THE EMERGENCE OF ARAGON-CATALONIAregularly leaving Majorca in the depths of winter bound often
for north Mrica; the mainstay of the merchant fleet was the
smallish leny (literally, 'wood'), but the growing demand for
grain from Sicily and elsewhere encouraged diversification
towards big, slow roundships. Further signs of navigational
sophistication were visible by 1281, when Majorcan ships were
able to reach England alongside Genoese vessels.^48 Finally,
there is the evidence of the maritime law codes of the Catalan
world, best known from the fifteenth-century versions of
the Valencian Consulate of the Sea code, which incorporates
thirteenth-century material: evidence for growing business,
and the growing need to regulate it by the standardisation
of norms.^49
Looking into the future, the years after the invasion of
Sicily were to see a gradual strengthening of the already not-
able Catalan trading presence there and in nearby Tunis;
access to the markets of Alexandria and Constantinople was
also much eased once Palermo and Messina were centres of
Catalan trade. Improved access to Sicilian grain was a great
bonus for the swollen population of Barcelona and Majorca
City, the more so as Barcelona itself became an increasingly
important centre of woollen cloth production after 1300,
while Majorca City may have accounted for as much as half of
the population of an island that had perforce to live mainly
by trade rather than agriculture. Here one beneficiary was
the king of Majorca, who drew considerable revenue from the
island's trade taxes. The greater safety of the waters around
Gibraltar made feasible regular sailings not just to Flanders
and England in search of wool and cloth, but down the
ocean coast of Morocco: Barcelona, Majorca and Valencia
became important links in a chain of routes linking Italy,
Seville and the Atlantic shores.
The hand of the Aragonese monarchy in the success
of Barcelona is most clearly visible in the development of
overseas consulates, primarily in north Mrica, the function
of which was to represent the commercial interests of the
Catalan merchants as well as the political interests of the
- Abulafia, Mediterranean Emporium. pp. 188-93.
- The most recent translation is that by S. ]ados, The Consulate of the Sea
and other documents (Alabama, 1975), though it fails to explain what
the real issues are; see also The Black Book of thP Admiralty (Rolls
Series), vol. 3.