Girona (royal)

Who he is

Name

Peter II of Aragon (Pere I, called the Catholic)

Title

King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona (Pere I in the Catalan count numbering)

Since

25 April 1196, when Alfonso II died at Perpignan

Born

1178 (some accounts give 1177); about 21 on 1 January 1200

Family

House of Barcelona; son of Alfonso II and Sancha of Castile; unmarried on 1 January 1200 (he marries Maria of Montpellier in June 1204)

Confidence

high

Standard dates. His court, officers and the queen mother's dower are in the Aragon realm record.

What it holds

• Girona city with its walls, the vicar's court, market tolls and the Jewish community's dues
• Royal rights over the Gironès, the Selva and the Baix Empordà
• Lordship over the viscounts of Cabrera (as viscounts of Girona) and the lesser barons of the district

How it was acquired

Hereditary county of the house of Barcelona.

Allies and rivals

The bishop of Girona is the other great power in the district; the Cabrera, whose young viscount may one day claim Urgell through his mother Marquesa, sit in its southern half; the count of Empúries is the neighbour to the north, owing large debts to the Girona church.

How things stand that morning

Royal and quiet in 1200, as far as the sources show. Peter II held his first Catalan Corts here in 1197.

Wealth

Girona's market and the Jewish community's dues, mills on the Ter and Onyar, the coastal tolls.

Military

The walled city (the Força Vella); royal castles in the plain; the Cabrera fortress of Montsoriu lies inside the county but is theirs.

Threats

• The Cabrera, whose quarrel with the count of Urgell can bring war into the Selva

Places of note

• Girona: Royal city, seat of the vicar and of the bishop

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: General knowledge of the comital counties; the edge with Empúries along the Ter and Fluvià is approximate.

On the map: The count's jurisdiction, with baronial and Church lordships inside it drawn separately.

Primary sources for Aragon

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Toledo and other short Iberian annals (12th and 13th centuries; Anales Toledanos I to 1219). Florez's volume 23 gathers the short annals of the peninsula. Read online
• Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, Anonymous, probably Juan of Osma, chancellor of Castile (about 1223 to 1239). The chancellor's chronicle of Alfonso VIII's reign, detailed from the 1190s. Read online
• The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. Read online
• Deeds of the Counts of Barcelona, Anonymous (monks of Santa Maria de Ripoll) (first version 1162 to 1184; continued in the later 13th century; final version 1303 to 1314). The house chronicle of the counts of Barcelona.
• History of the Affairs of Spain, Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada (completed 1243). The archbishop's history of the peninsula, written forty years on by a Navarrese who served Castile. Read online
• The Book of Examples: the History of the Berbers and of the Muslim Dynasties of North Africa, Ibn Khaldun (1375 to 1379 at Qal'at Ibn Salama and Tunis, revised until 1406). Ibn Khaldun's tribal histories are the standard account of the powers that Almohad chronicles treat as background: the Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym in Ifriqiya and Tripolitania and their alliances with the Banu Ghaniya and Qaraqush; the Zenata of the central Maghreb (Banu Marin, Banu Abd al-Wad, Tujin, Maghrawa) before their rise; the Sanhaja and the veiled peoples of the Sahara; the Masmuda and the Almohad tribes. Read online
• The Pleasant Book: a Summary of the History of the Maghreb, Abd al-Wahid al-Marrakushi (completed in 1224, in the East, after the author left the Maghreb in 1217). Abd al-Wahid was a boy of fifteen at Fez and Marrakesh in 1200 and later moved in Almohad court circles, so his account of Yaqub al-Mansur (died January 1199) and of the first years of Muhammad al-Nasir is partly from memory and from men he knew: the character of the new caliph, the weakness that let the Banu Ghaniya overrun Ifriqiya, the Majorca expedition of 1203 and the Ifriqiya campaign of 1205 to 1206. Read online
• Official Letters of the Almohad Chancery (1140s to 1260s; the letters nearest 1200 are of the reigns of al-Mansur and al-Nasir). Circular letters from the caliphs to governors, tribes and towns announcing victories, appointments and policy, preserved in later manuscript collections.

7 more in the sources library for France and Iberia.