THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAl\' Kll\'GDOMS 1~00-1''00division of the conquered territories occurred was Valencia
City and its fertile agricultural hinterland or horta, in which
the citizens of several northern towns such as Jaca, Saragossa
and Montpellier received handsome rights, with Barcelona
able to claim one-fifth of the urban property in Valencia
City and one-sixth of the horta, and with Montpellier able to
claim mastery of a goodly chunk of the town too. The aim
was not simply to offer the Catalans good trading opportun-
ities, but to create a sizeable Christian Catalan business com-
munity within the capital itself, while the Jews too received
a substantial area for themselves in the city. The map of
Valencia became a miniature map of James's realms, as men
of Huesca, Roussillon and even of Pyrenean lands beyond
James's frontiers were granted the right to carve out their own
suburbs or city streets. In the south, a scattering of Christian
lordships emerged, but there were few expulsions and even
fewer massacres during the conquest; Christian lords thus
found themselves, as at Chiva, charged with a Muslim popu-
lation; the further south one travelled, the more obvious it
became that the Aragonese had barely neutralised this area,
which therefore retained its potential for revolt. The most
dramatic revolt, certainly, was that ofal-Azraq (1247-48), but
even in the 1270s the greater part of Valencia was still of
uncertain loyalty.
Potentially Valencia was an enormous financial asset, as
Robert L Burns has shown in a series of studies of the tax
regime under James L ll One additional conquest, Xativa
(Jitiva), which fell in 1244, was particularly important be-
cause its paper factories provided James with the means to
keep voluminous governmental records.'~ Valencia City itself
was able to furnish the king with revenues fi-om Muslim bath-
houses, bakeries, butcheries, brothels; with poll-taxes charged
on Muslims and Jews; with taxes on market place transactions
and on trade through the port, which grew in importance
partly as a result of the fall of Majorca; Catalan merchants,
Muslims and Mozarab Christians maintained a constant flow
of trade between .James's two conquests within three vears of
- Burns, iHPdiroal Colonialism; Is/run undn thr Crusadrn, etc.; Hillgarth,
Problnn, p. 7. - R.I. Burns, Diplomatarium of lhP Cmsadn Kingdom ofl'alrn!'ia, Yo!. l,
Society and Dommmlalion in Cmsadn \'a/en!'ia (Princeton,:-), 19S:J).
pp. 151-81.