§ 46. THE EMPIRE AND PAPACY AT PEACE. 207
Martin showed himself completely complaisant to the designs of the Angevin house and Charles was once more elected to the Roman senatorship. Seldom had a pope been so fully the tool of a monarch.1 In Southern Italy Frenchmen were everywhere in the ruling positions. But this national insult was soon to receive a memorable rebuke.
In resentment at the hated French regime, the Sicilians rose up, during Easter week, 1282, and enacted the bloody massacre known as the Sicilian Vespers. All the Normans on the island, together with the Sicilian wives of Normans, were victims of the merciless vengeance. The number that fell is estimated at from eight to twenty thousand. The tragedy gets its name from the tradition that the Sicilians fell to their work at the ringing of the vesper bell.2 Charles's rule was thenceforward at an end on the Panormic isle. Peter of Aragon, who married Constance, the daughter of Manfred and the granddaughter of Frederick II., was crowned king. For nearly two hundred years thereafter the crowns of Sicily and Naples were kept distinct.
Not to be untrue to Charles, Martin hurled the anathema at the rebels, placed Aragon and Sicily under the interdict, arid laid Christendom under a tribute of one-tenth for a crusade against Peter. The measures were in vain, and Charles's galleys met with defeat off the coast of Calabria. Charles and Martin died the same year, 1285, the latter, like Gregory X., at Perugia.
After an interregnum of ten months, Nicolas IV. ascended the papal throne, the first Franciscan to be elevated to the office. His reign witnessed the evacuation of Ptolemais or Acre, the last possession of the Crusaders in Syria. Nico las died in the midst of futile plans to recover the Holy Places.
1 " He was led about by the nose by Charles," Muratori, XL 492. So Hergenrother, Kirchengesch., 11.310. 2 See Ranke, VIII. 531 sqq.
208 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1216-1294.
Another interregnum of twenty-seven months followed, April 4, 1292 to July 5, 1294, when the hermit Peter de Murrhone, Coelestin V., was raised to the papal throne, largely at the dictation of Charles II. of Naples. His short reign forms a curious episode in the annals of the papacy. His career shows the extremes of station from the solitude of the mountain cell to the chief dignity of Europe. He enjoyed the fame of sanctity and founded the order of St. Damian, which subsequently honored him by taking the name of Coelestines. The story ran that he had accomplished the unprecedented feat of hanging his cowl on a sunbeam. At the time of his elevation to the papal throne Coelestin was seventy-nine.
An eye-witness, Stefaneschi, has described the journey to the hermit's retreat by three bishops who were appointed to notify him of his election. They found him in a rude hut in the mountains, furnished with a single barred window, his hair unkempt, his face pale, and his body infirm. After announcing their errand they bent low and kissed his san dals. Had Peter been able to go forth from his anchoret solitude, like Anthony of old, on his visits to Alexandria, and preach repentance and humility, he would have pre sented an exhilarating spectacle to after generations. As it is, his career arouses pity for his frail and unsophisticated incompetency to meet the demands which his high office involved.
Clad in his monkish habit and riding on an ass, the bridle held by Charles II. and his son, Peter proceeded to Aquila, where he was crowned, only three cardinals being present. Completely under the dominance of the king, Coelestin took up his residence in Naples. Little was he able to battle with the world, to cope with the intrigues of factions, and to resist the greedy scramble for office which besets the path of those high in position. In simple confidence Coelestin gave his ear to this counsellor and to that, and yielded easily to all applicants for favors. His complaisancy to Charles is seen