Soldiers of fortune in the fleets of Charles I of Anjou, ca. 1266-1285

People Involved

Associate Professor John Pryor

Project overview

A response to an invitation from Professor John France, University of Swansea, to participate in a conference on Mercenaries and paid men in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The project investigates soldiers and sailors of fortune form Provence and France who flocked to the Kingdom Of Sicily after its conquest by Charles I of Anjou in 1266-8 and who served as mercenary naval acommanders. The chancery registers of the Kingdom of Sicily were destroyed by the Germans in the Second World War but were reconstructed by the Neapolitan archivists from transcripts made by historians over the previous 100 years or so from 1952 onwards. These published registers form the basic research source for the project.