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Birth:          1232 Venosa, Italy
Death:          26 Feb 1266 Battle of Benevento

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred,_King_of_Sicily
Manfred (Sicilian: Manfredi di Sicilia; 1232 – 26 February 1266) was the King of Sicily 
from 1258 to 1266. He was an illegitimate son of the emperor Frederick II of 
Hohenstaufen,[1] but his mother, Bianca Lancia (or Lanzia), is reported by Matthew 
Paris to have been married to the emperor while on her deathbed.[2]
Early life[edit]

Manfred was born in Venosa. Frederick II appears to have regarded him as legitimate, 
and by his will named him as Prince of Taranto[3] and appointed him as the 
representative in Italy of his half-brother, the German king, Conrad IV.[2] Manfred, 
who initially bore his mother's surname, studied in Paris and Bologna and shared with 
his father a love of poetry and science.

At Frederick's death, Manfred, although only about 18 years old, acted loyally and 
with vigour in the execution of his trust. The Kingdom was in turmoil, mainly due to 
riots spurred by Pope Innocent IV. Manfred was able to subdue numerous rebel cities, 
with the exception of Naples.[4] When his legitimate brother Conrad IV appeared in 
southern Italy in 1252, disembarking at Siponto, his authority was quickly and 
generally acknowledged.[2] Naples fell in October 1253 into the hands of Conrad. The 
latter, in the meantime, had grown distrustful of Manfred, stripping him of all his fiefs 
and reducing his authority to the principality of Taranto.

In May 1254 Conrad died of malaria.[5] Manfred, after refusing to surrender Sicily to 
Innocent IV, accepted the regency on behalf of Conradin, the infant son of Conrad.[6] 
The pope however, having been named guardian of Conradin, excommunicated 
Manfred in July 1254.[7] The regent decided to open negotiations with Innocent. By a 
treaty made in September 1254, Apulia passed under the authority of the pope, who 
was personally conducted by Manfred into his new possession. But Manfred’s 
suspicions being aroused by the demeanour of the papal retinue, and also annoyed by 
the occupation of Campania by papal troops, he fled to the Saracens at Lucera. Aided 
by Saracen allies, he defeated the papal army at Foggia on 2 December 1254,[8] and 
soon established his authority over Sicily and the Sicilian possessions on the 
mainland.[2] In that year Manfred supported the Ghibelline communes in Tuscany, in 
particular Siena, to which he provided a corps of German knights that was later 
instrumental in the defeat of Florence at the Battle of Montaperti. He thus reached the 
status of patron of the Ghibelline League. Also in that year Innocent died, succeeded 
by Alexander IV, who immediately excommunicated Manfred.[6] In 1257, however, 
Manfred crushed the papal army and settled all the rebellions, imposing his firm rule of 
southern Italy and receiving the title of vicar from Conradin.

Kingship[edit]

The following year, taking advantage of a rumour that Conradin was dead, he was 
crowned King of Sicily at Palermo on August 10. The falsehood of this report was soon 
manifest; but the new king, supported by the popular voice, declined to abdicate and 
pointed out to Conradin’s envoys the necessity for a strong native ruler. The pope, to 
whom the Saracen alliance was a serious offence, declared Manfred’s coronation 
void. Undeterred by the excommunication Manfred sought to obtain power in central 
and northern Italy, where the Ghibelline leader Ezzelino III da Romano had 
disappeared. He named vicars in Tuscany, Spoleto, Marche, Romagna and Lombardy. 
After Montaperti he was recognized as protector of Tuscany by the citizens of 
Florence, who did homage to his representative, and he was chosen "Senator of the 
Romans" by a faction in the city.[2] His power was also 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.[2]

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.[9] The king himself, refusing to flee, rushed into the midst of his 
enemies and was killed.[10] 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.[2][10]

Manfred was married twice. His first wife was Beatrice,[11] daughter of Amadeus IV, 
count of Savoy, by whom he had a daughter, Constance, who became the wife of King 
Peter III of Aragon;[12] his second wife, who died in prison in 1271, was Helena 
Angelina Doukaina,[11] daughter of Michael II Komnenos Doukas, ruler of the 
despotate of Epirus, who made this marriage to ally with Manfred after being attacked 
by him at Thessalonica. Helena and Manfred had five children: Beatrice, Frederick, 
Henry, Enzio and Flordelis of Sicily.

At the Battle of Benevento Charles captured Helena and imprisoned her. She lived 
five years later in captivity into the castle of Nocera Inferiore where she died in 1271. 
Manfred's son-in-law Peter III became also King Peter I of Sicily from 1282 after the 
Sicilian Vespers expelled the French from the island again.

The modern city of Manfredonia was built by King Manfred between 1256–1263, some 
kilometers north of the ruins of the ancient Sipontum. The Angevines, who had 
defeated Manfred and stripped him of the Kingdom of Sicily, christened it Sypontum 
Novellum ("New Sypontum"), but that name never imposed.

Character and legacy[edit]

 Manfred holding a falcon from the 13th-century De arte venandi cum avibus
Contemporaries praised the noble and magnanimous character of Manfred, who was 
renowned for his physical beauty and intellectual attainments.[2] 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 formed the subject of dramas by E.B.S. Raupach, O. Marbach and F.W. 
Roggee. Three letters written by Manfred were published by J. B. Carusius in 
Bibliotheca historica regni Siciliae (Palermo, 1732).[2]

Manfred's name was borrowed by the English author Horace Walpole for the main 
character of his short novel The Castle of Otranto (1764). Montague Summers, in his 
1924 edition of this work, showed that some details of Manfred of Sicily's real history 
inspired the novelist. The name was re-borrowed by Lord Byron for his dramatic poem 
Manfred (1817).

Parents
____ Frederick (Friedrich) II (26 Dec 1194 - 13 Dec 1250)
LANCIA Bianca (ABT 1200 - ABT 1245)

Siblings
____ Manfred (1232 - 26 Feb 1266)

Marriage To OF SAVOY Beatrice (ABT 1213 - 1259)
    m. Mar 1247 

Notes

Parents
____ Amadeo IV (ABT 1197 - 24 Jun 1253)
DE BOURGOGNE Marguerite (Anna) (1190 - 13 Jul 1253)

Children by OF SAVOY Beatrice ABT 1213 - 1259
OF SICILY Constance (Costanza) (1249 - 1302)

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