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

etymologies and etiologies 23

beginning of King Pere II’s.^40 These were precisely the unstable moments

when these records were coming into existence, a fact that complicates a

search for origins, an etiology.

The final years of Jaume’s reign were troubled. Inspired by an invita-

tion from the Mongol Khan and a desire to curry favor with Pope Clement

IV (r. 1265 – 1268 ), Jaume planned and led a crusading expedition to the

Holy Land in 1269.^41 It ended in failure when the king and the majority of

his host prematurely disembarked at the marshy port of Aigues- Mortes

in Southern France. Rumors spread that Jaume had landed because he

wished to return to his mistress, adding insult to injury. Stung, Jaume tried

to muster support for a new crusade at the Council of Lyon in 1274 but,

once more, had little success. At home, he fared even worse, facing queru-

lous barons: their criticisms of royal power had crystallized around Jaume’s

taxes to support Castile in its war against Muslim Granada. Tired, it seems,

of the king’s efforts to play the crusader at their expense, the barons re-

volted. Although Jaume’s instinct was to show leniency and negotiate, his

aggressive son Pere crushed the baronial rebellion in 1275 , displaying a

penchant for violent force that would carry into his kingship.^42 This fire was

temporarily put out, but a worse one flared.

Although known as el Conqueridor, that is, “the Conqueror,” for his

capture of the former Almohad province of Valencia, Jaume’s epithet-

granting achievement became his undoing.^43 After decades of unrest,

and following closely on the heels of a similar revolt in Castile- controlled

Murcia ( 1264 – 1266 ), a Muslim uprising under the leadership of al- Azraq,

“the Blue,” erupted in 1275 and threatened to overturn Aragonese rule.^44

The aged king died on June 27 , 1276 , at Valencia, uncertain of the king-

dom’s future. The famous inscription on Jaume’s tomb, “He always pre-

vailed over the Saracens,” was only added a century later.^45 The future king

Pere left the battlefront briefly several months after Jaume’s death to be

crowned and then labored on, effectively having to conquer the kingdom

for a second time. He extinguished the Mudéjar rebellions and reduced al-

Azraq to a half- forgotten myth. Robert Ignatius Burns suggested that one

still hears a hint of al- Azraq in the bogeyman of contemporary Valencian

children’s tales, el Drach. “¡Que vindra el Drach!” say admonishing moth-

ers to their wayward children.^46

With a single exception, to which I return later, the jenets first ap-

pear in the records of the Crown of Aragon during events surrounding

these Muslim uprisings in Murcia and Valencia — not as soldiers of the

Crown of Aragon but rather as invaders into its kingdoms. Speaking of