THE EMERGENCE OF ARAGON-CATALONIAexperience there suggested that a successful campaign against
the Moors could re-establish royal authoricy more successfully
than any number of carts. In the chronicle usually regarded
as James's autobiography the king states that a primary aim
of the campaign against Majorca was the reassertion of royal
authority.~^1 A king who could win glory in battle, conquer
Moorish lands and serve God on crusade would be able to
transcend the political tensions that had occupied his minor-
ity. In the concubinage agreement with Aurembiaix, of 1228,
reference was made en passant to the king's plan to conquer
Majorca. Yet it is plain that this was an old ambition of Cata-
lonia's rulers: in 1113-15 Count Ramon Berenguer III had
joined with the Pisans in a victorious invasion of Majorca
and lbiza; and the re-establishment of Muslim power in the
islands was followed by decades of internecine strife which
made Muslim Mayurqa seem very vulnerable. Moreover, the
situation of the Balearics astride the Catalan and Proven-;:al
trade routes was a source of inconvenience, since Muslim
pirates preyed on Christian shipping. Not for nothing had
a succession of Italian fleets attacked Majorca throughout the
twelfth century in the hope of repeating the earlier Pisan
success, and it has been seen that Peter II harboured plans
of his own for an invasion. The problem for the counts of
Barcelona had always been the lack of a native fleet, which
had led Ramon Berenguer to rely on the Pisans. ~~ By the
1220s Catalan shipping from Tarragona and Barcelona had
become more firmly established in the western Mediterra-
nean, and the king was now able to plan a war from which the
Genoese and Pisans (in any case friendly to the Muslim ruler
of Mayurqa) were excluded. Even so, he relied heavily on
Proven~al naval contingents, and on the help ofMontpellier,
to supplement Catalan resources. With their help, Majorca
City, the modern Palma, was besieged and taken by the
end of 1229.^23 The rest of the island did not capitulate at
- Chronicle of James I king of Aragon, trans!. J. Forster, 2 vols (London,
1883), pp. 98-104. This is an antiquated translation, and editions of
the Catalan original are widespread, the handiest being part one of
F. Soldevila, Les quatre grans croniques (Barcelona, 1971). - G.B. Doxey, "Christian attempts to conquer the Balearic islands, 1015-
1229', Cambridge University Ph.D. thesis, 1991. - F. Fernandez-Armesto, Before Columbus. Axploration and colonisation from
the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, 1229-1492 (London, 1987), pp. 13-
18.