HOME
*





Eleanor Of Anjou
Eleanor of Anjou (August 1289 – 9 August 1341) was Queen of Sicily as the wife of King Frederick II of Sicily. She was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou by birth. She was the third daughter of King Charles II of Naples and Mary of Hungary. Eleanor was firstly married in 1299 to Philippe II de Toucy, son of Narjot de Toucy, Lord of Laterza, and Lucia of Tripoli. Their marriage was dissolved on 17 January 1300 by Pope Boniface VIII because they were related and had not sought permission from the pope to marry. On 17 May 1302, Eleanor married secondly to the King of Sicily, Frederick II. Her father and her new husband had been engaged in a war for ascendancy in the Mediterranean Sea and especially Sicily and the Mezzogiorno. The marriage was part of a diplomatic effort to establish peaceful relations which would lead to the Peace of Caltabellotta (19 August 1302). The peace divided the old Kingdom of Sicily into an island portion and a peninsular portion. The island, cal ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


List Of Sicilian Consorts
This is a list of consorts of the Kingdom of Sicily. Many Kings of Sicily had more than one wife; they may have divorced their wife or she might have died. Countesses of Sicily House of Hauteville, 1130–1198 Queens consort of Sicily House of Hauteville, 1130–1198 House of Hohenstaufen, 1194–1266 Capetian House of Anjou, 1266–1282 House of Barcelona, 1282–1410 House of Trastamara, 1412–1516 Consorts of Claimants against John II, 1462–1472 During the War against John II, there were three who claimed his throne, though this never included the Kingdom of Valencia. One of the three was Peter V of Aragon who remained a bachelor. The others Henry IV of Castile and René of Anjou had wives during their reign as pretenders. The wive of Henry IV was Joan of Portugal, a Portuguese infanta daughter of King Edward of Portugal and his wife Eleanor of Aragon. The first wive of Rene died prior to 1462; his second wife was Jeanne de Laval, a Frenc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The Sea has played a central role in the history of Western civilization. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years during the Messinian salinity crisis before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. The Mediterranean Sea covers an area of about , representing 0.7% of the global ocean surface, but its connection to the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar—the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates the Iberian Peninsula in Europe from Morocco in Africa—is only wide. The Mediterranean S ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Margaret Of Sicily, Countess Palatine Of The Rhine
Margaret of Sicily or Margherita di Sicilia-Aragona (1331 in Palermo – 1377 in Neustadt) was a Sicilian princess, daughter of the King Frederick III of Sicily and his wife Eleanor of Anjou. In 1348 she married Rudolf II, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and was Countess Palatine of the Rhine until 1353, year of the husband's death. Life Margaret was the youngest daughter of King Frederick II of Sicily-Aragon (1272-1337) and his wife Eleanore, daughter of Charles II of Anjou. Her parents resided in Palermo, where she presumably was born. In 1348 Margaret married the widowed Count Palatine Rudolf II from the house of Wittelsbach, who lived in Neustadt an der Weinstraße. In 1349 Rudolf II married his daughter from his first marriage, Anna von der Pfalz, to King Charles IV, one of the most important rulers of the late Middle Ages. Anna died in Prague in 1353. Count Rudolf finally retired because of increasing illness, and handed the government business over to his brother and s ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Randazzo
Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta. Randazzo ( scn, Rannazzu) is a town and '' comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Catania, Sicily, southern Italy. It is situated at the northern foot of Mount Etna, c. northwest of Catania. It is the nearest town to the summit of Etna, and is one of the points from which the ascent may be made. History In the 13th century the town had its own army, which fought in favor of the king against the rebels. In 1210 King Frederick II of Hohenstaufen and his young wife Constance of Aragon sheltered at Randazzo to escape the terrible plague which raged in Palermo. Randazzo became one of the most densely populated towns in the island, after Palermo and Messina. The town was also divided into three main districts: the Greeks lived in St. Nicola's quarter, the Latins in St. Mary's and the Lombards in St. Martin's. Randazzo was the scene of important action during the latter phases of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, during World War I ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Giovanni Di Randazzo
John, Duke of Randazzo (1317–1348) was duke of Randazzo, Athens, and Neopatria, Count of Malta and regent of Sicily (1342–1348). The fourth son of Frederick III of Sicily and Eleanor of Anjou, he was the most powerful nobleman in Sicily during the reigns of his brother Peter and his nephew Louis, during whose minority he was regent. He kept the peace during regency, though he supported the Catalan party over the local Italian nobility. Thus he appointed Blasco II de Alagona, a Catalan, as his successor. War broke out upon his death during the Plague. He married Cesarea, daughter of Peter Count of Castalnasetta and had three recorded children: Frederick I who succeeded him as Duke of Athens and Neopatria; and two daughters Eleanor Eleanor () is a feminine given name, originally from an Old French adaptation of the Old Provençal name ''Aliénor''. It is the name of a number of women of royalty and nobility in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. The name was i ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Prince Of Taranto
The Principality of Taranto was a state in southern Italy created in 1088 for Bohemond I, eldest son of Robert Guiscard, as part of the peace between him and his younger brother Roger Borsa after a dispute over the succession to the Duchy of Apulia. Taranto became the capital of the principality, which covered almost all of the heel of Apulia. During its subsequent 377 years of history, it was sometimes a powerful and almost independent feudal fief of the Kingdom of Sicily (and later of Naples), sometimes only a title, often given to the heir to the crown or to the husband of a reigning queen. When the House of Anjou was divided, Taranto fell to the house of Durazzo (1394–1463). Ferdinand I of Naples united the Principality of Taranto to the Kingdom of Naples at the death of his wife, Isabella of Clermont. The principality came to an end, but the kings of Naples continued giving the title of Prince of Taranto to their sons, firstly to the future Alfonso II of Naples, el ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Stephen II Of Bavaria
}) was Duke of Bavaria from 1347 until his death. He was the second son of Emperor Louis IV the Bavarian by his first wife Beatrice of Silesia and a member of the Wittelsbach dynasty. Biography During the reign of Emperor Louis IV his son Stephen served as vogt of Swabia and Alsace. The Emperor had acquired Brandenburg, Tyrol, Holland and Hainaut for his House but he had also released the Upper Palatinate for the Palatinate branch of the Wittelsbach in 1329. When his father died in 1347, Stephen succeeded him as Duke of Bavaria and Count of Holland and Hainaut together with his five brothers. Louis IV had reunited Bavaria in 1340 but in 1349 the country was divided for the emperor's sons again into Upper Bavaria, Lower Bavaria-Landshut and Bavaria-Straubing. Stephen II ruled from 1349 to 1353 together with his brothers William I and Albert I in Holland and Lower Bavaria-Landshut, since 1353 only in Lower Bavaria-Landshut. After the temporary reconciliation of the Wittelsba ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Leo IV Of Armenia
Leo IV or Leon IV ( hy, Լեւոն Դ, ''Levon IV'') (also numbered Leo V; ) (1309 – August 28, 1341) was the last Hethumid king of Cilicia, ruling from 1320 until his death. He was the son of Oshin of Armenia and Isabel of Korikos, and came to the throne on the death of his father. His name is sometimes spelled as Leo or Leon. He spent his minority under the regency of Oshin of Korikos. During this period, the kingdom was much harassed by Mamluks and Mongols. In 1320, the Egyptian sultan Naser Mohammed ibn Kelaoun invaded and ravaged Christian Armenian Cilicia. In a letter dated July 1, 1322, and sent from Avignon, Pope John XXII reminded Mongol ruler Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan of the alliance of his ancestors with Christians, asking him to intervene in Cilicia. At the same time he advocated that he abandon Islam in favor of Christianity. Mongol troops were sent to Cilicia, but only arrived after a ceasefire had been negotiated for 15 years between Constantin, patriarch of th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Neopatria
The Duchy of Neopatras ( ca, Ducat de Neopàtria; scn, Ducatu di Neopatria; gr, Δουκάτο Νέων Πατρών; la, Ducatus Neopatriae) was a principality in southern Thessaly, established in 1319. Officially part of the Kingdom of Sicily, itself part of the Crown of Aragon, the duchy was governed in conjunction with the neighbouring Duchy of Athens, it enjoyed a large degree of self-government. From the mid-14th century, the duchies entered a period of decline: most of the Thessalian possessions were lost to the Serbian Empire, internal dissensions arose, along with the menace of Turkish piracy in the Aegean and the onset of Ottoman expansion in the Balkans. Enfeebled, the Catalan possessions were taken over by the Florentine adventurer Nerio I Acciaioli in 1385–1390. The title of Duke of Neopatras was held by the heir of the King of Sicily. History When the Greek ruler of Thessaly, John II Doukas, died in 1318 without an heir, his domains fell into chaos. The A ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Duke Of Athens
The Duchy of Athens ( Greek: Δουκᾶτον Ἀθηνῶν, ''Doukaton Athinon''; Catalan: ''Ducat d'Atenes'') was one of the Crusader states set up in Greece after the conquest of the Byzantine Empire during the Fourth Crusade as part of the process known as Frankokratia, encompassing the regions of Attica and Boeotia, and surviving until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century. History Establishment of the Duchy The first duke of Athens (as well as of Thebes, at first) was Otto de la Roche, a minor Burgundian knight of the Fourth Crusade. Although he was known as the "Duke of Athens" from the foundation of the duchy in 1205, the title did not become official until 1260. Instead, Otto proclaimed himself "Lord of Athens" (in Latin ''Dominus Athenarum'', in French ''Sire d'Athenes''). The local Greeks called the dukes "Megas Kyris" ( el, Μέγας Κύρης, "Great Lord"), from which the shortened form "Megaskyr", often used even by the Franks to re ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Status Quo
is a Latin phrase meaning the existing state of affairs, particularly with regard to social, political, religious or military issues. In the sociological sense, the ''status quo'' refers to the current state of social structure and/or values. With regard to policy debate, it means how conditions are, contrasted with a possible change. For example: "The countries are now trying to maintain the ''status quo'' with regard to their nuclear arsenals." To maintain the ''status quo'' is to keep things the way they presently are. The related phrase '' status quo ante'', literally "the status before", refers to the state of affairs that existed previously. Political usage Via social movements the status quo might be overhauled. These seek to alleviate or prevent a particular issue and often to shape social feeling and cultural expression of a society or nation. The status quo is at least in part rejected by their protagonists – progressives – leading the movement. Advoc ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Kingdom Of Sicily
The Kingdom of Sicily ( la, Regnum Siciliae; it, Regno di Sicilia; scn, Regnu di Sicilia) was a state that existed in the south of the Italian Peninsula and for a time the region of Ifriqiya from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of the southern peninsula. The island was divided into three regions: Val di Mazara, Val Demone and Val di Noto. In 1282, a revolt against Angevin rule, known as the Sicilian Vespers, threw off Charles of Anjou's rule of the island of Sicily. The Angevins managed to maintain control in the mainland part of the kingdom, which became a separate entity also styled ''Kingdom of Sicily'', although it is commonly referred to as the Kingdom of Naples, after its capital. From 1282 to 1409 the island was ruled by the Spanish Crown of Aragon as an independent kingdom, then it was added permanently to the Crown. After 1302, the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]