add on the great virtues of this work.
If you are interested in the historical background of Sicily, together with this wonderful book I also recomend the very interesting book "The Normans in Sicily", by Lord Norwich, that itself is a two volume book with the narrative of the settlement of French Normans in Southern Italy, their reconquest of Sicily, and the establishment of a Sicilian-based multicultural kingdom. The end of that mighty kingdom, and the coming resentment of all Sicilians against foreign intruders, provoked the Sicilian Vespers.

This is a political narrative history in the Med during the second half of the 13th century, during Dantes lifetime. If you've read "Comedy" this provides ample background for many of the souls Dante encounters. This book is helpful not only in the historical details, but the pace of life in the Middle Ages: how long things took to unfold with slow communications and transport, and how quickly and often fortunes change. One can see the rise of early nationalism, and the beginning of the end of the Medieval Church. Overall an excellent window in to the medieval world. The majority of the book is background leading up to the Vespers (occuring on page 214 of 290), of which he calls the central element of the book. Yet, Runciman speaks only briefly of the Vespers as a popular social rising, %99 of book is the narrartion of the actions of aristocratic individuals, not a social history, so for that inconsistency I give it a 4 instead of 5 stars. In my opinion this is really a book about Charles of Anjou and the Angevin expansion in the Med., with the Vespers as a theme to give it a more popular appeal, but this does not take away from the value and enjoyability of the work, if this period interests you it is highly readable and real page turner.

On March 29, 1282, the celebration of Vespers in Palermo, Sicily was marred by a massacre of European importance - the townspeople rose up and slaughtered their French occupiers. The uprising spread from one town to another and soon the entire island was in rebellion against its ruler, Charles of Anjou. Steven Runciman, one of the last stalwarts of the great Oxbridge school of history writing places this violent but seemingly local event in it proper context - as part of the struggle between the rising tide of the new force known as nationalism and the aspirations of the Popes and their religious establishment to create a universal Papacy ruling all of western Christendom. Toss in the age-old struggle between the spiritual authority of the Pope and the temporal authority of powerful rulers, and the result is an explosive mixture. The Sicilan Vespers marked the watershed in the fate of the medieval Papacy - as Runciman shows, the credibility and spiritual authority lost during the course of the last half of the 13th Century set the Church on the slippery slope that led to Avignon and eventually the Reformation. It is a stirring tale, and who better to tell it than the distinguished historian of Byzantium and the Crusades? New readers will soon discover why this book has become a classic.

Runciman's writing is absolutely amazing in this volume which treats of Europe in the mid-to-late thirteenth century. I devoured this book in a matter of days, fascinated as I am with Sicilian history and culture. Runciman gives a fantastic view of the Kingdom of Sicily after the fall of "The Kingdom in the Sun", or the Norman Kingdom based in Palermo. From the benevolent king William the Good to the villanous Charles of Anjou, Runciman presents all of those occurances which led up to the Sicilian Vespers, or the systematic destruction of French power over the Sicilians on Easter Monday, 1282. A must-read for all those interested in the history of Europe in this era.

In my book, "Astronomical Symbols on Ancient and Medieval Coins", I devote an entire chapter to the eighth Crusade. The political events of the time, the celestial omens that were seen in the heavens and depicted on coinage of Louis IX and that of his brother Charles of Anjou, combined with the influence of Charles of Anjou on Louis IX, all came together as the basis for the decision by Louis IX to land at the Bay of Tunis for his final crusade.

As part of my research, I read numerous books on the history of the period, and I found that Runciman's book, "The Sicilian Vespers," was especially useful. There were many items of interest in his book that added to my understanding of the history of that time.

Marshall Faintich

Herein, outstanding British historian Runciman explains in considerable and fascinating detail the story of the Sicilian Vespers, and its profound impact on the history of Christendom. What comes across most dramatically to this reader in Runciman's wonderful account is the love of intrigue and political striving of the 13th century Papacy. Here, we see the several Popes of the period acting as petty Italian Princes in their attemtps to further their own secular power. And the upshot of these attempts came to be a profound weakening of the unity of Western Christendom that ultimately fructified into the Reformation of the 16th century.

Another amazing aspect of the story Runciman herein records is the stunning skill and subtlety of Byzantine diplomacy. At the time, the Byzantine, or Later Roman, Empire was yet reeling from the devastation of the hideous Fourth Crusade. And, yet with little remaining military power at their hands, the Byzantines managed to avert what would have been another disasterous Western "crusade" from destroying Constantinople. Here we see also a natural alliance forming between Aragon, later Spain, and the Orthodox East. One could make a good case that this was also the natural alliance that so frustrated Napoleon's design, when he was harried by guerrila warfare in Spain, and by Holy Russia's Biblically courageous defense of Mother Russia.

We strongly recommend Sir Steven Runciman's excellent work to all who would understand this very important, but little discussed, background to modern European history. God bless.

Steven Runciman was a noted scholar of the Medieval era around the middle of the twentieth century. Many of his works are still "go to" sources after all these years. One thing in the author's favor is his economical use of the English language. He writes in short sentences and his word usage provides accessibility to any literate adult. He mastery of the subject is comprehensive. One caveat that has been pointed out by other reviewers is the vast cast of characters involved. But, as Runciman correctly points out, "... a historical canvas is necessarily crowded, and readers who are afraid of crowds should keep to the better-ordered lanes of fiction." This being said, I still find this book remarkably readable. For a short period of time from the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders in 1204 to the mass arrest of the Templars by Phillip the Fair in 1304, the island of Sicily played a pivotal roll in the history of the Mediterranean world.

The intent of the Vatican to assert its temporal powers so as to become "the Kingdom of God on Earth" commenced with the papacy of Innocent III. In many ways this was the ultimate reaction to the earlier "Investiture Contest" and the papacy's continued troubles with the Hohenstaufen Holy Roman Empire. As these tension persisted, the Church would attempt to assert its authority in the temporal as well as spiritual domains. With the extinction of the line of the Norman Kings of Sicily, imperial German control of the island was sealed when in 1194 Henry Hohenstaufen added the title of King of Sicily to that of Emperor and King of the Germans. By the middle of the thirteenth century a bastard son of emperor Fredrick II, Manfred had soundly defeated a papal army and was in full control of Sicily by 1257 and then proceeded to usurped the throne in spite of a Papal interdict. Once enmeshed in the Sicilian question Pope Alexander IV was on a slippery slope leading to moral bankruptcy and profane futility.

In Charles of Anjou, the Pope found a man who would be willing to seize the Kingship of Sicily. After protracted warfare, Charles claimed the victory in the name of the Church. So began twenty years of French Rule in Sicily that would climax with the "Sicilian Vespers." This was a traditional Easter Monday festival which closed with services. On this particular evening in 1282, the Sicilians of Palermo massacred the French residing in their distinct right in front of the church. The island revolted. Other players were involved including the resurgent Greek Byzantium, Peter of Arragon, the French crown, and of course the Church. It is a complicated story well told by the author. The Church used Charles to defeat the detested Germans. Charles used the Church to extend his power. The more the Church became involved in temporal matters the less it resembled a moral and spiritual guide to the faithful. The dynamic changes taking place in this century were complex. However, Runciman articulates the transition from empire to nation state quite cogently and deals with the Church at war and as a temporal power with balance and insight. The rise of Phillip the Fair and the French kidnapping of the Pope may well be seen as the logical denouement to the "Scicilian Vespers."

Runciman was a master narrative historian, and this fact shines through and allows him to reconstruct a clear picture of the people and events of this complicated era of change and challenge. I decided to read this book once again after reading Jean Dunbabin's excellent new book on the French Kingdom of Sicily. I am very glad that I have. Dunbabin's work is more detailed and provides some new insights, however Runciman's work is broader and will be more satisfying to a non specialist reader in Medieval history. If you are going to read but one book on Mediterranean world during the thirteenth century, "The Sicilian Vespers" would serve you well. It is a story of greed, avarice, pride and piety all mixed together in a world quite alien to ours. The author manages to maintain an admirable degree of objective detachment necessary for a fair reading of these events and times. If any partiality is shown, it is to the common people of southern Italy and Sicily who were ill served by both princes and prelates.