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

a mercenary economy 77

The aggression against Tunis continued. In 1282 , an Aragonese fleet

landed at Collo (al- Qull) to support a rebellion against Abū Isḥāq.^7 Although

the rebellion failed, the Aragonese navy was perfectly placed to take ad-

vantage of a sudden uprising against Angevin rule in Sicily, the episode

known as the Sicilian Vespers. Nevertheless, what is striking is that de-

spite the fact that the conquest of Sicily had been the Crown of Aragon’s

highest ambition for over a decade, the Aragonese navy immediately

turned around, as if before the matins, and attacked North Africa once

again. Tunis remained central to the Crown of Aragon’s unfolding ambi-

tions in the Mediterranean.

When the French crusade against the Crown of Aragon was announced,

however, Pere halted these raids along the Tunisian coast.^8 In 1285 , at Coll

de Panissars, where he was preparing his scant armies to face a massive

French invasion and where he was awaiting the arrival of the five jenets,

riding mules borrowed from a Jew in Granada, Pere also met ambassadors

from Tunis. These ambassadors agreed to peace and agreed to pay an an-

nual tribute to the Crown of Aragon.^9

Before his death a few months later, Pere stipulated the division of

the lands of the Crown between his sons, Alfons and Jaume. Jaume, who

would later become King Jaume II (r. 1291 – 1327 ), inherited the island of

Sicily, while Alfons II (r. 1285 – 1291 ), his elder son, inherited the remain-

ing kingdoms and the crown itself. The purpose of this division was to free

Sicily from the prying hands of Catalan and Aragonese noblemen, who

had threatened Pere’s authority with rebellion. But this division had little

effect on the dangers that Alfons and later Jaume would face. The Crown

of Aragon remained under threat from the Unions within and the Papacy,

the French, and the Castilians without. Thus, for his part, King Alfons

responded to these threats just as his father had. He turned to the jenets.

And as three interlocking missions to recruit these soldiers from North

Africa in 1286 reveal, in the midst of crisis, he also held on to his father’s

ambition of mastering North Africa. Pere’s early attempts at asserting his

authority over Tunis foreshadowed Alfons’ own.

Three Missions

In December 1286 , two ambassadors, Pere de Deo and Abrahim Aben-

galel, a Jew, were issued instructions for a mission to the court of the Marī­

nid sultan Abū Ya‘qūb.^10 The first half of their negotiations was intended