MARTINO I, king of ARAGON and SICILY. — The last Aragonese king of the Catalan dynasty, called the Humane, born at Gerona in 1356 to King Pietro IV and Eleonora of Sicily, he succeeded his brother Giovanni I in 1395. He had first to struggle against his widowed sister-in-law and her supporters; then he also had to defend his crown by force of arms, as it was claimed by the count of Foix, whose army was nevertheless defeated; and finally he had to send military legions and a powerful fleet against the rebels, whom he reduced to obedience, both to himself and to his son Martino of Sicily.
In religious matters he was exemplary, but he always upheld the legitimacy of the Avignon pope against that of Rome during the Western Schism: it should be remembered that Benedetto XIII was Aragonese and the brother-in-law of M. I. When that Pontiff was besieged in Avignon in 1398 by the French army, the Aragonese king came to his aid with several ships that arrived by way of the Rhône; encouraging his brother-in-law and disregarding the excommunication imposed by Bonifacio IX, he took Sicily and Sardinia, fiefs of the Church, and did not abandon Benedetto’s cause even when the other sovereigns withdrew their obedience to him in 1408; indeed, when Benedetto, a refugee from Avignon, found a secure refuge in Perpignano, then an Aragonese city, he was able to celebrate a council in opposition to that of Pisa. King M. died at Barcelona in 1410, leaving the nation in a terrible crisis because of the lack of a designated heir.