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augmented by the marriage of his daughter Constance in 1262 to Peter III of
Aragon.
Terrified by these proceedings, the new Pope Urban IV excommunicated him. The
pope first tried to sell the Kingdom of Sicily to Richard of Cornwall and his son, but
in vain. In 1263 he was most successful with Charles, the Count of Anjou, a brother
of the French King Louis IX, who accepted the investiture of the kingdom of Sicily
at his hands. Hearing of the approach of Charles, Manfred issued a manifesto to the
Romans, in which he not only defended his rule over Italy but even claimed the
imperial crown.
Charles' army, some 30,000 strong, entered Italy from the Col de Tende in late
1265. He soon reduced numerous Ghibelline strongholds in northern Italy and was
crowned in Rome in January 1266, the pope being absent. On 20 January he set
southwards and waded the Liri River, invading the Kingdom of Sicily. After some
minor clashes, the rival armies met at the Battle of Benevento on 26 February 1266,
and Manfred's army was defeated. The king himself, refusing to flee, rushed into
the midst of his enemies and was killed. Over his body, which was buried on the
battlefield, a huge heap of stones was placed, but afterwards with the consent of the
pope the remains were unearthed, cast out of the papal territory, and interred on
the bank of the Garigliano River, outside of the boundaries of Naples and the Papal
States.
Contemporaries praise the noble and magnanimous
character of Manfred, who was renowned for his physical
beauty and intellectual attainments, a handsome, warriorlike
nobleman. Manfred knew several languages (including
Hebrew and Arabic) and was a poet and musician as well as
a patron of arts and letters (e.g., the “Sicilian School” of
poetry). Dante praises both him and Frederick as
exemplary rulers for their noble, refined character (De
vulgari eloquentia 1.12.4). In the Divine Comedy, Dante
meets Manfred outside the gates of Purgatory, where the
spirit explains that, although he repented of his sins in
articulo mortis, he must atone for his contumacy by waiting 30 years for each year
he lived as an excommunicate, before being admitted to Purgatory proper.
Manfred was married twice. His first wife was Beatrice, daughter of Amadeus IV,
count of Savoy, by whom he had a daughter, Constance, who became the wife of
King Peter III of Aragon. Beatrice, after eighteen years in prison in Castel dell 'Ovo
in Naples, was liberated from the Vespers.
The Hohenstaufen Dynasty - Page 80 of 200