THE \\'ESTERN MEDITERRANEAN KINGDOMS 1200-1.~00the child king Ludovico came to the throne, a plaything
in the hands of the rival factions. In^1355 another minor,
Frederick IV, succeeded in the midst of Angevin raids on
Milazzo and Messina. The Angevin invasions of Sicily might
have achieved even less than they did without the support
that existed within Sicily for an Angevin restoration. Rival-
ries between towns, notably Messina and Palermo, were one
factor; Messina constantly sought to keep open supply lines
to Calabria, to which its economy was in some respects tra-
ditionally more closely tied than to the island of Sicily. But
still more powerful was the impact of great barons who, under
Frederick III and his successors, were able to carve out great
dominions in the island: the Ventimiglia in the north and
west, the Palizzi in the east, the Chiaramonti in the south,
where the county of Modica offered them every opportunity
to extend their power over their subjects. Royal rights such
as control over capital crimes and the minting of coin were
granted to, or usurped by, noble princes who were becoming
more important power brokers than the king himself. The
fourteenth century in Sicily (as also in Naples) was the great
age of the baronage, who acquired rights over the alienation
of fiefs, beginning with Frederick III's law Volentes of 1296,
a law which stood in direct contrast to the policies of Roger
II and Frederick II. On the other hand, the monarchy had
little choice; despite the handsome revenues to be obtained
from grain sales, the Aragonese kings were desperately short
of resources with which to fight their Angevin enemies, or
with which to exert influence on Ghibelline factions in
northern Italy. Loans from the Bardi, Peruzzi and Acciaiuoli
were available to the kings of 'Trinacria' no less than to the
kings of Naples, but they could not solve the monarchy's
financial difficulties. Increasingly, the great barons came to
dominate even the export of grain. The monarchy tolerated
the expansion of noble power in the hope of creating a
strong baronial buffer against the Angevins; but the price was
very high: the alienation of crown demesne land. As Epstein
remarks, the civil wars that raged from the 1330s to the 1360s
had 'effects on institutional and economic life far more seri-
ous and long-lasting than the War of the Vespers itself'.~
- S.R. Epstein, An island for itself Economic development and social change in
late medieval Sicily (Cambridge, 1992), p. 317.