56 archery
- At Peter’s death the kingdom fell into chaos
because of the lack of a successor. Ramiro II the Monk (r.
1134–57) left monastic life and became king of Aragon.
He married and produced a daughter, who married the
count of BARCELONA, Raymond Berenguer IV (r.
1131–62), producing a union with Barcelona and CAT-
ALONIA when Ramiro retired to a monastery again in - It was the son of Raymond and Ramiro’s daughter,
Petronilla (r. 1137–64), Alfonso II (r. 1164–96), who
reunified the kingdom, continued the march of conquests
to the south, and founded the Crown of Aragon, which
consisted of Catalonia and Aragon.
New lands from across the Pyrenees Mountains
were temporarily added to the Catalano–Aragonese
union, but Peter II (r. 1196–1213) intervened in the
Albigensian wars and was killed in the Battle of Muret
in France in 1213. The Reconquest was rejoined and
became more effective during the reign of JAMESI the
Conqueror (1213–76). James added the kingdoms of
MAJORCA and VALENCIA, and the kingdom began to
rival Castile for dominance in Christian Spain. James
also became involved in wars in Sicily, Sardinia, Cor-
sica, Naples, the BALEARICISLANDS, and Athens. Peter
III the Great (r. 1276–85) captured Sicily from the
ANGEVINSin 1282 after the SICILIANVESPERS. This con-
quest led to years of war and papal disapproval and
excommunication. By the early 14th century, a power-
ful assembly, the CORTES, had evolved and temporarily
was playing an important role in limiting the Crown’s
resources and government. There were costly wars
between the related rulers of Aragon and MAJORCAdur-
ing the 14th century. King Martin I the Humane (r.
1395–1410) had little success in restoring the over-
taxed kingdoms’ fortunes. After the territorial union
was achieved in the late 15th century by the marriage
of FERDINANDII of Aragon and ISABELI of Castile, the
Crown of Aragon disappeared as a separate political
entity with any institutional reality.
See alsoNAVARRE, KINGDOM OF.
Further reading:Lynn H. Nelson, The Chronicle of
San Juan de la Peña: A Fourteenth-Century Official History
of the Crown of Aragon(Philadelphia: University of Penn-
sylvania Press, 1991); Yom Tov Assis, Jewish Economy in
the Medieval Crown of Aragon, 1213–1327: Money and
Power(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997); Thomas N. Bisson, The
Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History(Oxford: The
Clarendon Press, 1986); John Boswell, The Royal Treasure:
Muslim Communities under the Crown of Aragon in the
Fourteenth Century(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1977); Alan Forey, “The Crown of Aragon,” in The
New Cambridge Medieval History,Vol. VI, c. 1300–c. 1415,
ed. Michael Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000), 595–618.
archery SeeWEAPONS AND WEAPONRY.
archives and archival institutions Archives as parts
of libraries or in special places of deposit preserve docu-
ments and records of routine activity by any agency,
office, or person, public or private. They can be main-
tained as legal or historical evidence of that activity.
Bureaucracies required memories. In the Middle Ages,
three major forms of archival institution emerged:
archives of the state or institutional church, notarial col-
lections, and private collections. There were often both
secular and ecclesiastical versions in each of these func-
tional types of depositories. Many have lived on into the
present collections today scattered all over Europe, North
Africa, and western Asia.ARCHIVES OF GOVERNMENTS
Archives of states preserved formal documents and
records incidental to the acts of government, such as
laws, decrees, court proceedings and sentences, and
records of the processes that created them. States had to
preserve treaties, political correspondence, letters of
privilege, records of taxation, statements of expenses,
and lists of government personnel. From the 10th cen-
tury the typical monarchy, which was feudal and military
and bound to a rural economic base, was constantly trav-
eling and carrying its most important records with it.
Departments of government eventually settled perma-
nently in a capital and generated these archives that sur-
vive today such as the PIPE ROLLS of the English
EXCHEQUER, beginning in 1130. The major European
cities, towns, and monarchies in imitation of the Holy
See began keeping registers of much of their correspon-
dence during the 13th century. The PAPACYhad begun
this practice during the combative pontificate of INNO-
CENTIII (1198–1216). One needed records to protect
one’s interests. Muslim states chiefly generated tax and
judicial records, similar to those of the BYZANTINE
administration. Only fragments of either survive from
before the massive 16th-century archives of the
OTTOMANEmpire.NOTARIAL ARCHIVES
Notarial archives were intended to preserve the docu-
ments of private acts that had or might eventually have
public or legal consequences, such as contracts of part-
nership and sale, marriage settlements, testaments, and
sales. Especially widespread in ITA LYand PROVENCE, this
form of archive found new impetus when the Roman
legal CODE OFJUSTINIANwas introduced into European
scholarship, courts, and administration in the 11th cen-
tury. This revived the profession of notary or tabellio,
who was needed to authenticate records. Notarial
archives are made up of formal copies of the documents;
registers containing full, formal copies of notarial instru-
ments, and simple notes or preparatory briefs for docu-
ments yet to be formally written. These were considered
public records and had the power of proof in a court of