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Mediterranean Communities in Competition and Conflict

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The Mediterranean World of Alfonso II and Peter II of Aragon (1162–1213)

Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages ((TNMA))

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Abstract

Peter II’s marriage to Marie of Montpellier linked Catalonia with southern France, just as had his great-grandfather Raymond Berenguer III’s marriage to Douce, heiress to the County of Provence. Additionally, like Raymond Berenguer III, Peter wished to expand the incipient Crown of Aragon to the north and also to the south. Southern advances would take Peter into Muslim territory and into potential conflict with the objectives of Muslim rulers. Peter II had complex relations with the Muslims, culminating in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212). To be sure, this was an important phase of the reconquista, and it broke the power the Almohad Caliphate enjoyed in Southern Iberia. That caliphate experienced internal pressures and conflicts just at the same time in the early thirteenth century, so this battle also marks the end of the expansions the Muslims were able to enjoy within Iberian territory. Peter’s aims mark a notable blending of expansionist policies to the north and the south—a blending that both he in particular and the Counts of Barcelona in general achieved gradually. The marriage to Marie of Montpellier signaled the importance of economic and social ties to the north; soon thereafter, Peter would turn his attention to the conquest of Majorca, expanding his territory into Valencia and joining other Christian rulers of Iberia in the defeat of Muslim forces at Las Navas de Tolosa.

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Notes

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Jenkins, E.E. (2012). Mediterranean Communities in Competition and Conflict. In: The Mediterranean World of Alfonso II and Peter II of Aragon (1162–1213). The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137078261_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137078261_6

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