Jaca

Who holds it

Name

Peter II (in residence at the turn of the year); his tenant there not pinned

Title

Lord: the king

Confidence

medium

Lord in 1200

The king; his tenant not pinned. The court is here on 30 December 1199 and probably on 1 January 1200.

Overlord

Peter II of Aragon

How things stand that morning

Royal city; the court is in residence.

Wealth

Pilgrim and merchant traffic over the Somport, tolls, crafts, the name of the coinage.

Military

Walls; the passes of the Aragón valley.

Threats

• None external

Fuero

The Fuero de Jaca, granted by Sancho Ramírez (traditionally 1063, now usually dated 1076 or 1077): it freed the townsmen from bad customs, put burgesses and merchants on a level with knights and protected property, to draw Frankish settlers. It became the model for Estella (1090), Sangüesa (1122) and the burg of San Cernin at Pamplona (1129). In 1134 Ramiro II gave Jaca the franchises of the burgesses of Montpellier.

Council

A council of burgesses under its fuero; officers not pinned.

Communities

Franks from beyond the Pyrenees beside Aragonese; Jews (not pinned).

Fairs and markets

A market town on the Way of St James (Somport, Jaca, Sangüesa, Estella); fairs not pinned.

Places of note

• Canfranc and the Somport road: The road to the Somport pass and the hospice of Santa Cristina.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The fuero is well known; the town's 1200 officers are not.

On the map: Jaca and the upper Aragón valley; how much of the valley answered to Jaca's council in 1200 is not pinned.

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.