Passage 1:
Vera Miletić
Vera Miletić (Serbian Cyrillic: Вера Милетић; 8 March 1920 – 7 September 1944) was a Serbian student and soldier. She was notable for being the mother of Mira Marković, posthumously making her the mother-in-law of Serbian president Slobodan Milošević.

Personal life
Her cousin was Davorjanka Paunović who was the personal secretary of Communist Party of Yugoslavia leader Josip Broz Tito.
Passage 2:
Beatrice of Provence
Beatrice of Provence (c. 1229 – 23 September 1267), was ruling Countess of Provence and Forcalquier from 1245 until her death, as well as Countess of Anjou and Maine, Queen of Sicily and Naples by marriage to Charles I of Naples.
She was the fourth and youngest daughter of Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence and Forcalquier by his wife Beatrice, in turn daughter of Count Thomas I of Savoy and Margaret of Geneva.

Life
Inheritance of Provence and Forcalquier
Beatrice, like her sisters, mother and grandmother was known for her beauty. A description of Beatrice said she

"set men's hearts thumping and the fingers of troubadours to fevered twanging of lyres. Two of the balladists at the Provencal court were temporarily deprived of reason for love of the entrancing Beatrice"
All Ramon Berenguer IV's three older daughters married to titles of status: The eldest, Margaret, was Queen of France by marriage to Louis IX; the second, Eleanor, was Queen of England by marriage to Henry III, and the third, Sanchia, was titular Queen of Germany by marriage to Henry's brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall. King Louis IX's marriage to Margaret had been arranged by his mother, Blanche of Castile, with the hopes that he would inherit Provence and Forcalquier when her father died.
In his will signed on 20 June 1238 at Sisteron, Ramon Berenguer IV unexpectedly left the Counties of Provence and Forcalquier to his youngest and still unmarried daughter, Beatrice.

Countess of Provence and Forcalquier
Ramon Berenguer IV died on 19 August 1245 at Aix-en-Provence, and according to his will, Beatrice became Countess of Provence and Forcalquier in her own right, with the provision that the Dowager Countess could retain the usufruct of the County of Provence for her lifetime.
Now, Beatrice became one of the most attractive heiresses in medieval Europe, and soon several suitors appeared for her hand. Firstly, the neighboring rulers of her domains began their claims: the twice-divorced Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse and King James I of Aragon, who, despite being married to Violant of Hungary, invaded Provence and seized the residence of the countess. In addition, the thrice-widowed Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, dispatched the imperial navy to Provence to ensure Beatrice could marry one of his sons or even himself.
In such a difficult situation, the Dowager Countess decided to act quickly, placing herself and Beatrice in a safe fortress in Aix, secured the trust of its people and then asked Pope Innocent IV for his protection. In Cluny during December 1245, a secret meeting between Pope Innocent IV, Louis IX of France, his mother Blanche of Castile, and his youngest brother Charles took place. It was decided that in return for Louis IX supporting the Pope militarily against Frederick II, the Pope would allow that Charles marry Beatrice. Mother and daughter were satisfied with this selection,  but under the terms of the treaty, Provence was to never go to France outright through Charles. It was agreed that if Charles and Beatrice had children, the Counties would go to them; if there was no issue, then the Provence and Forcalquier would go to Sanchia of Provence, and if she died without heirs, the Counties would go to the King of Aragon. Henry III of England protested these terms, arguing that he had not yet received the full dowry for his wife Eleanor nor his brother for Sanchia. He also still had the castles in Provence against the loan he had made to the late Count.Charles, along with Philip of Savoy and five hundred knights, rode from Lyon to Provence. On their way, they ran into Raymond VII of Toulouse, who also had an army on the way to Provence. Raymond VII had been deceived by knights in favour of Charles and for that reason he had brought fewer men, and Charles and his army were quicker. When Charles got to Aix-en-Provence, James I of Aragon, who had been there all along but was not allowed to see Beatrice, had his soldiers surrounding the castle in which the young Beatrice and her mother were. There was a brief struggle, but the King of Aragon retreated with dignity.To the young Beatrice, Charles (who was described as "an admirable young man") was a satisfactory resolution to her problems. Their marriage took place on 31 January 1246 at Aix-en-Provence. They had soldiers on guard and the bride was escorted down the aisle by her uncle, Thomas, Count of Flanders.
The inheritance of Beatrice also caused conflicts with her older sisters, who hoped that once their father had died, his domains would be divided between the four; Charles refused to share the Counties with his sisters-in-law. In consequence, the relationship of Charles and Beatrice with the three sisters, who felt cheated by their father's will, remained always tense.As soon as Charles became Count of Provence, he brought in his own team of French lawyers and accountants. He excluded his mother-in-law from the running of the county and began taking castles, power and fees away from the nobles who had previously enjoyed a certain degree of independence in the running of their cities. Charles made himself very unpopular. The Dowager Countess moved herself to Forcalquier in protest, and in Marseille, Charles's officials were thrown out of the city. In the family conflict, Beatrice sided with her husband.

Seventh Crusade
In May 1247, Charles and Beatrice were recorded as being in Melun, where Charles was knighted by his brother Louis. Beatrice accompanied Charles on the Seventh Crusade in 1248. Led by Louis IX, the crusaders made an extended procession through France. Before they left, Charles and Beatrice met with the Dowager Countess in Beaucaire to try to come to some terms of agreement concerning Provence. Whilst the more important matters were left until Charles and Beatrice returned, it was decided that Beatrice of Savoy would give up the rights to "the castle at Aix in exchange for a percentage of the county's revenue."In Nicosia, Beatrice gave birth to her first child, "a very elegant and wellformed son", as her brother-in-law Robert of Artois wrote home to his mother the Queen; the child lived only a few days. Beatrice stayed with her sister Margaret in Damietta, when they lost contact with the King and his army; here Beatrice gave birth to her second child, while her sister Margaret too gave birth. Later in 1250, they were reunited with the rest of the crusade at Acre, where the King's ransom was paid. Charles and Beatrice, along with several other nobles, left soon after and journeyed to the court of Emperor Frederick II, to ask him to send the King of France more men for his crusade. The Emperor, who had been excommunicated, needed his army to fight the Pope, and refused.
Beatrice and Charles returned to Provence in 1251, where some riots erupted at Arles and Avignon, instigated by Beatrice's mother, who felt Charles had failed to respect her claims in Provence. By July 1252 Charles had managed to defeat the revolt and was in the process of exercising his power as Count of Provence. In November of the same year, Blanche of Castile, regent of France while her son Louis IX was on crusade, died. Charles and Beatrice had to go to Paris, where Charles became co-regent of France with his brother, Alphonse. The Pope offered Charles the Kingdom of Sicily in 1252, but Charles had to turn the offer down, as he was preoccupied with other affairs and he also did not have sufficient funds.
The crusaders returned in 1254. Charles and Beatrice spent Christmas in Paris that year, where all of Beatrice's sisters and their mother were present; it was noted that the other four women treated the younger Beatrice coldly, due to Raymond Berenguer's will.

Queen of Sicily
Beatrice's sister Margaret, the new Queen of France, publicly offended her in 1259, by not seating her at the family table; she claimed because Beatrice was not a queen like her sisters, she could not sit with them. Margaret had hoped to provoke her sister in treacherous behaviour so she would have a valid reason to invade Provence. Beatrice "with great grief", went to Charles and he reportedly told her:

"Be at peace, for I will shortly make thee a greater Queen than them".
When the newly elected Pope Clement IV granted Charles the Kingdom of Sicily, he had to defeat King Manfred, who had fallen out of papal favour. Another contender to win the throne of Sicily was Beatrice's nephew, Edmund Crouchback, but it soon became clear that Charles was the more promising candidate. In order to achieve his goal, Charles needed an army and Beatrice helped her husband raise one. She called on all her knights as well as the young men of France, and according to the later historian Angelo di Costanzo she pledged all her jewels, to make sure they joined her husband's army:

Beatrice, to aid [Charles] in the gratification of her ambition, sold all her jewels and personal ornaments, and expended her private treasure in collecting round her standard, not only her own vassals, but the chivalric youth of France, who were attracted to her service not less by her personal solicitations than by her rich gifts.
In 1265 Charles of Anjou, with a small contingent, embarked and by sea arrived in Rome, where, on 28 June, he was invested as King of Sicily by the Pope. According to the storia di Manfredi, re di Sicilia e di Puglia of Giuseppe di Cesare who followed the narrative of the storia di Saba Malaspina, Beatrice followed her husband with the remaining army by sea, arriving to Italy only four months later. In November of that year, the army of Charles, composed by 5,000 soldiers and 25,000 infantrymen entered Italy and arrived in Rome in January 1266, where on 6 January both Charles and Beatrice were crowned King and Queen of Sicily by five cardinals sent by the Pope (who was sheltering in Perugia). As soon as the coronation festivities had ended, Beatrice stayed in Rome with a small force to hold the city, whilst Charles rode out to the battle of Benevento. After her husband's victory, she chose the castle of Melfi as their residence.

Death
Beatrice died on 23 September 1267, a little over a year after becoming queen in either the Castello del Parco at Nocera Inferiore or in Naples (according to the storia di Saba Malaspina). The cause of her death was not recorded, although it is believed that complications following a pregnancy could be the reason. She was initially buried at Cathedral of San Gennaro in Naples, but in 1277 her husband transferred her remains to Aix-en-Provence at the Church of Saint-Jean-de-Malta.Beatrice was the last ruling Countess of Provence and Forcalquier from the House of Barcelona; on her death, she left her Counties to her husband Charles.

Issue
Charles and Beatrice had the following children:

Blanche (1250 – bef. 10 January 1270), married in 1265 Robert of Flanders, Lord of Béthune and Dendermonde (he became Count Robert III in 1305, long after Blanche's death), by whom she had one son, Charles, who died young.
Beatrice (1252 – 17 November/12 December 1275), married in 1273 Philip of Courtenay, titular emperor of Constantinople, by whom she had one daughter, Catherine I of Courtenay, titular Empress of Constantinople.
Charles II (1254 – 6 May 1309), Count of Anjou and Provence, King of Naples, married Maria of Hungary, by whom he had issue.
Philippe (1256 – 1 January 1277), titular King of Thessalonica from 1274 and Prince of Achaïea, married in 1271 Isabella of Villehardouin, Princess of Achaïea and Morea.
Robert (1258 – bef. 9 May 1265).
Isabelle (1261 – October 1303), married to Ladislaus IV of Hungary. Their marriage was childless.

Ancestry
Notes
Passage 3:
Priscilla Pointer
Priscilla Marie Pointer (born May 18, 1924) is an American retired actress. She began her career in the theater in the late 1940s, including productions on Broadway. Later, Pointer moved to Hollywood and making appearances on television in the early 1950s.
She didn't however become a regular screen actress until the 1970s.
She is the mother of actress and singer Amy Irving, (whom she often appeared alongside as her mother or mother-in-law) therefore making her the former mother-in-law of filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Bruno Barreto and the mother-in-law of documentary filmmaker Kenneth Bowser, Jr.

Personal life
Pointer was born on May 18, 1924, in New York City. Her mother Augusta Leonora (née Davis) was an artist and an illustrator, and her father Kenneth Keith Pointer was an artist. One of her maternal great-grandfathers, Jacob Barrett Cohen, was from a Jewish family that had lived in the United States since the 1700s.

Marriages and family
Pointer was previously married to film and stage director Jules Irving, former artistic director of Lincoln Center, from 1947 until his death in 1979; they are the parents of Katie Irving, director David Irving, and actress Amy Irving. In 1980, she married actor/director/producer Robert Symonds, who had been Jules Irving's producing partner at Lincoln Center. She appeared several times in stage productions with Symonds, and they remained married until the latter's death in 2007. Her granddaughter is artist and photographer Austin Irving

Career
Early career
Pointer has been a performer since thee late 1940s starting her career in theatre and appearing on Broadway, and she featured in the TV series China Smith  (The New Adventures of China Smith) in 1954. After a long hiatus, she seemed to have caught the acting bug again, in the early 1970s and has been a regular performer ever since.
Pointer' first major starring role was on the TV soap opera Where the Heart Is as Adrienne Harris Rainey from 1972 and 1973

Films
Pointer has appeared in many films, including Carrie (1976), in which she played the onscreen mother of Amy Irving's character; The Onion Field (1979); Mommie Dearest (1981); Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983); A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987); David Lynch's Blue Velvet; and Coyote Moon (1999). In addition to Carrie, she has played the onscreen mother to Amy Irving in Honeysuckle Rose (1980) and Carried Away (1996). They were both in the films The Competition in 1980 and Micki & Maude in 1984.
Pointer appeared in three films that her son David Irving directed: Rumpelstiltskin (a 1987 musical version, which starred her daughter), Good-bye, Cruel World, and C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D.

Television
She has made many guest appearances on television, including Adam-12, L.A. Law, The A-Team, Judging Amy, The Rockford Files, and Cold Case.
From 1981 to 1983, Pointer had a recurring role on the soap opera Dallas as Rebecca Barnes Wentworth, the mother of Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval), Pamela Barnes Ewing (Victoria Principal), and Katherine Wentworth (Morgan Brittany).

Filmography
Film
Partial Television Credits
Passage 4:
Eldon Howard
Eldon Howard was a British screenwriter. She was the mother-in-law of Edward J. Danziger and wrote a number of the screenplays for films by his company Danziger Productions.

Selected filmography
A Woman of Mystery (1958)
Three Crooked Men (1958)
Moment of Indiscretion (1958) (with Brian Clemens)
Innocent Meeting (1959)
An Honourable Murder (1960)
The Spider's Web (1960)
The Tell-Tale Heart (1960)
Highway to Battle (1961)
Three Spare Wives (1962)
Passage 5:
Charles I of Anjou
Charles I (early 1226/1227 – 7 January 1285), commonly called Charles of Anjou or Charles d'Anjou, was a member of the royal Capetian dynasty and the founder of the second House of Anjou. He was Count of Provence (1246–1285) and Forcalquier (1246–1248, 1256–1285) in the Holy Roman Empire, Count of Anjou and Maine (1246–1285) in France; he was also King of Sicily (1266–1285) and Prince of Achaea (1278–1285). In 1272, he was proclaimed King of Albania, and in 1277 he purchased a claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
The youngest son of Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile, Charles was destined for a Church career until the early 1240s. He acquired Provence and Forcalquier through his marriage to their heiress, Beatrice. His attempts to restore central authority brought him into conflict with his mother-in-law, Beatrice of Savoy, and the nobility. Charles received Anjou and Maine from his brother, Louis IX of France, in appanage. He accompanied Louis during the Seventh Crusade to Egypt. Shortly after he returned to Provence in 1250, Charles forced three wealthy autonomous cities—Marseilles, Arles and Avignon—to acknowledge his suzerainty.
Charles supported Margaret II, Countess of Flanders and Hainaut, against her eldest son, John, in exchange for Hainaut in 1253. Two years later Louis IX persuaded him to renounce the county, but compensated him by instructing Margaret to pay him 160,000 marks. Charles forced the rebellious Provençal nobles and towns into submission and expanded his suzerainty over a dozen towns and lordships in the Kingdom of Arles. In 1263, after years of negotiations, he accepted the offer of the Holy See to seize the Kingdom of Sicily from the Hohenstaufens. This kingdom included, in addition to the island of Sicily, southern Italy to well north of Naples and was known as the Regno. Pope Urban IV declared a crusade against the incumbent Manfred of Sicily and assisted Charles in raising funds for the military campaign.
Charles was crowned king in Rome on 5 January 1266. He annihilated Manfred's army and occupied the Regno almost without resistance. His victory over Manfred's young nephew, Conradin, at the Battle of Tagliacozzo in 1268 strengthened his rule. In 1270 he took part in the Eighth Crusade organised by Louis IX, and forced the Hafsid Caliph of Tunis to pay a yearly tribute to him. Charles's victories secured his undisputed leadership among the Papacy's Italian partisans (known as Guelphs), but his influence on papal elections and his strong military presence in Italy disturbed the popes. They tried to channel his ambitions towards other territories and assisted him in acquiring claims to Achaea, Jerusalem and Arles through treaties. In 1281 Pope Martin IV authorised Charles to launch a crusade against the Byzantine Empire. Charles's ships were gathering at Messina, ready to begin the campaign when the Sicilian Vespers rebellion broke out on 30 March 1282 which put an end to Charles's rule on the island of Sicily. He was able to defend the mainland territories (or the Kingdom of Naples) with the support of France and the Holy See. Charles died while making preparations for an invasion of Sicily.

Early life
Childhood
Charles was the youngest child of King Louis VIII of France and Blanche of Castile. The date of his birth has not survived, but he was probably born posthumously in early 1227. Charles was Louis' only surviving son to be "born in the purple" (after his father's coronation), a fact he often emphasised in his youth, as the contemporaneous chronicler Matthew Paris noted in his Chronica Majora. He was the first Capetian to be named for Charlemagne.

Louis VIII died in November 1226 and his eldest son, Louis IX, succeeded him. The late King willed that his youngest sons were to be prepared for a career in the Roman Catholic Church. The details of Charles's tuition are unknown, but he received a good education. He understood the principal Catholic doctrines and could identify errors in Latin texts. His passion for poetry, medical sciences, and law is well documented.Charles later said that his mother had a strong impact on her children's education; in reality, Blanche was fully engaged in state administration, and could likely spare little time for her youngest children. Charles lived at the court of a brother, Robert I, Count of Artois, from 1237. About four years later he was put into the care of his youngest brother, Alphonse, Count of Poitiers. His participation in his brothers' military campaign against Hugh X of Lusignan, Count of La Marche, in 1242 showed that he was no longer destined for a Church career.

Provence and Anjou
Raymond Berengar V of Provence died in August 1245, bequeathing Provence and Forcalquier to his youngest daughter, Beatrice, allegedly because he had given generous dowries to her three sisters. The dowries were actually not fully discharged, causing two of her sisters, Margaret (Louis IX's wife) and Eleanor (the wife of Henry III of England), to believe that they had been unlawfully disinherited. Their mother, Beatrice of Savoy, claimed that Raymond Berengar had willed the usufruct of Provence to her.The Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II (whom Pope Innocent IV had recently excommunicated for his alleged "crimes against the Church"), Count Raymond VII of Toulouse and other neighbouring rulers proposed themselves or their sons as husbands for the young Countess. Her mother put her under the protection of the Holy See. Louis IX and Margaret suggested that Beatrice should be given in marriage to Charles. To secure the support of France against Frederick II, Pope Innocent IV accepted their proposal. Charles hurried to Aix-en-Provence at the head of an army to prevent other suitors from invading Provence, and married Beatrice on 31 January 1246. Provence was a part of the Kingdom of Arles and so of the Holy Roman Empire, but Charles never swore fealty to the emperor. He ordered a survey of the counts' rights and revenues, outraging both his subjects and his mother-in-law, who regarded this action as an attack against her rights.Being a younger child, destined for a church career, Charles had not received an appanage (a hereditary county or duchy) from his father. Louis VIII had willed that his fourth son, John, should receive Anjou and Maine upon reaching the age of majority, but John died in 1232. Louis IX knighted Charles at Melun in May 1246 and three months later bestowed Anjou and Maine on him. Charles rarely visited his two counties and appointed baillies (or regents) to administer them.While Charles was absent from Provence, Marseilles, Arles and Avignon—three wealthy cities, directly subject to the emperor—formed a league and appointed a Provençal nobleman, Barral of Baux, as the commander of their combined armies. Charles's mother-in-law put the disobedient Provençals under her protection. Charles could not deal with the rebels as he was about to join his brother's crusade. To pacify his mother-in-law he acknowledged her right to rule Forcalquier and granted a third of his revenues from Provence to her.

Seventh Crusade
In December 1244 Louis IX took a vow to lead a crusade. Ignoring their mother's strong opposition, his three brothers—Robert, Alphonse and Charles—also took the cross. Preparations for the crusade lasted for years, with the crusaders embarking at Aigues-Mortes on 25 August 1248. After spending several months in Cyprus they invaded Egypt on 5 June 1249. They captured Damietta and decided to attack Cairo in November. During their advance Louis's biographer Jean de Joinville noted Charles's personal courage which saved dozens of crusaders' lives. Robert of Artois died fighting against the Egyptians at Al Mansurah. His three brothers survived, but they had to abandon the campaign. While withdrawing from Egypt, they fell into captivity on 6 April 1250. The Egyptians released Louis, Charles and Alphonse in exchange for 800,000 bezants and the surrender of Damietta on 6 May. During their voyage to Acre, Charles outraged Louis by gambling while the king was mourning Robert's death. Louis remained in the Holy Land, but Charles returned to France in October 1250.

Wider ambitions
Conflicts and consolidation
Charles's officers continued the survey of the counts' rights and revenues in Provence, provoking a new rebellion during his absence. On his return he applied both diplomacy and military force to deal with them. The Archbishop of Arles and the Bishop of Digne ceded their secular rights in the two towns to Charles in 1250. He received military assistance from his brother, Alphonse. Arles was the first town to surrender to them in April 1251. In May they forced Avignon to acknowledge their joint rule. A month later Barral of Baux also capitulated. Marseilles was the only town to resist for several months, but it also sought peace in July 1252. Its burghers acknowledged Charles as their lord, but retained their self-governing bodies.

Charles's officials continued to ascertain his rights, visiting each town and holding public enquiries to obtain information about all claims. The count's salt monopoly (or gabelle) was introduced in the whole county. Income from the salt trade made up about 50% of state revenues by the late 1250s. Charles abolished local tolls and promoted shipbuilding and grain trade. He ordered the issue of new coins, called provencaux, to enable the use of the local currency in smaller transactions.Emperor Frederick II, who was also the ruler of Sicily, died in 1250. The Kingdom of Sicily, also known as the Regno, included the island of Sicily and southern Italy nearly as far as Rome. Pope Innocent IV claimed that the Regno had reverted to the Holy See. The Pope first offered it to Richard of Cornwall, but Richard did not want to fight against Frederick's son, Conrad IV of Germany. Then the Pope proposed to enfeoff Charles with the kingdom. Charles sought instructions from Louis IX, who forbade him to accept the offer, because he regarded Conrad as the lawful ruler. After Charles informed the Holy See on 30 October 1253 that he would not accept the Regno, the Pope offered it to Edmund of Lancaster.Queen Blanche, who had administered France during Louis' crusade, died on 1 December 1252. Louis made Alphonse and Charles co-regents, so that he could remain in the Holy Land. Margaret II, Countess of Flanders and Hainaut had come into conflict with her son by her first marriage, John of Avesnes. After her sons by her second marriage were captured in July 1253, she needed foreign assistance to secure their release. Ignoring Louis IX's 1246 ruling that Hainaut should pass to John, she promised the county to Charles. He accepted the offer and invaded Hainaut, forcing most local noblemen to swear fealty to him. After his return to France, Louis IX insisted that his ruling was to be respected. In November 1255 he ordered Charles to restore Hainaut to Margaret, but her sons were obliged to swear fealty to Charles. Louis also ruled that she was to pay 160,000 marks to Charles over the following 13 years.Charles returned to Provence, which had again become restive. His mother-in-law continued to support the rebellious Boniface of Castellane and his allies, but Louis IX persuaded her to return Forcalquier to Charles and relinquish her claims for a lump sum payment from Charles and a pension from Louis in November 1256. A coup by Charles's supporters in Marseilles resulted in the surrender of all political powers there to his officials. Charles continued to expand his power along the borders of Provence in the next four years. He received territories in the Lower Alps from the Dauphin of Vienne. Raymond I of Baux, Count of Orange, ceded the title of regent of the Kingdom of Arles to him. The burghers of Cuneo—a town strategically located on the routes from Provence to Lombardy—sought Charles's protection against Asti in July 1259. Alba, Cherasco, Savigliano and other nearby towns acknowledged his rule. The rulers of Mondovì, Ceva, Biandrate and Saluzzo did homage to him.Emperor Frederick II's illegitimate son, Manfred, had been crowned king of Sicily in 1258. After the English barons had announced that they opposed a war against Manfred, Pope Alexander IV annulled the 1253 grant of Sicily to Edmund of Lancaster. Alexander's successor, Pope Urban IV, was determined to put an end to the Emperor's rule in Italy. He sent his notary, Albert of Parma, to Paris to negotiate with Louis IX for Charles to be placed on the Sicilian throne. Charles met with the Pope's envoy in early 1262.Taking advantage of Charles's absence, Boniface of Castellane stirred up a new revolt in Provence. The burghers of Marseilles expelled Charles's officials, but Barral of Baux stopped the spread of the rebellion before Charles's return. Charles renounced Ventimiglia in favour of the Republic of Genoa to secure her neutrality. He defeated the rebels and forced Castellane into exile. The mediation of James I of Aragon brought about a settlement with Marseilles: its fortifications were dismantled and the townspeople surrendered their arms, but the town retained its autonomy.

Conquest of the Regno
Louis IX decided to support Charles's military campaign in Italy in May 1263. Pope Urban IV promised to proclaim a crusade against Manfred, while Charles pledged that he would not accept any offices in the Italian towns. Manfred staged a coup in Rome, but the Guelphs elected Charles senator (or the head of the civil government of Rome). He accepted the office, at which a group of cardinals requested that the Pope revoke the agreement with him, but the Pope, being otherwise defenceless against Manfred, could not break with Charles.In the spring of 1264 Cardinals Simon of Brie and Guy Foulquois were sent to France to reach a compromise and start raising support for the crusade. Charles sent troops to Rome to protect the Pope against Manfred's allies. At Foulquois' request, Charles's sister-in-law Margaret (who had not abandoned her claims to her dowry) pledged that she would not take actions against Charles during his absence. Foulquois also persuaded the French and Provençal prelates to offer financial support for the crusade. Pope Urban died before the final agreement was concluded. Charles made arrangements for his campaign against Sicily during the interregnum; he concluded agreements to secure his army's route across Lombardy and had the leaders of the Provençal rebels executed.Foulquois was elected pope in February 1265; he soon confirmed Charles's senatorship and urged him to come to Rome. Charles agreed that he would hold the Kingdom of Sicily as the popes' vassal for an annual tribute of 8,000 ounces of gold. He also promised that he would never seek the imperial title. He embarked at Marseilles on 10 May and landed at Ostia ten days later. He was installed as senator on 21 June and four cardinals invested him with the Regno a week later. To finance further military actions he borrowed money from Italian bankers with the Pope's assistance, who had authorised him to pledge Church property. Five cardinals crowned him king of Sicily on 5 January 1266. The crusaders from France and Provence—reportedly 6,000 fully equipped mounted warriors, 600 mounted bowmen and 20,000 foot soldiers—arrived in Rome ten days later.

Charles decided to invade southern Italy without delay, because he was unable to finance a lengthy campaign. He left Rome on 20 January 1266. He marched towards Naples, but changed his strategy after learning of a muster of Manfred's forces near Capua. He led his troops across the Apennines towards Benevento. Manfred also hurried to the town and reached it before Charles. Worried that further delays might endanger his subjects' loyalty, Manfred attacked Charles's army, then in disarray from the crossing of the hills, on 26 February 1266. In the ensuing battle, Manfred's army was defeated and he was killed.Resistance throughout the Regno collapsed and towns surrendered even before Charles's troops reached them. The Saracens of Lucera – a Muslim colony established during Frederick II's reign – paid homage to him. His commander, Philip of Montfort, took control of the island of Sicily. Manfred's widow, Helena of Epirus, and their children were captured. Charles laid claim to her dowry – the island of Corfu and the region of Durazzo (now Durrës in Albania) – by right of conquest. His troops seized Corfu before the end of the year.

Conradin
Charles was lenient with Manfred's supporters, but they did not believe that this conciliatory policy could last. They knew that he had promised to return estates to the Guelph lords expelled from the Regno. Neither could Charles gain the commoners' loyalty, partly because he continued enforcing the subventio generalis despite the popes declaring it an illegal charge. He introduced a ban on the use of foreign currency in large transactions and made a profit of the compulsory exchange of foreign coinage for locally minted currency. He also traded in grain, spices and sugar, through a joint venture with Pisan merchants.Pope Clement censured Charles for his methods of state administration, describing him as an arrogant and obstinate monarch. The consolidation of Charles's power in northern Italy also alarmed Clement. To appease the Pope, Charles resigned his senatorship in May 1267. His successors, Conrad Monaldeschi and Luca Savelli, demanded the re-payment of the money that Charles and the Pope had borrowed from the Romans.Victories by the Ghibellines, the imperial family's supporters, forced the Pope to ask Charles to send his troops to Tuscany. Charles's troops ousted the Ghibellines from Florence in April 1267. After being elected the Podestà (ruler) of Florence and Lucca for seven years, Charles hurried to Tuscany. Charles's expansionism along the Papal States's borders alarmed Pope Clement and he decided to change the direction of Charles's ambitions. The Pope summoned him to Viterbo, forcing him to promise that he would abandon all claims to Tuscany in three years. He persuaded Charles to conclude agreements with William of Villehardouin, Prince of Achaea, and the titular Latin Emperor Baldwin II in late May. According to the first treaty, Villehardouin acknowledged Charles's suzerainty and made Charles's younger son, Philip, his heir, also stipulating that Charles would inherit Achaea if Philip died childless. Baldwin confirmed the first agreement and renounced his claims to suzerainty over his vassals in favour of Charles. Charles pledged that he would assist Baldwin in recapturing Constantinople from the Byzantine emperor, Michael VIII Palaiologos, in exchange for one third of the conquered lands.

Charles returned to Tuscany and laid siege to the fortress of Poggibonsi, but it did not fall until the end of November. Manfred's staunchest supporters had meanwhile fled to Bavaria to attempt to persuade Conrad IV's 15-year-old son Conradin to assert his hereditary right to the Kingdom of Sicily. After Conradin accepted their proposal, Manfred's former vicar in Sicily, Conrad Capece, returned to the island and stirred up a revolt. At Capece's request Muhammad I al-Mustansir, the Hafsid caliph of Tunis, allowed Manfred's former ally, Frederick of Castile, to invade Sicily from North Africa. Frederick's brother, Henry—who had been elected senator of Rome—also offered support to Conradin. Henry had been Charles's friend, but Charles had failed to repay a loan to him.Conradin left Bavaria in September 1267. His supporters' revolt was spreading from Sicily to Calabria; the Saracens of Lucera also rose up. Pope Clement urged Charles to return to the Regno, but he continued his campaign in Tuscany until March 1268, when he met with the Pope. In April, the Pope made Charles imperial vicar of Tuscany "during the vacancy of the empire", a move of dubious legality. Charles marched to southern Italy and laid siege to Lucera, but he then had to hurry north to prevent Conradin's invasion of Abruzzo in late August. At the Battle of Tagliacozzo, on 23 August 1268, it appeared that Conradin had won the day, but a sudden charge by Charles's reserve routed Conradin's army.The burghers of Potenza, Aversa and other towns in Basilicata and Apulia massacred their fellows who had agitated on Conradin's behalf, but the Sicilians and the Saracens of Lucera did not surrender. Charles marched to Rome where he was again elected senator in September. He appointed new officials to administer justice and collect state revenues. New coins bearing his name were struck. During the following decade, Rome was ruled by Charles's vicars, each appointed for one year.Conradin was captured at Torre Astura. Most of his retainers were summarily executed, but Conradin and his friend, Frederick I, Margrave of Baden, were brought to trial for robbery and treason in Naples. They were sentenced to death and beheaded on 29 October. Conrad of Antioch was Conradin's only partisan to be released, but only after his wife threatened to execute the Guelph lords she held captive in her castle. The Ghibelline noblemen of the Regno fled to the court of Peter III of Aragon, who had married Manfred's daughter, Constance.

Mediterranean empire
Italy
Charles's wife, Beatrice of Provence, had died in July 1267. The widowed Charles married Margaret of Nevers in November 1268. She was co-heiress to her father, Odo, the eldest son of Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy. Pope Clement died on 29 November 1268. The papal vacancy lasted for three years, which strengthened Charles's authority in Italy, but it also deprived him of the ecclesiastic support that only a pope could provide.Charles returned to Lucera to personally direct its siege in April 1269. The Saracens and the Ghibellines who had escaped to the town resisted until starvation forced them to surrender in August 1269. Charles sent Philip and Guy of Montfort to Sicily to force the rebels there into submission, but they could only capture Augusta. Charles made William l'Estandart the commander of the army in Sicily in August 1269. L'Estandart captured Agrigento, forcing Frederick of Castile and Frederick Lancia to seek refuge in Tunis. After L'Estandart's subsequent victory at Sciacca, only Capece resisted, but he also had to surrender in early 1270.Charles's troops forced Siena and Pisa—the last towns to resist him in Tuscany—to sue for peace in August 1270. He granted privileges to the Tuscan merchants and bankers which strengthened their position in the Regno. His influence was declining in Lombardy, because the Lombard towns no longer feared an invasion from Germany after Conradin's death. In May 1269 Charles sent Walter of La Roche to represent him in the province, but this failed to strengthen his authority. In October Charles's officials convoked an assembly at Cremona, and invited the Lombard towns to attend. The Lombard towns accepted the invitation, but some towns—Milan, Bologna, Alessandria and Tortona—only confirmed their alliance with Charles, without acknowledging his rule.

Eighth Crusade
Louis IX never abandoned the idea of the liberation of Jerusalem, but he decided to begin his new crusade with a military campaign against Tunis. According to his confessor, Geoffrey of Beaulieu, Louis was convinced that al-Mustansir of Tunis was ready to convert to Christianity. The 13th-century historian Saba Malaspina stated that Charles persuaded Louis to attack Tunis, because he wanted to secure the payment of the tribute that the rulers of Tunis had paid to the former Sicilian monarchs.The French crusaders embarked at Aigues-Mortes on 2 July 1270; Charles departed from Naples six days later. He spent more than a month in Sicily, waiting for his fleet. By the time he landed at Tunis on 25 August, dysentery and typhoid fever had decimated the French army. Louis died the day Charles arrived.The crusaders twice defeated Al-Mustansir's army, forcing him to sue for peace. According to the peace treaty, signed on 1 November, Al-Mustansir agreed to fully compensate Louis' son and successor, Philip III of France, and Charles for the expenses of the military campaign and to release his Christian prisoners. He also promised to pay a yearly tribute to Charles and to expel Charles's opponents from Tunis. The gold from Tunis, along with silver from the newly opened mine at Longobucco, enabled Charles to mint new coins, known as carlini, in the Regno.Charles and Philip departed Tunis on 10 November. A storm dispersed their fleet at Trapani and most of Charles's galleys were lost or damaged. Genoese ships returning from the crusade were also sunk or forced to land in Sicily. Charles seized the damaged ships and their cargo, ignoring all protests from the Ghibelline authorities of Genoa. Before leaving Sicily he granted temporary tax concessions to the Sicilians, because he realised that the conquest of the island had caused much destruction.

Attempts to expand
Charles accompanied Philip III as far as Viterbo in March 1271. Here they failed to convince the cardinals to elect a new pope. Charles's brother, Alphonse of Poitiers, fell ill. Charles sent his best doctors to cure him, but Alphonse died. He claimed the major part of Alphonse's inheritance, including the Marquisate of Provence and the County of Poitiers, because he was Alphonse's nearest kin. After Philip III objected, he took the case to the Parlement of Paris. In 1284 the court ruled that appanages escheated to the French crown if their rulers died without descendants.

An earthquake destroyed the walls of Durazzo in the late 1260s or early 1270s. Charles's troops took possession of the town with the assistance of the leaders of the nearby Albanian communities. Charles concluded an agreement with the Albanian chiefs, promising to protect them and their ancient liberties in February 1272. He adopted the title of King of Albania and appointed Gazzo Chinardo as his vicar-general. He also sent his fleet to Achaea to defend the principality against Byzantine attacks.Charles hurried to Rome to attend the enthronement of Pope Gregory X on 27 March 1272. The new pope was determined to put an end to the conflicts between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. While in Rome Charles met with the Guelph leaders who had been exiled from Genoa. After they offered him the office of captain of the people, Charles promised military assistance to them. In November 1272 Charles commanded his officials to take prisoner all Genoese within his territories, except for the Guelphs, and to seize their property. His fleet occupied Ajaccio in Corsica. Pope Gregory condemned his aggressive policy, but proposed that the Genoese should elect Guelph officials. Ignoring the Pope's proposal, the Genoese made alliance with Alfonso X of Castile, William VII of Montferrat and the Ghibelline towns of Lombardy in October 1273.The conflict with Genoa prevented Charles from invading the Byzantine Empire, but he continued to forge alliances in the Balkan Peninsula. The Bulgarian ruler, Konstantin Tih, was the first to conclude a treaty with him in 1272 or 1273. John I Doukas of Thessaly and Stefan Uroš I, King of Serbia, joined the coalition in 1273. However, Pope Gregory forbade Charles to attack, because he hoped to unify the Orthodox and Catholic churches with the assistance of Emperor Michael VIII.The renowned theologian Thomas Aquinas died unexpectedly near Naples on 7 March 1274, before departing to attend the Second Council of Lyon. According to a popular legend, immortalised by Dante Alighieri, Charles had him poisoned, because he feared that Aquinas would make complaint against him. The historian Steven Runciman emphasises that "there is no evidence for supposing that the great doctor's death was not natural". Southern Italian churchmen at the council accused Charles of tyrannical acts. Their report reinforced the Pope's attempt to reach a compromise with Rudolf of Habsburg, who had been elected king of Germany by the prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire. In June, the Pope acknowledged Rudolf as the lawful ruler of both Germany and Italy. Charles's sisters-in-law, Margaret and Eleanor, approached Rudolf, claiming that they had been unlawfully disinherited in favour of Charles's late wife.Michael VIII's personal envoy announced at the Council of Lyon on 6 July that he had accepted the Catholic creed and papal primacy. About three weeks later, Pope Gregory again prohibited Charles from launching military actions against the Byzantine Empire. The Pope also tried to mediate a truce between Charles and Michael, but the latter chose to attack several smaller states in the Balkans, including Charles's vassals. The Byzantine fleet took control of the maritime routes between Albania and southern Italy in the late 1270s. Gregory only allowed Charles to send reinforcements to Achaea. The organisation of a new crusade to the Holy Land remained the Pope's principal object. He persuaded Charles to start negotiations with Maria of Antioch about purchasing her claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The High Court of Jerusalem had already rejected her in favour of Hugh III of Cyprus, but the Pope had a low opinion of Hugh.The war with Genoa and the Lombard towns increasingly occupied Charles's attention. He appointed his nephew Robert II of Artois as his deputy in Piedmont in October 1274, but Artois could not prevent Vercelli and Alessandria from joining the Ghibelline League. The following summer, a Genoese fleet plundered Trapani and the island of Gozo. Convinced that only Rudolf I could achieve a compromise between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Pope urged the Lombard towns to send envoys to him. He also urged Charles to renounce Tuscany. In the autumn of 1275 the Ghibellines offered to make peace with Charles, but he did not accept their terms. Early the next year the Ghibellines defeated his troops at Col de Tende, forcing them to withdraw to Provence.

Papal elections
Pope Gregory X died on 10 January 1276. After the hostility he experienced during Gregory's pontificate, Charles was determined to secure the election of a pope willing to support his plans. Gregory's successor, Pope Innocent V, had always been Charles's partisan and he rapidly confirmed Charles as senator of Rome and imperial vicar of Tuscany. He also mediated a peace treaty between Charles and Genoa, which was signed in Rome on 22 June 1276. Charles restored the privileges of the Genoese merchants and renounced his conquests, and the Genoese acknowledged his rule in Ventimiglia.Pope Innocent died on 30 June 1276. After the cardinals assembled in the Lateran Palace, Charles's troops surrounded it, enabling only his allies to communicate with other cardinals and with outsiders. On 11 July the cardinals elected Charles's old friend, Ottobuono de' Fieschi, pope, but he died on 18 August. The cardinals met again, this time at Viterbo. Although Charles was staying in the nearby Vetralla, he could not directly influence the election, because his vehement opponent, Cardinal Giovanni Gaetano Orsini, dominated the papal conclave. Pope John XXI, who was elected on 20 September, excommunicated Charles's opponents in Piedmont and prohibited Rudolf from coming to Lombardy, but did not forbid the Lombardian Guelph leaders swearing fealty to Rudolf. The Pope also confirmed the treaty concluded by Charles and Maria of Antioch on 18 March which transferred her claims to Jerusalem to Charles for 1,000 bezants and a pension of 4,000 livres tournois.Charles appointed Roger of San Severino to administer the Kingdom of Jerusalem as his bailiff. San Severino landed at Acre on 7 June 1277. Hugh III's bailiff, Balian of Arsuf, surrendered the town without resistance. Although initially only the Knights Hospitaller and the Venetians acknowledged Charles as the lawful ruler, the barons of the realm also paid homage to San Severino in January 1278, after he had threatened to confiscate their estates. The Mamluks of Egypt had already confined the kingdom to a coastal strip covering 2,600 km2 (1,000 square miles) and Charles had ordered San Severino to avoid conflicts with Egypt.Pope John died on 20 May 1277. Charles was ill and could not prevent the election of Giovanni Gaetano Orsini as Pope Nicholas III on 25 November. The Pope soon declared that no foreign prince could rule in Rome and reminded Charles that he had been elected senator for ten years. Charles swore fealty to the new pope on 24 May 1278 after lengthy negotiations. He had to pledge that he would renounce both the senatorship of Rome and the vicariate of Tuscany in four months. On the other hand, Nicholas III confirmed the excommunication of Charles's enemies in Piedmont and started negotiations with Rudolf to prevent him from making an alliance against Charles with Margaret of Provence and her nephew, Edward I of England. The negotiations with Rudolf lay behind Nicholas' refusal to renew Charles's vicariate in Tuscany, to which Rudolf had appointed his own vicar.Charles announced his resignation from the senatorship and the vicariate on 30 August 1278. He was succeeded by the Pope's brother, Matteo Orsini, in Rome, and by the Pope's nephew, Cardinal Latino Malabranca, in Tuscany. To ensure that Charles fully abandoned his ambitions in central Italy the Pope started negotiations with Rudolf about the restoration of the Kingdom of Arles for Charles's grandson, Charles Martel. Margaret of Provence sharply opposed the plan, but Philip III of France did not stand by his mother. After lengthy negotiations, in the summer of 1279 Rudolf recognised Charles as the lawful ruler of Provence without demanding his oath of fealty. An agreement about Charles Martel's rule in Arles and his marriage to Rudolf's daughter, Clemence, was signed in May 1280. The plan disturbed the rulers of the lands along the Upper Rhone, especially Duke Robert II and Count Otto IV of Burgundy.Charles had meanwhile inherited the Principality of Achaea from William II of Villehardouin, who had died on 1 May 1278. He appointed the unpopular senechal of Sicily, Galeran of Ivry, as his baillif in Achaea. Galeran could not pay his troops who started to pillage the peasants' homes. John I de la Roche, Duke of Athens, had to lend money to him to finance their salaries. Nicephoros I of Epirus acknowledged Charles's suzerainty on 14 March 1279 to secure his assistance against the Byzantines. Nicephoros also ceded three towns—Butrinto, Sopotos and Panormos—to Charles.Pope Nicholas died on 22 August 1280. Charles sent agents to Viterbo to promote the election of one of his supporters, taking advantage of the rift between the late Pope's relatives and other Italian cardinals. When a riot broke out in Viterbo, after the cardinals had not reached a decision for months, Charles's troops took control of the town. On 22 February 1281 his staunchest supporter, Simon of Brie, was elected pope. Pope Martin IV dismissed his predecessor's relatives and made Charles the senator of Rome again. Guido I da Montefeltro rose up against the Pope, but Charles's troops under Jean d'Eppe stopped the spread of the rebellion at Forlì. Charles also sent an army to Piedmont, but Thomas I, Marquess of Saluzzo, annihilated it at Borgo San Dalmazzo in May.

End of the Church union
Pope Martin excommunicated Emperor Michael VIII on 10 April 1281 because the Emperor had not imposed the Church union in his empire. The Pope soon authorised Charles to invade the empire. Charles's vicar in Albania, Hugh of Sully, had already laid siege to the Byzantine fortress of Berat. A Byzantine army of relief under Michael Tarchaneiotes and John Synadenos arrived in March 1281. Sully was ambushed and captured, his army put to flight and the interior of Albania was lost to the Byzantines. On 3 July 1281 Charles and his son-in-law, Philip of Courtenay, the titular Latin emperor, made an alliance with Venice "for the restoration of the Roman Empire". They decided to start a full-scale campaign early the next year.Margaret of Provence called Robert and Otto of Burgundy and other lords who held fiefs in the Kingdom of Arles to a meeting at Troyes in the autumn of 1281. They were willing to unite their troops to prevent Charles's army from taking possession of the kingdom, but Philip III of France strongly opposed his mother's plan and Edward I of England would not promise any assistance to them. Charles acknowledged that his wife held the County of Tonnerre and her other inherited estates as a Burgundian fief, which appeased Robert of Burgundy. Charles's ships started to assemble at Marseilles to sail up the Rhone in the spring of 1282. Another fleet was gathering at Messina to start the crusade against the Byzantine Empire.

The empire's collapse
Sicilian Vespers
Always in need of funds, Charles could not cancel the subventio generalis, although it was the most unpopular tax in the Regno. Instead he granted exemptions to individuals and communities, especially to the French and Provençal colonists, which increased the burden on those who did not enjoy such privileges. The yearly, or occasionally more frequent, obligatory exchange of the deniers—the coins almost exclusively used in local transactions—was also an important, and unpopular, source of revenue for the royal treasury. Charles took out forced loans whenever he needed "immediately a large sum of money for certain arduous and pressing business", as he explained in one of his decrees.Purveyances, the requisitioning of goods, increased the unpopularity of Charles's government in southern Italy and Sicily. His subjects were also liable to be forced to guard prisoners or lodge soldiers in their homes. The restoration of old fortresses, bridges and aqueducts and the building of new castles required the employment of craftsmen, although most of them were unwilling to participate in such lengthy projects. Thousands of people were forced to serve in the army in foreign lands, especially after 1279. Trading in salt was declared a royal monopoly. In December 1281, Charles again ordered the collection of the subventio generalis, requiring the payment of 150% of the customary amount.Charles did not pay attention to the island of Sicily, although it had been the centre of resistance against him in 1268. He transferred the capital from Palermo to Naples. He did not visit the island after 1271, preventing Sicilians from directly informing him of their grievances. Sicilian noblemen were seldom employed as royal officials, although he often appointed their southern Italian peers to represent him in his other realms. Furthermore, having seized large estates on the island in the late 1260s Charles almost exclusively employed French and Provençal clerics to administer them.Popular stories credited John of Procida—Manfred of Sicily's former chancellor—with staging an international plot against Charles. Legend says that he visited Constantinople, Sicily and Viterbo in disguise in 1279 and 1280 to convince Michael VIII, the Sicilian barons and Pope Nicholas III to support a revolt. On the other hand, Michael VIII would later claim that he "was God's instrument in bringing freedom to the Sicilians" in his memoirs. The Emperor's wealth enabled him to send money to the discontented Sicilian barons. Peter III of Aragon decided to lay claim to the Kingdom of Sicily in late 1280: he did not hide his disdain when he met with Charles's son, Charles, Duke of Salerno, in Toulouse in December 1280. He began to assemble a fleet, ostensibly for another crusade to Tunis.Rioting broke out in Sicily after a burgher of Palermo killed a drunken French soldier who had insulted his wife before the Church of the Holy Spirit on Easter Monday (30 March), 1282. When the soldier's comrades attacked the murderer, the mob turned against them and started to massacre all the French in the town. The riot, known since the 16th century as the Sicilian Vespers, developed into an uprising and most of Charles's officials were killed or forced to flee the island. Charles ordered the transfer of soldiers and ships from Achaea to Sicily, but could not stop the spread of the revolt to Calabria. San Severino also had to return to Italy, accompanied by the major part of the garrison at Acre. Odo Poilechien, who succeeded him in Acre, had limited authority.The burghers of the major Sicilian towns established communes which sent delegates to Pope Martin, asking him to take them under the protection of the Holy See. Instead of accepting their offer, the Pope excommunicated the rebels on 7 May. Charles issued an edict on 10 June, accusing his officials of having ignored his instructions on good administration, but he failed to promise fundamental changes. In July he sailed to Sicily and laid siege to Messina.

War with Aragon
Peter III of Aragon's envoy, William of Castelnou, started negotiations with the rebels' leaders in Palermo. Realizing that they could not resist without foreign support, they acknowledged Peter and Constance as their king and queen. They appointed envoys to accompany Castelnou to Collo where the Aragonese fleet was assembling. After a short hesitation, Peter decided to intervene on the rebels' behalf and sailed to Sicily. He was declared king of Sicily at Palermo on 4 September. Thereafter two realms, each ruled by a monarch styled king (or queen) of Sicily, coexisted for more than a century, with Charles and his successors ruling in southern Italy (known as the Kingdom of Naples) while Peter and his descendants ruled the island of Sicily.In the face of the Aragonese landing, Charles was compelled to withdraw from the island, but the Aragonese moved swiftly and destroyed part of his army and most of his baggage. Peter took control of the whole island and sent troops to Calabria, but they could not prevent Charles of Salerno from leading an army of 600 French knights to join his father at Reggio Calabria. Further French troops arrived under the command of Charles's nephews, Robert II of Artois and Peter of Alençon, in November. In the same month, the Pope excommunicated Peter.Neither Peter nor Charles could afford to wage a lengthy war. Charles made an astonishing proposal in late December 1282, challenging Peter to a judicial duel. Peter insisted that the war should be continued, but agreed that a battle between the two kings, each accompanied by 100 knights, should decide the possession of Sicily. The duel was set to take place at Bordeaux on 1 June 1283, but they did not fix the hour. Charles appointed Charles of Salerno to administer the Regno during his absence. To secure the loyalty of the local lords in Achaea, he made one of their peers, Guy of Dramelay, baillif. Pope Martin declared the war against the Sicilians a crusade on 13 January 1283. Charles met with the Pope in Viterbo on 9 March, but he ignored the Pope's ban on his duel with Peter of Aragon. After visiting Provence and Paris in April, he left for Bordeaux to meet with Peter. The duel turned into a farce; the two kings each arriving at different times on the same day, declaring a victory over their absent opponent, and departing.Skirmishes and raids continued to occur in southern Italy. Aragonese guerrillas attacked Catona and killed Peter of Alençon in January 1283; the Aragonese seized Reggio Calabria in February; and the Sicilian admiral, Roger of Lauria, annihilated a newly raised Provençal fleet at Malta in April. However, tensions arose between the Aragonese and the Sicilians and in May 1283 one of the leaders of the anti-Angevin rebellion, Walter of Caltagirone, was executed for his secret correspondence with Charles's agents. Pope Martin declared the war against Aragon a crusade and conferred the kingdom upon Philip III of France's son, Charles of Valois, on 2 February 1284.Charles started to raise new troops and a fleet in Provence, and instructed his son, Charles of Salerno, to maintain a defensive posture until his return. Roger of Lauria based a small squadron on the island of Nisida to blockade Naples in May 1284. Charles of Salerno attempted to destroy the squadron, but most of his fleet was captured, and he himself was taken prisoner after a short, sharp fight on 5 June. News of the reverse caused a riot in Naples, but the papal legate, Gerard of Parma, crushed it with the assistance of local noblemen. Charles learnt of the disaster when he landed at Gaeta on 6 June. He was furious at Charles of Salerno and his disobedience. He allegedly stated that "Who loses a fool loses nothing", referring to his son's capture.Charles left Naples for Calabria on 24 June 1284. A large army—reportedly 10,000 mounted warriors and 40,000 foot-soldiers—accompanied him as far as Reggio Calabria. He laid siege to the town by sea and land in late July. His fleet approached the coast of Sicily, but his troops could not land in the island. After Lauria landed troops near Reggio Calabria, Charles had to lift the siege and retreat from Calabria on 3 August.

Death
Charles went to Brindisi and made preparations for a campaign against Sicily in the new year. He dispatched orders to his officials for the collection of the subventio generalis. However, he fell seriously ill before travelling to Foggia on 30 December. He made his last will on 6 January 1285, appointing Robert II of Artois regent for his grandson, Charles Martel, who was to rule his realms until Charles of Salerno was released. He died in the morning of 7 January. He was buried in a marble sepulchre in Naples, but his heart was placed at the Couvent Saint-Jacques in Paris. His corpse was moved to a chapel of the newly built Naples Cathedral in 1296.

Family
All records show that Charles was a faithful husband and a caring father. His first wife, Beatrice of Provence, gave birth to at least six children. According to contemporaneous gossips, she persuaded Charles to claim the Kingdom of Sicily, because she wanted to wear a crown like her sisters. Before she died in July 1267, she had willed the usufruct of Provence to Charles.
Blanche, the eldest daughter of Charles and Beatrice, became the wife of Robert of Béthune in 1265, but she died four years later.
Beatrice, her younger sister, married Philip, the titular Latin emperor, in 1273.
Charles II, Charles's eldest son and namesake was granted the Principality of Salerno in 1272. Charles the Lame (as he was called) and his wife, Maria of Hungary, had fourteen children, which secured the survival of the Capetian House of Anjou.
Philip, Charles and Beatrice's next son, was elected king of Sardinia by the local Guelphs in 1269, but without the pope's consent. He died childless in 1278.
Robert, Charles's third son, died in 1265.
Elisabeth, Charles's youngest daughter, was given in marriage to the future Ladislaus IV of Hungary in 1269, but Ladislaus preferred his mistresses to her.The widowed Charles first proposed himself to Margaret of Hungary. However, Margaret, who had been brought up in a Dominican nunnery, did not want to marry. According to legend, she disfigured herself to prevent the marriage. Charles and his second wife, Margaret of Nevers, had several children, but none survived to adulthood.

Legacy
The works of two 13th-century historians, Bartholomaeus of Neocastro and Saba Malaspina, strongly influenced modern views about Charles, although they were biased. The former described Charles as a tyrant to justify the Sicilian Vespers, the latter argued for the cancellation of the crusade against Aragon in 1285. Charles had continued his imperial predecessors' policies in several fields, including coinage, taxation, and the employment of unpopular officials from Amalfi. Nevertheless, the monarchy underwent a "Frenchification" or "Provençalistion" during his reign. He donated estates in the Regno to about 700 noblemen from France or Provence. He did not adopt the rich ceremonial robes, inspired by Byzantine and Islamic art, of earlier Sicilian kings, but dressed like other western European monarchs, or as "a simple knight", as it was observed by the chronicler Thomas Tuscus who visited Naples in 1267.

Around 1310, the Florentine historian, Giovanni Villani, stated that Charles had been the most powerful Christian monarch in the late 1270s. Luchetto Gattilusio, a Genoese poet, compared Charles directly with Charlemagne. Both reports demonstrate that Charles was regarded almost as an emperor. Among modern historians, Runciman says that Charles tried to build an empire in the eastern Mediterraneum; Gérard Sivéry writes that he wanted to dominate the west; and Jean Dunbabin argues that his "agglomeration of lands was in the process of forming an empire".The historian Hiroshi Takayama concludes that Charles's dominion "was too large to control". Nevertheless, economic links among his realms strengthened during his reign. Provençal salt was transported to his other lands, grain from the Regno was sold in Achaea, Albania, Acre and Tuscany, and Tuscan merchants settled in Anjou, Maine, Sicily and Naples. His highest-ranking officials were transferred from their homelands to represent him in other territories: his senechals in Provence were from Anjou; French and Provençal noblemen held the highest offices in the Regno; and he chose his vicars in Rome from among southern Italian and Provençal nobles. Although his empire collapsed before his death, his son retained southern Italy and Provence.Charles always emphasised his royal rank, but did not adopt "imperial rhetoric". His renowned justiciar, Marino de Caramanico, developed a new political theory. Traditional interpretators of Roman law were convinced that the Holy Roman Emperors had a monopoly on law-making. In contrast with them, Caramanico stated that an emperor could not claim sovereignty over a king and emphasised Charles full competence to issue decrees. To promote legal education Charles paid high salaries—20–50 ounces of gold in a year—to masters of law at the University of Naples. Masters of medicine received similar remunerations, and the university became a principal centre of medical science. Charles's personal interest in medicine grew during his life and he borrowed Arabic medical texts from the rulers of Tunis to have them translated. He employed at least one Jewish scholar, Moses of Palermo, who could translate texts from Arabic to Latin. Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi's medical encyclopaedia, known as Kitab al-Hawi, was one of the books translated at Charles's order.Charles was also a poet, which distinguished him from his Capetian relatives. He composed love songs and a jeu-parti (the latter with Pierre d'Angicourt). He was requested to judge two poetic competitions in his youth, but modern scholars do not esteem his poetry. The Provençal troubadours were mostly critical when writing of Charles, but French poets were willing to praise him. Bertran d'Alamanon wrote a poem against the salt tax and Raimon de Tors de Marseilha rebuked Charles for invading the Regno. The trouvère Adam de la Halle dedicated an unfinished epic poem, entitled The King of Sicily, to Charles and Jean de Meun glorified his victories in the Romance of the Rose. Dante described Charles—"who bears a manly nose"—singing peacefully together with his one-time rival, Peter III of Aragon, in Purgatory.Charles also showed interest in architecture. He designed a tower in Brindisi, but it soon collapsed. He ordered the erection of the Castel Nuovo in Naples, of which only the palatine chapel survives. He is also credited with the introduction of French-style glassed windows in southern Italy.

Notes
Passage 6:
Marian Shields Robinson
Marian Lois Robinson (née Shields; born July 29, 1937) is the mother of Michelle Obama, former First Lady of the United States, and Craig Robinson, a basketball executive. She is the mother-in-law of 44th U.S. President Barack Obama.

Ancestry and early life
Marian Shields was born in Chicago in 1937, the fourth of seven children—five girls, followed by two boys—born to Purnell Nathaniel Shields, a house painter and carpenter, and his wife Rebecca Jumper, a licensed practical nurse. Both parents had multi-racial ancestry. Her mother's grandfather, Dolphus T. Shields (c. 1860–1950), was a direct descendant of slavery, with his mother a slave and his white father the heir of the slaveowner; he had moved from rural Georgia to Birmingham, Alabama, where he established his own carpentry and tool sharpening business. His descendants would eventually move to Chicago during the Great Migration.

Personal life
Shields married Fraser Robinson III on October 27, 1960, in Chicago. They had two children together, Craig Malcolm and Michelle LaVaughn, named after Fraser's mother. She worked as a secretary for mail-order retailer Spiegel, the University of Chicago, and a bank. In the late 60's, Shields lived with her family in a rented second floor apartment of a brick bungalow the South Side of Chicago that belonged to her aunt Robbie and her husband Terry. This is where she raised her two children, Michelle and Craig, and continued to live until she eventually moved to the White House with the Obamas. Michelle Obama, in her book Becoming, describes her mother's strong attachment to her Chicago home and her commitment to raising her children as a stay at home mother. Shields resumed work as an executive assistant at a bank when her daughter Michelle started high school.

Relationship with Michelle Obama
Michelle describes her mother as forthright and honest, and speaks of her implacability and her silent support as a child and beyond. Shields used to take her daughter Michelle to the library long before she started school and used to sit beside her as she learned to read and write. Usually the kind of mother who expected her children to settle their own disputes, Shields was quick to see real distress and stepped in to help when needed. For example, when Michelle was in second grade and was distressed because of being devalued by a teacher, Shields advocated for her and was instrumental in getting her daughter better learning opportunities at school. Shields encouraged her children to communicate with her about all subjects by being available when needed and giving practical advice. She entertained Michelle's school friends when they visited and enabled her to make her own choices in important matters.

Obama campaign and life in the White House
While Michelle and Barack Obama campaigned for his candidacy as president in 2008, Robinson helped them by providing support to her granddaughters, Malia and Sasha Obama. During Barack Obama's presidency, Robinson was living at the White House with the First Family.