It is said to have been real love, but solid political motives may have persuaded the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II to marry his beloved Bianca Lancia on his deathbed in 1250. Because in doing so he once again tied the bond to their influential Sicilian family, and on the other hand he legitimized both children, of whom it was said that the second-born Manfred (1232-1266) was his favorite son.
He shared his father’s passion for falconry and philosophy and is said to have been taught by a “group of venerable scholars” at the imperial court. Frederick’s last will made him Duke of Taranto and third in line to the kingdom of Sicily. The crown was inherited by Konrad (IV), who had been king of the Holy Roman Empire since 1237. Therefore, Manfred took over the Reichsverweserschaft in southern Italy.
But only for a limited time. Because after the death of the emperor, who had been excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX, Konrad’s position in the empire had become untenable, so that he decided to accept his Sicilian heritage. But Konrad died unexpectedly early, so that Manfred again became administrator, this time for his nephew Konradin. In his name he renounced the royal crown in the empire and made himself king of Sicily in 1258. The old conflict between the Staufers and the papacy broke out again because Manfred refused to recognize Clemens IV as his liege lord.
With this, the competition between the two medieval universal powers entered a new round. First, Manfred was able to achieve several victories over the Pope’s allies. But when Clemens enfeoffed Charles of Anjou with Sicily in 1265, a life-and-death struggle threatened. Because Karl was not just an ambitious adventurer, but also the youngest brother of Louis IX. of France, which not only had great prestige, but also considerable resources. Karl immediately equipped an army and marched across the Alps in the winter of 1265/66. The pope opened the gates of Rome to him and legitimized Charles’s enterprise as a campaign against the Staufers.
The fact that the Pope provided the treasures from Rome’s churches as collateral in order to borrow £50,000 from bankers for his new vassal was not only related to disputes over rank. With Karl’s advance, Clemens hoped to finally be freed from the grip between the Staufer-friendly cities in the north and the Staufer empire in the south of Italy.
On February 26, 1266, the armies met at Benevento, a good 60 kilometers north-east of Naples. Manfred had initially bet that his followers would stop Karl’s advance in the north. For the rest, he trusted in the fighting power of his German knights and the light Saracen cavalry. He did not want to wait for the reinforcements led by his nephew Konrad. The ease with which numerous castles and towns had surrendered to the French made him doubt the loyalty of his Italian subjects.
Manfred posted the Saracen horse archers in the front line. Behind them, the 1,200 German knights rode up on good horses and in modern plate armor. This was followed by mounted Italian mercenaries and more Saracens. Manfred himself remained with the Italian nobles, who, not for nothing, formed the reserve. It was doubtful to whom their allegiance would end up.
Karl also divided his cavalry into three meetings, before which he positioned numerous crossbowmen. As was probably the case with Manfred, the poorly armed foot soldiers formed the rear guard. Both armies may have numbered around 4,000 men, but the French had the advantage of being more consistent and reliable than Manfred’s, writes British historian Steven Runciman.
As in so many battles of the Middle Ages, the knights lacked discipline and, in keeping with their warrior ethos, attacked immediately as soon as the opponent had formed up. Thus, Manfred’s Saracens and Charles’ Provençales hastily got into a fight, into which the German knights immediately threw themselves. These seemed insurmountable in their new tanks. Until the French realized that when they raised their arms to punch, their armpits were exposed. “The French now pressed in among the Germans in such tightly packed masses that the German longswords became unusable, while the short, sharp daggers of the French hit their mark,” Runciman writes.
Manfred’s horsemen had advanced before the subsequent meetings had completed their deployment. As a result, his Italians came too late, while Charles’s main force included the Staufer’s best soldiers. Manfred’s reserve was also too far behind. Most fled. Only Manfred threw himself into the fight with his bodyguard, in which he was soon fatally wounded. Of the 3,600 mounted Staufers, only 600 are said to have escaped with their lives.
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This article was first published in February 2022.
