here - Nobility Associations

Saint Luis Day in Sicily
Born in 1214, Louis IX of Anjou was king of France from
1226 until his death in 1270. He was a contemporary
of Frederick II, who he sometimes supported politically,
and elder brother of Charles I, who became king of Naples
and Sicily in 1266 following extinction of the House of
Hohenstaufen (Frederick's dynasty). In northern and
central Italy the Capetians (the House of Anjou) supported
the Guelph party against the Ghibellines. This was
sometimes a complex matter; essentially, by the middle of
the thirteenth century the Guelphs supported the Pope and
French Angevin interests against those of the Holy Roman
Emperor and German ones. In the event, it was one of the
things which earned the French dynasty the support of the Papacy.
Though Louis was known for his religious piety, he also took an active part in the
crusading movement, usually (except for Frederick's pacific Sixth Crusade)
advocating war against the Muslims. He was a patron of the arts, particularly
favorable to the Gothic architectural movement, and known (when not fighting) as
a kindly and generous man. Louis was succeeded by his son, Philip III, whose wife,
Isabella of Aragon, died in January 1271 when she fell off a house while fording a
stream near Cosenza, in Calabria, during the family's return to France. Her son,
Philip (IV), later became King of France.
Sicily remained a peripheral part of the French dynasty's adventures for some
years. Philip III was less astute politically than his "saintly" father, and perhaps too
easily influenced by his unsaintly uncle Charles of Naples. He died in 1285
returning from a failed attempt to conquer Aragon for Charles, who resented King
Peter of Aragon for accepting the Sicilian crown following the Vespers uprising.
Today the people of Monreale 8 on the slope of Mountain Caputo, outside Palermo,
celebrate Saint Louis Day. His obnoxious little brother, Charles of Anjou, was the
infamous King of Naples who provoked the Sicilian Vespers uprising in 1282,
but King Louis IX of France, later canonized as Saint Louis, was a far more pleasant
person - and a far better man. He died during a crusade in Tunisia.
8 Monreale is a town and comune in the province of Palermo, in Sicily, Italy, on the slope of Monte
Caputo, overlooking the very fertile valley called "La Conca d'oro" (the Golden Shell). The town was
for long a mere village, and started its expansion when the Norman Kings of Sicily chose the area as
their hunting resort, building here a palace.
The Hohenstaufen Dynasty - Page 167 of 200