THE \'\'ESTERN MEDITERR:\t\EAN KINGDOMS 1~00-1500James II of Majorca to power in the Balearics and Roussillon,
though the Majorcan kings were obliged to acknowledge
again the overlordship of the ruler of Aragon-Catalonia. This
did not prevent James of Majorca from initiating ambitious
schemes to establish tariff barriers around his kingdom: a
new customs station at the port of Collioure claimed the right
to tax Barcelonan merchants, similar measures were enforced
in Majorca, and the king of Majorca began from 1302 to
create his own consulates along the coast of north Mrica,
in open rivalry with James II of Aragon; the merchants of
Barcelona responded with trade boycotts aimed at Majorca.^17
So too the treaty of Caltabellotta in 1302 did not end the
rivalry of Sicilian Aragonese and Neapolitan Angevins for con-
trol of Sicily; but it drew the houses of Barcelona, Naples and
indeed Majorca closer together by means of marriage alli-
ances and, later, trade treaties. But the unity of the Catalan-
Aragonese commonwealth should not be exaggerated. Three
dynasties of Aragonese origin held sway in mainland Spain,
Majorca and Sicily, sometimes at odds with one another.
James II's character is one of the best known of late medi-
eval kings; beginning a great Catalan royal tradition, he was
a prolific letter writer, corresponding with Frederick of
Trinacria throughout the War of the Vespers, and with the
best medical practitioners in Europe (whom he hoped to
attract to his court). It has been remarked that 'he obviously
perceived illness as always imminent and always potentially
serious'; fortunately he did have trust in his physicians, who
included the eminent and prolific medical and religious
writer Arnau de Vilanova. James's constant bouts of severe
hypochondria do not seem to have incapacitated him polit-
ically, even though he spent the last years of his life as an
invalid incapable of going tvvo paces without knowing that a
doctor of medicine was at hand.^1 H He was constantly worried
- This uneasy relationship, after a more open period under King Sane.;
of Majorca ( 1311-24). who accepted his obligations to his Aragonese
overlord, culminated in the defiance of the king of Aragon by James
III of Majorca and the invasion and incorporation of his kingdom in
1343-44. Thus long-term problems were shelved rather than resolved.
See David Abulafia, A Meditemmean Emporium. The Catalan Kingdom of
Majorm (Cambridge, 1994), and A. Riera Me lis, La Corona de Aragon
)' el reirw de Mal/orca en elfnimer ruarto del siglo XIV (Barcelona, 1986). - M. McYaugh, Mulicine before the fJlague. Practitioners and thl'ir patimts in
the Crown ofAmgrm 1285-1345 (Cambridge. 1993), pp. 4-2R.