ON 1 JUNE 1283, FOR A BRIEF SPAN of time the struggle for the Kingdom of Sicily shifted to the outskirts of Bordeaux, then a possession of Edward I ‘Longshanks’ of England. It was there that a set of lists had been set up just outside the city walls, where the two sovereigns and their entourages of royal champions were to fight for the fate of Sicily. And, indeed, the two kings arrived at the appointed place on the appointed day, but it was all a chivalric charade. Neither side had intended for the issue to be settled in the lists.

The Catalan chronicles describing the affair – those by Ramon Muntaner and Bernat Desclot – are remarkably similar. Charles of Anjou had come by way of Rome, where he had petitioned Pope Martin for additional funding and urged him to declare a crusade against Aragon. Martin inveighed strenuously against the ‘duel’ and even dispatched a letter to Edward forbidding him to act as ‘marshal of the field’ for the tournament. (Edward's neutrality could also have been in question, since his daughter Eleanor was betrothed to Peter's eldest son Alfonso at the time.) Ultimately, however, the pontiff complied with Anjou's request and formally declared Peter deposed as king of Aragon on 21 March 1283. Charles then went on to Paris, where he had sought the support of his nephew, King Philip III of France. The latter had not only agreed to supply his uncle with sixty of the hundred knights who were to be his champions (the other forty were to come from Provence), but also to accompany him to Bordeaux with his own retinue of knights – 8,000 according to Desclot; 12,000 by Muntaner's estimate. Clearly the aim here was an ambush, under the dubious dodge that the king of France was not a signatory to the duel's stipulated conditions.

Peter of Aragon, for his part, was no fool. He must have suspected treachery all along, because he was circumspect to the point of being outright clandestine in his journey to Bordeaux. Before departing Messina, he had tasked Roger of Lauria, his newly appointed admiral, with secretly outfitting four galleys crewed only by Catalans.