THE MEDITERRANEAN IN THE AGE OF JAMES II OF ARAGONbenefited from the death of Alfonso of Aragon and the trans-
fer of James of Sicily to the throne of his brother in Spain.
James defied his father Peter's will and did not maintain
the separation of the kingdoms of Aragon and of Sicily; his
brother Frederick was appointed royal lieutenant in Sicily but
was denied the royal title. Like Peter, James did, however,
maintain the traditional order of priority: Aragon-Catalonia
became henceforth his own base; Sicily soon proved too
distant to control from Spain. By 1295 James of Aragon was
willing to renounce control of Sicily in exchange for a dyn-
astic alliance with the Angevins and the suppression of French
claims to his own crown in Spain. He valued, as a successor
to a line of kings who had acknowledged papal overlord-
ship over Aragon, the chance to return to the obedience of
the Church. He saw a chance of compensation, too, in an
offer of rights over the island of Sardinia, like Sicily a source
of wheat and raw materials.H James and his new allies were
wrong, however, in assuming that an agreement between
the kings of France, Aragon and Naples and a pope - the
redoubtable Boniface VIII (1294-1303) -would bind the
Sicilians themselves.
Frederick, James's younger brother, was expected under
the terms of the treaty to marry into the family of the Latin
emperors of Constantinople and to help restore the fallen
fortunes of the Franks in Greece. But he renounced a pro-
spective career in the east for the certainties of rule in Sicily.
He activated his claim to rule Sicily as a kingdom separate
from that of Aragon, under a cadet member of the Aragonese
royal house. The meetings of the Sicilian parliament of
barons and townsmen confirmed these wishes enthusiastic-
ally; indeed, Frederick was more disposed to obey the papacy
than were those who offered him his crown. Frederick's court
rapidly became the focus for anti-Angevin agitation in Italy,
attracting also the Ghibelline exiles of northern Italy.^9 By
March 1296 Frederick was king of the island of Sicily. All
- F.C. Casula, La Sardegna aragonese,^2 vols (Cagliari, 1990), vol. l,
pp. 70-6. - Indeed, Frederick became the focus for apocalyptic movements which
saw in him the 'Last Emperor' who would redeem the world, his
Hohenstaufen namesakes having failed to do so. See C. Backman, The
decline and fall of medieval Sicily. Politics, religion and economy in the reign
of Frederick III, 1296-1337 (Cambridge, 1995).