THE WESTERN MEDITERR"..KEAN KINCDO~IS 1200-l'lOOthat had been achieved by James, Boniface and partners was
a separate peace for Aragon itself.
The Aragonese in Spain began to give solid support to the
Angevins against the inhabitants of the island James himself
had so recently defended. The able naval commander Roger
de Lauria pressed the Sicilians hard at sea; there was strong
resistance to them on the Italian mainland; by 1298 Angevin
armies were disembarking in Sicily itself, though they did not
progress far. Boniface also sought to acquire his own special
champion in papal causes, bestowing attractive honours upon
Charles of Valois, who attempted to build a power base in
Tuscany and to reconquer Sicily, to no avail. By the treaty of
Caltabellotta (1302) Frederick agreed to withdraw his own
armies from the Italian mainland. He was to remain as king
of Sicily, or rather, of 'Trinacria', an antiquarian name for the
island unearthed to avoid conflict between Frederick's title
and that of Charles II. Charles was to hold the south Italian
mainland as 'King of Sicily' and he or his heir would inherit
the island of Sicily on Frederick's death. In other words,
Frederick was king of Sicily for a single creation; his own
heirs would receive lands elsewhere in the Mediterranean:
Sardinia, Cyprus, Albania were all at times mooted. Charles
of Valois, Charles II, Frederick of Sicily, James of Aragon
were all keen to sign; Boniface VIII, in difficultv on several
fronts, was far from pleased to learn that terms had been
agreed, the more so since he was nearing the climax of a
bitter ideological struggle with the King of France and he
was thus both preoccupied and isolated. A twenty-year war
had ended.^111
CHARLES II AND THE EASTERN QUESTION
The Sicilian war took place at a time when Christian navies
were urgently needed in another of Charles II's kingdoms:
that of Jerusalem. In the brief period between Charles II's
coronation at Rieti and the loss of Acre (1289-91), the Nea-
politan king continued to take an interest in the affairs of
the kingdom of Jerusalem. After the fall of Acre he helped
formulate a plan for a massive assault on the Mamluks,- T.S.R. Boase, Boniface VIII (London, 1933), pp. 290-2.