Battle Of Tagliacozzo

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Lucretia

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Aug 3, 2024, 3:17:03 PM8/3/24

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The Battle of Tagliacozzo was fought on 23 August 1268 between the Ghibelline supporters of Conradin of Hohenstaufen and the Guelph army of Charles of Anjou. The battle represented the last act of Hohenstaufen power in Italy. The capture and execution of Conradin several months after the battle also marked the fall of the family from the Imperial and Sicilian thrones, leading to the new chapter of Angevin domination in Southern Italy.

Pope Clement IV, continuing the policy of his predecessor Pope Urban IV, was determined to check Manfred's growing power. He excommunicated Manfred and continued discussions with Charles of Anjou as a secular prince who might, by force of arms, replace the dangerous Hohenstaufens. Bolstered by papal resources, which included a crusading tithe granted to combat the "infidel" Hohenstaufen, Charles entered Italy in 1265 and defeated and killed Manfred the next year at the Battle of Benevento, and began to establish himself as King of Sicily.

After Benevento, Clement IV continued the papal policy of employing Charles to resist the power of the Ghibellines, although with this support was the fear that the Angevins themselves would, like the Hohenstaufen before them, attempt to dominate northern as well as southern Italy and thus menace the temporal power of the Holy See, despite explicit promises by Charles that he would not lay claim to northern Italy. However, the papacy still considered its ancient Hohenstaufen enemy to be the primary threat for the time being, and when Conradin, now aged 15, entered Italy with his army in September 1267 to challenge Charles' rule of Sicily, Clement immediately sought Charles' support in defeating them in Tuscany, appointing Charles as papal vicar.[2]

After considerable maneuvering, Conradin's army, which enjoyed numerical superiority, confronted that of Charles of Anjou on the Palentine Plains outside the town of Tagliacozzo (more precisely, near Scurcola Marsicana). Each army deployed in three divisions. The first Hohenstaufen division was composed of Spanish and Italian knights, led by the Infante Henry of Castile; the second division was largely composed of Italians but included a body of German knights, and was led by Galvano Lancia; the final division contained most of the German knights, and was led by Conradin himself, accompanied by his close friend Frederick I, Margrave of Baden.

Charles' first division was mostly composed of Italians, with some Provenal knights, under an unknown commander; the second division contained the bulk of the French troops, and was mostly made up of landless knights and men-at-arms in quest of wealth, commanded by French Marshal Henri de Cousances; and finally the third division, which Charles himself led alongside the veteran French crusader, Erard of Valery (who was referred to by the Italians as "Allardo di Valleri"),[3] was composed of veteran French knights. This third division was hidden behind a hill by Charles at Valery's advice, in order to constitute a tactical surprise against the numerically superior Hohenstaufen forces.

Conradin's army dominated the initial phase of the battle. They overwhelmed Charles' first two divisions and put them to flight. A man wearing Charles' armor and who was accompanied by the Angevin banner was killed by Henry of Castile and the banner captured. The Hohenstaufen forces did not realize the man they had just killed was Henri de Cousances and not Charles himself however. Believing the battle was won, they then split up, some to pursue Charles' fleeing divisions, others to pillage the Angevin camp. At this point Charles sprung his trap; his hidden elite reserves entered the fight and decimated Conradin's forces. Conradin fled back to Rome but was later captured, imprisoned and executed. Thus ended the Hohenstaufen's line.

On 28 October 1268 a blonde teenager mounted the scaffold in Naples, followed by a number of German and Italian noblemen. According to some chronicles, he addressed the silent, even respectful, crowd which filled the square. He said he was the son of innocence, who had come to Italy to fight for his legitimate inheritance and begged for the lives of his companions- in vain. By all accounts he faced execution with exemplary courage. The axe fell. Thus died Conradin, the last legitimate male descendant of the fabled Emperor Frederick II at liberty. Charles of Anjou, the usurper he had come to Italy to fight, could at last feel secure on his Neapolitan throne. Or so he must have thought.

Canaccini gives a clear, if rather traditional, narrative of events as Conradin moved south through Italy from Ghibelline stronghold to Ghibelline stronghold- above all Siena, which funded his army and aided it to victory over local Angevin forces at Ponte a Valle in Tuscany. Rome, controlled by Enrique as Senator of the city, gave him a triumphal welcome in every sense of the term. It is harder to gain a sense of just how much agency Conradin himself had in the decision making processes surrounding his campaign or indeed to get a measure of the young man himself. He was clearly cultured- poems he wrote survive in the German language lyric tradition- and it is not hard to make him appear an attractive figure by comparison with the often brutal, suspicious and massively ambitious Charles of Anjou. One does however wonder how far Conradin even in his lifetime was something of a blank screen on to which his followers projected their hopes, and (as Canaccini notes) he may have had a cruel streak of his own as demonstrated by his decision to drag the captured Angevin knight Jean de Braiselve the length of Italy in chains to then execute him just before battle was joined at (or rather near) Tagliacozzo.

The Battle of Tagliacozzo was fought on 23 August 1268 between the Ghibellines supporters of Conradin of Hohenstaufen and the army of Charles of Anjou. The battle represent the last act of Hohenstaufen power in Italy. The end of Conradin mark indeed also the fall of the family from the Imperial and Sicilian thrones, leading to the new chapter of Angevin domination in Southern Italy.

After Benevento, Pope Clement IV continued the papal policy of employing Charles to resist the power of the Ghibellines, although with this support was a fear that the Angevins themselves may, like the Hohenstaufen before them, attempt to dominate Northern as well as Southern Italy and thus menace the temporal power of the Holy See, despite explicit promises by Charles that he would not lay claim to Northern Italy. However, the papacy still considered its ancient enemy, the Hohenstaufen line, to be the deadlier foe by far, and when Conradin, now aged 16, challenged Charles' rule of Sicily, and the Tuscan Ghibellines rallied behind Conradin, Clement immediately sought Charles' support in defeating them in Tuscany, ultimately appointing Charles as papal vicar.[2]

Conradin's forces won the initial phase of the battle, and broke up to pursue Charles's first two divisions, which were in flight, and pillage the Angevin camp. At this point Charles sprung his trap, his hidden reserve forces entering the fight and massacring Conradin's scattered forces. Conradin was forced to flee back to Rome, but was later captured, imprisoned, and executed. Thus ended the rule of the Hohenstaufens.

IF MANFRED HAD TRULY been the last Hohenstaufen heir standing, then Benevento might have been the last battle that Charles of Anjou needed to fight to secure his kingdom; and perhaps the Crown of Aragon would never have had cause to intervene at the urging of the Regno's refugees. After all, Anjou's victory had, in a solitary stroke, virtually vanquished the Hohenstaufen hierarchy in the Mezzogiorno. Manfred's wife, Queen Helena, her daughter Beatrice and three bastard sons had been incarcerated in the Castello del Parco of Nocera; and all Ghibelline resistance had been cowed into conformity. Most of the kingdom's towns and territories, including Sicily, had submitted without a struggle. Even Manfred's formidable fleet surrendered docilely. Charles had assuaged much of the opposition's animus by offering a general amnesty, of which even such staunchly loyal Hohenstaufen supporters as the Lancias had availed themselves, albeit following a brief imprisonment. But, of course, Manfred was not the last of his line: his nephew Conradin was not only alive and safe with his mother, Elizabeth of Wittelsbach, under the protection of his uncle, Duke Louis II of Upper Bavaria, but he was also approaching maturity. He would be at the core of a cascade of challenges to Charles's rule that would eventually usher on stage the Aragonese admiral who would prove to be Anjou's undoing.

Forced vows of faithfulness notwithstanding, the campaign to wrest the crown of Sicily from Charles of Anjou and place it on Conradin's head began bare months after Benevento. And at its heart was the House of Lancia. Galvano, the family patriarch and King Manfred's uncle, had been a Hohenstaufen adherent since before Emperor Frederick II had made him justiciar of Sicily in 1240. He was prominent among a number of Ghibelline loyalists who made their way to Bavaria in the summer of 1266. There was also Conrad Capece who had been Manfred's vicar for Sicily, soon followed by Conrad of Antioch, the son of Frederick of Antioch who was Manfred's half-brother. Even Manfred of Maletta, the king's former chamberlain whose steadfastness had been suspect, crossed the Alps in hopes of convincing Conradin to claim his crown. But it was Galvano di Lancia along with his brother Frederick who would become critical to rousing martial support for the undertaking.

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