THE 'NESTER!\' MEDITERRANEAN Kll\'CDOMS 1200-1500Calabria died in 1328, and a responsible prince was needed to
help her rule her future kingdom. The boorish Andrew was
in fact a questionable choice as royal consort, and he aroused
sufficiently intense hatred to be murdered in 1345, to no
great regret. of Queen Joanna. But the murder of Andrew
meant also that Robert's good intention in bonding Naples
and Hungary led rather to conflict. Andrew's elder brother
Lajos, or Louis, the Great led two devastating expeditions into
southern Italy to avenge his death. These unforeseen results
of Robert's Hungarian alliance, after that king's death, should
not be allowed to detract from his real achievement: after
careful negotiation the king of Naples secured an arrange-
ment which was intended to lead neither to the union of
the two Angevin kingdoms nor to the automatic acquisition of
a crown by Andrew. In addition, Robert took care to set aside
papal claims to assume authority in the vassal kingdom of
Naples should he die before his granddaughter came of age.THE KING AND THE BANKERS
The lengthy, bitter wars of the Angevins had somehow to
be funded. The resources of the house of Anjou shrank at
once with the loss of Sicily, whose grain had produced tax
revenue, military supplies and valuable political leverage over
centres of consumption in northern Italy. A sophisticated
redistribution system under Charles I had ensured that
mainland provinces, especially the area of Naples, that were
habitually short of grain could be fed from the generally
abundant spare resources of the island. Expenditure on the
recovery of Sicily was thus seen as investment in the res-
toration of state finances. It is not, then, surprising that the
monarchy took large loans from foreign bankers to finance
its wars and its other needs; moreover, the existence of good
wheat lands in Apulia and other corners of southern Italy
meant that the crown could still to some degree capitalise
on the great tradition of grain production. The relationship
with foreign merchants can be seen in its most extreme form
in the instance of Angevin favours to the great Florentine
banks. In 1284 members of the Bardi, Acciaiuoli and Mozzi
houses made Charles II a loan of a thousand ounces of gold,
and in return were permitted to export two and a quarter