SICILIAN VESPERS. The name given to the massacre of the French in Sicily, which began at Palermo on the day after Easter (March 30th), 1282, while the bells were ringing for the vesper service. Charles of Anjou (q.v.) had de prived the Hohenstaufen dynasty of Naples and Sicily, and had parceled out those kinploms into domains for his French followers; but his cruelty toward the adherents of the dispossessed race, his tyranny and oppressive taxation, and the brutal ity of his followers, excited among the Sicilians the fiercest resentment. Authorities differ a to whether the uprising was siamtaneous or had been prepared beforehand. It would seem that the intrigues of Peter III. of Aragon had some thing to do with bringing about the insurrection, but the common story goes that on the evening of Easter Monday the inhabitants of Palermo, en raged at a gross outrage perpetrated by a French soldier on a young Sicilian bride, rose upon their oppressors, putting to the sword every man, woman, and child of them, and not sparing even those Italians and Sicilians who had married Frenchmen. This example was followed, after a
brief interval, at Messina and the other towns, and the massacre soon became general over the island. Charles of Anjou made a determined attempt to reconquer the island, but the Sicil ians summoned to their aid Pedro Ill. of Aragon, who had himself crowned King of Sicily, and de stroyed the fleet dispatched by Charles for the reduction of Messina. The Angevins thus lost control of Sicily. Consult: Amari, La yllerra del Fespro ,S'iciliano (9th ed., Milan, 1886; Eng lish translation, London, 1850) ; id., Ram:into popa/are del l'espro Sicilian° (Home, 1882).