page_title: Llibre dels fets
section_title: Codices and editions
hierarchical_section_title: Llibre dels fets / Codices and editions
caption_attribution_description: Català: Libre dels Feyts traduït al llatí English: Latin language translation of the Llibre dels fets chronicle
context_page_description: The Llibre dels fets, originally spelled Libre dels feyts, is the autobiographical chronicle of the reign of James I of Aragon. It is written in the Catalan language in the first person and is the first chronologically of the four works classified as The Four Great Catalan Chronicles, all belonging to the early medieval Crown of Aragon, and its first royal dynasty, the House of Barcelona. James I inherited as a child the titles of King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona, and Lord of Montpellier, but also became by conquest King of Majorca and King of Valencia. James emphasises in his chronicles his conquest of Majorca and of Valencia.
  James I of Aragon dedicates a couple of chapters to his mother Maria of Montpellier and his father Peter II of Aragon, who had been given the title of "Rex Catholicissimus" by the Pope after the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in which he helped Alfonso VIII of Castile fight against the Moors, one year before his death. Peter II of Aragon died defending his vassal lords of Occitania, who were accused of allowing the Cathar heresy to proliferate in their counties.
context_section_description: Five codices of the text from the 14th century and two from the 15th are preserved, all based on a translation of the original Catalan text into Latin by the Dominican friar Pere Marsili at the order of King James' grandson (his namesake James II of Aragon). He intended to adapt the original text to contemporary manners and style, as can be read:
  [...] So that the deeds of His glorious grandfather (James I), collected in a truthful but vulgar style, shall be put to date and once translated to Latin, form a single History volume, a full chronicle in which all the actions of the king his grandfather (James I the Conqueror) will be woven together.
  Friar Pere Marsili finished this royal assignment on 2 April 1313, and then petitioned the king that a copy of the manuscript be made for the Friars Preachers of Majorca, his homeland, to be used on the day of the "Feast of the Banner":
  [...] with the purpose of the last day of the year, the annual feast which commemorates the conquest of the city of Majorca, for God's glory and the eternally worshiping memory of his Luckiest Prince (James I), and so the friars who preach on this significative solemn date in front of the whole clergy and people, could rely to this book, and more firmly be informed of the truth of the facts."
  The official delivery of the Cronice Illustrissimi Regis Aragonum domini Jacobi victorissimi principis was made on 2 June 1314 at the Church of the Friars Preachers (església dels frares predicadors) of Valencia.
  Six official copies of the Latin translation by Pere Marsili exist. Four dating from the 14th century (conserved respectively in the National Library of Catalonia, the Archives of the Kingdom of Majorca, the Archives of the Cathedral of Palma de Majorca and the University of Barcelona's Library). A copy from the 17th century is kept at the Archives of the Crown of Aragon and another from the 19th in the Real Academia de la Historia of Spain.
   Dated to 1343, the oldest surviving codex in the original Catalan language is the copy ordered by Ponç de Copons, the abbot of the Poblet Monastery, as mentioned:
  Aquest libre féu escriure l'onrat en Ponç de Copons, per la gràcia de Déu, abbat de l'honrat monestir de Sancta Maria de Poblet, en lo qual monestir jau lo molt alt senyor En Jaume, aqueyl que aquest libre parla, dels feyts que féu ni li endevengueren en la sua vida
  (English: This book was ordered by the honorable Ponç de Copons, by God's grace, abbot of the St Maria Poblet Monastery, where there lies the most high Lord Sir James, the one about who the book tells, about the deeds and acts that he encountered in his lifetime). Friar Celestí des Torrents, who finished this manuscript on 17 September 1343.
  This copy from the Poblet Monastery was made from an original manuscript owned by the Royal Chancellery. On 11 November 1343, King Peter IV of Aragon sent a letter to the abbot of the Poblet Monastery demanding the return of the original codex In 1585 King Philip II of Spain visited the Poblet Monastery and ordered a copy of the chronicle for the Royal Library of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid.
  The second Catalan codex manuscript source, dating to 1380, comes directly from the Royal Chancellery of King Peter IV of Aragon, and must be a direct copy of the original, as the king himself commanded Johan de Barbastro to make it. The text in Latin:
  Mandato serenissimi domini petri dei gratir regis Aragonum valentiae, Majoricarum, cardinieae et Corsicae, Comitisque Barchinonae, Rossilionis et Ceritaniae [...] Ego Iohannes de Barbastro de scribania predicti domini Regis Aragonum, oriundus Cesaraugustae scripsi Ciuitate Barchinonae Anno a Nativitate Dmi. Mo. CCCo. octuagesimo sripsi
  (English: By order of Peter, by God's Grace King of Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, Sardinia and Corsica, Count of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdanya [...] I Johan de Barbastro, scribe chosen by the King of Aragon [...] in the City of Barcelona, year of The Lord's Nativity, 1380)
  Its prologue, in Catalan, reads:
  Aquest es lo començament del prolech sobre el libre que feu el rey en Jacm
caption: 1313 Latin translation of the Llibre dels Fets, the Cronice Illustrissimi Regis Aragonum by Friar Pere Marsili following the order of James II of Aragon (grandson of James I of Aragon).
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