THE EMERGENCE OF ARAGON-CATALONIAcounty under strong Frankish influence grew to include Jaca,
which took off as a major ecclesiastical centre, and then
extended its influence gradually into the foothills around
Huesca in the eleventh century. Ramiro I (1035-69) still did
not describe himself as king, but only called himself, oddly,
Ramiro 'as if king'. A royal title arrived when his son suc-
ceeded to the largely Basque kingdom of Navarre, and was
simply perpetuated when Navarre and Aragon split again in
the twelfth century. In both Catalonia and Aragon, the suc-
cesses scored over Muslim rulers brought the superb dividend
not of direct rule, but of tribute payments in Muslim gold;
in the case of the city of Barcelona, such payments may have
had a particularly stimulating effect on the economy.^5
There is a current tendency to decry use of the term
'reconquest' to describe the process by which all of Spain
gradually fell into the hands of Christian rulers between
the Moorish invasion of 711 and the fall of Granada in
- Certainly, the Catalans and the Aragonese were just
as capable of entering into alliances with Muslim warlords,
especially in the turbulent eleventh century, as they were with
Christian ones: the years around 1031 saw the disintegration
of the once mighty Caliphate of Cordoba, and a squabble
over the spoils that brought the mercenary captain El Cid
to Valencia.^6 The petty Muslim kingdom of Saragossa was
for a time closely allied to El Cid; the Aragonese, however,
(not to mention their rivals, the rulers of Leon and Castile)
had their eyes on it; in IllS King Alfonso the Battler of
Aragon-Navarre secured the city of Saragossa, which com-
manded the wide plains and fertile fields of the Ebro valley.
The Aragonese had now definitively broken out of the Pyr-
enees, and had become a significant force within the pol-
itics of all the peninsula. They encouraged the Christians
from Muslim Spain (the Mozarabs) to come and settle the
newly conquered land on easy terms, alongside the Muslim
peasants, many of whom remained in situ in subordinate - S. Bensch, Barcelona and its rulers, 1096-1291 (Cambridge, 1995) is
now the fundamental discussion of the city's emergence, after a 'false
start' in the eleventh century. - For general accounts of the political ties between Muslim and Chris-
tian rulers, see R. Fletcher, The Quest for El Cid (London, 1988); R.
Fletcher, Moorish Spain (London, 1992).