page_title: Crown of Aragon
section_title: Expansion
hierarchical_section_title: Crown of Aragon / Context / Expansion
caption_attribution_description: Español: d’Aragon) Alfonso V el Magnánimo con el señal real en sobreveste y gualdrapas del caballo en el Armorial ecuestre del Toison d'Or. Flandre, ca. 1433-1435. Procedente de los Agustinos descalzos de Lyon que perteneció a Jean Lefèvre de Santo-Rémy. Bibliothèque nationale de France. Temple sobre pergamino. París, Bibliothèque de l’Arsénal, ms. 4790, f. 108r, miniatura núm. 228. Cfr. Alberto Montaner, «La problemática del número de elementos en las armerías medievales: diseño frente a representación», Miguel Metelo de Seixas y Maria de Lurdes Rosa (coord.), Estudos de Heráldica Medieval, Lisboa, Instituto de Estudos Medievais; Centro Lusíada de Estudos Genealógicos e Heráldicos, 2012, págs. 125-142; cfr. esp. pág. 130, fig. 2. ISBN 978-989-97066-5-1
context_page_description: The Crown of Aragon was a composite monarchy, also nowadays referred to as a confederation of individual polities or kingdoms ruled by one king, originated from a personal and dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona. At the height of its power in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Crown of Aragon was a thalassocracy controlling a large portion of present-day eastern Spain, parts of what is now southern France, and a Mediterranean "empire" which included the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, Southern Italy and parts of Greece. The component realms of the Crown were not united politically except at the level of the king, who ruled over each autonomous polity according to its own laws, raising funds under each tax structure, dealing separately with each Corts or Cortes. Put in contemporary terms, it has sometimes been considered that the different lands of the Crown of Aragon, particularly the Kingdom of Aragon, the Principality of Catalonia and the Kingdom of Valencia, functioned more as a confederation than as a single kingdom.
context_section_description: Alfonso II inherited two realms and with them, two different expansion processes. The House of Jiménez looked south in a battle against Castile for the control of the middle valley of the Ebro in the Iberian peninsula. The House of Barcelona looked north to its origins, Occitania, where through family ties it had significant influence, especially in Provence and Foix, towards the south along the Mediterranean coast and towards the Mediterranean sea.
  Soon, Alfonso II of Aragon and Barcelona committed himself to conquer Valencia as the Aragonese nobility demanded. Like his father, he gave priority to the expansion and consolidation of the House of Barcelona's influence in Occitania.
  Alfonso II signed the treaties of Cazorla, a multilateral treaty between Navarre, Aragón, León, Portugal, and Castile to redefine the frontiers and zones of expansion of each kingdom. Alfonso II assured Valencia by renouncing the Aragonese rights of annexing Murcia in exchange for securing the Aragonese frontier with Castile. This action should be seen as result of the aforementioned priority given over the Occitan and Catalan dominions of the Crown of Aragon.
  From the 9th century, the dukes of Aquitaine, the kings of Navarre, the counts of Foix, the counts of Toulouse and the counts of Barcelona were rivals in their attempts at controlling the various pays of Occitania. And the House of Barcelona succeeded in extending its influence to the area that is now south of France through strong family ties, in the areas of the County of Provence, County of Toulouse and County of Foix. The rebellion of the Cathars or Albigensians, who rejected the authority and teachings of the Catholic Church, led to the loss of these possessions in southern France. Pope Innocent III called upon Philip II of France to suppress the Albigensians—the Albigensian Crusade, which led to bringing Occitania firmly under the control of the King of France, and the Capetian dynasty from northern France.
  Peter II of Aragon and I of Barcelona returned from the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in autumn 1212 to find that Simon de Montfort had conquered Toulouse, exiling the Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who was Peter's brother-in-law and vassal. Peter's army crossed the Pyrenees and arrived at Muret where they were joined by Raymond of Foix and Raymond of Toulouse's forces, in September 1213 to confront Montfort's army. The Battle of Muret began on 12 September 1213. The Catalan, Aragonese and Occitan forces were disorganised and disintegrated under the assault of Montfort's squadrons. Peter himself was caught in the thick of fighting, and died as a result of a foolhardy act of bravado. Thus, the nobility of Toulouse, Foix and other vassals of the Crown of Aragon were defeated. The conflict concluded with the Treaty of Meaux-Paris in 1229, in which the Crown of Aragon agreed to renounce its rights over the south of Occitania with the integration of these territories into the dominions of the King of France.
  King James I (13th century) returned to an era of expansion to the South, by conquering and incorporating Majorca and a good share of the Kingdom of Valencia into the Crown. With the Treaty of Corbeil (1258), which was based upon the principle of natural frontiers, the Capetians were recognized as heirs of the Carolingian dynasty, and the Capetian king renounced his feudal overlordship over Catalonia. The general principle was clear, Catalan influence north of the Pyrenees, beyond the Roussillon, Vallespir, Conflent and Capcir, was to cease. James I had realized that wasting his forces and distracting his energies in attempts to keep a footing in France would only end in disaster. On January 1266, James I besieged and captured Murcia, then settled his own men, mostly Catalans, there; and handed Murcia over to Castile with the treaty of Cazorla.
  The Kingdom of Majorca, including the counties of Cerdanya and Roussillon-Vallespir and the city of Montpellier, was held independently from 1276 to 1279 by James II of Majorca and as a vassal of the Crown of Aragon after that date, becoming
caption: Equestrian heraldic of king Alfonso V of Aragon in the Equestrian armorial of the Golden Fleece 1433–1435. Collection Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal.
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