Chapter 5THE MEDITERRANEAN IN THE
AGE OF JAMES II OF ARAGON
THE END OF THE WAR OF THE VESPERS
The heir to Charles I, Charles the Lame, prince of Salerno,
was still a prisoner of the Aragonese at the time of his
father's death.' And his inheritance, not merely Sicily but
parts of the mainland too, was not even in the hands of
Angevin officers. The recovery of the kingdom from such
an inauspicious beginning to a new reign was a remarkable
achievement, partly attributable to the determined efforts
of Martin IV and his successors Honorius IV (1285-88) and
Nicholas IV (1288-92). As suzerain of the kingdom of Sicily,
Martin IV sent troops and administrators south to Naples
soon after Charles l's death; and he installed a papal emis-
sary as joint regent with the royal nominee, Robert of Artois.
Martin's successor Honorius continued to emphasise the
claims of the Holy See to control south Italian affairs dur-
ing Charles of Salerno's captivity, but he made important
efforts to remove the causes of discontent in the south and
to reconcile warring factions in the north. His critical aware-
ness of the existence of past abuses in the Kingdom of Sicily,
and his willingness to seek compromise between Guelfs and
Ghibellines in the northern towns earned him a reputa-
tion as a lukewarm defender of Angevin interests; but what
he really saw was the impossibility of sustaining aggressive
Angevin policies at a moment of near ruin for both Angevin
and papal interests in Italy. In the 'Constitution concerning
the government of the Kingdom of Sicily' ( Constitutio super
- M.R. Toynbee, St Louis of Toulouse (Manchester, 1929), pp. 49-54.