THE WESTERN MEDITERRAl\'EAN KINGDOMS 1200-1!100air once the rebellion broke out, so that some in fact passed
over to the Catalan-Aragonese camp after all.~^1 Once again
it is clear that the Vespers were not simply a revolt against
the French, but a rebellion directed at a whole tradition of
tight-fisted government, going back at least to the years when
an embattled Frederick II charged his administrators with
the maximisation of his income from the Regno. In fact,
the level of the collecta gathered in Sicily under Charles I
seems to have been generally no higher than that charged
by Frederick II, with a few exceptions (notably 30,000 ounces
of gold in 1272), though there was room for more complaint
in other areas, such as that of monetary policy. The presence
of administrative officials from the mainland in Sicily may
indeed have sharpened the sense among Sicilian nobles and
townsmen that the island was seen as no more than a source
of grain and gold with which to pay for Charles's foreign
escapades; on the other hand, there was a well-established
tradition of avoiding the use of local men in administration,
which was already being practised by Frederick II.
The Riso family of Messina can be cited as a good example
of the Sicilian elite which sided with the Angevins against the
rebels.^1 ~ Here again we are looking at long-standing allies
of the crown, at a family which had played a role under
Frederick II, and which transferred its loyalty to Charles I.
This is all the less surprising in view of the intimate ties
between Messina and the toe of Italy; Calabria and Messina
were economically interdependent, and Messina looked away
from the rest of Sicily in significant respects. Still, this did
not serve the Riso family well in the long run: Messina too
rose against its Angevin master; the rebellious Commune
imprisoned the Risos in the castle of Matagriffon, and the city
fell into the grasp of Alaimo da Lentini, who proposed to
the pope - naturally without success-that he himself should
be appointed boss of Messina under papal suzerainty.^4 '^1 Yet
it is important also to bear in mind the character of this
Sicilian nobility: the island, unlike the mainland, possessed
no 'world class' nobles comparable to the great nobility
of northern France or indeed of northern Italy; the social
- Brese, '1282', p. 256.
42. Sec now Catalioto, TI'J7e, pp. 233-49. - Runciman, Sicilian Vespers, pp. 239-41.