James I the Conqueror was King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276; King of Majorca from 1231 to 1276; and King of 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.
Almogavars is the name of a class of light infantry soldier originated in the Crown of Aragon used in the later phases of the Reconquista, during the 13th and 14th centuries.
Ferdinand IV of Castile called the Summoned, was King of Castile and León from 1295 until his death.
The Catalan Company or the Great Catalan Company was a company of mercenaries led by Roger de Flor in the early 14th century and hired by the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos to combat the increasing power of the Anatolian beyliks. It was formed by almogavar veterans of the War of the Sicilian Vespers, who had remained unemployed after the signing in 1302 of the Peace of Caltabellotta between the Crown of Aragon and the French dynasty of the Angevins.
Alfonso II was Duke of Calabria and ruled as King of Naples from 25 January 1494 to 23 January 1495. He was a soldier and a patron of Renaissance architecture and the arts.
The Battle of Malta took place on 8 July 1283 in the entrance to the Grand Harbour, the principal harbour of Malta, as part of the War of the Sicilian Vespers. An Aragonese fleet of galleys, commanded by Roger of Lauria, attacked and defeated a fleet of Angevin galleys commanded by Guillaume Cornut and Bartholomé Bonvin.
The First Italian War, or Charles VIII's Italian War, was the opening phase of the Italian Wars. The war pitted Charles VIII of France, who had initial Milanese aid, against the Holy Roman Empire, Spain and an alliance of Italian powers led by Pope Alexander VI, known as the League of Venice.
The War of the Sicilian Vespers, also shortened to the War of the Vespers, was a conflict waged by several medieval European kingdoms over control of Sicily from 1282 to 1302. The war, which started with the revolt of the Sicilian Vespers, was fought over competing dynastic claims to the throne of Sicily and grew to involve the Crown of Aragon, Angevin Kingdom of Naples, Kingdom of France, and the papacy.
The Battle of the Col de Panissars was fought on 30 September and 1 October 1285 between the forces of Philip III of France and Peter III of Aragon. It was a severe defeat for the French, who were already retiring over the Pyrenees when the Aragonese fell on them.
The siege of Bayonne was launched by Alfonso the Battler, King of Aragon and Navarre, apparently against the Duke of Aquitaine, William X, and lasted from October 1130 to October 1131. The city of Bayonne was then a part of Aquitaine, nominally a part of France. The chief narrative source for the siege of Bayonne is the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, a contemporary account of events in Spain compiled to celebrate the feats of Alfonso VII of León and Castile. The siege began with knights, infantry, and siege engines and included the plundering of the environs of the city and assaults on its walls. The arrival of a relief army led to a famous joust and the prolongation of the siege. The siege was a failure, and was lifted after Alfonso had made his famous last will and testament.
}} The Battle of the Puig of 1237, also known as the Battle of the Puig de Santa Maria, the Battle of the Puig de Enesa, or the Battle of the Puig de Cepolla was a battle of the Iberian Reconquista and of the Aragonese Conquest of Valencia.
The siege of Algeciras was a battle of the Spanish Reconquista that occurred between July 1309 and January 1310. The battle was fought between the forces of the Kingdom of Castile, commanded by King Ferdinand IV of Castile and his vassals, and the Emirate of Granada commanded by Sultan Abu'l-Juyush Nasr. The battle resulted in a humiliating defeat for the Kingdom of Castile whose army was obliged to lift the siege due to the atrocious conditions of life in the Castilian camp and the desertion of Infante John of Castile. The battle marked one of the many battles fought at Algeciras where the Christian forces would try to take the city unsuccessfully from the Muslims.
The siege of Algeciras (1342–1344) was undertaken during the Reconquest of Spain by the Castillian forces of Alfonso XI assisted by the fleets of the Kingdom of Aragon and the Republic of Genoa. The objective was to capture the Muslim city of Al-Jazeera Al-Khadra, called Algeciras by Christians. The city was the capital and the main port of the European territory of the Marinid Empire.
The Aragonese conquest of Sardinia took place between 1323 and 1326. The island of Sardinia was at the time subject to the influence of the Republic of Pisa, the Pisan della Gherardesca family, Genoa and of the Genoese families of Doria and the Malaspina; the only native political entity survived was the Judicate of Arborea, allied with the Crown of Aragon. The financial difficulties due to the wars in Sicily, the conflict with the Crown of Castile in the land of Murcia and Alicante (1296-1304) and the failed attempt to conquer Almeria (1309) explain the delay of James II of Aragon in bringing the conquest of Sardinia, enfeoffed to him by Pope Boniface VIII in 1297.
The Battle of Lucocisterna was fought on the 29 February 1324, during the Aragonese conquest of Sardinia, between the army of the Crown of Aragon, in command of the Infante Alfonso IV of Aragon, son of King James II of Aragon, and the army of the Republic of Pisa led by Manfredi della Gherardesca, Count of Donoratico.
The siege of Villa di Chiesa was carried out by the army of the Crown of Aragon and of the giudicato of Arborea, between the summer of 1323 and the winter of 1324. It represented the first act of the Aragonese conquest of Pisan Sardinia, for the creation of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
The siege of Tortosa was a military action of the Second Crusade (1147–49) in Spain. A multinational force under the command of Count Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona besieged the city of Tortosa, then a part of the Almoravid Emirate, for six months before the garrison surrendered.
The Chronicle of Ramon Muntaner, written by the Catalan burgher and administrator Ramon Muntaner in Xirivella, Kingdom of Valencia, in 1325–1328, is the longest of what are known as "The Four Great Catalan Chronicles" of the 13th and 14th centuries. It narrates events relating to the history of the Crown of Aragon and to Muntaner's personal career in Iberia, Sicily, the Aegean and North Africa and spans the period from the conception of James I of Aragon in May 1207 to the coronation of Alfonso IV of Aragon in April 1328. Its character of "mirror of princes" and "mirror of citizens" has been pointed out by scholars.
The Sardinian–Aragonese war was a late medieval conflict lasting from 1353 to 1420. The fight was over supremacy of the land and took place between the Judicate of Arborea -- allied with the Sardinian branch of the Doria family and Genoa -- and the Kingdom of Sardinia, the latter of which had been part of the Crown of Aragon since 1324.
The siege of Almería was an unsuccessful attempt by Aragon to capture the city of Almería from the Emirate of Granada in 1309. Almería, a Mediterranean port in the southeast of the emirate, was the initial Aragonese target in a joint Aragonese-Castilian campaign aimed at conquering Granada. The Aragonese troops led by their King James II arrived on 11 August, blockading the city and employing siege engines. The city, led by governor Abu Maydan Shuayb and naval commander Abu al-Hasan al-Randahi, prepared for the siege by strengthening its defenses and stockpiling food. Throughout the siege, both sides exchanged shots from siege engines and engaged in fields battles and skirmishes with varying results. James ordered multiple unsuccessful assaults. A Granadan relief column under Uthman ibn Abi al-Ula arrived nearby in September and harassed the besiegers.
