the unpaid debt 99
ambitions of the Aragonese kings, then the unpaid debt, the other half of
the transaction, opens a door to the lives of the jenets in the kingdoms of
the Crown of Aragon and the quotidian practices of royal power.
Life Is Elsewhere
The case of Muça Almentauri and Maymon Avenborayç reveals something
simple but easily overlooked: the jenets did not come into the kingdoms of
the Crown of Aragon alone. Indeed, the Crown issued a safe- conduct in
1290 to three jenets, Muça Abenbeyet, Açe Parrello, and Yoniç, permitting
them to enter Valencia with their “wives and families.”^4 At the opposite
end of their service, in 1286 , five other jenets received permission to return
home with their wives and children:
Because Giber, Jahia, Jucef, Hiahiaten, and Dapher, jenets, brothers, served
us, therefore they may return [home] with their families, wives, and sons, in
all forty- seven people. We order you [all officials], immediately, to put no im-
pediment or obstacle in [the way of their] return but rather you should provide
them safe passage.^5
These jenets, five brothers, had lived in and departed these Christian
lands with forty- seven members of their family. Between their arrival and
departure, what did their families do? How did they survive in the king-
doms of the Crown of Aragon while these men served the king?
The Crown did, in fact, extend some of the same privileges and protec-
tions that jenets received to their wives.^6 Luxurious gifts were rare. Excep-
tionally, for instance, the wife (referred to simply as “his wife”) of Çeyt
Abdela received a gift of colored cloth “for clothing” alongside her hus-
band.^7 But by and large, soldiers’ families received basic provisions: plain
cloth, clothes, and food.^8 Some families were also provided with houses.
Muça Hivanface and his wife, Axone, were given several houses in the
morería, the Muslim quarter, of Valencia, a rather grand gesture but nev-
ertheless one that parallels the equivocality of the aljuba, which is to say,
if on the one hand, this gift signified privilege, the location of these houses
nevertheless marked this jenet and his wife as non- Christians.^9 The wives
of the Almohad princes, perhaps less generously, received one “suitable”
house also in Valencia.^10 Other women appear to have traveled alongside
their husbands, who received additional compensation for their expenses.
