514 narthex
FREDERICKII. He encouraged economic development by
fostering maritime commerce and the textile industry. In
1224 Frederick founded a university in the town. It was
intended to train jurists for the imperial administration,
replacing the older and the more GUELFor anti-imperial
one at BOLOGNA.
A CULTURAL CENTERIn 1267 CHARLESI OFANJOU, brother of King LOUISIX,
defeated and replaced the Hohenstaufen dynasty, and
became the king of Sicily. He made Naples his capital espe-
cially after the SICILIANVESPERSof 1282. He introduced a
court full of French nobles and the Tuscan MERCHANTS
who had financed his conquest. Local crafts developed to
provide luxury products for the court; shipyards grew to
maintain a much larger navy. A building boom occurred
and the population rose to perhaps as many as 60,000
inhabitants in the 14th century, making Naples one of the
largest cities in Europe. The royal patronage of his succes-
sors made the court an intellectual center, as famous writ-
ers such as BOCCACCIO and PETRARCH gained royal
patronage. Artists from TUSCANYand northern Italy pro-
duced PAINTINGand sculpture in the kingdom.
The economic and demographic catastrophes of the
second half of the 14th century and the incompetence and
wars of its Angevin rulers opened possibilities for at least
temporary municipal independence. Several rebellions
against the Crown, never gained more than a temporary
release from Angevin exploitation and dominance. In
1442 ALFONSOV OFARAGONcaptured the city after a dev-
astating siege and sack. Under this new administration the
local artisans and merchants lost control over the econ-
omy as Tuscan merchants once again took over and were
needed to pay for the wars and policies of Alfonso. How-
ever, there was a cultural revival and some of the great
artists and authors of the 15th century worked in Naples.
This prosperity and peace continued under the competent
king Ferrante I (r. 1458–94). The city was still a great
enough prize that it became the goal of the devastating
French invasions of the last decade of the 15th century.
Further reading:Cecil Headlam, The Story of Naples
(London: J. M. Dent, 1927); Jerry H. Bentley, Politics and
Culture in Renaissance Naples(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1987); Benedetto Croce, History of the
Kingdom of Naples, ed. H. Stuart Hughes and trans.
Frances Frenaye (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1970); Alan Ryder, The Kingdom of Naples under Alfonso
the Magnanimous: The Making of a Modern State(Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1976); Alan Ryder, Alfonso the Magnani-
mous: King of Aragon, Naples, and Sicily, 1396–1458
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
narthex The term narthex,meaning “box” or “casket”
in Greek, designated the vestibule, just inside the door
to the interior, opening onto the NAVE, and situated at
the entrance to a ROMANESQUEchurch. It was supposed
to be a place of purification. In Byzantine churches, it
usually had an opening or staircase to the galleries
above. In the early church, catechumens, candidates for
baptism, and penitents were allowed to be present only
at the first part of the MASS and had to stay in the
narthex. A narthex should not be confused with a porch,
which was open to the outside. The narthex was used for
the formation of processions.
Further reading:Richard Krautheimer, Early Chris-
tian and Byzantine Architecture,3d ed. (Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books, 1979); Thomas F. Mathews, Byzantium:
From Antiquity to the Renaissance (New York: Abrams,
1998).Nasrids (Banu Nasr) They were the last Muslim
dynasty in SPAIN. They ruled in GRANADAfrom 1238 to
1492, gaining power after the defeat of the ALMOHADSat
the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. Muhammad I
al-Ghalib, also called Ibn al-Ahmav (r. 1232–72), was its
founder and was from Málaga. He managed to retain the
easily defendable mountainous district in the south of
Spain around the city of Granada. His relations with
CASTILEwere generally peaceful, although he was forced
to recognize Castilian supremacy as a more-or-less client
ruler. He also initiated the Nasrid practice of accepting
Muslim refugees from the rest of the reconquered penin-
sula and began construction of a remarkable Islamic
monument, the palace of the ALHAMBRA. The Nasrids
tried to strike a balance between the Marinids of FEZandKings of Castile
Under the reserved and timid Yusuf I (r. 1333–54), an
alliance of Nasrids with the Marinids proved catastrophic
when they were defeated by King Alfonso XI of Castile
(r. 1312–50) in 1340 at the Rio Salado. Despite being
racked by internal conflict throughout the 15th century,
the kingdom survived, still a client state to Christians but
remaining a center of Muslim culture. Nasrid rule ended
in 1492 with a long campaign and the capture of the city
of Granada by FERDINANDand ISABELI. The last Nasrid
ruler was Muhammad XI (r. 1482–92) or Bobadilla, who
had rashly refused to pay the annual tribute. He fled to
MOROCCO.
See alsoART AND ARCHITECTURE; GARDENS.
Further reading:David Abulafia, “The Nasrid King-
dom of Granada,” in The New Cambridge Medieval
History. Vol. 5 c. 1198–c. 1300, ed. David Abulafia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 636–
643; Clifford Edmund Bosworth, The Islamic Dynasties
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967), 18–19;
John Edwards, The Spain of the Catholic Monarchs,
1474–1520 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000); L. P. Harvey,
Islamic Spain, 1250–1500(Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1990); Markus Hattstein and Peter Delius, eds.,
Islam: Art and Architecture,trans. George Ansell et al.