THE RISE AND FALL OF CHARI"ES OF ANJOUallies there, despite his promise not to hold formal office in
the region. Despite the failure of the crusade tax to produce
all the funds he needed, he was able to put together a large
composite force of French, Provenc;:al and Italian knights.
Many undoubtedly came in the hope of office in the kingdom
to be conquered; others were recruited out of a sense of
knightly virtue or, like the Italian participants, because they
were committed to the papal and Guelf cause.
Charles crossed the frontier on 3 February; on 26 Febru-
ary 1266 Manfred's army was put to rout and Manfred him-
self killed, after fighting with characteristic courage.^5 Thus
Charles found himself, rapidly and with ease, master of the
kingdom. He knew that his victory was all the greater since
the native opposition had lost in the battle not merely its
king but very many of its lesser leaders. Few barons tried to
hold out against him in the mountains; and he, for his part,
wisely showed mercy to past opponents. He did not yet try
to displace existing bureaucrats; indeed, he saw clearly that
their help was essential if he were ever to gather the funds
that were his due in a kingdom whose style of government
was more elaborate and more efficient than those of either
France or the county of Provence. He appointed several
French and Provenc;:al companions to high office, gradually
intruding them into the existing administration; as in Pro-
vence, he sought to ensure that the highest echelons of
administration would be staffed by subjects from his other
lands. But he was not yet as generous as his followers must
have hoped in grants of land: partly to try to win a degree of
support from existing barons; partly, perhaps, because the
royal domain was so obviously a major source of royal revenue
that he could not easily afford to alienate his own lands.
Innovations in government were surprisingly few: the use of
French in some documents, particularly those addressed to
Anjou-Maine; there were some new ordinances for old offices.
Charles's decision, for instance, to call together an assembly
of justiciars and financial officers, to examine appeals against
them, is a clearly audible echo of the judicial provisions of
Frederick II over thirty years earlier.^6
- W. Hagemann, A. Zazo, La battaglia di Benevento (Benevento, 1967), in
toto. - Cadier, Amministrazione, pp. 79-145.