THE El'\0 OF THE HOUSE OF BARCELOI'\Awere not necessarily defenders of the established Church.
Demands for tax concessions resulted in the halving of a
wine tax and an official enquiry into the management of
city finances. Meanwhile the monarchy, which consistently
defended its Jewish subjects against such outrages, began to
clear up the mess, arresting the ringleaders, hanging some
of them but often issuing pardons, which had to be paid for.
King John I wrote to the city officials of Perpignan, where
the persons, but not the property, of the Jews was saved
by bringing the Jews into the castle, that 'Neither civil nor
canon law allow that a person should be made Christian by
force; this can only happen in complete freedom.'^1 K The
authorities were well aware that attacks against the Jews led
to a serious breakdown in public order, and what is strik-
ing about the events of 1391 is the way that social grievances
overlapped with anti:Jewish pogroms. The whole Crown of
Aragon seemed powerfully infected by a resentment of the
Jews that had deep roots not merely in religious rivalries but
in the need to find a scapegoat at a time of economic uncer-
tainty and social convulsion.
John's successor, Martin I, was in Sicily at the time of his
brother's death, and was not faced with a smooth succession;
a number of French nobles mounted stiff challenges, gain-
ing some support within the realm. It was only in 1399 that
Martin went to Saragossa for his coronation, an indication
how long it took to suppress the troublemakers. In Sicily,
King Ladislas of Naples was making mischief by supporting
the anti-Aragonese factions. In Sardinia, the succession to the
kingdom of Arborea was being contested by the viscount of
Narbonne. It was thus an achievement for Martin to pursue
hard the recovery of royal rights. Alienations of crown lands
under Peter IV and John I had reached a dangerous level,
undermining the ruler's ability to derive significant revenue
from his lands, and depriving him of jurisdictional powers
even in the heartlands of Old Catalonia. Martin was well
aware that his political survival depended on a delicate rela-
tionship with the Carts and Cortes in his Spanish lands, and he
managed his parliaments well, securing from some meetings,
in Aragon and Valencia, grudging support for the recovery
- P. Wolff, The 1391 pogrom in Spain. Social crisis or not?', Past and
Present, 50 (1971), pp. 4-18.