James I and the Rise of Codeswitching Diplomacy in Thirteenth-Century Catalonia

Antonio M. Zaldívar

doi:10.1484/j.viator.5.112358

Wardship

10.1093/oso/9780192855039.003.0007 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 153-198

Author(s):

Benedict Wiedemann

Keyword(s):

Thirteenth Century ◽

Local Power ◽

Power Struggles ◽

James I

In the first decades of the thirteenth century, Popes Innocent III and Honorius III found themselves bound to support the succession of three young kings—Henry III of England, James I of Aragon, and Frederick II of Sicily. Although a supposed feudal right of wardship has often been supposed to have motivated the popes, actually, papal letters changed and altered their justifications for papal solicitude depending on the circumstances of the time. In practice, papal involvement in these royal minorities was reactive: the pope replied to petitions he received. Consequently, papal mandates and instructions were often variable and even contradictory. Papal instructions—rather than being a medium for a centralized papal will to be expressed—were more often the means through which local power struggles were fought.

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The Irish courts of law, 1801–1914

Irish Historical Studies ◽

10.1017/s0021121400016667 ◽

1957 ◽

Vol 10 (40) ◽

pp. 363-391

Author(s):

R.B. McDowell

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Seventeenth Century ◽

Sixteenth Century ◽

Thirteenth Century ◽

Common Law ◽

The Other ◽

James I ◽

Charles I ◽

Law Courts ◽

Court Of Chancery

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were six superior courts in Ireland—chancery, the three common law courts (king’s bench, common pleas and exchequer), the admiralty court and the prerogative court (an ecclesiastical court with jurisdiction over testamentary matters).Four of these courts were of medieval origin. The exchequer was probably in existence before the close of the twelfth century, the Irish chancery was founded early in the thirteenth century, the first Irish chancellor being appointed in 1244, and the antecedents of the courts of king’s bench and common pleas are to be found in the thirteenth century. The other two courts were comparatively modern. The court of prerogative and faculties based its rights to exercise jurisdiction on two sixteenth century acts and two seventeenth century patents, one of James I and one of Charles I. And though admiralty jurisdiction had been exercised in Ireland from medieval times, the Irish court of admiralty had been created by statute in 1784. From the court of chancery and the three common law courts there was an appeal to the court of error (known as the court of exchequer chamber) composed of the judges of the three common law courts, and in 1857 it was enacted that the court of exchequer chamber when hearing an appeal should consist of the judges of the two courts from which the appeal did not arise. From the admiralty court and from the prerogative court there was an appeal to delegates in chancery.

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I viaggi in un romanzo e i viaggi di un romanzo nel basso medioevo. Il caso del Joufroi de Poitiers

10.36253/978-88-5518-467-0.14 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 157-164

Author(s):

Roberta Manetti

Keyword(s):

Thirteenth Century ◽

James I ◽

Free Zone ◽

Political Value

In the fiction of the Joufroi de Poitiers, the author, perhaps a native of eastern France, claims to have found his story near Montpellier. His journey is perhaps not imaginary as we have an indication of a place that carries a certain political value, in an era when the French Crown, after having concluded the anti-Albigensian crusade in the mid-thirteenth century, had taken possession of the Midi. Montpellier was likely a free zone for the production and circulation of works of anti-Capetian satire, such as the Occitan novel which goes under the modern title of Flamenca. In fact, composed in the entourage of James I of Aragon in Montpellier, the Flamenca is one of the probable sources of Joufroi de Poitiers.

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Merchants, Mercenaries and Missionaries, 1220–1300

The Great Sea ◽

10.1093/oso/9780195323344.003.0030 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

David Abulafia

Keyword(s):

Thirteenth Century ◽

Eastern Mediterranean ◽

Western Mediterranean ◽

James I ◽

Major Transformation ◽

Sunni Islam ◽

The Mediterranean ◽

New Generation

The collapse of empires in the central and eastern Mediterranean was matched in the far west by the disintegration of Almohad power. The caliphs lost their enthusiasm for the extremist doctrines of Almohadism, and were accused of betraying the principles of their movement. Following military defeat at the hands of Christian kings of Spain at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 the caliph is said to have been strangled by one of his slaves. The Almohad territories in Spain and Tunisia fell into the hands of a new generation of local kings who only paid lip-service to Almohadism. The Hafsid rulers who gained control of Tunis proclaimed themselves successors to the Almohad caliphate, though more as a way of asserting their legitimacy than out of deep commitment to Almohad beliefs. The Berber Marinids broke Almohad power in Morocco in the mid-thirteenth century, after a long struggle. At the same time the Nasrid dynasty established itself in Granada, where it would last until 1492; it adhered strictly to Sunni Islam, not Almohadism. The thirteenth century also saw a major transformation in the Christian western Mediterranean: Pisa’s rivalry with Genoa for mastery over the waters around Corsica and Sardinia culminated in Pisan defeat at the battle of Meloria and the loss of iron-rich Elba in 1284. Although the Pisans did not yet lose control of the large areas of Sardinia they ruled, and even recovered Elba, a new rival to both Pisa and Genoa emerged, not a maritime republic but a group of cities led by Barcelona and backed by the growing power of the king of Aragon and count of Catalonia, James I ‘the Conqueror’. The Mediterranean vocation of the kings of Aragon was not obvious before the thirteenth century. Lords of a small, mountainous kingdom that only toppled the Muslim emirate of Saragossa in 1118, they dissipated much of their energy in attempts to interfere in Christian Castile and Navarre. But in 1134 King Alfonso ‘the Battler’ of Aragon died, having failed to produce an heir; his brother, a monk, was forced out of his convent in order to breed.

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