THE \\'ESTERN MEDITERRANEAN KINGDOMS 1200-1500of the Norman kings, but a Latin island in which Greeks and
Jews were a small minority and Muslims were non-existent;
the clearest sign of the transformation is perhaps the spread
of forms of Italian vernacular which in some regions betrayed
close links to the dialects spoken in Liguria and other parts
of northern Italy. The linguistic evidence suggests that towns
and villages in the north of Italy effectively targeted areas of
Sicily, which were settled by many thousands of colonists, a
process still continuing in the Angevin period. Evidence from
southern Italy shows us the process at work: close to Lucera,
Charles appears to have settled a group of Franco-Proven~al
farmers, whose descendants are still in place; the idea was
to replace the local Muslim population with Christian set-
tlers, just as had been happening in Sicily. In Malta too the
Latinisation of the island appears to have been completed
around this time.^3 ~ Particularly worth stressing, however, is
the existence of large numbers of settlers from the north and
central Italian towns in the major Sicilian cities. Boccaccio's
famous story of Lisabetta and the pot of basil takes place
in Messina, in the house of three brothers whose father
had migrated from San Gimignano in Tuscany; and their
employee, who fell fatally in love with Lisabetta, is Lorenzo
from Pi sa. ~n Such figures mirror those who can be found
in the documents: a Messinese document of 1239 describes
the real estate of the daughter of a merchant from Lucca,
bordering the street of the Pisans and the possessions of some
Amalfitans, another mercantile community which struck deep
roots in Messina.^34 Messina was the prime example, a city
which had been given new life by its settlers from the main-
land; but Palermo too was being renewed in population, by
Genoese, Pisans, Catalans and many others.~l^5 Within the
Sicilian towns, this new population may well have developed
expectations about rights to self-government which were
- David Abulafia, "Monarchs and minorities in the medieval Mediterra-
nean c.1300: Lucera and its analogues', in P. Diehl and S. Waugh,
eds, Christendom and its discontents. Exclusion, persecution and rebellion,
1000-1500 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 237-9. - Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, Day 4, story 5.
- I ,.R. Menager, Les Actes latins de S. Maria di Messina (^11 03-1250)
(Palermo, 1963), doc. 20, pp. 150-8. - For Messina see David Abulafia, The merchants of Messina: Levant
trade and domestic economy', Papers of the British School at Rome,^54
(1986), pp. 196-212.