Chapter 2 Council and Urban Militias in the Crown of during the 13th Century: From Conquering Militias to Monetary Exemptions

Enric Guinot

According to the King James i chronicle – Llibre dels Feits – in autumn 1232 the infantrymen attached to a militia force raised by the town of conquered the castle of Ares, in the Maestrat de Castelló. This fortress was located ap- proximately 100 km to the south of the foremost Christian positions around Teruel, a region that some authors have referred to as a “march,” a politically and militarily open, half populated territory, which in the period from 1150 to 1230 remained wedged between Aragon and southern , and Sharq al- Andalus.1 Barely six months later the council militias of Teruel, Daroca and participated in the siege and conquest of the madīna of Borriana, in la Plana de Castelló, and between 1237 and 1238 the largest concentration of urban militias of the 13th century in the east of the gathered to take part in the siege of the city of (this included militias from , Lleida, Tarragona, Tortosa, Montblanc, Montpellier, Jaca, Zaragoza, Daroca, , Teruel and some few other minor towns).2 On the other hand, in 1263 Christian colonists recently installed in the new settlement of Alcoi, in the mountains to the south of Valencia, assaulted and sacked the nearby Muslim village or alqueria of Ibi, taking as much grain and as many items as they could load on their donkeys, according to a document

* This research forms part of the projects Modificaciones del ecosistema cultivado bajomedi­ eval en el reino de Valencia (har 2011-27662) and Crecimiento económico y desigualdad social en la Europa mediterránea (siglos xiii–xv) (HAR2014-58730-P), funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spanish Government. 1 Antonio Gargallo, El Concejo de Teruel en la Edad Media, 1177–1327, 3 vols. (Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1996); Antonio Ubieto, Orígenes del reino de Valencia (Zaragoza: Anúbar, 1979) 2:37–60. List of abbreviations: aca (Archivo de la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona); ahn (Archivo Histórico Nacional, ); amv (Archivo Municipal de Valencia); arv (Archivo del Reino, Valencia); om (Sección Órdenes Militares). 2 For this and other evidence contained in the royal chronicle we follow Llibre dels feits del rei en Jaume [hereafter cited as lf], ed. F. Soldevila, J. Bruguera and M.T. Ferrer (Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 2008).

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Council and Urban Militias in the Crown of Aragon 79 attached to the minutes of the first court record of their local council, studied by J. Torró.3 This shows that the conquests carried out by the Crown of Aragon throughout the 13th century into the lands of Sharq al-Andalus and into the Balearic Islands encouraged the emergence of new local militias, especially in the recently created . These new militias joined the ­veteran border or urban militias from Aragon and Catalonia, considerably ex- panding their presence, entity, functions and aims. In order to illustrate this variety of functions and modes of organisation we can refer to a document from the records of the royal chancellery of Aragon, dating to July 23, 1275 – one year before the death of King James i (1213–1276). The document lists the Valencian towns exempted from contributing men to the royal host in exchange for a certain amount of money. Specifically, the king proposed to liberate the city of Valencia from military obligations in exchange for 60,000 solidi, an amount ultimately reduced to 40,000, probably as a result of negotiations. A similar transaction was carried out with the twelve royal towns located in the northern half of the Valencian kingdom. The amounts were probably calculated on the basis of their population at that time.4 These documents show the evolution undergone by council militias in the Crown of Aragon during the 13th century. This evolution clearly discour- ages the approach to their study from a strictly structural point of view; the ­historical transformation undergone by the feudal kingdoms in the Iberian ­Peninsula during that period must also be taken into account. In general terms we could divide the century into two main stages. The first one, correspond- ing to the first half of the 13th century, is determined by the expansive policies followed by the feudal society at the expense of Sharq al-Andalus. In our opin- ion this phase can be further divided into two sub-stages: the earliest one was clearly conditioned by 12th century practices, and was defined by the pillaging expeditions launched by highly autonomous frontier council militias against Muslim lands – fundamentally from the . The second stage was determined by the predominant role acquired by the monarchy, specifi- cally James i, in the military conquest of Sharq al-Andalus. Council and ur- ban militias were mobilised and submitted to the king’s military and political ­authority, and eventually rewarded with lands and houses in the newly con- quered territories.

3 Josep Torró, La formació d’un espai feudal: Alcoi de 1245 a 1305 (Valencia: Diputació de Valèn- cia, València, 1992), 129–130. 4 Archivo de la Corona de Aragón [hereafter cited as aca], Cancillería, reg. 23, f. 8v–9r. These towns are: Morella, Peníscola, Onda, Borriana, Morvedre, Segorbe, Llíria, , , , and Alzira.