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with his marriage in 1113 to a Provençal heiress, and made alliances and
commercial treaties with Muslim and Christian powers around the western
Mediterranean.
The most important stage in Catalunya’s development as a significant power,
however, came in 1137 with the marriage of
Ramon Berenguer IV
to
Petronella, the two-year-old daughter of King Ramiro II of Aragón. This led
to the
dynastic union of Catalunya and Aragón
. Although this remained
a loose and tenuous federation – the regions retained their own parliaments
and customs – it provided the platform for rapid expansion over the next three
centuries. As importantly, Ramon managed to tame almost all of the other
counts, forcing them to recognize his superior status and in the course of this
he promulgated the
Usatges de Barcelona
, a code of laws and customs defin-
ing feudal duties, rights and authorities – sneakily putting Ramon I’s name on
them to make them appear older than they were. He also captured Muslim
Tortosa and Lleida in 1148–49, which mark the limits of the modern region
of Catalunya, but now the region began to look east for its future, across the
Mediterranean.
The Kingdom of Catalunya and Aragón
Ramon Berenguer IV was no more than a count, but his son
Alfons I
(who
succeeded to the throne in 1162) also inherited the title of King of Aragón
(where he was Alfonso II), and became the first count-king of what historians
later came to call the
Crown of Aragón
.To his territories he added Roussillon
and much of southern France, becoming known as “Emperor of the Pyrenees”;
he also made some small gains against the Berber Almohads who now dominated
Muslim Iberia, and allied with and intrigued against neighbouring Christian
kingdoms of Navarre and Castile.
Under the rule of Alfons’s son, Pere (Peter) the Catholic, the kingdom suffered
both successes and reverses. Pere gained glory as one of the military leaders in
the decisive defeat of Muslim forces at the
Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa
in 1212, but, swept up into the AlbigensianWars through his ties of lordship to
the Counts of Toulouse, he was killed by Catholic forces at Muret a year later.
In the years of uncertainty that followed the succession of his five-year-old son,
Jaume I
(1213–76), later known as “the Conqueror”, his rivals took advantage
of the power vacuum and stripped the count-kings of Provence.Although they
would retain Roussillon and acquire Montpellier, for all intents and purposes
this signalled the
end of Catalan aspirations north of the Pyrenees
.
The golden age
In spite of these setbacks, Catalunya’s age of glory was about to begin in earnest,
with the 63-year reign of the extraordinary Jaume. Shrugging off the tutelage
of his Templar masters at the age of thirteen, he then personally took to the
field to tame his rebellious nobility. This accomplished, he embarked on a
series of campaigns of conquest, which brought him Muslim Mallorca in 1229,
Menorca in 1231 and Ibiza in 1235 (which explains why the Balearics share a
common language with the region). Next he turned south and conquered the
city ofValencia in 1238, establishing a new kingdom of which he was also ruler.
Valencia, however, was no easy territory to govern, and the region’s Muslim
inhabitants rose up in a series of revolts that outlasted the king’s reign.
Recognizing that
Mediterranean expansion
was where Catalunya’s future lay,
Jaume signed the
Treaty of Corbeil
in 1258, renouncing his rights in France
(except for Montpellier, the Cerdagne and Roussillon), in return for the French
CONTEXTS
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A history of Barcelona and Catalunya