James I of Aragon
James I the Conqueror (;
Aragonese: ''Chaime I'' ''o Conqueridor''; 2 February 1208 – 27 July 1276) was
King of Aragon,
Count of Barcelona and
Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276;
King of Majorca from 1231 to 1276; and
Valencia from 1238 to 1276. His long reign of 62 years is not only the longest of any
Iberian monarch, but one of the
longest monarchical reigns in history, ahead of
Hirohito but remaining behind
Queen Victoria and
Ferdinand III of Naples and Sicily. He saw the expansion of the
Crown of Aragon in three directions:
Languedoc to the north, the
Balearic Islands to the southeast, and
Valencia to the south. By
a treaty with
Louis IX of France, he achieved the renunciation of any possible claim of French suzerainty over the
County of Barcelona and the other
Catalan counties, while he renounced northward expansion and taking back the once Catalan territories in
Occitania and vassal counties loyal to the County of Barcelona, lands that were lost by his father
Peter II of Aragon in the
Battle of Muret during the
Albigensian Crusade and annexed by the
Kingdom of France, and then decided to turn south. His great part in the
Reconquista was similar in Mediterranean Spain to that of his contemporary
Ferdinand III of Castile in
Andalusia. One of the main reasons for this formal renunciation of most of the once Catalan territories in
Languedoc and
Occitania and any expansion into them is the fact that he was raised by the
Knights Templar crusaders, who had defeated his father fighting for the Pope alongside the French, so it was effectively forbidden for him to try to maintain the traditional influence of the Count of Barcelona that previously existed in
Occitania and
Languedoc.
As a legislator and organiser, he occupies a high place among the
European kings. James compiled the ''
Llibre del Consolat de Mar'', which governed maritime trade and helped establish Aragonese supremacy in the western
Mediterranean. He was an important figure in the development of the
Catalan language, sponsoring
Catalan literature and writing a quasi-autobiographical chronicle of his reign: the ''
Llibre dels fets''.
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