The great frontier town of the Jalón facing Castile, with a territory of dozens of villages along the Jalón, Jiloca, Ribota, Manubles and Piedra valleys.
The king is often here: February, May and December 1198, February 1200. The treaty of friendship with Alfonso VIII was made here in May 1198. On the Castilian side lie Medinaceli, Santa María de Huerta, Monteagudo and Deza; Ariza, an Aragonese castle, stands on the boundary to the south-west.
Who holds it
- Name
- Lope 'de Daroca' (30 December 1199)
- Title
- Senior (royal lord) of Calatayud
- Confidence
- medium
Lord in 1200
The king, through his senior: Lope 'de Daroca' on 30 December 1199 (see Calatayud (Lope)); Fernando Ruiz de Azagra, lord of Albarracín, held Daroca and Calatayud in June 1196.
Overlord
Peter II of Aragon
How things stand that morning
Royal town under its own council.
Wealth
Irrigated valleys of the Jalón and Jiloca, wool, the road from Zaragoza to Castile.
Military
Castles of the town and of many villages; council militia.
Threats
- War with Castile if the alliance fails
- Friction between the town and its villages
Fuero
Fuero of 1131, granted by Alfonso I at the settlers' request after the victory of Cutanda (1120): a wide territory placed under the town. A bull of Lucius III (1182) mattered for the community's making; the villages won their own legal personality only in 1297.
Council
The council of Calatayud governs the town and its villages under the fuero; officers of 1200 not pinned.
Communities
Christians; a large Muslim community; Jews (sizes not pinned).
Militia
The council's militia serves in the host and rides its own raids; no 1199 record in the sources read.
What the year holds
What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.
- February 1200The king is at Calatayud (Alvira Cabrer, doc. 228).Depends on: The itinerary. Stopped by: Nothing known.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Village list from the later community (sesmas); its 1200 extent may have been slightly smaller.
On the map: Seeds follow the villages of the later community of Calatayud; Ariza and Cetina, outside it, are left to other records.
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.
Sources and studies
- Comunidad de aldeas de Calatayud (es.wikipedia)
- Miret i Sans, 'Itinerario del Rey Pedro I...' (continuación), BRABLB 3, no. 19 (1905), charters of February 1198 to 30 December 1199 with witness lists
- Miret i Sans, 'Itinerario del Rey Pedro I de Cataluña, II en Aragón (1196-1213)', BRABLB 3, no. 18 (1905-06), charters of 1196-1197 with witness lists
- Vicent Garcia Edo, 'Los orígenes de la Casa de Urrea', Medievalismo 29 (2019), citing Alvira Cabrer's edition of Peter II's documents
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.