PETER III  ., king of Aragon (1236-1286), son of James the Conqueror, and his wife Yolande, daughter of Andrew II. of Hungary, was born in 1236 . Having married Constance, daughter of Manfred of Beneventum, he came forward as the representative of the claims of the Hohenstaufen in Naples and Sicily against Charles, duke of Anjou . Peter began the long strife of the Angevine and Aragonese parties in southern Italy . His success in conquering Sicily earned him the surname of " the Great." He repelled an invasion of Catalonia under-taken by the king of France in support of Charles of Anjou, and died on the 8th of November 1286 . For the personal character of Peter III., the best witness is the Chronicle of Ramonde Muntanez—reprinted in the original Catalan by R . Lanz, Literarischer Verein in Stuttgart, vol. vii . (1844), and in French by Buchon, Coll. des chroniques nationales (Paris, 1824–1828) . See also O . Cartellieri, Peter von Aragon and die Sizilianische Vesper (Heidelberg, 1904) .