THE EMERGENCE OF ARAGON-CATALONIAJames's first major attempt to recover influence in the region
was checked after the death of the last Aragonese count of
Provence in 1243, and the winning of the hand of the suc-
essful heiress by the French prince Charles of Anjou in
1246; even though disputes about the Provent;:al succession
rumbled on, and even though Charles was still suppressing
rebels (in this case in Marseilles) as late as 1263, the house
of Aragon had suffered the first of several blows at the hands
of the ambitious Angevin. Opportunities for an Aragonese
recovery in Languedoc were similarly closed when Alphonse
of Poitiers acquired the title to the county of Toulouse.
The French monarchy began to show its hand on the coast
of southern France, not far from Montpellier, when the
stagnant waters of the abbey of Psalmodi were developed as
Aigues-Mortes ('Dead Waters') the first French royal port on
the Mediterranean; the intention was not simply, as often
supposed, to provide a departure station for Louis IX's sub-
stantial crusade of 1248, but also to strangle Montpellier,
which stood a little way inland and lacked good outports
of its own.^37 It was time to count up what was left of an
Aragonese dominion in southern France, and to negotiate
with the French monarchy over it.
The Treaty of Corbeil of 1258 offered real advantages to
both France and Aragon. The French renounced entirely
their sovereignty over the Catalan lands from Roussillon
southwards, drawing a line north of Perpignan which was
to serve for centuries as the southern border of France.
In exchange, James withdrew his claims to territories in
southern France (and, simultaneously, any remaining rights
in Provence). There was no real mention of rights over
Montpellier, however, which was retained as an Aragonese
lordship, and which was not in any case held directly from
the king of France but from a small-time local bishop. (The
Aragonese lieutenant in Montpellier was in fact one of
James's emissaries at Corbeil, and it is only with reference
to this figure that the city appears in the final documents.)
The treaty was not a defeat for James, but even so his heir
Peter the Great was eventually to try to overturn it. Links to
southern France remained intimate, and the king of Aragon
- G.Jehel, Aig;ues-Mortes, un port pour un roi. Les Capetiens et la Mediterranee
(Roanne, 1985).