THE ·wESTERN MEDITERR-'\t-;EAN KINGDOMS 1~00-1500the tax load on his Sicilian subjects, needing as he did sub-
ventions to pay for the war against the house of Anjou. On
balance, the Aragonese proved sensitive to the dangers of
over-taxation, and yet the fact was that they had only limited
resources on which to call, since their Catalan-Aragonese
subjects were not keen on the foreign adventure they had
undertaken, and were able, through the Catalan Corts and
the Aragonese Cortes, to place limits on the king's freedom
of action back home in Spain.
Not that Peter was unaware of these problems: as early
as 6 October 1282 he recognised the right of the towns to
choose their own judges and officials, though very rapidly
he clawed back these rights. The evolution of town govern-
ment in Sicily, as in mainland southern Italy, was to follow
a very different path to that visible in northern Italy and
even in the Papal States, taking the form of communities
or universitates decidedly limited in their freedom of action
and in their control of the countryside. Peter seems to have
realised that the best way to handle the urban elites was to
flatter those he considered reasonably loyal with the priv-
ileges of nobility and land grants which had been denied
them when central government had packed up and trans-
ferred to Foggia and Naples on the mainland.
Peter's conquest of the island of Sicily did not redeem all
the claims of the Hohenstaufen. Aragonese armies pushed
northwards into Calabria, after defeating Charles's fleet in the
narrows between Sicily and the continent. Peter hoped for
major successes in the Bay of Naples, and aimed to recover
every inch of Frederick II's kingdom. He had the enthusiastic
help of the Ghibellines in northern Italy, who provided con-
venient distraction by the eviction of papal and Angevin
governors from the towns. Perugia renounced Martin IV.
Where Peter could not be so confident of success was nearer
his homeland of Aragon. The king of France, Philip III, was
distressed at his uncle's losses; he had already warned Peter
that he would support Charles, if the Catalan fleet were
diverted against Sicily. Peter meanwhile proposed an ingeni-
ous way to avoid further bloodshed and end rivalry: he would
fight a duel with Charles in single combat; a meeting was
arranged at Bordeaux in 1283, but both sides managed deftly
to avoid one another, each accusing the other of bad faith.
Not even a French crusade, with papal blessing, against the