THE RISE AND FALL OF CHARLES OF ANJOUhis own interests, rather than to Egypt and the Holy Land
where it was more greatly needed. Charles certainly had griev-
ances when he joined the Tunis crusade: the emir of Tunis
had summarily suspended payment of the traditional tribute
paid to Frederick II. Moreover, there had been Tunisian par-
ticipants in the Sicilian uprising of 1268. But neither he nor
those close to Louis IX could control the pious king's deeply-
felt desire to take up the cross. Certainly, Charles arrived
late at Tunis, in the heat of August, to find that St Louis had
fallen ill and died when the siege of Tunis was barely under
way. Charles, if anyone, reaped the benefits of this disastrous
crusade: by the time the Christian army withdrew, the emir
had promised tribute to Charles and the re-establishment
of commercial privileges for his subjects.~^0 A further factor
of some importance was the involvement of the Catalans in
Tunis: an important base of Catalan trade, Tunis was forging
dangerously close links with the Aragonese, whose interests
were constantly colliding with Charles's, whether in Provence,
Sardinia, southern Italy, Mrica or the Levant.~^1
The Tunis crusade only highlighted the difficulties of the
prime object of many crusades: the Kingdom of Jerusalem
was deeply divided; among other problems, the right to the
throne was in dispute between the king of Cyprus and Maria
of Antioch, a descendant of the royal line of Jerusalem.
Although the barons of the kingdom awarded the crown to
Hugh of Cyprus in 1269, Maria made practical use of her
claims and sold her title to Charles of Anjou (1274).^2 ~ And
Charles tried to give substance to the title: he gained papal
approval; he sent Roger of Sanseverino from southern Italy
to Acre with an Angevin fleet, and for a few years Acre was
an Angevin stronghold. Little else was done. Nevertheless,
the title 'King of Jerusalem and Sicily' was henceforth carried
with great pride by the rulers of Naples, even when they had
lost both Jerusalem and Sicily; associations with the crusading
movement continued to shape Angevin policy in Italy and the
Mediterranean, but constant distractions nearer home meant
- J. Le Goff, Saint Louis (Paris, 1996), pp. 290-7.
- See chapter 2, pp. 47-8, on the rise of Aragon for further analysis of
this clash of interests. - J. Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of jerusalem, 1174-
1277 (London, 1973), pp. 225-7, outlining clearly the great difficult-
ies Charles's agents in the East faced.