James I and His Era. Brief Analysis of a Major Political and Cultural Inheritance*

CATALAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, 1: 9-16 (2008) Institut d’Estudis Catalans, Barcelona DOI: 10.2436/20.1000.01.1 · ISSN: 2013-407X http://revistes.iec.cat/chr/

James I and his Era. Brief Analysis of a Major Political and Cultural Inheritance*

Antoni Riera** Institut d’Estudis Catalans Universitat de Barcelona

Introduction During the first two-thirds of the 13th century, the devel- opment of long-distance trading gave shape to western We have gathered here at Poblet, the solemn burial place Europe along the Mediterranean and Atlantic seaboards of the royal houses of Aragon and Catalonia, to remem- and boosted the role of the bourgeoisie in economic, po- ber a birth, not a death, and to celebrate the first of several litical and cultural life. It was a period of transition, dur- institutional events to commemorate the eight-hundredth ing which the new Roman law vied with ancient feudal anniversary of the birth of James I, one of the sovereigns norms and the concentration of power in the hands of who are interred here. monarchs who no longer considered themselves merely James I, like his contemporaries Emperor Frederick II the leading members of the nobility laid the foundations and Fernando III of Castile, was a major figure of the of the new territorial states. It was an age when sovereigns Mediterranean and Iberian Middle Ages. The scope of his strove to make inroads into seigneuries that enjoyed im- achievements fully justifies the scientifically rigorous and munity so as to recover jurisdictional and fiscal control forward-looking analysis of his work and inheritance be- over all the lands in their respective kingdoms; an age of ing undertaken in 2008 by the peoples who were once part rebellious nobles and administrative and tax reform, of of the Catalan-Aragonese crown. For indeed, though the advance of ius commune over consuetudinary law. some of his enterprises reveal insufficient foresight, a lack And it was then that curricula were renewed in the nas- of vision of the future, much of what we are today in the cent universities, starting with law and medicine. While demographic, economic, social, political and cultural all these changes were taking place, the crusaders’ last en- spheres — and much of what we are not — was initially claves in Holy Land were slowly waning under pressure forged during his reign. from the Mamluks, the Mongols were advancing on east- Great personages, however, do not arise from nowhere ern Europe, and Christianity was fast gaining ground at or operate in a void: they are always the fruit of earlier the expense of Islam in the western Mediterranean. ages and act within a particular context. Their powerful actions, moreover, produce an impact on their own era, causing it to evolve in accordance with their projects and The Difficult Times of the King’s Minority building up a legacy. So what were the essential traits of and the First Phase of His Reign the historical context of James I? When he occupied the throne, the final phase in the long period of demographic James I was born in Montpellier during the night of 1-2 and economic growth fuelled by the feudal system all over February 1208, as the feast of Candlemas was dawning. the Western World was drawing to a close; a strong up- He was the son of Peter ‘the Catholic’ and Mary of surge in trade was getting underway, closely associated Montpellier, an ill-assorted couple who in effect had part- with structural surpluses of farm produce caused by the ed before he was conceived. The chronicles, notably the reclaiming of barren land for two hundred years, increas- one written by the monarch himself, make no attempt to es in the amount of money in circulation and the availa- conceal these circumstances but they do surround his bility of credit, and advances in technology and thought. conception and birth with marvels and good omens that I refrain from mentioning here because they are already well known. He spent the first three years of his life, from 1208 to 1211, with his mother in the city of his birth. * Address given on 30 March 2008 in the chapter house of the monastery of Thus the future king’s mother tongue was Occitanian. Poblet, on the occasion of the inauguration of the events to commemorate Languedoc in those days was a cultural giant and a politi- the eight-hundredth anniversary of the birth of James I of Catalonia and Aragon. cal dwarf: the poetry of the troubadours and courtly love ** E-mail: [email protected] were cultivated there, but it lacked the coherent political

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structures and the native dynasty that could have formed The programme of training to which James I was sub- the backbone of a strong state. This power vacuum made jected by the Knights Templar is one of the darkest features is easier for the two powerful neighbouring states, the Cat- of his life. In those days princes were educated by training alan-Aragonese crown and France, to encroach upon it by them in the use of arms and techniques of combat rather means of feudal ties. At the time of James I’s birth, the cru- than in the liberal arts. The child was brought up to be a sade launched a few weeks earlier by Innocent III to eradi- warrior king,. Though certain 20th century historians have cate the Cathar heresy, with military support from the questioned his ability to write, a careful reading of the Lli- French monarchy and ideological support from the Do- bre dels feits — the chronicle of his reign dictated by the minican and Cistercian orders, had unleashed considera- king himself — reveals that at Monzón he learnt both Cata- ble tension. Simon de Montfort, a leading member of the lan and Aragonese, the languages in which he was to ad- nobility of northern France, soon distinguished himself dress his future subjects. His education also included Latin among those who fought to defend religious orthodoxy. — though he never acquired a mastery of it −, ancient his- Unable to withstand the crusaders’ onslaught, the local tory, from the Bible to the Roman classics, and medieval nobility, headed by Raymond VI of Toulouse, asked Peter history, or at any rate the chronicles and annals of Catalo- ‘the Catholic’, who was their superior lord, to intervene. nia, Aragon, France and The Holy Land, the last two being The sovereign used delaying tactics to gain time: he nego- territories frequented by the Knights Templar. Literary his- tiated an agreement with Simon de Montfort which in- torians have identified numerous references in the Llibre cluded the marriage of the latter’s daughter Amicia to his dels feits to Greek and Latin history, classical mythology, own heir, and Prince James was handed over as a hostage the Arthurian tradition and the Bible. to his future father-in-law to be brought up in Carcassone. While the sovereign was growing up in Monzón, his South of the Pyrenees the situation was also changing fast: kingdoms were administered by a regency council headed the decline of the Almohad caliphate had reduced the by his uncle Sanç of Rosselló, who took advantage of his Muslims’ defensive capacity in the Iberian Peninsula. Two favourable position to provide discreet support to the great battles waged against this complex backcloth changed count of Toulouse and the rest of the Occitanian nobility the course of history on both sides of the mountains and to help them withstand the pressure of the French crusad- were to affect the future orientation of the reign of James I. ers and the papal legates. Along the southern frontiers, On 16 July 1212 a coalition of Christian Iberian forces with towards al-Andalus, on the other hand, the situation re- Gallic reinforcements defeated the Almohads at the battle mained stable. The attitude of the king’s uncle led Hono- of Las Navas de Tolosa, in which the count-king played an rius III to advance the monarch’s coming of age. In 1218 important role. Then one year later, on 12 September 1213, he set up a royal council comprising Archbishop Aspàreg a Catalan, Aragonese and Occitanian force was defeated of Tarragona and two members each of the high Catalan by Simon de Montfort’s army of crusaders at Muret, near and the high Aragonese nobility. Toulouse. Peter ‘the Catholic’ was killed in that battle. Thus James I began to reign at the age of ten. As long as Battles alone do not determine the history of peoples he was a minor the Catalan and Aragonese nobles tried to but —as Antoni Furió has recently pointed out — they make up for the dearth of plunder due to the immobile pace it and speed it up. The battle of Las Navas de Tolosa southern frontier and the disintegration of feudal ties with facilitated the southward and eastward thrust of the Cata- Occitania by stepping up the pillaging of the royal pa- lan-Aragonese crown into the lands beyond the Ebro and trimony, much of which had already been pledged under the islands of the western Mediterranean. Muret, on the the careless administration of the young king’s father. As other hand, closed the door to another possibility: that of the sovereign recalled some decades later in his chronicle, a great state straddling the Pyrenees and based almost ex- “The land was destroyed and pledged to such an extent that clusively on pacts of feudal allegiance. we had nothing to eat!” (“No teníem de què menjar, tan Shortly after Muret, Mary of Montpellier died in Rome. destruïda i empenyorada estava la terra!”). The first eight James I had now lost both his parents and was confined to years of his reign were difficult. The sovereign’s finances Carcassone, where he had begun to receive the knightly, were at an extremely low ebb and he was obliged to make ultra-orthodox education of a crusader, in Occitanian and daring coinage mutations. He also found himself caught up French. in the struggles between the leading noble dynasties, which In January 1214 Innocent III, the superior lord of the caused unrest in Catalonia and Aragon. The nobles, who Catalan-Aragonese crown, ordered Simon de Montfort to demanded land, money and compensation for the losses present the six-year-old James I to his Catalan and they had suffered, kept the king prisoner till he gave in to Aragonese subjects. The new sovereign was placed in the their claims. However, with assistance from some of the charge of Guillem de Mont-rodó, a master of the Order of Knights Templar and lawyers specialized in the new ius the Temple, and taken to the securely defended castle of commune, he gradually managed to halt the flow of funds Monzón, right on the border between Catalonia and from the treasury, stabilize the coinage, forge closer rela- Aragon, where he was to complete his education in the tions with the bourgeoisie, and impose his authority on the company of his cousin Ramon Berenguer V of Provence, aristocracy. Once he had succeeded in recovering the initia- who was also an orphan. tive from the nobility, his period of training was an at end.

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The Age of the Great Conquests that the decision to launch the attack had been taken earlier on and the preparations, by this time, were already The second phase of the reign of James I began in 1227 underway. Proof of this is the fact that the terms of the and was to be marked by expansion and rapidly advanc- conquest were defined at a meeting of the Catalan parlia- ing frontiers. During this time he strove to channel the ment held in Barcelona around Christmas. The king un- nobility’s belligerence and demands for new revenues, dertook in writing to share out the lands, castles, towns, and the bourgeoisie’s thirst for new markets, in an out- houses and moveable goods obtained in proportion to the ward direction. military or monetary contribution of each participant. To The recent dismantling of the web of bonds of allegiance pay for fitting out the fleet, the procurators of the three which Alfons ‘the Troubadour’ and Peter ‘the Catholic’ estates granted the sovereign a special subsidy that was had woven to the north of the Corberes, and the agreement raised by means of a new tax charged on each pair of oxen between the Holy See and the French monarch made it in- and known as bovatge. advisable to orientate military energies towards the north. The fleet set sail on 5 September 1229 from Salou, Cam- The slow collapse of the Almohad caliphate, on the other brils and Tarragona. The conquest, which proved consid- hand, opened up much more favourable prospects to the erably more complicated than expected, was carried out south and east of the Catalan-Aragonese kingdom. in three stages. During the first stage, from September So territorial expansion could be directed towards two 1229 to October 1230, the capital of the island and the re- fronts: the kingdom of Valencia and the Balearic Islands. gion of El Pla were conquered. Ciutat de Mallorca1 was Whereas for the Aragonese aristocracy the southward ad- taken by storm on 31 December and the pillaging lasted a vance took precedence, the Catalan nobility and bourgeoi- week. sie considered it more profitable to expand to the east. Only a few of the inhabitants managed to flee the city Both the sovereign and his advisers were aware that con- and take refuge in the mountainous zones of the island. quering territory from the inhabitants of Al-Andalus was The majority, basically unarmed civilians, were merci- the great undertaking of his reign. James I’s entire chroni- lessly massacred by the feudal Christian army. The royal cle, his entire life, one might say, demonstrates this. The chronicle describes the wave of violence in considerable Llibre dels feits is devoted primarily to military exploits. detail: War, in 13th century feudal societies, dominated all else; it “They saw so many Moors dead in the houses, streets, was a way of life, a veritable profession, not only for mon- gardens and farmyards that it was horrifying to see.” archs and the high nobility, but for knights and foot-sol- (“Van veure tants sarraïns morts per cases, per carrers, diers, frontiersmen and adventurers of all types, who exe- per horts i per corrals, que feia gran feredat de veure.”) cuted quick, devastating raids into enemy territory in The death toll was so high that systematic destruction search of booty and especially captives. They then demand- of the corpses was organized to avoid an epidemic, as the ed large ransoms for the latter, or sold them as slaves. chronicle also relates: “The archbishop and bishops grant- The conquest of Majorca was a difficult enterprise called a thousand days’ indulgence to anyone who removed a ing for a fleet that was sufficiently well organized to be dead Moor from the city. And so the people willingly re- able to transport a powerful feudal army, complete with moved all the bodies from the city in order to earn the in- its horses and war machines, and to guarantee supplies dulgence, dragging them away with horses, mules and during the campaign. Until the reign of James I, large na- nags. And then they collected large amounts of firewood val contingents from the Italian cities of Genoa and Pisa and burnt them. And the Moors who died numbered fifty had always taken part in the Catalans’ overseas conquests. thousands, and thirty thousand were captured alive and However, in the last quarter of the 12th century and the taken prisoner.” (“L’arquebisbe i els bisbes donaren mil first quarter of the 13th, the growth of Catalan trade had dies de perdó a tothom que traguera un sarraí mort fora given shipbuilding in Barcelona, Cotlliure and Tortosa a de la ciutat. I així, la gent, de bon grat i per guanyar el boost. By 1227 the Catalan-Aragonese crown already had perdó, amb cavalls, amb muls i amb rossins, arrossegant- sufficient naval potential and experience to invade the los, tragueren tots els morts fora la ciutat. I després re- Balearics with its own fleet. A few clashes between Cata- uniren molta llenya i els cremaren. I foren cinquanta mil lan and Balearic ships in 1226 furnished the excuse for els sarraïns que hi moriren, i trenta mil els qui foren presos setting the project in motion. The objective, however, was vius i foren captius.”) no longer to destroy the pirate fleets’ bases but to van- The value of the testimony contained in this passage quish and colonize a maritime enclave of great economic from the Llibre dels feits is qualitative rather than quanti- and strategic value. tative: it demonstrates the scale of the slaughter, the mat- According to the chronicle, preparations for the ven- ter-of-fact view taken of it, and the desire to exterminate ture commenced at a banquet in Tarragona towards the which underlay the actions of feudal armies at the period end of 1228. The host, Pere Martell, was a galley captain and applied, not only to those who offered resistance, but from Barcelona who had been to the Balearics several to those who surrendered or fled as well. times and gave an enthusiastic report of the riches to be The second stage of the conquest, which took place in found there. However, contemporary documents show May and June 1231, aimed to flush the Muslims out of the

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island’s mountainous enclaves. The last pockets of resist- As a result of these calculations, the sovereign had to con- ance, located in a very poor area in the heart of the Serra tribute 43.6 horses while the other secular and ecclesiasti- de Tramuntana, were overcome between May and June cal lords together had to contribute 59.7. 1232 during the sovereign’s third stay in Majorca. The chief beneficiaries of the shareout did not settle in The conquest of Majorca yielded an enormous amount Majorca: instead — as is shown in the Llibres del reparti- of plunder in the form of human beings, lands and other ment (Books of distribution) — they chose to colonize immovables. The Moors who that survived the fighting their respective lots by letting them on emphyteutic leases and the massacres were reduced to captivity: those who or selling them. These settlers were also entitled to set up could pay a ransom were released and allowed to live on other farming families on the lands they had received. the island as free men, though nearly all preferred to emi- Each time the property was transferred, the assignee had grate to Minorca, Valencia, Granada or Barbary. Those to pay the assignor a down payment and an annual rent. unable to pay were shared out between the sovereign and Thus whereas cases of peasants being tied to the land or the other participants in the campaign, who used them as subjected to abusive practices were already documented labourers on farms and in craftsmen’s workshops, or sold by this time in Old Catalonia,2 the same did not occur in them as slaves on international markets. Thus the defeat- Majorca. This has led some Balearic historians to maintain ed were not confined to areas of low strategic value and that the resulting rural society was not feudal, but a new, organized into segregated ethnic communities, such as more evolved frontier society, made up of free individuals. those that already existed in lower Aragon and were soon I do not share this view, though for lack of time I refrain to be created in Valencia. As Antoni Mas has recently re- from setting out my reasons here. In the second third of marked, “if there is one thing that characterizes the con- the 13th century, the light seigneurial dues attracted a quest of Majorca with respect to other earlier or contem- gradual flow of rural manpower to Majorca. Applicants porary Catalan-Aragonese conquests, it is its destructive for land came mostly from Old Catalonia, Languedoc, Li nature”. What could have led the victors to treat the Mus- guria and Provence, though a few Aragonese, Navarrese lim population of Majorca in this way? The wish to avert and even Portuguese are also recorded. the danger of a ‘fifth column’ in an island enclave of great Let us turn now to the other islands. Minorca submit- strategic value that was particularly hard to defend? The ted without resistance to Catalan-Aragonese sovereignty belief that the island, owing to its small size, could be col- during James I’s second stay in Majorca. Under the terms onized by Christian settlers in a few years? As time went of the Treaty of Capdepera, signed on 17 June 1232, the by the captives, under pressure from the church hierarchy inhabitants of the ‘minor Balearic island’ declared them- and attracted by the possibility of redemption, gradually selves the subjects of the count-king and undertook to pay converted to Christianity, adopted Catalan family names, a specific tax in the form of cattle and grain. In exchange and ultimately dissolved into Balearic feudal society. the sovereign agreed to respect their religion and political The commissaries in charge of dividing up the real es- structures. He granted the fief of Eivissa and Formentera tate carefully assessed the participants’ contributions to to Guillem de Montgrí, the archbishop-elect of Tarrago- the campaign and assigned them to one of five groups na, Nunyo Sanç of Rosselló, and Prince Peter of Portugal, headed respectively by James I, Nunyo Sanç (count of who conquered the islands entirely at their own expense Rosselló), Berenguer de Palou (bishop of Barcelona), in the summer of 1235. Gastó de Montcada (viscount of Bearn) and Hug IV The archipelago became just another kingdom in the (count of Empúries). The last four were members of the Catalan-Aragonese crown. Its legal regime was estab- privileged Catalan estates. Each of these in turn was to lished in a Charter of Liberties inspired by those granted share the property he had received with the other mem- to Tortosa and Lleida. Under it the Usages of Barcelona bers of his group and his own vassals. The sovereign re- were relegated to the status of supplementary law, to received half the buildings in the city and half the farms on solve cases not covered by the Charter. When analysed in the island; the four representatives of the feudal nobility detail, this first great legislative text of the age of James I received the other half of the capital city and the remain- can be seen to constitute a variant of a charter of settle- der of the island. ment, designed to set a large city into motion again after a To assure the defence of the island the grantee in charge period of intense upheaval. A deliberate ambiguity un- of each group agreed to set up a permanent host and bear derlies it, since in many of the articles the drafters failed to the cost of maintaining it. Each of the five portions arising define the territory of application and the reader is left out of the shareout out was assessed in terms of cavalle wondering if they refer exclusively to the city and its bor- ries. These units, contrary to what has been believed until ough or to the whole of the island. This lack of precision, recently, were not compact fiefs but batches of real assets as Vicent Garcia Edo has recently pointed out, was to be- that were likely to generate a particular amount of reve- come one of the defining traits of the subsequent Major- nue. An area of approximately 227 hectares on the aver- can legal system. age, spread over several rural districts, amounted to one While James I, with support from the Catalan nobility, cavalleria. For every 130 cavalleries the holder was under clergy and bourgeoisie, was carrying out the conquest of the permanent obligation to maintain one armed horse. Majorca, the Aragonese nobles — who were not very in-

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terested as yet in overseas undertakings — were launch- buildings they had received and returned to their places ing local attacks against the northern districts of the emir- of origin. At the same time the Moors who had surren- ate of Valencia from an area that stretched from the lower dered to the conquerors and signed agreements with them Ebro to the ranges of Teruel. In view of the success won the right to remain in the new kingdom of Valencia. achieved by Blasco de Alagón in Ares and Morella in 1232, Thus many of the native inhabitants stayed on under the once James I had expelled the Moors from Majorca he felt terms of the surrender negotiated with James I and were he should assume the leading role that pertained to him in concentrated in Moorish quarters all over the Valencian the conquest and colonization of the eastern Iberian pe- Country. Contrary to what had occurred in Majorca, ninsula. these Moorish inhabitants (Mudejars) obtained adminis- The operation was planned at a meeting held in Alcañiz trative, judicial, religious and linguistic autonomy in ex- at the beginning of 1233 between the sovereign, Blasco de change for paying high taxes. Hence the imbalance be- Alagón and Hug de Forcalquer, a master of the Order of tween the extension of the lands conquered and the Hospitallers. Because of the size of the Valencian emirate demographic potential of the conquerors led to the devel- and its population density, the conquest had to be carried opment of a twofold society in the country regions of Va- out in stages. During the first stage, from 1233 to 1235, lencia: on the one hand families of Christian emphyteuti- Borriana, Peníscola, Castelló and Borriol, the main locali- caries and holders of allodial land, who guaranteed the ties in the emirate’s northern regions, were taken. The irreversibility of the conquest, and on the other, segregat- mountainous area of the Eslida range was left till later. ed communities of Muslims, who produced a substantial The military and economic costs of this first phase were portion of the fiscal and seigneurial revenues. The only borne by the sovereign, the Order of Hospitallers, and a reliable data available on the origins of the settlers con- few members of the Aragonese nobility, such as Blasco de cern the city of Valencia, where 48.5% were Catalans, Alagón and Eximén de Urrea. Before tackling the second 44.5% Aragonese, and the remaining 7%, foreigners. phase, the sovereign convened a joint meeting of the par- These proportions varied, however, in each area of the liaments of Aragon and Catalonia at Monzón in 1236. countryside. The clergy, the nobles and the cities on either side of the James I decided not to attach the newly conquered River Cinca were well represented at the assembly, and lands to Aragon and Catalonia, as the nobles in both agreement was reached about military and economic sup- countries had expected. Instead he created a new king- port for the campaign and the future distribution of land dom, which would give the monarchy greater scope for and booty. The active participation of all three estates action and be less subject to the ambitions of the great from Catalonia shows that the sovereign felt the conquest feudal nobility. Consequently he severely limited the size and colonization of Valencia should no longer be an ex- of the territorial concessions to nobles and knights, mak- clusively Aragonese enterprise. Outside support, mean- ing them much smaller than in Majorca; he promulgated while, was to be the Pope’s responsibility. In February a Roman-type legal code known as the Furs, first for the 1237 Gregory IX granted the expedition crusade status. city of Valencia and then for the entire kingdom; he cre- The Holy See had entrusted the French monarchy with ated a new currency, the Valencian reial, distinct from the the task of eradicating heresy in Languedoc, and the Cata- deniers of Barcelona and Jaca, which were in circulation lan-Aragonese monarchy was given the mission of in the Principality of Catalonia and the Ebro valley re- spreading Christianity along the Mediterranean coast of spectively; and he founded a representative and specifi- the Iberian Peninsula. cally Valencian parliament. These distinctive features The army assembled in the spring of 1237 in Teruel. would gradually endow Valencia with the singularity it The objectives of this second phase were the capital and acquired within the Catalan-Aragonese crown. the lands between valleys of the Palància and the Xúquer. In the twenty-six years between 1229 and 1245, James I The city of Valencia surrendered on 28 December 1238 added to the realm he had inherited from his father — the and the emir, after being granted a seven-year truce by 84,324 km² of Aragon and Catalonia — the Balearic Is- James I, abandoned the city and settled in Xàtiva. Finally, lands and the kingdom of Valencia, another 24,791 km². between 1241 and 1245, the lands between the Xúquer The conquered lands amounted to an increase of approx- and Verd rivers were taken. The southern frontier of the imately 30%, something never previously achieved in a kingdom of Valencia, which was renegotiated with Cas- single reign. tile in the Treaty of Almirra in 1244, stretched from Biar, in the Iberic System, to Bosot, on the shores of the Medi- terranean. The Occitanian Dream is Definitively During the early phases of the conquest, the sovereign Relinquished: the Treaty of Corbeil made personal donations of land by granting charters. From 1239, following the fall of the capital, James I sought The completion of the conquest of Valencia and the death to attract settlers by increasing the number of donations, of his cousin Ramon Berenguer V of Provence without which were registered in the Llibre del repartiment. As in male issue prompted James I and his advisers, in 1245, to Majorca, many of the original grantees sold the land or renew his old political ties with Occitania, where the

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French had steadily been building up their power with alan-Aragonese influence across the Mediterranean and firm support from the Holy See. In 1229, as the conquest in Iberian Peninsula. of Majorca was getting underway, Raymond VII of Tou- louse had been obliged to give the hand of his heir Joan, and the seneschalships of Beaucaire and Carcassone, to Towards a New Foreign Policy Alphonse of Poitiers, the brother of Louis IX. James I was aware that his hold over his newly-won territory in the When one door shuts, another usually opens and James I Iberian Peninsula was too precarious for him to maintain put the fall-off in tension that followed the Treaty of Cor- an open war to the north of the Corberes range or break beil to good use by opening up new political scenarios and with the Holy See. He decided to maintain a low profile giving a fresh impetus to the Catalan-Aragonese crown’s and attempted an unusual diplomatic operation: that of mercantile and military influence in the Mediterranean. joining the lineages of Toulouse and Provence through a The area he chose was Sicily, an island in the midst of the marriage between Raymond VII and Beatrice, the heir to ancient mare nostrum with a large grain surplus. The Si- the Count of Provence. The French monarchy and the cilian market was of strategic importance to all merchants Holy See, however, foiled the operation in 1246 by forcing in the western Mediterranean and the island had been the countess’s marriage to Charles of Anjou, another ruled since the death of Emperor Conrad IV in 1254 by brother of Louis IX. This strengthened the French pres- the bastard Manfred, a member of the Hohenstaufen fam- ence in the Midi and was highly detrimental to Catalan ily who was acting as regent for the infant heir Conradin. commercial and political interests in the western Medi- Manfred had become the leader of the Italian Ghibelline terranean. Moreover, the first Mudéjar rising, led by Al- party (which supported the German emperor against the Azraq, compelled James I to concentrate on the kingdom pro-papal faction) and had consequently been excommu- of Valencia. nicated by the Holy See. James I, acting on the advice of Not until 1258, after the revolt of the Valencian Mudé- Catalan businessmen, decided to take advantage of the jars had been crushed, were James I and his counsellors in weakness of the Sicilian court. The contacts initiated in a position the resume the defence of Catalan-Aragonese Barcelona in 1260 culminated in Montpellier on 13 June interests in Occitania. But by now the situation had wors- 1262 in the marriage of Prince Peter to Constance of Sici- ened. The French, with enduring support from the papa- ly. Unsurprisingly, the alliance was viewed with alarm by cy, had acquired a firmer hold over Languedoc, where France, Provence and above all the Pope, who was to en- their intelligent marriage policy now enabled them to feoff the kingdom of Sicily to Charles of Anjou a few years dominate the two main lineages: the counts of Toulouse later. and the counts of Provence. They had also wiped out the A new revolt of the Valencian and Murcian Mudéjars Cathar heresy. and the disadvantages of a possible excommunication Thus the Catalan-Aragonese crown was obliged to ac- prevented the Catalans and Aragonese from helping knowledge that the changes that had taken place in Oc- Manfred to ward off an attack from the Count of Pro- citania during the second quarter of the 13th century vence. Charles of Anjou, with the support of France, de- were irrevocable. After instructing his legal advisers to feated Manfred at Benevento in 1266 and Conradin at make a careful analysis of the situation, in 1258 James I Tagliacozzo two years later. There was every sign that the accepted the new state of affairs. Under the Treaty of Catalan-Aragonese crown, after relinquishing its ties with Corbeil, Louis IX of France severed the ancient ties of al- Occitania, was about to lose its opportunities in Sicily as legiance that had linked the counts of Barcelona to the well. But the count-king still had one card up his sleeve: kings of France since the days of Charlemagne; James I, on Conradin’s death, his inheritance and the leadership in exchange, gave up all his remaining jurisdictional and of the Ghibellines passed to Princess Constance, the wife feudal rights in Occitanian lands, except the seigneury of of the Aragonese heir. However, family quarrels, Mudéjar Montpellier, the enclaves of Carladès and Omeladès, and rebellions and old age prevented James I from glimpsing the Val d’Aran. Though this agreement has aroused much the fruits of his last international undertaking. criticism among certain sectors of Catalan, Valencian and Aragonese historiography, in fact it attests to the prudent and realistic policy pursued by James I — now an old man The Kingdom of Murcia is Occupied and — towards Occitania. He knew full well that if he were to Returned to Castile resume a leading role in Languedoc, the result would be an open clash with France, the foremost military power Under the Alcaraz agreement of 1243, the emir of Murcia, and best administered State in the West, and with the Muhammad Ibn Hud, had become the vassal of Ferdi- Holy See, which punished any outside attempt to support nand III of Castile and promised to hand over to him half the Occitanian nobility with excommunication. Thus the the taxes he raised. Thus Murcia had not been conquered Treaty of Corbeil put an end to expansion beyond the or even occupied by the force of arms. The king of Cas- Pyrenees and implied a conscious and resolute decision tile’s prime objective was the effective incorporation of in favour of the moves already underway to increase Cat- the Guadalquivir valley and he exercised only a type of

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protectorate over Murcia: he controlled the main for- celona. This council, and the rules it drew up to regulate tresses, which he manned with Christian garrisons, but he trade and maritime transport, were the immediate fore- was experiencing great difficulties in sending large con- runners of the Consolat de Mar and the Llibre del Conso- tingents of peasants from the Duero, Tajo and Guadiana lat de Mar, respectively. valleys to Murcia because they found the prospects offered by the distribution of land in Jaen, Cordova and Se- ville more attractive. Sharing out the Kingdoms In 1264 a major revolt of Mudejars was sparked off si- multaneously in Castile and Valencia by discontent over No one, however, is without contradictions and errors, the arbitrary way the new local authorities were enforcing and James I was no exception. Though he had surrounded the conditions of the surrender. The rising was on an un- himself with forward-looking legal experts and had al- precedented scale and had the resolute backing of the sul- lowed Roman Law to influence some of his legal initia- tanate of Granada. Owing to the weakness of the Castilian tives, such as the Valencian Furs (code of law) and the occupation, the rebels in the Vinalopó and Segura valleys Majorcan Charter of Liberties, James I had a patrimonial initially met with success. Alfonso X was unable to con- conception of his domains: he did not consider himself a tain the revolt along all the fronts, so he concentrated his mere administrator of territories which could not be split forces in Betic Andalusia and asked the Catalan-Aragonese up, but a lord with the right to dispose freely of his crown to intervene in Murcia. James I, realizing what was realms. at stake, called on his subjects to make him a extraordi- This contradiction explains why, as his children were nary grant to finance a campaign to the south of the River born, he began to plan how the Catalan-Aragonese crown Verd. The Catalans had misgivings over the undertaking was to be shared out. This anachronistic policy of succes- but they agreed to apply the bovatge tax once more; the sions gave rise to forty years of tension between James I, Aragonese on the other hand not only refused point blank his immediate descendants, and the representative forces to provide economic or military resources but seized the in each territory. Two of his sons died and another en- opportunity to demand satisfaction from the king over tered the church. That left him with two heirs: Princes Pe- certain unresolved grievances and violations of their ter and James. Aware of the opposition the division of the Fueros. While the army was being prepared, Prince Peter kingdoms aroused in the entourage of his first-born son carried out two raids against the Murcian Mudejars. The and certain social groups, first and foremost the experts royal campaign got underway at the end of November in ius commune, he decided in 1262 to settle the matter 1265 and culminated in the surrender of the Murcian once and for all by imposing an agreement between the capital at the beginning of February 1266. James I, consid- two princes: Peter was to inherit Catalonia, Aragon and ering that agreements were made to be respected and his Valencia, while James received the Balearic Islands, the kingdoms did not have sufficient surplus population to Pyrenean counties of Rosselló and Cerdanya and the sei- permit systematic colonization of any new territories, gneury of Montpellier. The distribution was rather une- handed the kingdom of Murcia over to his son-in-law, Al- ven: nearly 90% of the territory, in a single compact block, fonso X of Castile, after partially settling it with Catalans. was to go to the first-born, while the second son had to be This show of political realism caused discontent among content with the remaining 10%, made up of several scat- those who had taken part in the conquest. The population tered units which were, however, of great strategic value. that settled in the Segura valley, however, was to facilitate Besides sowing the seeds of future disputes −for neither the conquest carried out by James II forty years later. heir was satisfied with his portion of the inheritance−, the shareout reduced the military and political capabilities of the resulting two kingdoms at an especially inauspicious Achievements as a Ruler time, when all the adjoining states were acquiring new territories and increasing their coercive potential. France James I was not only a warrior but a ruler, who endowed was rounding off the incorporation of Languedoc, Castile the Catalan-Aragonese crown with new administrative, was absorbing Betic Andalusia and the kingdom of Mur- fiscal, judicial and political structures. During his reign cia, and Provence was being attached to the kingdom of the municipal regime of the main cities was consolidated; Sicily. History was soon to confirm that the solution the former assemblees de pau i treva (assemblies of peace adopted by James I with regard to his succession was his and truce) evolved into the parliament, or Corts, follow- greatest mistake. ing the incorporation of representatives of the cities and an increase in its attributions; and the old Curia Regis became the Royal Council. In Aragon the Fueros (regional Assessment of a Reign laws and privileges) were compiled and the Justicia (royal magistracy) was established. In order to boost trade, over- The overall results of James I’s sixty-six year reign were seas consulates were set up and the universitat de prohoms positive. To the 84,324 km² in Aragon, Catalonia and the de Ribera — a council of distinguished citizens — in Bar- seigneury of Montpellier which he inherited from his fa-

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ther, he added 24,791 km² in the Balearic Islands and the James I reorganized the Chancellery and encouraged kingdom of Valencia, thereby increasing his realms by 30 the use of registers, in which copies of all the documents %, an unprecedented figure for a single reign. This growth emanating from the court were kept. With the help of a was not achieved without cost, however: it caused much few Knights Templar, churchmen, laymen and burghers, bloodshed, primarily among the vanquished, many of he put the management of the royal patrimony in order. whom, especially in Majorca, lost not only their property At public events he addressed his subjects in the lan- but their lives. But many of the victors also died in battle guage of each territory: Catalan, Aragonese or Occitan. or while stifling the intermittent revolts of the Valencian When it came to writing his chronicle, however, he chose Mudejars, who were exasperated by the arbitrary action of Catalan, producing an unusual text with considerable the new local authorities and the pressure of rising taxes. ideological contents. In it he voiced a high degree of self- James I displayed great political realism in deciding to satisfaction, surrounded his persona with mythical ele- give up the unstable feudal ties on which the expansion ments borrowed from the classics, justified his achieve- into Occitania had been based, along with the mirage of a ments and silenced his mistakes, and presented himself as multinational state extending from Nice to Oloron, and a maker of peoples and a creator of dynasties. from Orlhac to Teruel, with its hub in the Pyrenees and its Many Valencians and Majorcans still regard James I seat of government in Barcelona. He deliberately set his ‘the Conqueror’ as the founder of their people, the creator sights on the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean, of their collective identity and their national feeling. His two areas where the Catalan-Aragonese crown, and espe- legend had fed the collective imagination of successive cially its merchants, could expand at lower military, eco- generations and materialized into numerous popular nomic and ideological expense. Thus the outward thrust constructions such as traditional tales, songs, the Festes of his reign arose from of a careful analysis of profitability de l’Estandard and ‘giants’.3 and not unsuccessful diplomacy. The decision to respect For all these reasons, and many others which I have not the frontier agreed upon with Castile in Almirra and not time to set out here, it is especially opportune, as I said at to annex the kingdom of Murcia are further evidence of the beginning, that academic and political institutions the realism shown by an old king who had discovered that throughout the lands that made up the former Catalan- military conquest is worth little if the territory cannot be Aragonese crown should be undertaking new research colonized. The inadequate flow of settlers from north of into James I and his era. This will enable us, not merely to the Ebro made it necessary to permit large groups of Is- achieve a more thorough understanding of our common lamic inhabitants to subsist all over the kingdom of Va- past, but to position ourselves better with regard to the lencia. This gave rise to a dual society made up of the fam- present and the immediate future. These endeavours will ilies of Christian emphyteuticaries and freeholders on the yield ideas of benefit to us all. The legacy of James I un- one hand, who ensured that the conquest would be a last- doubtedly has a future, providing that, together, we are ing one, and separate Muslim communities on the other, able to manage it properly. who yielded much of the revenue in the form of taxes and seigneurial dues. As long as this situation continued, any new territorial advance by a powerful neighbouring Notes Christian kingdom into an area densely populated by Muslims had but slender chances of success. [1] Ciutat de Mallorca is the traditional name of the James I created a composite state stretching from city now known officially as Palma de Mallorca. It is Montpellier to Ariza and from Salses to La Vila Joiosa and still in widespread use today. endowed it with a highly decentralized political organiza- [2] The term Old Catalonia refers to the territories tion by setting up autonomous units, each with its own originally reconquered and settled by the Caroling- jurisdiction, administrative and representative institu- ian dynasty, which lie north and east of a line ex- tions, currency and measurements. It was complicated to tending approximately from the Llobregat and manage, but highly efficient, since it did not interfere with Cardener rivers to the Montsec massif, north of the economic, human and cultural ties between the differ- Lleida. ent territories. It also had drawbacks however: it delayed [3] The Festes de l’Estandard (Festivals of the standard) the concentration of power in the hands of the sovereign are held each year in Palma de Mallorca to com- in an age when the monarchies in the states bordering on memorate the entry of the troops of James I into the the Catalan-Aragonese crown were increasing their as- city. ‘Giants’ are bigger-than-lifesize human figures cendancy, with the support of Roman law, at the expense made of wood and papier mâché which are a fea- of the feudal nobility. ture of popular parades in many localities. Some of them represent King James I.

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