POLITICS AND RELIGIOI\' IN THE ERA OF RAMON LLULLYet the real battle was one for survival in the face of the
combined hostility of the Capetians in France and the An-
gevins in Naples. By early 1283 Sicily was his, and his armies
were beginning to make headway in Calabria; the aim was
to acquire control of the entire Sicilian kingdom, almost up
to the gates of Rome. As has been seen, an attempt (brokered
by Edward I of England) to resolve the feud be~een Anjou
and Aragon by single combat at Bordeaux in 1283 turned
into farce when Peter and Charles managed to avoid one
another, the former perhaps rightly fearing capture at French
hands. Events in the west thus lured Peter back to Spain; he
left his wife in effective charge in Sicily. Peter was well aware
of the precariousness of his position, for on his Pyrenean
front he had to face French-dominated Navarre and French-
allied Majorca, while he could never be sure of the loyalty
of his own barons and cities. The Aragonese Cortes exploited
the king's discomfiture to secure confirmation of its ancient
privileges. The Catalan Corts demanded major concessions:
not merely the usual promises not to levy a regular bovatge,
but the dismissal of the king's Jewish officials, such as the fin-
anciers Mw;:a de Portella, Aaron Abinafia and Masse Alcon-
stantini. The denial to Jews of the right to hold authority
over Christians was a well established feature of the Church's
policy towards the Jews; and both Aragon and Castile were
rare among European kingdoms in the degree to which their
rulers flouted the demands of the papacy, their bishops and
Christian laymen for the dismissal of Jews. But in the present
emergency, the Jews were seen as dispensable. The same
Corts also enacted legislation en les terres o llocs, 'in the lands
and places', insisting that unfree peasants must pay a fee
for their redemption, thereby setting on a firmer basis long-
term trends towards peasant servitude in Catalonia.^6 The Carts
were clearly anxious to squeeze the monarchy while the
chance was there.
Peter was obliged to march into Roussillon in search of
his treacherous brother James, in an attempt to close James's
territories to French armies; holed up in the Palace of the
Kings of Majorca at Perpignan, James of Majorca managed
first to feign illness and then to escape dramatically down
- P. Freedman, The origins of pmsant smlitude in medirval Catalonia (Cam-
bridge, 1991).