Chapter^4POLITICS AND RELIGION IN
THE ERA OF RAMON LLULL
THE TRIUMPH OF PETER THE GREAT
It has been seen how, during James l's reign, Catalonia-
Aragon underwent an extraordinary transformation: a con-
geries of counties, divided by local rivalries, loosely subject
to the authority of the count-king (who was himself, in Cata-
lonia, nominally the vassal of the French king), was given a
greater degree of unity as royal administration pushed into
the localities, as the men of those localities were tied to the
crown through frequent Carts, as the monarchy earned itself
a Europe-wide reputation in the war against the Moors of
Majorca, Valencia and Murcia. Old animosities with France
were subdued, if not extinguished; but Castile remained gener-
ally a cooperative neighbour. Alongside these developments,
the rise of Barcelona was no less striking: the Catalans created
their own mare nostrum in the teeth of Italian opposition,
exercising considerable influence in Tunis, Bougie and other
prime trade centres of the Maghrib. James could frankly boast
that his was now the most eminent of all the Spanish monar-
chies. It may thus appear surprising that James did not intend
to pass on a single legacy, but insisted on creating a second
Catalan realm, that of Majorca, in the Balearics and in Rous-
sillon. This second kingdom was to act as an irritant in the
side of Aragon-Catalonia until the mid-fourteenth century.^1
- On this, see David Abulafia, A Mediterranean Emporium. The Catalan
Kingdom of Majorca (Cambridge, 1994); and for an older view A. Lecoy
de Ia Marc he, Les relations politiques de La France avec le royaume de Majorque,
2 vols (Paris, 1892); J.E. Martinez Ferrando, La triigira historia dels reis
de Mallorra (Barcelona, 1960; Italian translation: Cagliari, 1993).