THE END OF THE HOUSE OF BARCELONAcontractual interpretation of the relationship between the
king and his greater subjects. Catalonia and Aragon were seen
from this perspective as constitutional monarchies, in which
the consent of the barons was conditional on good govern-
ance. The developing legend of the oath of Sobrarbe, fully
articulated in the sixteenth century, presented the first kings
of Aragon as lords who had promised to respect the rights
of their followers, and who expected in return the loyalty of
those followers, but 'if not, not'.^12 Later in Peter's reign,
the most forceful exponent of this 'pactist' outlook was the
prolific Franciscan Francese Eiximenis.
The crushing of the Unionists came at the right moment;
the Black Death also brought in its wake the outbreak of
yet another in the sequence of wars between Genoa and
Venice. As usual, the origins of the war must be sought in
the competition between the Italian republics for control of
the trade routes leading through the Aegean to the Black
Sea. However, the war spilled over into the western Medi-
terranean as well, where Genoa and Aragon had plenty of
scores to settle over the question of control of Sardinia; the
Venetians saw a perfect opportunity to bottle up the Genoese
in the west, sending their own fleets to join those of the Ara-
gonese off Sardinia. Peter obliged by providing some Catalan
naval aid off Constantinople. His difficulties increased as
the situation within Sardinia became ever more unstable;
Alghero was a focus for rebellion, and the treatment of its
inhabitants only served to accentuate the sense on the island
that the Catalans had come as an alien force of conquerors,
out for their own good. In 1354 the Sards of Alghero were
sent packing, and the city was repopulated with Catalans, so
successfully that the Catalan language could still be heard
on its streets in the late twentieth century.^13 Sard rebels were
sent as slaves to the Balearic islands, where it was hoped they
would help restore population levels and cultivate abandoned
- R. Giesey, If Not, Not. The oath of the Aragonese and the legendary laws of
Sobrarbe (Princeton, NJ, 1 968). - A. Mattone, P. Sanna, eds, Alghero, la Catalogna, il Mediterraneo. Storia
di una minoranza catalana in Italia (XIV-XX secolo) (Sassari, 1 994); J.
Carbonell, F. Manconi, eds, I Catalani in Sardegna (Milan, 1 984; also
in a Catalan edition, Barcelona, 1984); A. Rognoni, M.F. Arcioini,
Altre ltalie (Milan, 1991), pp. 181-97, all of which contain material on
the Catalan dialect of Alghero.