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

2 introduction

Aragon Castile Naṣrids Marīnids Ḥafṣids

‘Abd

al-Wādids

Jaume I
( 1213 – 76 ) Ferdinand III
( 1217 – 52 ) Muḥammad I
( 1232 – 73 )

Abū Zakariyyā’

( 1229 – 49 ) Abū Yaḥyā,

Yaghmurāsan

( 1236 – 8)

al-Mustanṣir
( 1249 – 77 )
Alfonso X
( 1252 – 84 )
Abū Yūsuf
( 1258 – 86 )
Muḥammad II
( 1273 – 1302 )
Pere II
( 1276 – 85 ) al-Wāthiq
( 1277 – 79 )
Abū Isḥāq
( 1279 – 83 )
interregnum Abū Sa‘īd,
‘Uthmān b.
Yaghmurāsan
( 1283 – 1304 )

Sancho IV

( 1284 – 95 )

Abū Ḥafṣ
( 1284 – 95 )
Alfons II
( 1285 – 91 )
Abū Ya‘qūb
( 1286 – 1307 )
Jaume II
( 1291 – 1327 )
Ferdinand IV
( 1295 – 1312 )

Abū ‘Aṣīda

( 1295 – 1309 )

Muḥammad III

( 1302 – 9 )

Abū Zayyān

( 1304 – 8 )

Abū Thābit

( 1307 – 8 )

Abū’l-Rabī‘

( 1308 – 10 )

Abū Ḥammū

( 1308 – 18)

Naṣr ( 1309 – 14 ) interregnum

Abu Sa‘īd

( 1310 – 31 )

Abū Yaḥyā

al-Liḥyānī

( 1311 – 17 )

Alfonso XI
( 1312 – 50 )
Ismā‘īl I
( 1314 – 25 )
Abū Tāshufīn
( 1318 – 3)
Muḥammad IV
( 1325 – 33 )
Alfons III
( 1327 – 36 ) Abū al-Ḥasan
Yūsuf I ( 1331 – 48 )
( 1333 – 54 )
Pere III
( 1336 – 87 ) Pedro I
( 1350 – 69 ) Muḥammad V
( 1354 – 59 ; 1362 – 91 )
interregnum
Muḥammad V
( 1354 – 59 ; 1362 – 91 )

Panissars near the border with France. These five horsemen had trav-

eled some two hundred miles, tracing the hypotenuse of the realms of

the Crown of Aragon. But where were they going, and why? A few lines,

haphazardly copied by a royal scribe into the chancery registers, tell us

that the jenets were given an audience with the Aragonese king, Pere II

(r. 1276 – 1285 ). They record that Pere showered these soldiers with gifts,

including sumptuous cloth and decorative saddles. What inspired this

gift giving? In his own words, in a letter addressed to his ambassador in

Granada, King Pere explained that these jenets— representatives of a

captain named “Çahim Abennaquem”— had agreed to enter the Crown’s

service.