THE RISE AND FALL OF CHARLES OF ANJOUNaples, ensured a smooth transition from the Hohenstaufen
to the Angevin regime. Although French barons were often
appointed over their heads, it was the 'Amalfitans' who actu-
ally understood the workings of the system; even so, this did
not prevent (and possibly made easier) extortionate exactions
and a tendency for civil servants to line their own pockets.
While accepting the importance of Brese's insight, we must
also bear in mind the simple fact that the 'Amalfitans' were
not a phenomenon of Charles's reign alone. It was already
clear under Frederick II that this group of officials, led
by the redoutable Rufolo family, had carved out a place at
the core of the administrative machine; Sicilian secreti after
1250 included Federico Trara from Scala near Amalfi, Pietro
Capuano of Amalfi and Matteo and Giacomo Rufolo. Where
once the leaders of Amalfi, Ravello and neighbouring towns
had been distinguished for their expertise in international
trade, now government service became a great speciality of
the elite. Federico Trara served Hohenstaufen and Angevins
alike. After^1278 the hold of the 'Amalfitans' was confirmed,
with the arrival of one Rufolo (Matteo) as secreta and another
as his deputy. What we see, in fact, is a shift in emphasis:
occasional Sicilian administrators such as Enrico Abbate of
Trapani disappeared from the island government by 1265,
and the hegemony of the mainlanders became increasingly
secure. wAnd yet it seems that it was impossible to rely solely
on the Amalfitans. At the heart of the secrezia there persisted
a small but significant group of islanders, including Palmieri
Abbate and Alaimo da Lentini, leaders of the subsequent
rebellion, as well as Matteo Riso, who was to show loyalty to
Charles I from his base in Messina. Brese thus stresses that
already several years before the Vespers a power struggle
within the provincial administration of Sicily was under way;
he sees this as a social conflict between a petty nobility, some-
times harking back to Norman origins, and what we might
term the noblesse de robe represented by the 'Amalfitans'. As he
says, the difficulty the 'Amalfitans' faced was that they came
to be blamed by both sides: they were thrown out by the
revolutionaries, while Charles I made them into scapegoats
for the complaints against misgovernment that were in the
- Brese, '1282', pp. 250-1; cf. Runciman, Sicilian Vespers, pp. 227-8,
246-55, 274-6, for Alaimo's career.