Sunday, January 5, 2020: 8:30 AM
Murray Hill East (New York Hilton)
Kathryn L. Reyerson, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
The medieval and early modern Mediterranean world was characterized by various forms of violence. In order to investigate the connections among three of these - war, piracy and privateering - we have decided to focus on the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282-1302): two decades of conflict between the Angevins and the Aragonese over control of the vital, centrally located island of Sicily. Six major naval battles punctuated these decades under the direction of—arguably—the greatest of medieval admirals, Roger of Lauria. We will test our hypothesis that there exists a continuum of violence with war spanning piracy and privateering and vice versa, within the case of the Sicilian Vespers. To illustrate our findings, we have created a story map through ArcGis that features four of the naval battles of the Sicilian Vespers. Problematizing violence will reveal the fault lines of the diverse and contested space that was the late medieval Mediterranean world.
The War of the Sicilian Vespers is ideal as a test case because there are multiple chronicles providing accounts of the war’s progress, divisible into three general categories: chronicles whose focus is the War of Sicilian Vespers itself, such as Historia Sicula of Bartholomeus de Neocastro; civic chronicles of medieval Italy, such as the Annales Ianuenses and Giovanni Villani, Cronica nuova, and the great Catalan chronicles, including that of Ramon Muntaner, a soldier who fought for the Aragonese cause and eventually joined up with the Catalan company, led by Roger of Flor. Published archival documents complement these narratives with excellent information about the kingdom of Aragon and the Angevin lands. Research into this evidence has enabled us to present a rich tapestry of findings in our story map.
