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After six years of Ghibelline rule, a climate of uncertainty reigned in Florence. The Ghibellines held power, flanked by magnates and merchants willing to collaborate, yet the city itself never played too active a part in the fighting, simply providing the promised resources. By late 1265, the signs of instability had grown more evident. Pope Urban IV increased his pressure on the mercantile classes that supported Ghibelline rule in the city, aiming to isolate those loyal to Manfredi. Meanwhile, the Ghibelline League itself was struggling: Pisa refused to push Lucca too hard; Siena was focused on keeping tight control of the League; and Florence was beset by internal rifts, with part of the merchant class weary of pouring out funds.
A great comet crossed the sky the previous year, foretolding diverse and momentous changes. On this occasion, the astrologers were on the mark: great changes were about to arrive, ending a chain of intricate events that, in the meantime, had been unfolding much further south.
In this post, we shall journey back in time and space, to the sun-drenched lands of southern Italy and Sicily – the flourishing yet fragile kingdom of King Manfred..
Young Manfred and the Kingdom of Sicily
Brief history of the Kingdom of Sicily
The Kingdom of Sicily: a fertile, ancient, and rugged land like its citrus fruits, its millennial history is a fascinating journey through conquests, politics, and culture. The period which interests us begins at the end of the Arab emirate when the Normans established the Grand County of Sicily and introduced the feudal system. Their dominion expanded to Malta and Calabria, and its kings consolidated their power, with continuous territorial and political expansion, laying the foundations for what would become one of the largest states in Europe, a melting pot of cultures and a centre of power in the Mediterranean.
(late 13th century) De arte venandi cum avibus, fol. 1v – Pal. lat 1071, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
A period of particular brilliance began under Frederick II of Swabia. He was the “Stupor Mundi” we spoke of in a previous post: an enlightened sovereign, later emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, he was a patron of the arts and sciences and promoter of an advanced legal culture. He founded the Sicilian School of poetry and promoted the Constitutions of Melfi, but his reign was also marked by violent conflicts with the Papacy and the Italian Citiy-States. At the height of his power, he loved a Sicilian noblewoman, Bianca Lancia, and from their union was born Manfred[1].
The early years of Manfred
Manfred was likely born in the year 1232, an illegitimate child later acknowledged and legitimised by his father, Emperor Frederick II—probably around 1248 through a deathbed marriage (in articulo mortis) to Bianca Lancia[2]. His name evoked the memory of his great-grandfather, Manfred I, and his uncle, Manfred II, clearly underscoring his close ties to his mother’s powerful Piedmontese family, the Lancia. Though we have little precise knowledge of his upbringing, an anonymous 13th-century chronicler[3] tells us that Manfred was educated and brought up at his father’s cultured court. This claim is confirmed by Manfred himself, who recalls, in the preface of his translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian treatise De Pomo, the exceptional education he received at the imperial court in philosophy, natural sciences, theology, and the liberal arts[4].
In 1247, not yet fifteen years old, Manfred was selected by Frederick II to undertake a crucial diplomatic mission: on 21 April, he was officially betrothed to Beatrice of Savoy, daughter of Count Amadeus IV, in order to secure the alliance between the Empire and the House of Savoy[5]. Little else is known about their marriage, aside from the birth of their daughter Constance, who would later marry King Peter III of Aragon.
Three years later, on 13 December 1250, we find Manfred at his father’s bedside, witnessing Frederick’s final agony from severe abdominal pains. Upon Frederick’s death, the Kingdom of Sicily quickly descended into chaos. At just eighteen years old, Manfred found himself entrusted with governing the entire realm as baiulus (regent) on behalf of his elder half-brother Conrad IV, who was still in Germany. Frederick’s last testament guided Manfred, whose first official act was to inform Conrad of their father’s death, reaffirming his loyalty and urging him to swiftly claim his throne[6].
Caos in the Kingdom of Sicily
Matthew Paris?(1250-1259). Historia Anglorum
BL Royal MS 14 C VIII, British Library, London
By 1251, the Kingdom of Sicily was in open rebellion, with several of its cities yearning for political autonomy similar to the communes of northern and central Italy. With limited forces at his disposal, Manfred initially chose to temporarily abandon the Terra di Lavoro (roughly corresponding to modern-day Campania)[7] to consolidate his strength in Apulia. He personally led decisive military operations against the insurgent cities, but despite some notable successes, he failed to subdue the rebellions in Capua and Naples, which stubbornly resisted his assaults.
In January 1252, Manfred’s half-brother, Conrad IV, finally landed in Italy and was warmly welcomed by Manfred at Siponto. Yet the initial harmony between the two half-brothers was short-lived. By February of that same year, Conrad convened a diet at Foggia, passing new laws designed to restore ancient Norman-Swabian privileges, aiming to pacify his subjects and strengthen his own authority. Throughout that year, Conrad progressively curtailed the ambitious Manfred’s independence, revoking several territorial privileges granted to him by their father and steadily reducing his political autonomy. Concurrently, Conrad embarked on a ruthless campaign to reconquer the Terra di Lavoro, brutally suppressing revolts such as that in Sessa Aurunca, where forty-eight captured nobles were sentenced to death by hanging.
The relationship between Conrad and Manfred deteriorated further in 1253, when Conrad openly clashed with Manfred’s maternal relatives, the Lancia family, seizing many of their estates in Piedmont. The escalating mistrust surrounding Manfred and his family culminated with the mysterious death of Henry Carlotto, Conrad’s younger brother, at Melfi in December of that year. Although some chronicles accused Conrad of orchestrating the murder to remove potential rivals, the facts remain uncertain. Still, rumours spread rapidly, preserved vividly in the words of an anonymous Genoese chronicler:
“Thus Conrad summoned his brother Henry from the island of Sicily […] Henry was, in fact, strangled, for he dared neither eat nor drink. It is said Giovanni Moro strangled him at the behest of the king himself. Thus, all the emperor’s legitimate sons, save for the king [Conrad[ himself, vanished[8]”
Fratricide and Popes
(late 13th century) De Arte Venandi cum Avibus,
Pal.lat.1071, fol. 2v, Vatican Apostolic Library
Conrad IV, now openly at odds with Pope Innocent IV, who had excommunicated him on 9 April 1254, planned a major military campaign against the Papal States and their allies. But on 21 May 1254, he died suddenly near Melfi, likely from a resurgence of malaria previously contracted. Predictably, rumours quickly spread, suggesting Manfred might have played a role in his half-brother’s untimely death, attributing it to either a poisoned enema or a medication containing diamond powder that tore his intestines[9]. These accusations were never substantiated and likely emerged from papal propaganda and the climate of suspicion fostered by past family intrigues—but the truth scarcely mattered. From that moment on, Manfred would always bear the stigma of fratricide.
Conrad IV’s sudden demise plunged the Kingdom of Sicily into another dangerous power vacuum. Conrad’s legitimate son and sole heir, Conradin, was just two years old, living far away in Germany under the guardianship of his mother Elizabeth and his uncle Louis II of Bavaria. Manfred once again assumed the role of regent, this time under significantly harsher circumstances, lacking clear legitimacy and facing rising hostility both internally and externally—chiefly embodied by Pope Innocent IV.
Initial negotiations between Manfred and the papal court to seek a political compromise quickly failed. In August 1254, informed that the Pope refused to guarantee Conradin’s succession and was preparing military intervention, Manfred wrote urgently to his Lombard ally Oberto Pelavicino, imploring him to block the passage of transalpine troops through northern Italy. The papal response was swift: on 12 September 1254, Innocent IV formally excommunicated Manfred and the principal Hohenstaufen supporters in the kingdom. The following month, on 18 October 1254, violent clashes erupted at Teano in Campania between the papal forces led by Borrello d’Anglona and Manfred’s troops, culminating in a second, decisive engagement near Foggia on 2 December. Here, Manfred achieved a resounding military victory against the army of Marquis Otto of Hohenburg, thanks mainly to the Saracen archers of Lucera, elite troops originally established by his late father, Frederick II. Manfred himself vividly described the battle in a letter addressed to the kingdom’s nobility:
” Having shattered the enemy’s resistance with the sword, killing a great many and capturing even more, we forced our way into the city of Foggia with violence and bloodshed. There followed a terrible massacre of men and a ruthless extermination of rebels, whose chief was Marquis Otto of Hohenburg himself[10]”
Time also ran its course for Pope Innocent IV, who died in Naples on 7 December 1254. When a pope dies, another is soon made, as the saying goes, and his successor, Alexander IV (born Rainaldo of the Lords of Jenne), was elected on the 20th of that very month. Although already fifty‑six, he was an energetic man, trained at the University of Paris and hardened by more than thirty years of relentless clerical politics. No sooner was he enthroned than he adopted an even more uncompromising stance towards Manfred, proclaiming a crusade against him and offering the Sicilian crown to Prince Edmund of England. After one final, extreme attempt at an understanding had failed, Manfred chose an openly anti‑papal path, abandoning for good any hope of reconciliation with Rome.
Hartmann Schedel / Michel Wolgemut /Wilhelm Pleydenwurff (1493) – Liber Chronicarum, 211v, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Towards a Kingdom
And so we reach the end of the first part of our journey through the life of Manfred of Swabia. We’ve retraced his early steps—from the cultivated court of his father Frederick II to the delicate political and military balances that shaped his youth. Amid intrigue, exile, whispered betrayals, and bloody battles, Manfred managed to hold on to power in a realm increasingly divided and hostile, until he chose to break openly with the Church.
In the next post, we’ll see the young ruler make one final move to consolidate his dominion: his coronation as King of Sicily, with all the political and diplomatic consequences it entailed. But, as we shall discover, this bold step came at a steep price—perhaps too steep—for the son of the Stupor Mundi.
Sources
Primary sources
- Alighieri, D. (2023). Inferno (A. M. Chiavacci Leonardi, Comm., 27ª ed.). Milano: Mondadori, Oscar Classici.
- Malaspina, S. (XIII sec.). Rerum Sicularum Historia.
- Matthew Paris. (1872). Chronica Majora (H. R. Luard, Ed., Vol. 5). London: Longman, Green, Reader, and Dyer.
- Pseudo-Jamsilla. (XIII sec.). Historia de rebus gestis Frederici II imperatoris eiusque filiorum Conradi et Manfredi.
- Salimbene de Adam. (XIII sec.). Cronica.
- Villani, G. (1991). Nuova Cronica (G. Porta, Ed.). Milano: Fondazione Pietro Bembo / Guanda.
Secondary sources
- Abulafia, D. (1993). Federico II. Un imperatore medievale (G. Mainardi, Trad.). Torino: Einaudi.
- Delle Donne, F. (2019). La porta del sapere: Cultura alla corte di Federico II di Svevia. Roma: Carocci.
- Grillo, P. (2019). Manfredi di Svevia. Salerno: Salerno Editrice.
- Houben, H. (2009). Federico II: Imperatore, uomo, mito. Bologna: Il Mulino.
- Kantorowicz, E. H. (1931). Frederick the Second, 1194–1250 (E. O. Lorimer, Trans.). New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing.
- Maire Vigueur, J.-C. (2003). Cavalieri e cittadini. Guerra, conflitti e società nell’Italia comunale. Bologna: Il Mulino.
- Runciman, S. (1958). The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trad. it.: (1997). I Vespri Siciliani. Bari: Dedalo.
[1] The main bibliographical source for this article is the splendid study of Manfredi di Svevia (Salerno Editrice, 2019) by Paolo Grillo, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Milan. In my opinion, his book represents the cutting‑edge of scholarship on Manfred of Sicily and has guided me step‑by‑step in my own research, thanks to the sheer quantity of sources he consulted and carefully annotated. For the sake of simplicity, the notes that follow will normally cite only the relevant chapters.
[2] Paolo Grillo, Manfredi di Svevia (Carocci, 2019), ch. II.
[3] Known also as the so‑called “Pseudo‑Jamsilla,” on the basis of an (incorrect) identification proposed by Ludovico Antonio Muratori in 1726. The work in question is the Historia de rebus gestis Frederici II imperatoris eiusque filiorum Conradi et Manfredi Apuliae et Siciliae regum ab anno MCCX usque ad MCCLVIII—an important anonymous and untitled Swabian‑era chronicle. The text survives in several manuscripts, the oldest of which is a fifteenth‑century codex held in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples (IX.C 24). As I have been unable to consult the manuscript myself, all the information reproduced here from the Pseudo‑Jamsilla is “second‑hand.” To begin with, the notice on Manfred’s childhood is cited as “Jamsilla, p. 107” in Grillo (2019), ch. II.II.
[4] Kantorowicz, 1957, p. 318, and—in Grillo’s citation—Malaspina, p. 91; more generally, see chapter 7.
[5] Kantorowicz, 1957, pp. 639–642
[6] Kantorowicz, 1957, p. 686
[7] More precisely, it was an historical–geographical region embracing portions of modern‑day Campania, Lazio and Molise. For further detail, see Giovanni Battista Pacichelli, Il Regno di Napoli in prospettiva, Part I, Naples, 1703, p. 74; and Andrea Cantile (ed.), The toponyms in “Terra di Lavoro” province: continuity and changes from 1860 to today, IGMI, Florence, 2022, pp. 167–174.
[8] “Corrado fece dunque chiamare suo fratello Enrico dall’isola di Sicilia […] Enrico, invero, fu strangolato, poiché non si era fidato a bere nè mangiare nulla. Si dice che Giovanni Moro l’abbia strangolato su ordine del detto re: e così tutti i figli legittimi dell’imperatore, tranne lo stesso re [Corrado] scomparvero “
Annales Ianuenses 1251‑1264, in Annali genovesi di Caffaro e dei suoi continuatori, ed. C. Imperiale di Sant’Angelo, vol. IV, Rome, Tipografia del Senato, 1926, pp. 1‑58 (esp. p. 8); cited in Grillo (2019), chap. IV.
On the death of Henry Carlotto, see also:
– Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora, ed. H.R. Luard, Rolls Series, London, 1872‑83, V, pp. 448‑459;
– Salimbene de Adam, Cronica, ed. G. Scalia, Bari, Laterza, 1966, p. 467;
– Bartholomaeus de Neocastro, Historia Sicula (1250‑1293), ed. G. Paladino, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, Bologna, Zanichelli, vol. XIII/3, 1921‑22, p. 2.
[9] – Villani, Giovanni, Nuova Cronica, ed. G. Porta, Fondazione Pietro Bembo / Guanda, Parma‑Milan, 1991, Book VII, ch. 44.
– Kantorowicz, Ernst H., Frederick the Second, 1194‑1250, trans. E. C. Holt, New York, Frederick Ungar, 1957, p. 673.
– Malaspina, Giovanni, Istoria (13th cent.), ed. R. Morozzo della Rocca, in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores², Bologna, Zanichelli, vol. X, 1939, p. 100 †
– Matthew Paris, Chronica Maiora, ed. H. R. Luard, Rolls Series, London, 1872‑83, V, p. 460 †
† Both Malaspina and Matthew Paris are cited through Grillo (2019), chap. IV.
[10] Die Urkunden Manfreds, König von Sizilien (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Diplomata), ed. L. Höhlbaum, Hannover, 1866, doc. 19, p. 45 †
† Referenced through Grillo (2019), chap. V.
