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This is the first detailed study of Sicilian life in the reign of Frederick III (1296-1337), a period which marked Sicily's transition from a bustling and prosperous Mediterranean emporium to a poor backwater torn apart by violence. This book, by focusing on Frederick III's crucial reign, argues that there were many more things "wrong" with Sicilian life than just the shape of its overseas trade relations. Placing itself between those who blame the foreigners and those who blame the Sicilians themselves, it shows that an entire nexus of factors and influences were at work in unraveling Sicilian life. It also demonstrates that these forces can be seen best in the forty years that followed Sicily's liberation from foreign control in the bloody war of the "Sicilian Vespers".
List of contents
1. The kingdom at risk; 2. The international scene: war without and within; 3. A divided society I: the urban demesnal world; 4. A divided society II: the rural baronial world; 5. The religious scene: piety and its problems; 6. In the margins: slaves, pirates, and women; Conclusion; Tables; Bibliography.
Summary
This 1995 book is a detailed study of Sicilian life in the reign of Frederick III (1296–1337), a period which saw Sicily reduced from a bustling and prosperous Mediterranean emporium to a poor backwater torn apart by violence and where for an early form of the Mafia arose.
