sovereigns and slaves 73
in his administration, indicating their awareness of the relationship be-
tween non- Christians, Sicilian exiles, and the new imperial pretension.
Under threat on all sides, Pere was forced to compromise. On October 3 ,
1283 , he approved the Privilegio General in Aragon, agreeing to dismiss
all his Jewish bailiffs.^151 The same concession was granted to the kingdoms
of Valencia and Catalonia a few months later.^152
The rebellions, however, continued, and Pere and his successors con-
tinued to maintain the practice of relying on privileged non- Christians.^153
Local Jewish bailiffs indeed disappeared, but the Crown’s use of Jews as
privileged agents of the royal court continued unabated. The recruitment
of the jenets was an expansion of this system. And significantly, in this
context, rather than referring to his Jewish and Muslim agents as servi,
as he had in the past, Pere now prevaricated, speaking of them obliquely
and innocuously as “our faithful ( fidelis noster)” and “of our household
(de domo nostra).”^154 Abrahim el Jenet, for instance, was simply “our
Jew.”^155 In other words, these expressions and others like them did not sug-
gest equality, community, or even affection — an ability to see these men
as something other or more than Muslims and Jews — but rather were an
ambage that masked ideas of possession and ownership.
In all but name, the Aragonese practice of using Jewish and Muslim
servi remained the same. King Alfons II used the jenets to attack the
Unions. From 1285 to 1287 , the jenets were operating not only in foreign
theaters but also in the Aragonese towns of Cutanda, Alfamén, and Ca-
latayud, centers of rebellion.^156 The Crown’s dependence on these soldiers
is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that they actively prevented others
from recruiting them. In 1293 , Artal de Alagón, one of the leaders of the
Unions, sent representatives to Granada — including a jenet already in his
service — to request the support of the Ghuzāh for his rebellion against
King Jaume II. Learning of this mission, Jaume moved immediately to
block the alliance:
We have learned for certain that some Aragonese noblemen have recently sent
representatives to the king of Granada, asking for and seeking assistance from
him.... We have also learned that the nobleman Artal de Alagón sent his
majordomo to said king as well as a certain Saracen jenet to request an army of
jenets to do us harm, and we plan to resist these efforts so that no one can inflict
harm or injury on our land and people.^157