Charles I of Naples - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

On his death, Charles left all of his domains to his son Charles, then a prisoner in Catalonia. For the time being, they were held by a joint regency between a papal legate and Robert II of Artois. Charles had spent his life striving to assemble a Mediterranean empire out of whatever land he could get through law or force of arms. He did so, it seems, with a clear conscience; he regarded himself as God's instrument to uphold the Papacy and punish the Hohenstaufen. He ruled justly, but with the rigidity and severity that might be expected in one of his convictions. Ultimately, his unbending austerity could not inspire the devotion needed to hold his conquests together.

Still, he was to leave a substantial legacy to his heirs. Henry II of Cyprus reclaimed the Kingdom of Jerusalem after his death, for the few years left to it; but his possessions otherwise remained within the Angevin dynasty which he founded, or their descendants. Both the Angevins and their Aragonese rivals were to claim the title of "King of Sicily"; but the Angevins, confined to the mainland, would be known to history as "Kings of Naples". But the style of "King of Sicily" persisted; and when the two realms were reunited, it was under the style of "King of the Two Sicilies".

Charles of Anjou contributed to the early medieval revival of learning, often referred to as the "Latin" Renaissance, through his employment of several Jewish scholars at the University of Salerno and Naples, who were expert translators. The most famous of these, Moses of Palermo, he had tutored in Latin, to enable direct translations of ancient classical and Arab texts. These Jewish scholars translated dozens of philosophical and medical treatises into Latin, bringing the heritage of classical antiquity and the great contemporary Muslim culture to pre-Renaissance Europe.

However, his wars resulted in an even more serious consequence than the partition of the Kingdom of Sicily. Pope Martin IV had hopelessly compromised the Papacy in his cause; and the botched secular "Crusades" against Sicily and (after Charles' death) Aragon greatly tarnished its spiritual power. The collapse of its moral authority and the rise of nationalism rang the death knell for Crusading, and would ultimately lead to the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism. Charles was an able soldier and a good administrator; but his failure to understand the qualities of his diverse subjects, and his grasping, if pious, ambition, ultimately led him to failure.

In the Divine Comedy Dante sees Charles outside the gates of Purgatory "singing in accord" with his former rival Peter.