The Mercenary Mediterranean_ Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon - Hussein Fancy

118 chapter five

decades of the thirteenth century, the threat of another Mudéjar rebellion

with the support of jenets remained no more than a rumor. In November

1294 , for instance, several Granadan jenets were arrested carrying letters

from the Naṣrid ruler urging the Mudéjares to revolt.^107 Nothing, however,

came of the proposal; Granada soon entered into another alliance with

the Crown.^108 Thus, a combination of canny royal policy, political circum-

stance, and conservative local dynamics stood in the way of uniting the

jenets and Mudéjares and forged another surprising sort of exclusion.

Conclusion

The Aragonese kings alone did not define the jenets. If they granted these

soldiers a privileged exception from the laws that bound the citizens and

subjects of their kingdoms, then they could never in practice command

those citizens and subjects to accept that privilege. The lives of the jenets in

the lands of the Crown of Aragon were replete with challenges and oppor-

tunities beyond royal control. Nevertheless, the kings of the Crown of Ara-

gon relied upon these soldiers with confidence to defend their authority

against their external and internal enemies. This is nowhere clearer than in

the fact that the Crown of Aragon maintained a defensive front against the

Marīnid Ghuzāh during the Guerra Jenetorum while simultaneously em-

ploying jenets to suppress a rebellion of its own subjects. This confidence

reflected a royal flexibility in practice, an ability to play and placate all

sides at once. But if these kings used the jenets without hesitation, then it is

also true that they did not test these soldiers’ loyalty. By keeping the jenets

on the Castilian and French fronts or by deploying them in battles against

their own Christian subjects, during the rebellion of the Unions, the Ara-

gonese kings were not only defending their claims to sovereign authority

but also respecting the terms of treaties that brought these soldiers into the

lands of the Crown of Aragon. Precisely because and as long as France and

Castile continued to threaten the Crown of Aragon, this circumscribed use

of the jenets suited the Aragonese kings, and they felt no need to compli-

cate it. What would happen if this balance shifted?