[vii] The medieval frontier is a topic coming into prominence today. "Few periods can be better understood in the light of a frontier concept than Western Europe between 800 and 1500," as Archibald Lewis remarks in essay on the closing of the medieval frontier. Indeed, until "the mid-thirteenth century, Western Europe followed an almost classical frontier development."⁽¹⁾ There was a frontier of conquest, a frontier of exploration, an urban frontier, an internal frontier of vast forest and wasteland, a frontier of overseas colonial penetration and exploitation, and moving frontiers like that of eastern Germany. One of the more striking segments of this whole situation was the moving frontier of the Hispanic states.

Here, it would seem, is the prime analogue of the medieval frontier, a classic example of the frontier. Here, "of all the frontiers of medieval Europe," is "the one which most resembles those later developed in the New World." It is no accident that the recent Second International Congress of Historians of the United States and Mexico -- historians concerned with New World history -- devoted a fourth of their published Proceedings to a consideration of the medieval Spanish frontier. Sánchez Albornoz goes so far as to call it "the key to the history of Spain."⁽²⁾

But this frontier or Reconquista should be viewed rather as a series of frontiers. Each varied, from stages of peaceful assimilation or internal development, through bold raids and minor excursions, and through mass episodes which convulsed the whole peninsula, to a process of piecemeal conquest by land and by sea. It varied also from generation to generation as the quality and tone of the inimical Moslem and Christian communities varied.

It was a society remarkably different from it's previous form which threw itself against the Moslem world in the second quarter of the thirteenth century -- a society technologically advanced, intellectually sophisticated and fired with an aggressive and expansionist optimism. It was the dynamic world of communes and guilds, of Roman law and scholasticism, of universities, of bureaucratic efficiency and monarchical institutions, of nascent nationalism, of vernacular literatures, of "modern" warfare and financial techniques, and of Gothic art. This world had its ecclesiastical counterpart in the centralizing papacy, the councils and synods, the Mendicant movement, the university-trained cleric, the inquisition, and the perfected [viii] corporative mechanisms of all kinds, from cathedral chapters to hospitals. It was a world now sharply differentiated from Islam, its rival and fellow-inheritor of the Hellenistic past. It had a consciousness of its separate identity which went beyond the religious element involved.

When it conquered now it would inevitably impose its own forms; as far as it was able, it would Westernize. Where native forms remained they must either be absorbed into this alien system or survive as a merely tolerated, coexisting irrelevance. The Christian world would effect this transformation deliberately, thoroughly, one would almost say brutally, and yet with an innocent naturalness. There was a kind of tolerance nevertheless, and a respect for much of the Moslem structure. As an episode in the history of Western colonialism the process, with the psychology behind it, is instructive. To study it, however, requires a descent to the particular. One must take a specific conquest, preferably neither too small nor too large, where all the background and converging factors may be brought to bear. The Valencian crusade and settlement is such a conquest, almost a laboratory model for observing the medieval colonial process in a particular context.

With the collapse of the Moslem kingdom of Valencia the defensive frontier on Christendom's right flank advanced suddenly to the extreme south of Spain.⁽³⁾ In the fallen kingdom, a hostile culture whose strength and tenacity equaled that of the conqueror stood in possession. The clash between the two, the uneasy footing of partial compromises, the purposeful supplanting of the old by the institutions of the new: here is the drama of the reconstruction of Valencia. Each step in the techniques and processes by which the frontier was assimilated, organized, and disciplined within a generation makes an absorbing subject for study.

The usual elements of frontier history appear: the sudden supply of free land; the reluctance of settlers to come to or remain in the lonely, alien environment; the hostility, and the successful rising of the native population; the mechanics of setting up civil administration and law courts, of establishing a garrison, of drafting an apt constitution, and of bringing to the area religion and education. There were problems of parceling the lands, chartering settlements, and coping with consequent lawsuits or claim jumping; problems of land reclamation and law enforcement; and the great problem of welding peoples with divers origins, customs, and tongues into one new people. The native population remained as a formidable majority; it was even to persist, as an unassimilable Morisco bloc, as late as the sixteenth century. Yet, from the start it was made to assume the defensive, to be more and more recessive and passive, to watch the environment in which it stood become Europeanized.

A primary element in this clash between cultures was the planting of [ix] ecclesiastical institutions -- taking that word in its broadest sense -- providing the framework for the church in the thirteenth century. On the one hand, diocesan and other mechanisms were transported to the frontier and established; on the other, the colonial power, quite consciously though not cynically, expected socio-political changes to result automatically from its complicity in this act of piety. In a unitary society, the establishing of an ecclesiastical order helped shape a kingdom.⁽⁴⁾

The time span indicated in the title of this book is symbolic rather than rigid. It is meant to encompass the first generation of settlement in the kingdom of Valencia. Where information exists before 1280, it will be preferred. But one must remember that even 1295 is only fifty years after the fall of Játiva. Nolasco came south to ransom slaves in Moslem Valencia in the thirties, and his companion of that trip was still available to give evidence in 1291. A young knight of, say, twenty-two years at the siege of Valencia city in 1238 would be in his early sixties in 1280. A similar younger man at Játiva's surrender in 1244 would be in his fifties by 1280. Two reigns are therefore particularly involved: the long rule of the crusader King James I the Conqueror to 1276, and that of his son Peter III the Great (I of Valencia, II of Catalonia, III of Aragon) to 1285. Peter's early documents are especially important because he had a role in Valencian affairs during his father's lifetime.

To do justice to the subject in hand, I must resolutely turn aside from allied problems. Research in the latter will affect one's viewpoint or approach; but the respective findings, together with their bibliographies and arguments, must be reserved for future volumes. The poignant story of relations between Christian and Moslem, of intolerance and of tentative efforts toward assimilation, especially must wait its turn -- though I have published some preliminary studies.⁽⁵⁾ The same must be said of civil and economic reconstruction, of land division and exploitation, and of the flow and rate of Christian settlement -- all of which form a background to this book.

To avoid the chronological confusion attendant upon a specialized topical approach to any large subject, a date chart has been appended for occasional consultation.

Some special methodological problems require a note. Not all admit of a satisfactory solution. An ever-present problem is chronology. The nativity calendar, beginning on Christmas of each year, was not uncommon; the land grants of the Valencian Repartimiento are usually so dated. The Aragonese -- using that term in its geographically restricted sense -- liked the Spanish era; this began on January 1, but required adjustment by subtracting thirty-eight years. The incarnational calendar was favored in ecclesiastical documents in these regions; in Valencia it was established by [x] law (until 1358) for other documents as well. This was not the Pisan style (predating by nine months, from an assumed conception on March 25), but rather the Florentine style (illogically postdated by three months, for ease of reckoning). Thus, the nativity and incarnational calendars coincide in Valencia from March 25 to December 24, but differ by a full year from December 25 to March 25. The eighth kalends of March 1262 may be February 22 of 1262 or of 1263. Context or intuition may aid one's decision. Many important dates in this book have been carefully worked out; some, where no issue seems involved, were simply taken over from catalogue dates. Happily, it has often not been necessary to come to a decision and to date a grant so precisely; a slight ambiguity has therefore been left in certain citations.

The choice of names is another problem. To leave Christian names in the original Catalan -- Jaume, Ferran, Bernat, Pere, Arnau, and so on -- would be intolerably quaint. To put them into modern dress makes these people less remote though perhaps a shade too contemporary. There is no excuse for translating them into Spanish. Often enough too it is difficult to transpose some Latin form into a reasonably exact equivalent in either Catalan or English. As far as possible, Christian names in this book have been anglicized, even to the use of relatively obscure equivalents. Surnames of a geographical nature are similarly translated where possible, though the reader will understand that "John of Montpellier," for example, did not necessarily originate in that city.

Other surnames are translated from the Latin, or selected from alternative forms, according to common sense rather than strict logic. Some surnames exist in consecrated English forms (Penyafort, Lull); others belong to well-known families with spellings in Spanish or Catalan already familiar in history; others are geographical, and so follow the Spanish-geography rule of this book. Where a less distracting Hispanic form is preferred to the Catalan, the knowledgeable reader can easily translate -- Alagón to Alagó, Lavania to Lavnia, Nuño Sancho to Nunyo Sanç, Pérez to Péreç, and so on. On balance, more surnames have been Castilianized than rendered into the historically more accurate Catalan forms, medieval or modern. For the allied problem of citing Catalan or Castilian names for authors, in their formal or informal constructions, see the bibliographical essay.

Ambiguous or very difficult names have occasionally been allowed to stand; notes sometimes elucidate these. Feminine forms for masculine names -- Bernarda, Guillelma -- were written thus in the thirteenth century but spoken like their male equivalents. Other names and titles can be carried over into English without too much damage; infante is prince, San Victorián monastery is St. Victorian; but one boggles at transposing something as established as San Juan de la Peña. Surviving town, river, and similar geographical names are usually expressed in their modern Spanish forms, [xi] rather than Catalan, because most maps liable to be consulted by the reader give them thus. But the medieval forms Murviedro and Guadalaviar River have been preferred over the modern (and Roman) forms Sagunto and Turia River. Readers who are unsatisfied with one or other choice may be the happier for knowing that the author shares their distress. Where confusion arises, use of the index may help settle it.

The reader should also understand that a "castle" in thirteenth-century Valencia might represent anything from a walled settlement, or a rough fort or tower, to a formidable stronghold. The "town" allied to it might be a fair sprinkling of rural population, or a small commune together with its surrounding jurisdiction. A "village" (alquería) may be a fragment of some former country estate, or a scattered agricultural community, or a hamlet. Each town or castle or city had an attached terminus; this is properly an administrative division, sometimes with a natural basis; the meaning varied from immediate environs, to small fief, to extensive jurisdiction. Thus, though Corbera had its terminus, it was in turn enclosed within the terminus of Alcira. Approximations such as "countryside" have been used to express this. The words "Moor" and "Saracen" have been retained as synonyms, following the usage of our documents. "Baron" is any important vassal. "Sir" translates the Catalan En. "Huerta" is adopted bodily as an English word, designating an irrigated and very fertile plain. Similar makeshifts or adjustments are explained from time to time in notes.

Once named, the subject or place needs to be identified. I tried to bring to this perilous task the proper mixture of caution and boldness. Celsonensis finally emerges as Solsona, Spelunca as Espluges, and so on. Benijuart is in the manuscripts also as Benisuai, Benixuayp, and Benisuat; Alfeche as Fleix; Cheste as Gestalcam and Miralcam; Onteniente as Untiye; Daimuz as Atheymus; Guadasequies as Cequa. The variants are many and ingenious. One may find Bechor and Coracha[r] in one manuscript, Bochor and Teoraxia in its copy. And manuscripts can be dim, their shorthand symbols confusing, the damage from time or damp serious.

The best of my predecessors have been similarly tormented. Sanchís Sivera was led to introduce a "tal Galaubia" into Valencia (as did Huici independently and Miret y Sans and Tourtoulon); Galaubia proves upon investigation to be only Guillem Olabia. Martínez Ferrando founded a town called Sobirans. Bofarull transmogrified the Friars Minor into a settler named Michael Mores. Ramón de María converted the Christian Ferdinand of St. Martin into Ferdinand Sarracenus. Chabás fell into an old trap, interpreting as proper to Valencia an elaborate and important document belonging to Valence in France. Teixidor transposed LX to XL, thus misdating an important document by twenty years. With all his lexicons and nomenclators, the paleographer must sometimes proceed half by intuition; and he will occasionally be surprised into simple errors.

[xii] The unit of land measurement in Valencia was usually a fanecate -- 831 square meters today. Six of these made a cafiz, and six of the latter made a jovate or yoke. But these measures varied with the varied productivity of the specific section of land. Besides, the king could alter them in a given region or contract for purposes of equity; there are documents for example where he specifies six cafizes to a yoke, and elsewhere eight, or ten, or twelve. These measures are repeated in this book under their general names, adopted as English words.

There are similarly ambiguous, or even generic, terms for the kinds of money used. The most common term in this book is solidus, left in that form rather than translated as shilling. It was a ghost-money used in accounting; it comprised 12 pennies, and it varied in value from region to region in the realms of King James. Unless otherwise designated, the solidi of Valencia are meant; by a decree of 1246 this was equal to one and a third of the Montpellier solidus. The gold Josephine mazmodin (in origin a Moroccan money) was equal to 4 Valencian solidi, the gold Alphonsine mazmodin (in origin a Castilian money) to 6, the silver mark to 38, the silver besant to over 3, the gold morabatin (in origin a money of the Almoravids) to about 8½.

Some idea of the real value of the solidus and its allied monies may be conjectured from the rare items available which indicate living expenses. The crusade-tax lists lead one to believe that a rector might have lived well, and probably hired a vicar, on 300 Valencian solidi or less a year (1280). Expenses for collecting this tax included 12 pence for transporting the money and for paper, 35 solidi for the secretary who had kept accounts for six months, and 20 solidi for the notary who organized and drew up the final accounts. A single knight's revenue in Aragon has been reckoned at 500 solidi -- about 373 solidi when transposed to Valencian money; there were normally 800 of these in the king's gift.

Soldevila has collected some Valencian prices from the accounts of King James's son Peter. Thirty-eight pounds of cheese seem to have cost close to 10 solidi, six pairs of shoes (for a wealthy person) 7 solidi, scaffolding 6 solidi, a fine tunic 24 solidi, a mule 425 solidi. Prices varied from place to place, of course, and the common man would not purchase quality goods as did our prince. Commoners attending Prince Peter were hired on at daily salaries ranging from less than four pence up to about double that sum; knights might hold offices paying three or four solidi per diem.

Minor procedural problems have arisen, to be adjusted by common sense as well as can be. For example, a mendicant and a military Order have been removed from their proper chapters because it was felt that, on balance, they belonged where they now are. Again, there is both a rural and an urban Valencia, with the extant documents favoring the latter (and especially Valencia city); this necessarily focuses interest in a somewhat distorted [xiii] pattern. A methodological assumption today is that the signature to a document assures the presence of the one named; I follow this, though uneasily and without conviction. Analogy may sometimes clarify, or at least put into perspective, the functioning of some Valencian institution; these may best be drawn from the other realms of King James or from Languedoc; Castilian or English examples are cited at some risk. But the imposing resources for English ecclesiastical history, elaborated in such fine detail, tempt the author to cite parallel English situations. These as well as Castilian, Belgian, and other examples are taken at random, and have been limited rather than multiplied.

Finally, it is interesting to note that the word "frontier" (fronteria, frontaria) was actually applied to Valencia during this period. Primarily meaning a property frontage or border, the word also designated an area serving as a battlefront. Quite commonly it was used to describe the moving frontier line, or danger zone of war, against the Moslems. People sentenced in the Albigensian troubles of Languedoc were sent to do battle on the Valencian "frontier"; a contemporary poet tells of a hero who led his troops from Roussillon "a la frontera" of Valencia; a court record speaks of evidence gathered from soldiers returning from the Valencian crusade -- "de fronteria"; and the Gesta comitum barcinonensium has King James I conquer all the cities, "et complete tota Sarracenorum fronteria dicti regni." Papal documents will long continue to refer to the uneasy southern regions of the Valencia kingdom (in 1317, for example) as "fronteria regni Valentiae."

This book has taken a decade to piece together. It has involved three trips to Europe with a total residence there of five years. Throughout the years my debt of gratitude for help received has mounted considerably. The staffs at libraries and archives have been unfailingly courteous and generous with their time. Numbers of scholars have, in colloquy or correspondence, offered suggestions and encouragement. At each of the Spanish cathedrals I had the patient help of the archivists, knowledgeable priests like Antonio Durán Gudiol at Huesca, Peregrín Lloréns y Raga at Segorbe, Juan Francisco Rivera at Toledo, Manuel García Sancho at Tortosa, Salvador Pallarés Ciscar at Valencia, and Eduard Junyent at Vich. So many archivists, librarians, and historians gave of their time and experience to help the project forward that thanking them raises a dilemma. A mechanical litany of names reduces all the kinds of assistance to an unfair uniformity; a selection unfairly denies the help of those omitted; and yet a detailed essay imposes upon the reader.

Perhaps all obligations may be met by this general acknowledgment plus a few very special acknowledgments: Professor Sidney Painter of The Johns Hopkins University, and Canon Elías Olmos y Canalda, archivist of the Valencia cathedral (both recently deceased); Reverend Miguel Batllori, S.J., of the Institutum Historicum at Rome, and Canon Demetrio Mansilla [xiv] y Reoyo of the Instituto Español de Estudios Eclesiásticos at Rome; Doctor F. Udina Martorell with his staff at the Archivo de la Corona de Aragón; finally, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation both for the award of a Guggenheim Fellowship to complete the work for publication and later for a publication subsidy.
 

ROBERT IGNATIUS BURNS, S.J.

UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO
 

Valencia

1964

1. "The Closing of the Mediaeval Frontier, 1250-1350," Speculum, XXXIII (1958), 475.

2. C. Sánchez Albornoz, "The Frontier and Castilian Liberties," The New World Looks at its History, Second International Congress of Historians of the United States and Mexico, Proceedings, ed. A. R. Lewis and T. F. McGann, p. 30; previous quotation in editorial introduction, p. 26.

3. What Christian contemporaries of King James called the kingdom of Valencia comprises today substantially the three provinces of Valencia, Castellón, and much of Alicante. Some towns in these provinces did not belong to the kingdom, however, and conversely some kingdom towns later became geographically alienated. More important, the southern border of the kingdom under James I advanced a considerable distance to the south many years later under James II. In general this book treats of the Valencia kingdom of James I, thereby excluding consideration of towns like Alicante or Orihuela. But this policy will not be followed ungenerously; examples or discussions may occasionally incorporate fringe areas not really part of James's own Valencia.

4. Tentative studies have been made on the several frontiers in the Hispanic kingdoms. But little has yet been accomplished on this most striking period, the thirteenth century. The nearest approach to a really satisfactory study has been the volume of essays on aspects of the conquest and settlement of Seville, by Julio González, comprising volume one in his edition of the Repartimiento for that city. However, scholars like Miguel Gual Camarena, F. A. Roca Traver, Santiago Sobrequés Vidal, Leopoldo Torres Balbás, Julián Ribera Tarragó, Ramón de María, and others have been exploring facets of the subject as they relate to the Valencian scene (see bibliography). Studies on the Spanish frontier theme in other centuries, in connection with the church, include C. J. Bishko, "Salvus of Albelda and Frontier Monasticisrn in Tenth-Century Navarre," Speculum, XXIII (1948), 559-590; J. M. Lacarra, "La restauración eclesiástica en las tierras conquistadas por Alfonso el Batallador (1118-1134)," Revista portuguesa de historia, IV (1948-1949), 263-286; the brief pamphlet of A. C. Floriano, Restauración del culto cristiano en Asturias en la iniciación de la reconquista (Oviedo, 1949); scattered materials in Julio González' fine El reino de Castílla en la época de Alfonso VIII, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1960); Antonio Durán Gudiol, La iglesia de Aragón durante los reinados de Sancho Ramírez y Pedro I (1062?-1104) (Rome, 1962); and Ramón d'Abadal, "Origen y proceso de consolidación de la sede ribagorzana de Roda," Estudios de edad media de la corona de Aragón, V (1952), 7-82; see also the latter's Els primers comtes catalans (Barcelona, 1958), ch. 5. On current frontier studies for the realms of Aragon, see J. E. Martínez Ferrando's recent survey, "Estado actual de los estudios sobre la repoblación en los territorios de la corona de Aragón (siglos xii al xiv)," VII Congrés d'història de la corona d'Aragó (Barcelona, 1962-1964).

5. See especially my "Journey from Islam, Incipient Cultural Transition in the Conquered Kingdom of Valencia (1240-1280)," Speculum, XXXV (1960), 337-356; and my "Social Riots on the Christian-Moslem Frontier, Thirteenth-Century Valencia," American Historical Review, LXVI (1961), 378-400. On the Nolasco source see the qualification (which does not affect the truth of the point made here) in Chapter XIII, note 84 and text.