THE MEDITERRANEAJ\' IN THE AGE OF JAMES II OF ARAGONthe Christian communities in the Holy Land and in Egypt.
Papal boycotts did not damage the lucrative trade with Egypt,
from which the Aragonese king benefited directly: in^1306
James II of Aragon was sent embroidered and plain cloths
in a variety of colours, produced in the state factories in
Egypt, and made of silk, linen and cotton; some of the cloths
were hand-painted, one possibly with pictures of peaches; the
sultan also sent balsam and incense, and some crossbows.^22
Revenue from the 'fines' levied on Catalan merchants trad-
ing to Egypt became one of the major sources of income of
the king of Aragon. The formal prohibition of trade rapidly
became a means to its informal promotion.
James did not neglect other potentially profitable corners
of the Levant. James II's bid to become heir to the crown
of Cyprus by marrying Maria de Lusignan brought him an
elderly bride whom -he was later to complain after her death
in 1322-he had not found sufficiently companionable, and
who failed to bear any children; nor in the event did she
bring him Cyprus, but as Edbury remarks, this was 'arguably
the best match ever made by a member of the Cypriot royal
house'.^23 Had the plan succeeded, Cyprus, like Sicily and
Majorca, would have been ruled in due time by an Aragonese
cadet dynasty, while James's senior male heir took charge of
the Spanish lands. Besides, the crown of Cyprus carried with it
the title to Jerusalem as well; and James was anxious to con-
firm his Mamluk-approved sponsorship of the holy places. If
he could acquire grand titles and influence in the Levant, he
would once again have scored a point off his family's old
rivals, the Angevin 'kings of Jerusalem and Sicily' based in
Naples.
- A.S. Atiyah, ~gypt and Aragon. Embassies and diplomatic correspondence
between 1300 and 1330 AD (Abhandlungen fUr die Kunde des
Morgenlandes, 23:7, Leipzig, 1938), pp. 26-34. - P.W. Edbury, The kingdom of Cyprus and the crusades, 1191-1374 (Cam-
bridge, 1991), p. 138. The throne of Jerusalem and Cyprus held a
dangerous fascination for the Aragonese. On other occasions Frederick
of Trinacria had been offered Albania, Cyprus or Sardinia if he were
prepared to abandon Sicily; in 1309-10 the King of Naples, Robert
the Wise, was approached by the Aragonese in the hope that he
would cede his claim to the crown of jerusalem to Frederick: Edbury,
Kingdom of Cyprus, pp. 107-8; David Abulafia, 'The Aragonese king-
dom of Albania. An Angevin project of 1311-16', Mediterranean His-
torical Review, voi. 10 (1995), pp. 1-13.