24 chapter one
the Murcian rebellion, which threatened Castile, King Jaume recorded in
his autobiography, the Llibre dels feyts:
And we had already heard that the king of Castile [Alfonso X (r. 1252 – 1284 )]
had fallen out with the king of Granada [Muḥammad I (r. 1232 – 1273 ) of the
Naṣrids] and that the king of Granada had, for a long time, had recourse to the
Moors on the other side of the sea; and that jenets had crossed to his land and
could take all the king of Castile’s land.^47Jaume specifies that these jenet soldiers were from “the other side of
the sea (d’allèn mar),” a claim corroborated by the fourteenth- century
Castilian Crónica del Alfonso XI, which adds, “they say these were the
first jenet knights that crossed the sea.”^48 In his Llibre dels feyts, Jaume
also tells us something of their numbers and movements, which he ob-
served with concern:
While we were in Oriola, where we stayed well for eight days, one night two
almogàvers [fighters who specialized in cross- border raids on Grenada] of
Lorca came to us, and knocked on our door near midnight. They reported to us
that eight hundred jenets, with two thousand loaded mules and two thousand
men- at- arms guarding them, were entering supplies into Murcia.^49During the Muslim rebellion in the kingdom of Valencia a decade
later, the jenets appeared again. In this case, King Pere moved to contain
the threat. In a circular dated May 15 , 1277 , to the vicars and bailiffs of
Gerona, Besalú, and other locations, Pere ordered export restrictions:
Because in the kingdom of Valencia many of the jenets have risen up, and the
alcaydus and Saracens of the castle of Montesa have broken the agreements
that we had with them for the restitution of this castle; therefore, we are at war
with them. We order you immediately to forbid the export from our land to any
parts horses or large palfreys under the penalty of the loss of said horses and
palfreys.^50