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

52 chapter two

costs of Çahim and the rest of his troops in coming to Coll de Panissars.^93

As he would on later occasions with other soldiers, he showered the jenets

with gifts. All five received “Saracen” tunics and stirrups, but he singled

out three.^94 Alaçen, “Saracen soldier and representative to Çahim, son of

Abennaquem,” was given a tunic (aliuba) of multicolored cloth and red Pa-

risian silk shoes; Hamet Abenobrut received a tunic from the city of Jalón

and shoes of colored cloth; and Mahomet de Villena accepted clothes of

plain cloth and shoes from Narbonne.^95 Alaçen and Hamet also received

saddles and horse bridles. Alaçen was given a “good bridle,” whereas

Hamet was given “one of lesser price,” a distinction that indicates that Ala-

çen was the mission’s leader.^96 And while it appears that Çahim’s company

of jenets agreed to enter into the service of the king, after this moment,

definitive evidence of these five soldiers disappears from the royal records.

All the same, Pere’s decision to recruit Muslim soldiers to aid in the

defense against a French invasion led to a successful outcome. During

the siege of Gerona, the chronicler Bernat Desclot recorded that over

six hundred Mudéjar crossbowmen valiantly defended the city alongside

Count Ramon Folch.^97 The city would eventually fall, but in the meantime,

Roger de Lauria’s fleet returned from Sicily. Lauria destroyed Philip III’s

ships in the Bay of Roses in September 1285 , cutting off the French for-

ward position in Gerona and sending their armies into retreat. The arrival

of ten thousand jenets (deu milia Serrayns ginets), according to Desclot,

pushed the French back toward Perpignan, where King Philip died at the

beginning of October.^98 While the number of jenets is suspect, it nonethe-

less suggests that Desclot considered Muslim support essential to this vic-

tory. The papal legate, who had preached the French crusade against the

Crown of Aragon, agreed that the Crown’s reliance upon Muslim soldiers

was not only decisive but also, for that very reason, damning: “He [King

Pere] has joined with himself Saracens to destroy the Christian faith, and

with their aid he strives to withstand us, for by his own strength, which

is naught, he could not stand alone.”^99 Although Pere hoped to press on

from this victory and punish his uncle, Jaume of Mallorca, for insubordi-

nation, the king died a month later on November 11 , 1285. The success

of the jenets, however, would fix their place in the lands of the Crown of

Aragon for decades to come.