SICILY AND SOUTHERN ITALY IN AN AGE OF DISORDERprincipality that made up the Corona d'Arag6, and threatened
yet again to open up Sicily to predatory invaders such as the
king of Portugal; attempts to re-establish an Aragonese cadet
dynasty did not succeed.
It has been seen that Bernat Cabrera was endowed
with extensive lands in Sicily. Another major beneficiary was
Guglielmo Raimondo Moncada, who acquired what Pietro
Corrao has called 'an enormous territorial concentration
under his own lordship'; the age of great lordships was thus
not at an end, but what would change would be their rela-
tionship to a more effective monarchy. The personnel of the
nobility underwent rapid change, as great estates, such as
those of the Alagona, were torn to shreds, and a new elite
emerged, in which Catalan supporters of the crown were
heavily represented."
Yet what did succeed, as studies by Pietro Corrao and
Stephan Epstein have made clear, was a gradual revitalisa-
tion of the economy and a gradual reassertion of royal con-
trol over the baronage. In part this may reflect a degree of
exhaustion which took its toll in reduced revenues for great
princes whose lands were suffering from the effects of de-
population through plague and of devastation through war.
Initiatives included the establishment offairs; local industries
revived, and inter-regional trade became lively. At the same
time the monarchy sought to recreate an effective administra-
tion, recovering control of the coastline (and thereby assert-
ing control over revenues from exported grain), drawing up
a register of land holdings, recovering control of serious
criminal cases. The monarchy tried to find a balance between
the need to recover its authority over the royal demesne
and its need to placate the baronage. An important bonus
was the declining revenue of the baronage in the post-Black
Death era, which increased noble dependence on the crown
in Sicily as elsewhere in Europe; in the long term, the towns
became an important alternative source of support for the
monarchy, though under Martin I the relationship of crown
and town remained delicate. Efforts were made to create
urban militias which would reduce dependence on feudal
levies, and hence on baronial interests; urban elites were
- P. Corrao, Governare un regno. Potere, societri e istituzioni in Sicilia fra
Trecento e Quattrocento (Naples, 1991), pp. 203-60.