Military Diasporas by Military Diasporas

Author:Military Diasporas [Retail]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Unlimited)
Published: 2022-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

Representing the King

In March 1265, King James I of Aragon (d. 1276) appointed Pere de Vilaragut as his captain in Tlemcen, ordering that all his subjects there—soldiers and others (milites et alii)—should obey him.87 Two years later, he repeated a similar appointment, this time installing Guillem Galcerà in the role. In this case, he stipulated that the alcayt was to enjoy far-reaching judicial rights, namely “the right to hear and to judge criminal and other cases and to comply with the office of an alcayt in every way”.88 In 1286, James’s grandson Alphonse III of Aragon imposed a similar regulation on the Abdalwadid ruler Abū Saʿīd ʿUthmān ibn Yaghmurāsan. All foreign Christians in Tlemcen were to be judged according to Aragonese law and by the alcayt appointed by the king of Aragon: Item que todos los christianos que seran en la terra del rey de Tirimçe de qualesquier condiciones et senyorias, que sean jutgados por fuero Daragon por aquel alcayt que el rey don Alfonso ala enbiara.89

By that time, that is, the end of the thirteenth century, Christian rulers had been providing fighters to Muslim potentates for many decades. In 1228, the Christian King Ferdinand of Castile reportedly sent an sizeable contingent to the Almohads for which he received ten castles and the sultan’s promise that the Christians in Marrakesh would be allowed to practice their religion freely, which included permission to toll bells.90 It appears that Christian rulers in general and the kings of Aragon in particular aimed at acquiring more immediate means of exerting political influence than mere territorial gains such as castles.91 Not only did they support specific factions during inner-Muslim strife, they even declared Christian militias and their captains to be representatives of royal interests, that is, their own.

Looking at other Northern African realms, we find further proof for this new policy. In 1274, James I negotiated a treaty with the Merinid sultan Abū Yūsuf (d. 1286), under whose terms 20 galleys and 500 cavalrymen were to be sent to Morocco, where the fighters would be permitted to establish a church of their own.92 James’s son and namesake strove towards personally appointing the alcayts in the town of Fes and Tlemcen when he negotiated with the Merinids in 1308.93 Aragonese policy towards Tunis and the Hafsid kingdom followed a similar pattern. James I sent an official royal contingent of salaried fighters under the leadership of a noble Catalan named Guillem de Montcada (d. ca. 1275) to Tunis in the middle of the thirteenth century.94 At this point, the character of Christian praetorians in Ifrīqiya changed: Henceforth, expatriate militias were supposed to be associated with the king of their homeland who had dispatched them south. In the Treaty of Panissars, agreed between the Hafsid ruler and King Peter of Aragon in 1285, the sultan permitted that the Aragonese king appoints the local alcayt.95 King Peter’s son Alphonse sought a similar agreement two years later.96 In 1303, King James II asked the sultan to favour the Christian soldiers who “provide you with good and loyal service (bon service e leal), which also compensates us”.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.