Peter III of Aragon in the context of "Count of Barcelona"

The Sicilian Vespers (Italian: Vespri siciliani; Sicilian: Vespiri siciliani) was a successful rebellion on the island of Sicily that broke out at Easter 1282 against the rule of the French-born king Charles I of Anjou. Since taking control of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1266, the Angevin government had made itself unpopular with its exploitative policies and exclusion of native Sicilians from power.

Sparked by an incident in Palermo, the revolt quickly spread to the majority of Sicily. Within six weeks, approximately 13,000 French men and women were slain or expelled by the rebels, and the government of Charles lost control of the island. Seeking support for the rebellion, the Sicilians offered the throne to Peter III of Aragon, who claimed the crown on behalf of his wife, Constance of Sicily. The Aragonese intervention in the rebellion led to an expansion of the conflict into the War of the Sicilian Vespers.

The Kingdom of Trinacria was established after Sicilian Vespers in 1282, when King Peter III of Aragon ascended the throne, and was consolidated after the War of the Sicilian Vespers in 1302. According to the Peace of Caltabellota, the Kingdom of Sicily was officially divided into two parts, one of which was the island part of Sicily, officially called the Kingdom of Trinacria, but informally called the Kingdom of Sicily.

Since then, Sicily island was ruled as an independent kingdom by relatives of the House of Barcelona, and was then added permanently to the Crown of Aragon as a result of the Compromise of Caspe of 1412. Meanwhile, the continental part of the Kingdom of Sicily, known colloquially as the Kingdom of Naples, remained under the crown of King Charles II of Anjou. The two resulting kingdoms were separated until 1442, when King Alfonso V of Aragon conquered the Kingdom of Naples and unified both Kingdoms.

The War of the Sicilian Vespers, also shortened to the War of the Vespers, was a conflict waged by several medieval European kingdoms over control of Sicily from 1282 to 1302. The war, which started with the revolt of the Sicilian Vespers, was fought over competing dynastic claims to the throne of Sicily and grew to involve the Crown of Aragon, Angevin Kingdom of Naples, Kingdom of France, and the papacy.

Initially fought between Sicilian rebels and Charles of Anjou in Sicily and Southern Italy, the war expanded when Peter of Aragon intervened in Sicily to support the rebels and claim the throne. After Aragonese successes, the war grew into the concurrent Aragonese Crusade as the Kingdom of France intervened against Aragon in Iberia. The crusade ended in defeat, but efforts to end the war failed despite several peace treaties. Aragon gave up the crown of Sicily in exchange for papal concessions in 1297, entering into an alliance with Angevin Naples and the papacy against Sicily, but the new alliance's campaign to invade Sicily saw no success. The war ended in 1302 in the Peace of Caltabellotta, by which Sicily became an independent kingdom ruled by the House of Barcelona.

Constance II (c. 1249 – (1302-04-09)9 April 1302) was queen regnant of Sicily from September 1282 to November 1285 alongside her husband, King Peter I. She was also queen consort of Aragon from 1276 to 1285. She was a pretender to the Kingdom of Sicily from 1268 to 1282. She was the only daughter of Manfred, King of Sicily, and his first wife, Beatrice of Savoy.

Roger-Bernard III (1243 – 3 March 1302) was the Count of Foix from 1265 to his death. He was the son of Roger IV of Foix and Brunissende of Cardona. He entered into conflicts with both Philip III of France and Peter III of Aragon, who held him in captivity for a time. He was nevertheless a distinguished poet and troubadour.

The Aragonese Crusade (1284–1285), also known as the Crusade of Aragon or Crusade against Catalonia, was a military venture waged by the Kingdom of France against the Crown of Aragon. Fought as an extension of the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282–1302), the crusade was called by Pope Martin IV in retribution for Peter III of Aragon's intervention in Sicily, which had damaged the political ambitions of the papacy and France.

The Kingdom of France, aided by the Kingdom of Majorca, led the crusade. Despite domestic opposition to the crusade, Philip III of France invaded Catalonia in 1285. While the French saw some successes on land, the Aragonese navy won control of the sea, and a badly attritted French crusader army was forced to retreat in the fall of 1285. The defeat of the French army in 1285 effectively ended fighting, and Aragon would make peace with the pope by way of the 1291 Treaty of Tarascon.

Charles II, also known as Charles the Lame (French: Charles le Boiteux; Italian: Carlo lo Zoppo; 1254 – 5 May 1309), was King of Naples, Count of Provence and Forcalquier (1285–1309), Prince of Achaea (1285–1289), and Count of Anjou and Maine (1285–1290); he also was King of Albania (1285–1294), and claimed the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1285. He was the son of Charles I of Anjou—one of the most powerful European monarchs in the second half of the 13th century—and Beatrice of Provence. His father granted Charles the Principality of Salerno in the Kingdom of Sicily (or Regno) in 1272 and made him regent in Provence and Forcalquier in 1279.

After the uprising known as the Sicilian Vespers against Charles's father, the island of Sicily became an independent kingdom under the rule of Peter III of Aragon in 1282. A year later, his father made Charles regent in the mainland territories of the Regno (or the Kingdom of Naples). Charles held a general assembly where unpopular taxes were abolished and the liberties of the noblemen and clerics were confirmed. He could not prevent the Aragonese from occupying Calabria and the islands in the Gulf of Naples. The Sicilian admiral Roger of Lauria captured him in a naval battle near Naples in 1284. As he was still in prison when his father died on 7 January 1285, his realms were ruled by regents. The remainder of his rule was spent seeking a resolution to the Sicilian war, diplomatic moves concerning his inheritance, and administrating the new Kingdom of Naples.

James II (Catalan: Jaume II; Aragonese: Chaime II; 10 April 1267 – 2 or 5 November 1327), called the Just, was the King of Aragon and Valencia and Count of Barcelona from 1291 to 1327. He was also the King of Sicily (as James I) from 1285 to 1295 and the King of Majorca from 1291 to 1298. From 1297 he was nominally the King of Sardinia and Corsica, but he only acquired the island of Sardinia by conquest in 1324. His full title for the last three decades of his reign was "James, by the grace of God, king of Aragon, Valencia, Sardinia and Corsica, and count of Barcelona" (Latin: Iacobus Dei gratia rex Aragonum, Valencie, Sardinie, et Corsice ac comes Barchinone).

Born at Valencia, James was the second son of Peter III of Aragon and Constance of Sicily. He succeeded his father in Sicily in 1285 and his elder brother Alfonso III in Aragon and the rest of the Spanish territories, including Majorca, in 1291. In 1295 he was forced to cede Sicily to the papacy, after which it was seized by his younger brother, Frederick III, in 1296. Two years later rom Pope Boniface VIII returned the island to the king of Majorca along with rights to Sardinia and Corsica. On 20 January 1296, Boniface issued the bull Redemptor mundi granting James the titles of Standard-bearer, Captain General and Admiral of the Roman church.

Jofre de Foixà (or Jaufre de Foixa) (died c. 1300) was a troubadour from Foixà in the Empordà, the second son of Bernard of Foixà.

At a young age Jofre became a Franciscan and appears in that position when mentioned for the first time at Monzón in 1267. In 1275 he put off the Franciscan habit for the black cowl of the Benedictines, almost certainly at the monastery of Sant Feliu de Guíxols. When the French under Philip III invaded Catalonia as part of the Aragonese Crusade, king Peter III nominated Jofre procurator of the monastery of Sant Pere de Galligants and trusted to him many important missions.