On August 12, 1230, Maimó Gombal, a resident of Barcelona and a man of some property, directed in his will that 100s. be handed over to Brother Pere Nolasc for the ransoming of captives.⁽¹⁾ The bequest was not unusual either in amount or intent, for Catalans of this era frequently included this pious good work in their testaments. What sets this particular bequest apart is that it contains the first notice of the redemptionist work of Pere Nolasc, the founder of the Brothers of Ransom, or the Mercedarians.

    Nothing is known about Brother Pere before his appearance in Maimó's will and only very little afterwards. He has not lacked biographies, but these are highly conjectural, and more inspirational than factual. The two earliest accounts, those written by the mid-fifteenth-century Mercedarian chroniclers Nadal Gaver and Pedro Cijar, declare the founder, the son of a merchant, to be from the French village of Mas-Saintes-Puelles, near the town of Castelnaudary, in the modern department of Aude. A fuller account of his life by Francisco Zumel appeared in 1588 and is the basis for the biography given in the Acta sanctorum. Here Nolasc is given an aristocratic lineage, and his credentials as a Catalan figure are established with a report of the migration of the young Pere's family to Barcelona. All the biographers agree that at some point in his youth Nolasc became concerned with the plight of Christians captured in Moorish raids and that -- with the inspiration of the Virgin Mary, who appeared to him in a vision -- he decided to establish a religious order to succor these unfortunates. In this resolve, the biographers agree, Pere was supported by the young king of Catalonia-Aragon, Jaume I, and by his royal chaplain, the famous Dominican Ramon de Penyafort, after these men, too, had been visited by the Virgin Mary. Ten days after these apparitions, or on August 10, 1218, in a ceremony at the cathedral before Bishop Berenguer de Palou of Barcelona and the city's councillors, the three men proclaimed the formation of the Order of St. Mary of Mercy and installed at its head Brother Pere Nolasc.⁽²⁾ This version of Pere Nolasc's life and of the Order's foundation, as [16] recorded by Gaver, Cijar, and Zumel, has with few exceptions gone unchallenged even by the most recent Mercedarian historians.⁽³⁾

    This now-standard account of the foundation, however, far from having any basis in known fact, is contradicted by both internal evidence and extant documentation. That in 1218 King Jaume was but ten years of age and Ramon de Penyafort was not yet a member of the Order of Preachers -- and indeed had no later demonstrable association with the Mercedarians -- makes the circumstances of the supposed ceremony of August 10, 1218, improbable at best. Since, in fact, the series of authentic notices of Nolasc's life and work does not commence until 1230, a completely different scenario must be suggested.⁽⁴⁾

    Our revised biography must begin with Maimó Gombal's will and his gift of the 100s. for captives. This bequest tells us that in the summner of 1230 Pere Nolasc was now an alms collector raising money for the redemption of captives. His designation as "brother" indicates that some form of religious dedication had already been made. This first portrayal of the founder as an alms collector has a second confirmation. When Ramon Rovira, as a condition of his purchase of a vineyard from Maimó Gombal's estate, paid to Brother Pere half of the sum promised in the will, the future Mercedarian was called specifically the collector and guardian of the alms of captives.⁽⁵⁾ A bequest to Nolasc also survives from 1232. This is contained in the will of Maria, the widow of Guillem Rubió of Barcelona. At the end of her rather commonplace list of benefactions to local churches and hospitals, there is a gift of 30s. for captives, which was to be given to Brother Pere Nolasc.⁽⁶⁾ Writing a century later, King Jaume II reaffirmed this characterization of Nolasc as an alms collector by telling Pope Boniface VIII that the first Brothers of Ransom were laymen of his realm who, after selling their own property, wandered from church to church collecting alms for the ransoming of captives.⁽⁷⁾ These three early documents contain only brief glimpses of Nolasc as a lay redemptioner, but they suffice to place him within the context of the caritative movement.

    In these early days, we cannot say whether Brother Pere worked alone, but before 1232 there is no evidence of any colleagues. By that date, however, the nucleus of an association or confraternity had come into existence. Confirmation that an organization of some sort was taking form is gained from several property grants that survive from 1232. The first of these is the gift of Bishop Guillem of Gerona, a prominent participant in Jaume I's assault upon the Islamic island of [17] Majorca in 1229 and consequently an important landlord in the new Christian kingdom there. On July 14, he donated to an unknown colleague of Nolasc a Majorcan farmstead called Alburch.⁽⁸⁾ A more important grant followed on August 6, when the royal quartermaster of that same Majorcan campaign, Ramon de Plegamans, gave to Nolasc (now entitled as the procurator of the alms for captives) a piece of the beach on Barcelona's waterfront.⁽⁹⁾ This valuable piece of property had been purchased by Plegamans from Guillem and Dolça de Santjaume for forty morabetins. These tell us in a charter of August 31 that Plegamans acquired the plot purposefully as the site of a building for the work of captives.⁽¹⁰⁾ The completed structure is identified in charters of January 13 and October 25, 1234, as the Hospital of Captives that Ramon de Plegamans built.⁽¹¹⁾ Its actual name is given by Gregory IX in his bull of January 17,1235: the House of Santa Eulàlia; and from this the Order would receive its original name and patronage: the Brothers of the House of Santa Eulàlia of Barcelona of the Ransom of Captives.⁽¹²⁾ Thus, the motherhouse of the future order, located at Barcelona, was established in August, 1232 as an alms house and hospice for freed captives and then placed under the invocation of Barcelona's own patroness, the Roman virgin and martyr, Santa Eulàlia.

    Two grants of 1234 and 1235 establish the existence of a second permanent Mercedarian settlement, this at the City of Majorca, the modern Palma. The first donation, executed on January 3, 1234, by Beatriu, the widow of a butcher named Berenguer Rubió, consisted of two Muslim residences that were now given to Nolasc's procurator on Majorca, Joan de Llaés, for use as a residence for the small Mercedarian community that was beginning to form on the island.⁽¹³⁾ On January 13, 1235, the same Brother Joan received one Domènec Dolit, or d'Olit, as a member of this community of alms collectors.⁽¹⁴⁾

    A third ransoming center was established as the result of a complicated charter of confraternity negotiated at Gerona and executed on October 25,1234. Here Ferrer de Portell and his spouse, Escalona, gave to Nolasc, now called the rector of the alms for captives and also of Plegamans' hospital at Barcelona, all their houses and vineyards at Gerona with the proviso that they could keep actual possession of their own house and bed, along with the property's revenue, for the balance of their lives.⁽¹⁵⁾ Later documents tell us that this property was located in Gerona's marketplace, near the Franciscan house, was held under the cathedral's lordship, and came to be the site of the Mercedarian residence.⁽¹⁶⁾ Thus, by 1235, the year of Merced's formal [18] acceptance by the papacy as a religious order, three alms centers had been established: the Hospital of Captives at Barcelona and small urban residences at Palma and Gerona.

    By 1235 only two Mercedarians apart from Nolasc have come into view: Joan de Llaés and his new colleague, Domènec d'Olit, but surely there were others. Brother Pere's principal activity, to judge by his titles, was the collection of alms. Whether these were directly distributcd to captives or to their families, as was the custom,⁽¹⁷⁾ or used by these first Mercedarians to carry out ransomings themselves, as Nolasc's biographers contend,⁽¹⁸⁾ is not known.

    While nothing certain has been discovered regarding Nolasc's origins or the time and circumstances of his decision to undertake charitable ransoming, a few reasonable hypotheses can be deduced. The insistence of the founder's biographers upon his Occitan origins is possible, given the early appearance of Mercedarians at Perpignan and Narbonne. Their placement of the Order's foundation in 1218, however, is far earlier than the evidence permits. On the contrary, the dates of the earliest gifts to Nolasc suggest an initiation in the later 1220s, coinciding with the Catalan assault upon Islamic Majorca and possibly associated with it. Not only do three of the earliest charters place Mercedarians on Majorca, but the establishment of the motherhouse at Barcelona was the benefaction of a key figure in that campaign. That this donor, Ramon de Plegamans, when he composed his will on July 28,1240, amply endowed the mendicant orders to the exclusion of the Mercedarian suggests, furthermore, that his intentions in 1232 were solely motivated by a desire to aid captives.⁽¹⁹⁾ That this Catalan magnate built the hospital for Nolasc after the Majorcan war but before that of Valencia suggests also the likelihood of Brother Pere's participation in the 1229 expedition. If Nolasc's work with captives predated 1229, we have no direct evidence of it.⁽²⁰⁾ Furthermore, Majorca was, after Barcelona, the site of the earliest known Mercedarian settlement. The first property was gained in 1232; by 1234, a residence had been established; subsequent gifts to this house are recorded in 1237, 1239, 1241, and before 1243.⁽²¹⁾ Consequently, both the logic of associating the foundation of a ransoming order with a war against Islam and actual evidence suggest the probability of this genesis.

    Thus, according to this reconstructed account, Pere Nolasc, a pious Catalan or Occitan layman, began to beg money for the ransoming of Christians captured in the Majorcan war. His success inspired donations there as well as in Barcelona and Gerona, whence [19] originated many of the crusaders. By 1234, the new movement had acquired sufficient members to warrant some organization and enough property to require protection. Consequently, during that year a request for papal recognition must have been sent to Rome. The reply came in Gregory IX's bull of January 17, 1235, which acknowledged the existence of the Brothers of Ransom and placed them under the Rule of St. Augustine.

    The ten years of Mercedarian history following papal recognition, namely 1235 to 1245, form a coherent unit. It coincides with the remainder of Nolasc's regime and with his establishment of the Order in Languedoc, Aragon, and Valencia. It concludes with the issuance of a new papal bull of confirmation that is a benchmark by which the new movement can be charted.⁽²²⁾ According to this document of Innocent IV, dated April 4,1245, Merced had in its first decade acquired properties in fifteen or sixteen locales: seven or eight in Catalonia, three each in Aragon and Valencia, and one each in Languedoc and Majorca.

    Naturally enough, the preponderance of early redemptionist houses was in Catalonia. Besides those at Gerona and Barcelona, new centers appeared at Tortosa, Tarragona, Castellón de Ampurias, Guàrdia dels Prats, Lérida, and Perpignan. Of these, however, only the foundation at Tortosa can be fixed with any precision. Here on November 22, 1239, Ponç, the bishop of Tortosa, and his chapter leased to Nolasc and the House of Santa Eulàlia of Barcelona a plot of land on which houses were to be constructed. Here presumably Brother Bernat, who appears alongside the founder, established the Order's residence.⁽²³⁾ Another Catalan house may have been established at Castellón de Ampurias as early as 1238, although it does not enter the papal confirmation lists until 1263. A charter of November 19, 1238, however, records the free gift of a piece of land by Count Ponç Hug III of Ampurias.⁽²⁴⁾ Whether this site was immediately occupied is not known, but a charter of May 20, 1241, has two Mercedarians paying thirty besants to one Guillem de Tarradell in Castellón.⁽²⁵⁾  Definite proof of residence, however, comes only in 1256, when the commander of Gerona, Brother Berenguer de Bas, purchased from the Dominicans for 200s. several houses and a chapel that had once belonged to the Order of Poor Catholic Brothers at Castellón.⁽²⁶⁾ At the archiepiscopal see of Tarragona, the first notice of a redemptionist presence is a contract of September 26, 1244, in which Brother Bernat de Tonyà, who would be commander here until at least 1264, joined with two diocesan officials in donating 200s. [20] toward the ransom of one Rubí de Na Piles.⁽²⁷⁾ Details about the original establishment of this house, however, are unknown.

    Another Catalan foundation, that of the Church of Santa Maria dels Prats, which was located at Guàrdia dels Prats near Montblanch in the province of Tarragona, appears in the 1245 confirmation list but is otherwise unknown. Similarly, little is known about the establishment of the Lérida residence. The 1245 list enumerates a house here with rural property, a vineyard, and a half share in a mill, and a will of 1236 had Maria of Guissona giving the Order 12d. Additional gifts of money and land are recorded for 1253, 1257, 1268, and 1272 .⁽²⁸⁾ That Lérida was a frequent royal residence and a center of government in the thirteenth century suggests the probability of early Mercedarian activity here, but until such time as the archives of Lérida become more accessible this hypothesis cannot be tested.

    Finally, there is the house at Perpignan. By all accounts, this grew into an important center or was, at least, one from which an unusually large number of documents has survived.⁽²⁹⁾ No definite charter of foundation is extant, although two charters confirm the early presence of Mercedarians at this Roussillonnais town. One is a lease negotiated by Pere Nolasc with Ponç de Vernet on September 12, 1238. The Order, in return for a money rent, was given undeveloped land suitable for a vineyard and a building site. Another charter, dated January 1226, has Count Pere of Salses donating to the founder land on the Montpellier road outside the Malloles gate of Perpignan, but this document's validity is questionable, since the terminology that it employs is inconsistent with that used in other early Mercedarian charters.⁽³⁰⁾ If this document is authentic, however, it raises the intriguing possibility that Nolasc began his career as a hospitaller working on behalf of the poor around Perpignan, turning to the ransoming of captives later, presumably when he had migrated toward Barcelona. The property gained in both of these early grants, however, was eventually rented out to tenants, and thus neither seems to have provided the site of a Mercedarian residence. That does not seem to have been established here until the mid-1250s.⁽³¹⁾

    Merced's early entry into Languedoc is explicable in terms of the region's close economic, geographic, and political ties with Catalonia. The first known Occitan house was that at Narbonne. It appears in the 1245 confirmation list, and even earlier gifts to the Order are recorded in Narbonnais wills of 1232, 1233, and 1238.⁽³²⁾ That several ships from Narbonne participated in the Majorcan expedition likely explains this city's early interest in the Order and its work. In 1244, a Mercedarian [21] named Bcrnat de Caldes was commissioned by a local merchant, Berenguer Arnau, to free Pere d'Aguilar from his captivity and to arrange his return to Narbonne.⁽³³⁾ Consequently, Narbonne may in fact rank with Barcelona, Gerona, and Majorca among the Order's earliest settlements, but evidence of its activities here is scanty.

    The three Aragonese centers established during the founder's lifetime were at Saragossa, Calatayud, and Sarrión. Of these, the last is seemingly the most important and also the best documented. Two charters of 1242 establish the existence of an already-functioning Mercedarian community. In the first, dated April 24, Jaume I gave to Brother Joan Bardaxí and to the Order's hospital here two plowlands in a nearby rural district near the saltworks; another four fanecates of land were given for use as a garden. In addition, the local commander received the right to extract salt for the use of the hospital as well as for local sale. Finally, the king placed under his guidaticum (a form of royal protection) those persons who came to settle this land, presumably under Merced's lordship.⁽³⁴⁾ This charter, a typical "frontier" donation, therefore suggests that, anterior to its issuance, the Mercedarians already had in operation here a hospital, or more probably a hospice for freed captives. It is not improbable that this was established as early as the mid-1230s to facilitate the return of those subjects of King Jaume captured in the Valencian wars. Another connection between Valencia and Sarrión is indicated in the second charter of 1242, that of November 28, in which the Aragonese noble Peregrino de Artosilla and his wife gave the commander of Sarrión a plowland in Ternils and another with houses and a vineyard in Catarroja, both in the kingdom of Valencia.⁽³⁵⁾ This same commander --without, however, being identified as such -- received other lands in Valencia from Jaume I in 1238 and, on August 25, 1238, also advanced ransoms to two individuals who were being held captive in Játiva.⁽³⁶⁾ The coincidence of these gifts and ransom grants with the Mercedarian who in 1242 was known to command Sarrión suggests that this house, located as it was near the Valencian border, was the staging base from which the Brothers of Ransom had entered Valencia to free captives and ultimately to settle. The two other early Aragonese residences, those at Saragossa and Calatayud, are known only through the 1245 confirmation list and so must have been small. Initially, neither possessed rural property or a church; these would be acquired later in the century.⁽³⁷⁾

    The kingdom of Valencia, once it had been conquered by King Jaume, would become the site of the Order's richest patrimony, but [22] early progress up to Nolasc's death in 1245 was modest enough. Islamic Valencia itself was first invaded by Jaume's armies in 1232; by 1237 the royal forces were just north of the capital, having won a key battle at the site of the future Mercedarian shrine of Puig. In 1238, the Christian line advanced to the Júcar River, south of Valencia City with the latter itself surrendering to King Jaume on September 28, 1238. Between 1239 and 1245, the southern half of the kingdom was occupied; the important southern center of Játiva fell into Christian hands in 1244. The part played by Pere Nolasc and his followers in this war can only be surmised, but their presence is certain, as we have already seen from the two ransoming charters of 1238. Since the king intended that his occupation of Valencia be permanent, his conquest was accompanied by distributions of land to a new Christian elite. In a series of these repartimientos (or repartiments),  grants of property were given out to his followers, secular and ecclesiastical, noble and non-noble, in order to establish the basis of a new Christian society in Valencia and to establish the local ruling class necessary to control the large and valuable Mudejar population.⁽³⁸⁾ The Order of Merced -- certainly for its redemptionist services in this still-dangerous arena of Muslim-Christian confrontation, but perhaps also as a Christianizing influence -- is counted among the beneficiaries of the royal largesse.⁽³⁹⁾

    The first two such gifts date from the original repartimiento of Valencia in 1238. The earlier is that of July 14, in which Nolasc himself was given several houses in the Valencian suburb of Boatella, just outside the city wall, and with this an adjacent mosque.⁽⁴⁰⁾ That structure, converted into a chapel, was by 1245 placed under the patronage of Sant Domènec, i.e., presumably the famous ransomer-abbot of Silos. Part of this property, consisting of houses and small garden plots located next to the city marketplace, became the Mercedarian residence; the remainder was eventually leased out in small parcels to tenants.⁽⁴¹⁾  Also included in this grant, which consisted of property taken from a Muslim named Abenhiara, was land in a hamlet called either Andarella or Nàquera.⁽⁴²⁾ A second entry in the royal register, dated September 15, 1238, specified that the latter parcel consisted of six plowlands.⁽⁴³⁾ The Mercedarian site at Valencia and its endowment compare favorably with what King Jaume gave to the Franciscans, but was less than what was conceded to the Dominicans.⁽⁴⁴⁾

    North of the capital, at Puig de Sebola (later renamed Puig de Santa Maria), the Order received a more substantial royal grant. On July 26, 1240, Jaume established here a parish church dedicated to [23] Santa Maria and endowed it with the usual parochial incomes, plus various properties that included several houses, four plowlands, and a garden plot.⁽⁴⁵⁾ On August 27, Bishop Ferrer of Valencia, by way of conferring parochial status upon this new church, granted Merced the care of souls.⁽⁴⁶⁾ This episcopal privilege was reiterated and perhaps augmented on September 15, 1244, when the then Bishop Arnau de Peralta conceded to the Order half of the parish's tithe revenue, three-fourths of the first fruits, and most other revenues.⁽⁴⁷⁾ The rector of the church, to be approved by the bishop, could be a Mercedarian or, if the Order desired, a secular substitute. The apparent absence of priests among the early Mercedarians seems to have made that concession necessary. In any case, no Mercedarian priest is known to have been at Puig before 1256, and the continuous list of redemptionist vicars does not commence until 1267.⁽⁴⁸⁾

    Puig was, by all accounts, an important acquisition. It was the first royally established Marian shrine in the new kingdom. The site itself had a special significance as the locale of an important royal victory in 1237. Later legend also asserts that the image of the Virgin that today still hangs above the main altar of the monastery was an ancient low relief miraculously discovered on the hill by Nolasc.⁽⁴⁹⁾  The royal family would remain faithful patrons of the shrine. Jaume I himself willed it, in 1276, six hundred gold duplae and the residue of the papal tenth granted for the maintenance of the Valencian frontier. His grandson Jaume II, to fulfill a vow made at Naples during a serious illness, provided an annual endowment of candles for the illumination of the main altar.⁽⁵⁰⁾ As head of an important and eventually well-endowed shrine, the commander of Puig would later overshadow his counterpart in Valencia to become the Order's principal representative in this kingdom. Consequently, in entrusting this shrine to Merced, King Jaume I gave the Order not only its first important church but also some degree of regional prominence.

    The next two Valencian grants, both dating from 1242, were nonroyal. The first, dated January 5, was the concession of the Catalan admiral Sir Carròs of two plowlands at Rebollet, the modern Fuente En Carroz, south of Gandía. Receiving the grant is Brother Arnau, presumably the Arnau of Carcassonne who had accepted Puig two years earlier. This land was almost certainly given in gratitude for ransoming, presumably done on behalf of the donor.⁽⁵¹⁾ Also, Peregrino de Artosilla, an important Aragonese baron and a member of the royal entourage, on November 28 gave to the commander of Sarrión, Joan Verdera (or Bardaxí), and to Brother Arnau Ramon [24] (probably also Arnau of Carcassonne) the properties in Ternils and Catarroja that have already been described.⁽⁵²⁾  That these two important crusaders, both close associates of the king, became Mercedarian benefactors only reinforces the impression that the brethren were already highly regarded for their ransoming in the Valencian wars.

    The final Valencian grant to be received by the founder was that of Arguines, near Torres Torres and north of the capital. This property, originally purchased by the donor, Ramon de Morell, for 400s. in 1241 from one Pere Andador, was turned over to Nolasc on March 7, 1245.⁽⁵³⁾ Ramon was a wealthy bachelor from the knightly class who at his death would amply endow the Valencian parish of Sant Bartolomeu, as well as the local Dominican and Franciscan houses.⁽⁵⁴⁾ With Merced, however, Ramon entered into a closer spiritual and probably confraternal relationship. In return for immediate possession of the village,⁽⁵⁵⁾  the Order promised to give Ramon, for his lifetime, a quarter of its cereal crop and vintage; to build there a church and a residence; and to maintain in it a chantry priest to pray for his soul and that of King Jaume.⁽⁵⁶⁾

    Pere Nolasc must have died shortly after the conclusion of this agreement with Ramon de Morell, for when the document was confirmed by other members of the Order on June 12, 1245, at what was presumably a meeting of the chapter, there is a new leader, Brother Guillem de Bas.⁽⁵⁷⁾ This evidence contradicts the traditional date for Brother Pere's death. Since the Order's Constitutions of l272 set the Friday after the Ascension for Nolasc's anniversary, Mercedarians have taken May 13 or 14, 1249, to be the date of the founder's passing.⁽⁵⁸⁾ Such a conclusion, however, is unsupported by the available records. The sole charter cited in its support is that of Bishop Pere de Centelles of Barcelona, dated April 29, 1249, which gave Nolasc permission to establish a chapel dedicated to Santa Maria at the house of Barcelona.⁽⁵⁹⁾ From the fragment of this that survives, however, it is impossible to tell whether Brother Pere was alive at its writing or if the bishop was now merely formalizing an agreement made at some anterior date. In any case, all the other evidence argues against the 1249 date.

    In surveying the extant charter evidence from 1245, on the other hand, we find that Nolasc appears as head of the Order in documents of March 7, April 6, and June 8, although in the last he is definitely not present.⁽⁶⁰⁾ Brother Guillem de Bas, for his part, was the minister of Santa Eulàlia on June 12, master on August 6, and minister of the Order in a royal document of August 10.⁽⁶¹⁾ Furthermore, all other [25] charters that survive for the period 1245-1249 consistently describe Brother Guillem as either minister or master. Guillermo Vázquez's argument that Brother Guillem was merely Nolasc's lieutenant during these years is clearly untenable, for such lieutenants were always clearly identified as such in contemporary documents.⁽⁶²⁾ The argument that Brother Guillem was, in this era, just the head of Santa Eulàlia of Barcelona, and not of the entire order, is also invalid, because Brother Bernat de Corbera, who held that position as early as 1242, was certainly still the incumbent there on January 24, 1249.⁽⁶³⁾ Thus, the evidence is incontrovertible that Nolasc ceased to lead the movement that he had founded during the summer of 1245; his complete disappearance from the documents suggests death as the likely cause.⁽⁶⁴⁾ In fact, given the long subscription list of fifteen names in the document in which Brother Guillem makes his first appearance as master, it is likely that this itself emanated from a chapter convened at Barcelona on June 11, 1245, to elect Nolasc's successor. While so assembled it would be logical for the new regime to confirm that profitable agreement that the past leader had so recently negotiated with the wealthy benefactor Ramon de Morell. If this revised chronology is accurate, the anniversary date given in the Constitutions retains its validity, although the year of Pere Nolasc's death must be pushed back four years to 1245.

    In the approximately fifteen years of the founder's stewardship, Merced had been successfully established as a viable, if regional, order of the Church. Its birth and development paralleled the wars of Jaume 1, which presumably provided the theater for its ransomings. To judge by the character and location of its properties, Merced's activities centered on this one work. There were hospices established at Barcelona and Sarrión to receive captives en route back to Catalonia and Aragon. Residences had also been established in the important towns of Catalonia, Aragon, and Languedoc, presumably to serve as centers for alms collection. Benefiting from royal and aristocratic patronage, Nolasc had established a firm base in Valencia, where opportunities to ransom continued to be numerous. Finally, the laic character of the Order under Nolasc is attested by the existence of only four churches among the approximately one dozen houses that Merced possessed in 1245.

    Under the leadership of its second master, Brother Guillem de Bas, the Brothers of Ransom first entered Castile and acquired new bases in the Arago-Catalan realms. Furthermore, they cemented a closer relationship with King Jaume and began the assemblage of a [26] rich and diverse patrimony. The background of the second master, like that of the founder, is obscure, but his family may have resided in the regions around Perpignan or Gerona. A Guillem de Bas, along with his wife Llucià, were tenants of the Order at Perpignan according to a charter of December 2, 1268, that was witnessed by Brother Guillem himself.⁽⁶⁵⁾ The new master had once been commander at Gerona and would rule at Perpignan from ca. 1260 to 1266, or between his first and second terms as master.⁽⁶⁶⁾ Brother Berenguer de Bas, presumably related, commanded Gerona from 1256 to 1258, Perpignan from 1268 to 1270, and both intermittently until 1293. Brother Pere de Bas ruled at Gerona early in the fourteenth century. Consequently, the close association that this family had with these two houses suggests the possibility of family connections in one or both of these regions.

    Like Nolasc, Brother Guillem was a layman, and the dating of his mastership, too, has presented problems. The latter arise out of the two apparently separate terms that he served. The first began, as we have already seen, with the founder's death in 1245 and concluded during the mid or late 1250s. Brother Guillem's last appearance during this first term is in a royal charter of September 16, 1256;⁽⁶⁷⁾ by September 11, 1259, which is also the very next extant reference to a Mercedarian master, the incumbent was Brother Guillem de Mont.⁽⁶⁸⁾ It is unknown when and for what reason Brother Guillem left office, but coincidentally Brother Berenguer de Bas disappeared in 1258 as commander of Gerona, and in 1259 Brother Pere de Bas was sent off as commander to Majorca. All of this suggests that Guillem de Bas had been removed from office, perhaps because of some scandal or the outbreak of political infighting among the commanders. That some sort of upheaval was in fact taking place receives confirmation from the apparent brevity of the new master's term. Our knowledge of Guillem de Mont's tenure is limited to the one citation of 1259, heretofore overlooked, in the royal registers; by May 8, 1260, he had been replaced by Bernat de Sanromà, a one-time commander of Valencia.⁽⁶⁹⁾  Ill health or death can be ruled out as the reason for de Mont's replacement, since he remained active in Mcrcedarian affairs until at least May 5,1269, when he can be seen subscribing to the acta of the chapter general.⁽⁷⁰⁾ Brother Guillem also did not disappear, but resurfaced in 1262 as preceptor of Perpignan.⁽⁷¹⁾ In 1267, Brother Bernat was himself forced from office, to be pensioned off as commander of Játiva. His replacement was none other than Brother Guillem de Bas, who thus began his second term as master.⁽⁷²⁾ Not coincidentally, [27] Brother Guillem's return to office was marked by Berenguer de Bas' appointment as preceptor of Perpignan and Pere de Bas' as commander of Barcelona.⁽⁷³⁾ Brother Guillem, now presumably old after over twenty-five years as a Mercedarian, did not survive long into his new term. He last appears in a land purchase negotiated with Pere de Palazol at Vich on July 15, 1270.⁽⁷⁴⁾ We can assume that his death occurred before the following December 1, because on that date Brother Bernat can be seen accepting a gift at Játiva in the name of a future master.⁽⁷⁵⁾

    The twenty-five-year period after Nolasc's death, particularly the decade of the 1260s, was then one of political turmoil, but this does not seem to have had a negative effect upon the Order's growth. During the three magistracies, Merced consolidated its Valencian holdings, began a migration into Murcia and Andalusia, and undertook a major penetration of Aragon and the Occitan. Redemptionist success in winning patrons and patrimonies in the nonfrontier regions of the Catalan-Aragonese federation, as well as in Languedoc, was probably a consequence of the reputation that Merced had earned in the Valencian crusade. In the kingdom of Aragon, for instance, those donations that can be documented typically were concessions made by veterans of the Valencian campaign. Such, for example, was that of Santa Maria de Olivar, which is located approximately twenty kilometers east of Montalbán. Established by charters of 1260 and 1266, Olivar was the foundation of Gil de Artosilla, his wife, and sons. Gil was the brother of Peregrino de Artosilla, who in 1242 had donated a portion of his Valencian lands to the Order, and he himself had also fought in Valencia.⁽⁷⁶⁾  The core of the new Mercedarian estate was the church of Santa Maria, where the Order was obligated to maintain, on behalf of the family, a chantry priest and later a scholar to chant the hours. These were supported by endowments taken from Gil's domain at nearby Estercuel.⁽⁷⁷⁾

    Little is known about the other new foundations in Aragon, but their character does not seem to have been much different from that at Olivar. The next house to be established here was that of San Miguel del Monte at Saragossa. The 1245 confirmation list records a house with some rural property already in the Order's possession; the bull of 1263 adds the church of San Miguel; by 1317, this also included a hospital.⁽⁷⁸⁾ The hospital's donor, the confraternity of San Pedro and San Miguel del Monte, obligated Merced to maintain in the church a chaplain and three votive lamps, and in the hospital seven beds for the use of the poor and pilgrims. In 1269, we know the [28] commander of San Miguel to have been Brother Arnau de Gascó, already known for his past service at Puig and Valencia.⁽⁷⁹⁾  Huesca had a redemptionist house before 1263, and by 1267 the church of Santa Maria, a hospice, and a small domain had been added. Another new foundation, that at Monflorite, was the gift of yet another Valencian veteran. This was Lord Fortún de Bergua, whose participation in that campaign had been rewarded in 1238 by King Jaume with a grant of ten plowlands outside of Valencia City.⁽⁸⁰⁾ In charters of May 3, 1264, and April 15, 1265, the church of Monflorite, including the right of patronage, was handed over to the Mercedarian master, Bernat de Sanromà.⁽⁸¹⁾

    Two additional Aragonese properties were acquired at Daroca and at Teruel before 1263. The house in Teruel already existed in 1252, for a charter of February 4, by which the Order purchased some property at Sarrión from the Templars, identifies Brother Domingo as the procurator of the Hospital of Santa Eulàlia of Teruel.⁽⁸²⁾ This was almost certainly not the Hospital of the Holv Redeemer that had been established by King Alfons I in 1188 to ransom captives,⁽⁸³⁾ but presumably a much smaller establishment. When the Friars of the Sack, suppressed by the Council of Lyons of 1274., finally abandoned their church and property here, the master of Merced, Pere d'Amer, acquired these in 1290 from the bishop of Saragossa.⁽⁸⁴⁾ Other Aragonese properties besides those at Teruel that date from the quarter century after Nolasc's death are the Church of Santa Maria de Rivo Arganorum and a house at Munébrega, but these are known only through the papal bulls of l263 and 1268.

    Fragmentary documentation prevents any description of the new houses that were established in the Occitan during this middle period of the thirteenth century. We know none of their donors or patrons, but presumably these residences, given their urban locales, were intended as centers for the collection of alms. The first of these surfaces at Toulouse on March 8, 1258, when a Brother Bertrand acquired three houses for use as a residence.⁽⁸⁵⁾ The Order was subsequently remembered in Toulousan wills of August 1261 and of November 1263. The papal bull of 1268 indicates that Merced then possessed an extramural church dedicated to Sainte Eulalie;⁽⁸⁶⁾ in January 1270 its commander was Brother Jean Tolet.⁽⁸⁷⁾ Another church of Sainte Eulalie, this at Montpellier, is recorded in the 1263 list; in 1272 Jaume I, as lord of the city, issued this house a charter of protection.⁽⁸⁸⁾ Two additional Occitan sites appear in the papal bulls: property at Carcassonne (1263) and a church of Sainte Eulalie (1268) [29] at Saint-Girons, this a small town located some forty kilometers west of Foix.

    In Catalonia, the already-existing convent at Perpignan was expanded. On October 5, 1266, the modest establishment was incorporated into the priory of Sant Martí. This was the property of the Benedictine monks of Sant Miquel de Cruïlles of Gerona. Because they had experienced serious financial and disciplinary troubles as a consequence of their inability to supervise adequately the monks who had been sent to this separate establishment, the prior and monks of Sant Miquel agreed to lease Sant Martí, with its church, tithe income, and rental properties, to the Mercedarian Order. Guillem de Bas, then the local preceptor, agreed to pay Sant Miquel a sizeable entry fee of 1,612s. 6d., in addition to an annual rent of eight gold maravedís.⁽⁸⁹⁾ This contract provided Merced with expanded quarters in Perpignan and for the first time a church from which it could seek alms. That Sant Martí was profitable for the Order is arrested by its ability to pay in 1271 a fine of 1,800s. to Sant Miquel by way of compensation for certain illegal alienations.⁽⁹⁰⁾ An entirely new Catalan foundation appears at Vich in the bull of 1263, although Nolasc had previously visited the city as early as February 5, 1238.⁽⁹¹⁾ It is unlikely, however, that a house was established here at this early date, because a continuous record for a Mercedarian presence does not commence until 1254.⁽⁹²⁾ An already-existing Catalan house at Tortosa was substantially enlarged in 1251 through the generosity of Tomàs Garidell, or Garidet, a local resident. We know him to have been a veteran of the Valencian wars who, in seven grants conferred between 1238 and 1240, had been well rewarded by the king.⁽⁹³⁾ The now-deceased crusader had willed Merced the sum of 510 mazmodins with which to establish a chapel and to endow a chantry priest at the Tortosa house. This money was then used to purchase a church and other property from the local Franciscans, plus other lands at Puig and Sagunto in Valencia to serve as the chapel's endowment.⁽⁹⁴⁾ Another new Catalan establishment, located at Bell-lloc, some twelve kilometers east of Lérida, is revealed in charters that commence in 1260. There was a church of Santa Maria there; in 1293, Brother Guillem de Bover was its majoral, or commander.⁽⁹⁵⁾

    In the kingdom of Valencia, repartimiento distributions after Nolasc's death continued to benefit the Order; these established Mercedarians at Denia, Játiva, and Segorbc. The Denia center, given by Jaume I to the recently elected Master Guillem de Bas on August 10, 1245, consisted of eight plowlands of riverfront land, a garden, [30] and the old fonduk, or inn, that under the defeated Islamic regime had been used by visiting Christian merchants. Now no longer needed for that purpose, the building was to be converted, according to Jaume's instructions, into a hospice for poor captives;⁽⁹⁶⁾ this in turn could serve as a convenient base for Mercedarian ransomings in the unpacified regions of southern Valencia and Murcia. The Denia domain is mentioned sporadically in the Order's documents for the rest of the century, but only that of 1248 specifically alludes to a Mercedarian in residence.⁽⁹⁷⁾ The others suggest that the property here was in fact administered by the commanders of Játiva or of Puig. At Játiva, Merced's beginnings date from 1248, or three years after its conquest by King Jaume. The subsequent royal grant here was modest -- a reallum, or farm, from which normal regalian taxes had to be paid.⁽⁹⁸⁾ By 1251 there had been added a church under the patronage of Sant Miquel, as well as some leased agricultural land.⁽⁹⁹⁾ By 1253 a chantry priest was established at the church by a deceased canon of Barcelona; in 1255 the master purchased an irrigated vincyard.⁽¹⁰⁰⁾ Being inland and having a small Christian population, Játiva played no major role in the work of ransoming, but instead became the administrative center for the Order's growing domain south of the Júcar. This included property at Játiva itself, Denia, Cocentaina, Gandía, and Rebollet. The resulting revenues eventually endowed the mastership and thus the Order's central government.⁽¹⁰¹⁾ Segorbe was the site of a third royal foundation in Valencia during the later 1240s. Here in 1248 Jaume I gave Master Guillem various houses and a garden plot, but there is no evidence that a residence was ever established.⁽¹⁰²⁾

    After 1250, no new houses were established in Valencia, but several were in the kingdom of Murcia, a territory technically part of Castile but in this era within King Jaume's sphere of influence. Mercedarian lands here were consequently grouped with its Valenclan patrimony. The first mention of a Mercedarian presence in Murcia is the papal bull of 1268, which lists houses and churches under Santa Eulàlia's patronage in both Lorca and the city of Murcia. The repartimiento of Murcia of 1268, furthermore, contains grants of land to Brother Pere Tomàs of Santa Eulàlia and others to Brother Guillem of Santa Eulàlia.⁽¹⁰³⁾ Of Lorca, nothing is known; no commander for it ever appears, even in the seemingly comprehensive lists of 1317. A third Murcian house, on the other hand, certainly existed, even though it is absent from all of the papal confirmations. This is the foundation dedicated to Santa Lucía and established at Elche in 1270 by Prince Manuel, the son of Fernando III of Castile. It [31] consisted of a chapel built there in the old Moorish baths.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ A charter of 1296 informs us that the donor endowed the chapel with wax candles to be used for the celebration of Alfonso X's anniversary. Irrigated agricultural land was also included as a part of Don Manuel's grant.⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ Finally, the papal bulls beginning with that of 1263 attribute to Merced houses at Mula and Almansa, but there is no other confirmation of their existence, and the 1317 subscription lists also contain no names of their commanders.

    Mercedarian growth in Valencia and Murcia therefore followed the Arago-Catalan conquest from its beginnings in the 1230s to its conclusion at the suppression of the Mudejar revolt of the 1270s. The establishment of redemptionist settlements typically followed closely upon the Christian conquest and was initiated with a modest land grant from the king. Given this rapid territorial penetration, Merccd's subsequent growth here would be almost entirely patrimonial, and the houses at Lorca and Denia, if these ever really existed, were likely abandoned before the dawn of the fourteenth century.

    The only truly virgin territory for the Order during this midcentury period was in Castile, where, coincidentally, Fernando III's own advance against Islam in Andalusia had just come to its succcssful conclusion. A Mercedarian presence here is not detectable until the 1250s, after the great battle for Seville had already been won. Two and possibly three redemptionist houses appear in the 1263 bull: the church of Santa Eulalia in Seville, another under the same patronage at Córdoba, and property in Cuenca. The Sevillian land was won in the city's repartimiento, according to which Merced received fifty aranzadas, or approximately five acres of land, with another six plowlands at Moyar.⁽¹⁰⁶⁾ By way of contrast, the Trinitartans, a redemptionist order better known in Castile, received also at Moyar various olive and fig orchards and six plowlands.⁽¹⁰⁷⁾ While the Merced grant is itself undated, that to the Holy Trinity, which follows it in the list, is ascribed to May 25, 1253. The property so donated was not urban, but rather located in the district of Facialcazar, which was a part of the defensive frontier that faced the still-Islamic Granada to the southeast. Thus, its location gives the site a redemptionist purpose. Houses, similar in character, were also found at Vejer de la Frontera and Arjona, both located on the Granadan periphery and both listed in the 1263 papal bull. A residence at Úbeda is cited in none of the confirmation lists, but a document of May 5,1269, reveals that one Arnau of Monzón, a resident of Játiva, had at some previous time given the Order various houses and lands here in return for [31] its establishment of a chantry priest at Játiva.⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ A house existed at Úbeda in 1317, when a Brother Miguel appears as commander of Úbeda and Jaén.⁽¹⁰⁹⁾ With the acquisition of these properties in Andalusia, Merced seems to have profited modestly, as it had in Valencia, from the postconquest land distributions. Its new residences placed the Order in a position to trade for captives with Islamic Granada.

    This string of new and enlarged houses, stretching from Seville to Toulouse, testifies to Merced's vitality during the magistracies of Brothers Guillem de Bas, Guillem de Mont, and Bernat de Sanromà. The Order had thus succeeded in winning position, patrimonial properties, and the patronage of the Castilian and Arago-Catalan monarchies. Jaume I, in particular, not only endowed the Order with land but also conferred upon it several useful privileges. The first, dated June 13, 1251, was King Jaume's bestowal of a guidaticum, or pledge of protection, upon the Order's personnel and properties.⁽¹¹⁰⁾ The grant, while fairly common,⁽¹¹¹⁾ nonetheless was of value, for Mercedarians thus became exempt from the payment of tariffs on redeemed captives or on the ransom payment itself. All members of the Order, furthermore, with their dependents and property, were protected from unjustifiable seizure, under penalty of a fine of one thousand morabetins. Finally, as a sign of this royal safe-conduct, Mercedarians would henceforth wear on their habits the royal shield, suspended beneath a cross, much the same as secular ransomers, or alfaqueques, in Castile were permitted to carry the royal pennant.⁽¹¹²⁾

    A second royal privilege came on March 12, 1255. Here King Jaume gave all of his subjects, regardless of their social status, permission to sell or donate to the Order a wide variety of real property.⁽¹¹³⁾ The actual advantage bestowed by this grant was a waiver of a restriction contained in many royal land grants. In order to preserve the king's right to regalian taxes, the proviso in question forbade the future alienation of royally granted lands to "soldiers and holy men," who might then claim exemption from such payments.⁽¹¹⁴⁾ As members of a religious order, Mercedarians would thus qualify as "holy men" and consequently be ineligible to receive any lands that had been given out under this restriction. Here the king exempted gifts to the Mercedarian Order from this prohibition and thus opened up to it the possibility of additional endowment, particularly in Valencia. Merced, for its part, however, had to guarantee to King Jaume that it would then honor its obligations to pay regalian taxes.

    Perhaps the most telling sign of King Jaume's new favor toward [33] Merced during the 1250s is his grant in 1255 of the monastery of Sant Vicent in Valencia.⁽¹¹⁵⁾ This major shrine had been established by Jaume in 1238 and first given to the monks of San Victorián, from the diocese of Huesca.⁽¹¹⁶⁾ In 1255, however, citing their mismanagement of the monastery, the king determined to evict the monks and to install in their place Master Guillem de Bas and his Mercedarians. In the charter of donation, Jaume now called himself the patron and founder of the Order. The gift was certainly rich, for it included, in addition to the monastery itself, a patrimony comprising two castles, a tenth from the fishing and salt revenues of Valencia's lagoon, and a variety of rural properties.⁽¹¹⁷⁾ While the monks subsequently sued successfullly for their reinstatement, Jaume's new friendship with Merced remained steadfast. He refuted, for example, allegations brought by the monks that his concession had been the result of Mercedarian bribes,⁽¹¹⁸⁾ and in 1259, when the Order had to vacate Sant Vicent, he freed it of responsibility for any debts that it had contracted there and permitted the brothers to keep whatever property they were able to carry off with them as they left the monastery.⁽¹¹⁹⁾

    These three charters testify to Jaume's high regard for Merced during the 1250s. His claim to have been its founder, however, should not be taken too literally; in the context of the charter, it signifies little beyond this new royal patronage. The reasons behind these actions may well have been motives of religion, but as the guidaticum and the Sant Viccnt donative make clear, royal admiration of Merced's ransoming was an important factor.⁽¹²⁰⁾ Thus, it is probably truer to say that the Brothers of Ransom prospered, particularly in Valencia, for their caritative works, and not because of royal patronage; the latter was posterior.

    In Castile, on the other hand, Mercedarians were much less successful in establishing themselves. While here they also profited from various postconquest distributions, Merced did so only in a modest way, and as a consequence its holdings here remained small. The 1317 roster of members, for example, suggests that most Castilian houses contained only a single brother and were thus more outposts for alms collectors than real communities of brothers.⁽¹²¹⁾ There are several explanations for this situation. With its beginnings in Catalonia-Aragon, Merced's natural rhythm of growth brought it to Castile only at the end of Fernando III's wars. And once they had arrived, Mercedarians found that there were in the Orders of Trinity and of Santiago already well-established communities of religious redemptionists.⁽¹²²⁾ Thus faced with competition, and probably a measure of [34] anti-Catalan bias, and in a less dangerous environment, Merced's prospects here would have definite limitations. Royal privileges, for example, when they came, were late; the first extant document is that of Sancho IV, dated in 1289, but this does, however, make reference in turn to an earlier but unknown charter of Alfonso X (1252-1284).⁽¹²³⁾

    The inauguration of Pere d'Amer as master, probably during 1271, marked the beginning of an era of stability. His first appearance as the fifth master is found in a charter redacted at Perpignan on March 4, 1271; his last citation is in another of December 8, 1298.⁽¹²⁴⁾ His long regime, however, lingered on until July 10, 1301, the date of his death,⁽¹²⁵⁾ which is confirmed in a letter of Jaume II to Pope Boniface VIII of Januarv 4, 1302.⁽¹²⁶⁾ Virtually nothing of Brother Pere's career before 1271 is known beyond his appointments to the commanderies of Puig (1263) and Sarrión (1267).⁽¹²⁷⁾ His family, however, was a factor in Mercedarian affairs from 1250 to 1310. A Joan d'Amer, for example, was commander of Majorca in 1253 and a conventual of Puig in 1260.⁽¹²⁸⁾ Guillem d'Amer commanded Arguines in 1295 or 1296;⁽¹²⁹⁾ Pericó d'Amer belonged to the community at Játiva in 1298.⁽¹³⁰⁾  Arnau d'Amer, after assignments at Puig (1272) , Barcelona (1276), and Gerona (1289),⁽¹³¹⁾ succeeded Brother Pere as master and served as the Order's head from 1301 to 1308. A different Pere d'Amer was a brother of Játiva in 1303, and in 1308 commanded Daroca.⁽¹³²⁾ Thus, like Brother Guillem de Bas, Brother Pere d'Amer belonged to a clan that had penetrated deeply into the Order's rank and file.

    The new master began his career as a reformer, determined to correct those problems that had presumably caused the frequent changes in the mastership during the previous decade. To this end, among his first acts was the preparation and then promulgation of the Order's first formal constitutions. These, written in Catalan, were enacted at the general chapter that was convened at Barcelona during May 1272.⁽¹³³⁾ The introduction to the Constitutions tells us that during the preceding year the new master had conducted a general visitation of all the houses in order to compile a list of existing customs and to ascertain the Order's needs and difficulties. From current usage Brother Pere intended, as he tells us, to preserve what was good, amend what was lacking, and abolish what had proved to be harmful; his ultimate purpose was the provision of a "lasting government" and the continuation of the ransoming mission. Finally, Brother Pere, we are told, meant to restrain and punish those brothers who had been false, negligent, and disloyal. These stated intentions serve to confirm suspicions that something in the 1260s had [35] gone amiss, that there were serious issues behind the apparent resignations and/or depositions of Guillem de Bas, Guillem de Mont, and Bernat de Sanromà. These problems, still unspecified, Brother Pere now sought to confront through newly formed customs. The result of his effort was a document of forty-nine capitula that attempted to establish clear lines of authority, to supervise more closely the actions of master and commander alike, to establish a regular spiritual regimen for the brethren, and to provide a mechanism for their correction. In thus moving toward a more-corporate constitution, Brother Pere was imitating actions of other contemporary superiors of caritative movements, who were also moved to implement a stricter discipline upon their sometimes loosely organized congregations.⁽¹³⁴⁾

    The combination of the newly imposed discipline and Brother Pere's own longevity afforded Merced an extended era of institutional tranquility. Commanders, insofar as can be determined, enjoyed stable tenures, and the master's chief assistant, the prior (the superior of those Mercedarians in holy orders), Brother Guillem d'Isona, remained in office for Brother Pere's entire term.⁽¹³⁵⁾ The territorial theme of this era, 1270-1300, was one of consolidation rather than of expansion. The domain continued to grow from gifts, but now increasingly also from direct purchases by the Order. Several new houses were established, but these were small and within Merced's already-defined sphere of activity.

    Several of the new Mercedarian centers were in Catalonia itself. Brother Pere purchased property in Agramunt as early as 1270,⁽¹³⁶⁾ and a residence there under Santa Eulàlia's protection is cited in a document of 1309.⁽¹³⁷⁾ The Order received from the donation of the town council of Montblanch the church of Santa Maria del Miracle there in 1288.⁽¹³⁸⁾ A royal letter of 1300 describes a garden exempt from regalian taxes, and another of 1305 reveals a hospice that Merced held under the lordship of the Hospitallers of St. John.⁽¹³⁹⁾ In 1298, a canon of Tarragona, Andreu d'Albarca, ceded to the Mercedarians of Tarragona the patronage of the chapel of Santa Maria Magdalena at Prades and endowed this with various lands at Vilanova de Prades in support of a chantry.⁽¹⁴⁰⁾ In the city itself, the Mercedarian house was translated in 1299 to the Church of Sant Antoni, heretofore the property of the now-suppressed Sack Friars.⁽¹⁴¹⁾

    In the kingdom of Aragon, the only new center established under Brother Pere d'Amer was the church of San Pedro de los Griegos, located at Oliet, approximately twenty kilometers north [36] of the Mercedarian house of Olivar. A foundation of the noble Blasco de Alagón, it included an endowment of various fields and vineyards and the guidaticum of the powerful Alagón familv; in return Merced I would maintain there a chantry priest.⁽¹⁴²⁾ From Aragon, the Order moved north into Navarre. The earliest extant grant here was made 1284 by Count Fernán Pérez de Ayala. Citing his admiration for Merced's redemptionism, he handed over a house and a church in Burzaña, outside of Bilbao.⁽¹⁴³⁾ Although evidence for settlements at Pamplona, Estella, and Sangüesa does not appear before 1317, there was a Mercedarian commander for the entire diocese of Pamplona in 1302. Jaume II, furthermore, in 1300 and again in 1302 gave the Order permission to export to Navarre without tariff wheat offerings that it had received from those parts of the diocese of Pamplona within his jurisdiction.⁽¹⁴⁴⁾ For Castile, north of Andalusia, the first Mercedarian houses are recorded in the bull of 1291, where there are listed residences at Burgos, Valladolid, Medina del Campo, and Toledo. Absent but known through a donation of l277 is the Church of San Juste at Villabuena (del Puente) given by Bishop Suero of Zamora.⁽¹⁴⁵⁾ In the south, property at Jaén is also listed in 1291, but this may have been governed from Úbeda, since in 1317 the two centers shared a common commander. Since none of these properties are listed as possessing patrimonial appendages, what seems probable is that Merced was establishing local bases throughout the realm from which to conduct alms campaigns. Finally, by 1317 there is one house recorded for Portugal, that at Beia, which undoubtedly served the same purpose. In France, a residence at Maleville with lands and a hospital of the poor appears in the bull of 1291 and another, at Aurignac, existed before 1317.

    The only new region penetrated by Merced in this era was Minorca, where King Alfons II in 1286 finally occupied the Muslim-ruled island that had been under nominal Christian suzerainty since the days of the Conqueror. The royal grant to Merced, dated March 1, 1286, conferred upon the commander of Puig in Valencia a mosque, for use as a church, and four houses in Ciudadela, on condition that all of these be actually occupied.⁽¹⁴⁶⁾ A charter of 1289, in reporting the exchange of fields with one Guillem Pere of Villa Frepic, reveals that a rural patrimony must have accompanied the royal grant.⁽¹⁴⁷⁾ By 1292, the Order had built the Church of Santa Maria de Puig in Estaron and the chapel of Santa Caterina in Ciudadela. From there Merced was permitted to retain all revenues except those from funerals; for this privilege it paid each August one pound of wax to the secular clergy.⁽¹⁴⁸⁾

    [37] With the death of Brother Pere in 1301, expansion of the Order temporarily ceased. For the next twenty years, new foundations appeared only at Tàrrega in Catalonia and Soria in Castile, and there exists some possibility that these predate 1300. It might be argued that the reason for this lack of expansion was that by 1300 Merced had saturated its traditional territories. While there is some truth to this, a more immediate cause for this loss of vitality was the feud between laic and clerical members of the Order that ran from 1301 to 1317. This began with a double election for master after Brother Pere's death and lasted until the selection in 1317 of Brother Ramon Albert as the first clerical master.

    Brother Arnau d'Amer, a lay brother and longtime member of the Order,⁽¹⁴⁹⁾ was chosen as master by a majority of lay and clerical commanders in a conclave held at Puig on September 29, 1301; he served in the office until his deposition by Pope Clement V in 1308.⁽¹⁵⁰⁾ In the interim, Brother Arnau enjoyed firm royal backing⁽¹⁵¹⁾ and commanded the loyalty of the Valencian houses; those of Gerona, Vich, Agramunt, and Tarragona in Catalonia; and in Aragon those of Huesca, Saragossa, Calatayud, Oliet, Tarazona, Daroca, and Teruel.⁽¹⁵²⁾ Brother Arnau's legitimacy, however, was challenged by the houses of Perpignan and Barcelona, not on grounds of nepotism, given the new master's presumed relationship to Brother Pere, his predecessor, but for the more technical reason that the election was held over the objection of the prior, Brother Guillem d'Isona.⁽¹⁵³⁾ These dissenting brethren subsequently elected their own candidate, first a cleric and close associate of the recently deceased prior, Pere Formiga,⁽¹⁵⁴⁾ and then at his own death another cleric and one-time brother of Puig and Játiva, Ramon Albert.⁽¹⁵⁵⁾ Given Brother Arnau's broad support and the limited scope of Brother Ramon's, what occurred in the years before a papal decision was tendered in this double election has less the character of a general schism than of a minor rebellion. As far as can be discovered, Merced's government under Brother Arnau continued to function normally. He convened chapters, at Calatayud on May 4,1303, and at Játiva on May 5,1307;⁽¹⁵⁶⁾ with papal approval he set out to conduct a general visitation of houses in the spring of 1302.⁽¹⁵⁷⁾ Consequently, his removal on February 12,1308, by Clement V and his subsequent demotion to the commandery of Arguines seem surprising.⁽¹⁵⁸⁾ The long-awaited papal verdict, however, had a clear proclerical tilt, not only in its removal of Brother Arnau, but also in its promotion of Ramon Albert, his rival, to the priorate and in its appointment to a diminished mastership of an otherwise obscure laic, Brother Arnau Rossinyol.⁽¹⁵⁹⁾

    [38] Pope Clement's judgment may have formally ended the schism, but his consequent restructuring of the mastership and priorate into two separate, parallel jurisdictions seriously confused lines of authority, because the point of demarcation within a religious order between the temporal and the spiritual is frequently not precise. In fact, there are indications that a schism of sorts continued until 1311,⁽¹⁶⁰⁾ when Archbishop Guillem of Tarragona and Bishop Ramon of Valencia were asked to arbitrate between the new master and the prior.⁽¹⁶¹⁾ While this episcopal decision, to all appearances, successfully reconciled Brother Arnau Rossinyol with Brother Ramon Albert, the next seven years witnessed a growing estrangement between the clerical and laic membership at large. By the death of the master on May 3, 1317, in fact, a dramatic reversal had taken place among Mercedarian officeholders. When the electoral chapter convened at Valencia on July 10 to elect Brother Arnau's successor, the clericals were for the first time able to muster a majority, later calculated at 114 to 70, in faxor of Ramon Albert's election. While the laic minority, in an ironic repetition of the events of 1301, withdrew from the assembly to elect their own candidate, Berenguer d'Hostoles,⁽¹⁶²⁾ a new schism was averted by the prompt intervention of Pope John XXII, who on November 17 appointed Brother Ramon Albert to the mastership.⁽¹⁶³⁾

    Thus, after fifteen years of effort, Ramon Albert had succeeded in becoming the Order's first clerical master. Once in office, he moved swiftly to institutionalize clerical control and so to prevent future double elections. At a chapter that met at Cuenca on November 11, 1319, new constitutions were promulgated that fundamentally altered the way in which Merced was to be governed and the manner by which masters were to be elected. First of all, the Order was now divided into five provinces: Catalonia, Aragon/Navarre, Valencia, Provence, and Castile/Portugal. Second, the authority to elect masters was removed from commanders and conferred instead upon a single elector to be chosen in each of the new provinces. Finally, the five electors, as well as the master they would choose, would have to be in holy orders.⁽¹⁶⁴⁾ By thus eliminating laics from positions of authority, Brother Ramon Albert succeeded in restoring peace to the Order.

    By all accounts, the long struggle for control between Merced's two branches seriously impaired the Order's ability to function. As we have already seen, its physical growth after 1300 had virtually ceased as the energies of the membership turned toward the preservation of individual positions and prerogatives. That some brothers [39] had begun to sell off Mercedarian property or otherwise use it for private gain is certainly indicated by the numerous royal edicts, coincident with the schism, that forbade any alienations.⁽¹⁶⁵⁾ Internal strife also distracted the brothers from their duties as ransomcrs. In 1309, for example, Jaume II told his envoys to the Holy See to request permission for the diversion of Merccdarian revenues and legacies to his own proposed war against Granada.⁽¹⁶⁶⁾ It is at least possible that a diminution in ransoming activities, along with a royal need for cash, motivated this request. A document of 1311 speaks of a legacy that had recently been given to the house of Arguines by a knight of Segorbe named Eximeno Pérez de Osso. Consisting of an income of 80s. per year, this was to finance an annual ransoming by the brothers of Arguines to the lands of the Moors. The donor, however, took the precaution to insist that, if for any reason a ransoming were not conducted in a given year, then the money must be set aside until it could be used for its intended purpose. In 1313, in urging peace between the lay and clerical brothers, Jaume II argued that their feuding had diminished the amount of alms collected for captives.⁽¹⁶⁷⁾ Consequently, it is clear that the constitutional crisis at the end of Merced's first century sapped its strength, temporarily at least, and by pitting brothers against each other, diverted Mercedarians from their normal works of mercy.

    This overview of Mercedarian development during the formative era reveals to us several distinctive periods of development. At its beginnings, Merced existed as a small and distinctively laic association led by Pere Nolasc that collected alms for the ransoming of captives. The timely coincidence of its foundation with the Majorcan and Valencian wars of the Arago-Catalan monarchy gave it an arena of operation and the potential for material support from grateful crusaders. Thus, first in the newly conquered territories and later as crusaders returned to their native provinces, the new Order began to amass a patrimonial endowment. In addition to the typical assortment of rural and urban holdings, Merced acquired several churches and chapels because its patrons, in addition to their desire to help captives, also sought prayers for their own souls. The Order of Captives, like other of its contemporaries, encouraged such gifts, for they not only yielded needed income but also provided pulpits from which additional gifts could be sought. To serve the spiritual needs of its own members and increasingly those of its churches and their patrons, Mercedarian masters began to receive clerics into the ranks of what began as a laic order.

    [40] The addition of clergy and the acquisition of substantial properties placed new organizational demands upon the young order; their solution was neither sure nor rapid. Signs of trouble began to surface in the 1260s, and these clearly revolved around questions of management and discipline. While the Amerian Constitutions Of 1272 were designed to cope with several of these problems, others arose at Brother Pere's death to cause the schism that we have described. An understanding of these institutional conflicts requires a study of how Merced fit into the religious organization of the Church and of how its own structures evolved during the thirteenth century.

2. Nadal Gaver, "Speculum fratrum ordinis beatissime virginis Marie de Mercede redemptionis captivorum," in ACA, Monacales, Códice varia II, 3v-11v; Pedro Cijar, "Opusculum tantum quinque," in Monumenta ad historiam ordinis de Mercede, ed. Guillermo Vázquez (Toledo, 1928), 52-54.; Francisco Zumel, De initio ac fundatione sacri Ordinis B. Mariae de Mercede redemptionis captivorum atque De vitis patrum et magistrorum generalium brevis historia, ed. Guillermo Vázquez Nuñez (Rome, 1932), 28-29; Acta sanctorum, ed. Jean Bolland et al. (1966 ed.; Antwerp, 1643), 2: 981-84.

3. A Rubio, "Pietro Nolasco," DIP, 6:1704-9; Gazulla, Merced, 76-176; Guillermo Vázquez Nuñez, Manual de historia de la Orden de Nuestra Señora de la Merced (Toledo, 1931-36), 1:13-35; Joaquín Millan Rubio and Adelardo Carcel Ramos, "Mercedarios," Gran Enciclopedia de la Región Valenciana (Valencia, 1973),7:102.

4. For a consideration of the extant documentation and the light which it sheds upon Merced's origins, see my article "The Origins of the Mercedarian Order: A Reassessment," Studia monastica 19 (1977): 353-60. The only known contact between Ramon de Penyafort and the Order occurred in 1274, when the Dominican was appointed bv Pope Gregory X to hear a suit between the Mercedarians and Franciscans of Tarragona. His verdict evidently favored the minorites. See Bullarium de Mercede, 20-21; ACB, Sec. Miscellània-Ordre de la Mercé.

5. This is dated October 29,1231: ACB, DC (d), 1246, cap. 14.

6. This is dated August 13, 1232: ACB, DB, 1/2 escala, no. 602.

7. ACA, Cartas Reales, 1335 (January, 4, 1302).

8. ACA, Monacales, 2676: 469r.

9. Ibid., 390rv.

10. Ibid., 2679: 37v-38r.

11. Ibid., 2679:38r; 2676:143rv.

12. Bullarium de Mercede, 2.

13. The only stipulation in the charter was that the Order be held liable for the payment of regalian taxes: AHN, Clero, carp. 76, no. 11.

14. The document bears the incarnational year date of Januarv 13, 1234.: ACA, Monacales, 2679: 38r.

15. Ibid., 2676:143rv.

16. Ibid., 146rv (December 6, 1250), 381v (June 19, 1243).

17. Catalan Christians frequently left small legacies for captives, the money presumably being handed over to the local church for distribution or handed out directlv by the manumissors or executors of the will. Typical is this bequest made on May 27,1236, by Bernat Oromir of Lérida: "Residuum dimitto pro anima mea scilicet ad captivos xristianos de Yspania redimiendos ubi melius sit stabilitum ad cognicionem predictorum manumissorum meorum": ACA, Gran Priorat, arm. 28, no. 162.

18. The legends of Nolasc's ransomings, appearing first in the writings of Zumel, credit the founder with annual missions to the land of the Moors, beginning in approximately 1203: Zumel, De vitis, 33; Acta sanctorum, 2: 983; Rubio, "Pietro Nolasco," 6: 1705. The most comprehensive catalog of these claims is that of José Antonio Garí v Siumell, who estimates that Brother Pere personally ransomed a thousand captives from such Islamic towns as Valencia, Algiers, and Granada on missions conducted in 1218, 1222,1225, 1235, 1243, and 1268; see his La Orden Redentora de la Merced ejecutora del plan trazado por su excelsa Fundadora, ó sea, Historia de las redenciones de cautivoscristianos realizadas por los hijos de la orden de la Merced ... (Barcelona, 1873), 9-11, 12-13, 16, 19, 36, 52, 58.

19. Ramon, for example, bequeathed 1,000s. to the Dominicans, 2,000s. to the Franciscans, 5s. to each hospital in Barcelona, but nothing to the house of captives: ACA, Jaume I, perg. 808.

20. There exists a charter, dated in January 1226, in which Count Pere of Salses gave certain lands near Perpignan to Brother Pere Nolasc, entitled as rector of the poor of mercy. This suggests that Nolasc might have been active by this date, but there is no evidence that his work at this time was with captives: ACA, Monacales, 2676: 16rv.

21. See Bishop Guillem's grant of an alqueria of July 14, 1232 (ACA, Monacales, 2676: 69r); Beatriu's gift of land for a residence on January 3, 1234 (AHN, Clero, carp. 76, no. 11); the purchase of a corral on April 12, 1237 (ibid., carp. 121, no. 4); Lord Nunyo Sanç's gift of a house on November 8, 1239 (ibid., carp. 78, no. 14 ); and a gift of other houses on April 5, 1241 (ACA, Monacales, 2676: 469r). The last, three quarteratae of land, was the gift of a Mercedarian who conceded the land upon his profession, sometime between his acquisition of the land in 1234 and his known existence as a brother on August 19, 1243. For the document of January, 10, 1234, to Pere Capdebou, see Diplomatari del monastir de Santa Maria de la real de Mallorca, vol. 1: 1232-1360, ed. Pau Mora and Lorenzo Andrinal (Palma de Majorca, 1982), 190-92, no. 9. For Brother Pere as a Mercedarian, see ACA, Monacales, 2676: 43rv.

22. There exist four papal bulls of confirmation for thirteenth-century Mercedarian property. They are those of Innocent IV (April 4, 1245), Urban IV (January, 18, 1263), Clement IV (January 11, 1268), and Nicholas IV (August 23, 1291): Bullarium de Mercede, 2-4, 13-15, 17-20, 28-30. These will be cited henceforth only by their year of issuance.

23. A rent of 6s. of Jaca was owed by the Order at Christmas: AHN, Clero, carp. 2900, no. 15.

24. ACA, Monacales, 2676:117r

25. Ibid., 144r.

26. Ibid., A Rollo 1, ORM, no. 18. For the Poor Catholic Brothers, see F. Dal Pino, "Poveri Cattolici," DIP, 7: 232-36.

27. ACA, Monacales, 2676:136rv.

28. Various wills left Merced small bequests: 12d. in 1236; 10s. in 1253; one mazmodin in 1257 for masses; and 30s. in 1272 for ransoming: ACA, Gran Priorat, arm. 28, nos. 165, 193, 201, 255. Also, in 1268 two confraters, Ramon de Talavera and his wife, Maria, turned over houses that they owned here: AHN, Clero, carp. 3193, no. 15. The traditional date given for the foundation of the house at Lérida is 1225, but even its most recent exponent merely cites the tradition without documentary evidence: Joscp Lladonosa i Pujol, Història de Lleida (Tàrrega, 1972), 1: 351.

29. Some forty charters survive from the thirteenth century, a few as original parchments, the remainder eighteenth-century copies.

30. The lease of 1238 called upon the Order to pay 12d. Melgorian for the plot and, after three years, six sterling for the vineyard: ACA, Monacales, 2676: 390v-391r. The comital land of the 1226 charter was located outside the Malloles gate; see above, n. 20.

31. A charter of February, 13, 1256 is the earliest to identify a preceptor for Perpignan: ACA, Monacales, A Rollo 1, ORM, no. 12.

32. Caille, Hôpitaux à Narbonne, 142-45.

33. Of the over six hundred extant pre-1318 Mercedarian documents, this is the sole survivor from the Narbonne house: ACA, Monacales, 2676: 117v.

34. Ibid., 2663: 117. In theory, six tafullas of land equalled a fanecate, or 831 square meters; six fanecates were the equivalent of a cafizate, and six cafizates yielded one jovate, or plowland. For guidaticum, see below, n. 111.

35. Lord Peregrino had received the Catarroja land in the repartimiento of Valencia on May 1, 1238: Llibre del Repartiment de València, ed. Antoni Ferrando i Francés (Valencia, 1979), 198, no. 2219. For his gift to Merced, see ACA, Monacales, 2676:220rv.

36. For the land grant, see Repartiment de València, 48, no. 474; for the ransoms, see ACA, Monacales, 2676:7v-8r.

37. At Calatayud there existed by 1249 some rural property, as revealed in a judgment of August 9 that ordered the local Mercedarian commander to pay tithes on it to the church of Santa Maria Major of Calatayud: ES, 49: 462, no. 62. A chapel existed in the house there before July 22, 1273, when Eximén Pere de Canet instituted a perpetual chaplaincy: ACA, Monacales, 2679 : 56r. For the development of the house at Saragossa, see below, nn. 78, 79.

38. For the evolution of Christian-Mudejar relations in Valencia, see the many works of Robert I. Burns, S.J., especially his Medieval Colonialism; Islam Under the Crusaders: Colonial Survival in the Thirteenth-Centurv Kingdom of Valencia (Princeton, 1973) ; and Muslims, Cbristians, and Jews in the Crusader Kingdom of Valencia: Societies in Symbiosis (Cambridge, 1984).

39. For an overview of Jaume I's patronage, see my essay "The Mercedarian Order: The Problem of Royal Patronage During the Reign of James I," in Jaime I y su época, X Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Aragón (Saragossa, 1982), 3: 71-76.

40. Repartiment de Valencia, 48, no. 479.

41. Several leases are extant from l267: ACA, Monacales, 2676: 226r-227v.

42. The location of this parcel is uncertain because it is cited differently in the Repartiment de València, as Andarella (p. 45, no. 474) and as Nàquera or Naquarella (p. 70, no. 824; p. 189, no. 2107). Since in the first and last instance the property has the same former Muslim owner, we are likelv dealing with only one parcel. Andarella is a hamlet in the Guadalest valley, as well as an irrigation canal near Chirivella, three kilometers from Valencia. Nàquera is in the Valencian huerta. In any case, this property was exchanged by King Jaume on March 17, 1244, for other property in Alcira that was valued at 610s.: ACA, Monacales, 2663: 2; Repartiment de València, 189, no. 2107.

43. Repartiment de València, 70, no. 824.

44. The Franciscans were given, on January 10, 1239, an extramural plot (of about 500 feet by 300 feet) on the road to Ruzafa: ibid., 83, no. 996. The Dominicans, on the other hand, received a large, choice river-front location on April 11, 1239: ibid., 95, no. 1131. For its endowment, see ibid., 22, no. 210.

45. ACA, Monacales, 2676:440rv.

46. Elías Olmos, "Inventario de los documentos escritos en pergaminos del Archivo Catedral de Valencia," Boletín de la Real Academia de la Histotia 103 (1933): 149, no. 53.

47. ACA, Monacales, 2676:218r-219r.

48. On December 9, 1256, a Brother Arnau is listed as prior of Puig; a continuous list of vicars (or pastors) at Puig commences with the appearance of Brother Guillem de Castellfollit as rector there in 1267: ACA, Monacales, 2676: 123r-124v, 226r.

49. The low relief, "Mare de Déu del Puig," the patroness of the Valencian kingdom, is probably of the fourteenth century, although some claim it to be seventh century: Robert I. Burns, S.J., The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia: Reconstruction on a Thirteentb-Century Frontier (Cambridge, Mass., 1967),1:249.

50. For Jaume I's will, see ACA, Jaume I, perg. 2287; for Jaume II's gift, see ACA, Monacales, 2676: 11rv.

51. The document states that the gift was granted "because you [the Order] served us and daily propose to act with all your power for the love of God and the intention of piety": AHN, Clero, carp. 3193, no. 3.

52. ACA, Monacales, 2676:220rv.

53. This property at Arguines had originally been given to Pere Andador of Teruel bv Jaume I in 1240: Repartiment de València, 114, no. 1307. It was subsequently purchased in 1241 by Ramon de Morell (ACA, Monacales, 2676:3r-4v) and then given to Pere Nolasc in 1245 (ibid., 264r-v).

54. Burns, Crusader Kingdom, 1 : 96, 122, 200, 205, 231, 233, 292.

55. The alquería, or farm-hamlet, was the smallest communal unit within the kingdom of Valencia: Burns, Islam Under the Crusades, 60- 62.

56. ARV, caj. 17, no. 7.

57. In the subscription list appended to the charter, Brother Guillem de Bas now bears the title of minister of the House of Mercy of Barcelona: ibid.

58. See Gaver, "Speculum fratrum," 14v; Zumel, De vitis, 45-46; Vázquez, Manual, 1: 6o.

59. ACA, Monacales, 2679:45rv.

60. For March 7, see ARV, caj. 17, no. 7; for April 6, see ACA, Monacales, 2676:,469r; and for June 8, see Domingo Costa y Bafarull, Memorias de la Ciudad de Solsona y su Iglesia (Barcelona, 1959), 2: 653, no. 24. In this last document, Nolasc is represented by proxy.

61. For June 12, see ARV, caj. 17, no. 7; for August 6, see ACA, Monacales, 2676: 188rv; and for August 10, see AHN, Clero, carp. 3193, no. 4.

62. See Vázquez's Manual, 1: 6i. On the lieutenants of Nolasc, see below, chapter 3, n. 69.

63. ACA, Monacales, 2676:514n; 2679:44v-45r

64. Masters, for example, who left office before their death were given commanderies to provide for their continued support: Guillem de Bas at Perpignan, Guillem de Mont at Olivar, and Bcrnat de Sanromà at Játiva.

65. ACA, Monacales, 2676:55rv.

66. Ibid., 2679:43rv; 2676:48r-54r.

67. AHN, Clero, carp. 3193, no. 8.

68. ACA, Jaume I, Registro de Cancillería Real, 10: 143r (hereafter Reg. Canc.).

69. ACA, Monacales, 2676: 109r-110r.

70. Ibid., A Rollo 1, ORM, no. 25.

71. Ibid., 2676: 48r-54r.

72. Ibid., A Rollo 1, ORM, no. 23.

73. For Brother Berenguer (October 7, 1268), see ACA, Monacales, 2676:54-r-55v; for Brother Pere (May 5, 1269), ibid., 271v

74. Ibid., 509v.

75. Joaquín Millán Rubio, Fray Pedro de Amer, Maestre de la Merced (1271 -1301) (Madrid, 1973), 12.

76. See Repartiment de València, 6, no. 10; 24, no. 239; 98, no. 1111; 142, no. 1630; 196, no. 2195; 198, no. 2220; 249, no. 2671; 331, no. 3335; 333, no. 3346.

77. The property consisted of various fields, a mill, a vineyard, and an oven and carried with it the right to use the family's pastures, woods, and rivers: ACA, Monacales, 2676: 109r- 110r, 107r-108v.

78. Ibid., 2663: 76.

79. Ibid., A Rollo 1, ORM, no. 25. For Brother Arnau at Puig, see ibid., 2676:123r-124v (December 9, 1256); at Valencia, see ibid., 2663:206 (March 16, 1255).

80. For this grant, see Repartiment de València, 24, no. 242.

81. For his grant to Merced, Lord Fortún is joined by the other patrons of this church: Lady Jordana de Albero and Lord Sancho de Norta. The transaction was confirmed by Bishop Domingo of Huesca on March 21, 1266. For the grant, see ACA, Monacales, 2679:53rv; A Rollo 1, ORM, no. 20; for the episcopal confirmation, see ACA, Monacales, 4140.

82. ACA, Monacales, 2676:270v-271r.

83. For the Hospital of the Holy Redeemer and the Order of Mountjoy, see Forey, "Mountjoy," 250-66; Faustino D. Gazulla, "La Orden de Santo Redentor," Boletín de la sociedad castellonense de cultura 10 (1929): 38-41; and J. Delaville Le Roulx,"L'Ordre de Montjoye," Revue de l'Orient latin 1 (1893): 42-57.

84. Bishop Hugo de Mataplana formally turned these properties over to Merced in a charter of September 12, 1290: ACA, Monacales, 2679: 59r.

85. Vázquez, Manual, 1: 79.

86. Mundy, "Charity in Toulouse," 206.

87. ACA, Monacales, 2676:62v-63r.

88. Joaquín Miret y Sans, Itinerari de Jaume I "el Conqueridor" (Barcelona, 1918), 469.

89. ACA, Monacales, 2676:51r-53r.

90. Ibid., 64v-69r.

91. Gazulla, Merced, 369-70.

92. In 1254, Brother Bernat de Quadres purchased several houses here for 600s.: ACA, Monacales, 2679:155r.

93. See Repartiment de València, 14, no. 125; 44, nos. 461, 471; 48, no. 520; 80, no. 952; 100,  no.1180; 119, no. 1356; 383, no. 3607; 428, no. 3890.

94. AHN, Clero, carp. 2900, no. 16; ACA, Monacales, A Rollo 1, ORM, no. 7.

95. ACA, Monacales, 2676:480v, 378r.

96. AHN, Clero, carp. 3193, no. 4. On fonduks in Valencia, see Burns, Medieval Colonialism, 64-75, and his "Baths and Caravanserais in Crusader Valencia," Speculum 46 (1971): 443-58.

97. This is a charter dated November 18, 1248, in which Brother Ramon -- as lieutenant of Denia and with the consent of the master and of another Brother Ramon, who was the majoral of both Valencia and Denia -- rented out property that the king had first donated in 1245: ACA, Monacales, 2676: 444rv.

98. Repartiment de València, 290, no. 3045.

99. Olmos, "Catedral de Valencia," 167, no. 212.

100. The vineyard and 150s. were acquired in exchange for houses that the Order held in Gerona (March 16,1255): ACA, Monacales, 2663:206. The chantry priest was established in the will, dated October 1, 1253, of Guillem Bernat, a canon of both Barcelona and Gerona: ACA, Monacales, A Rollo 1, ORM, no. 10.

101. See the charter of May 1, 1307, that so disposes the revenues of Játiva and Gandía for this purpose, using the precedent first established by Master Pere d'Amer: Manuel Mariano Ribera, Centuria primera del real y militar instituto de la ínclita religión de Nuestra Señora de la Merced redempciónde cautivos cristianos (Barcelona, 1726), 130-31.

102. ACA, Monacales, 2660:11.

103. Repartimiento de Murcia, ed. Juan Torres Fontes (Madrid, 1960), 41, 170; ACA, Monacales, 2676: 319r- 324v.

104. Colección de documentos para la historia del Reino de Murcia, vol. 2: Documentos del siglo XIII, ed. Juan Torres Fontes (Murcia, 1969), 37, no. 40.

105. For the 1296 charter, see ibid., 119-20, no. 117; see also the charter of April 4, 1312, in which Jaume II of Aragon intervened to protect the rights of Merced's tenants there to water: ACA, Monacales, 2663: 53.

106. Repartimiento de Sevilla, ed. Julio González (Madrid, 1951), 2: 42, 242.

107. Ibid., 2:305.

108. This property the donor had inherited from the late Pere Andreu, and its cession to Merced had already been confirmed bv Alfonso X of Castile: ACA, Monacales, A Rollo 1, ORM, no. 25.

109. Ibid., 2676:324v.

110. Ibid., 530rv; Documentos de Jaime I de Aragón, ed. Ambrosio Huici Miranda and Maria Desamparados Cabanes Pecourt (Valencia, 1976-82), 3: 30, no. 529.

111. For a more basic guidaticum that was issued to the Knights of St. John of the Hospital (December 23, 1221), see Documentos de Jaime I, 1: 73-75, no. 32. Guidatica were issued frequently by the king. For example, see those given, respectively, to a merchant of Vila-Rodona (June 8, 1256), a citizen of Tarragona (October 23, 1257), a canon of Barcelona (November 7, 1257), a merchant of Gerona (November 12, 1257), and the ships of Torroella de Montgrí (November 13, 1257): ibid., 3:200, no. 711; 204-5, no. 715; 278, no. 810; 286-87, no. 823; 292, no. 832; 293, no. 835. The guidaticum (or in Catalan, guiatge) was a source of revenue for the crown and offered to the recipient -- whether merchant, traveller, group, or community -- a guarantee against harassment or violence. It could also serve as a pardon for crime or as a type of mercantile insurance. For a brief discussion of the subjects see Burns, Medieval Colonialism, 209.

112. Siete Partidas, 2: 336 - 39.

113. ACA, Monacales, 2676:486rv; Documentos de Jaime I, 3: 161-62, no. 670; BC, Arxiu, no. 4733.

114. For example, when Jaume I himself gave the Order a reallum, or farm, in Játiva on May 3, 1248, he forbade its alienation to "militibus et sanctis": ACA, Monacales, 2663:2-3.

115. Documentos de Jaime I, 3:175 - 76, no. 685; Ribera, Centuria primera, 172-73.

116. For an extended discussion of the shrine of Sant Vicent, see Burns, Crusader Kingdom, 1: 282- 300.

117. See above, n. 115.

118. Specifically, in a letter of April 28,1256, Jaume I not only denied that Mercedarians had bribed him with money in order to obtain the monastery, but also revealed that, due to the poor management of the now-dispossessed monks, he had been forced to pay Sant Vicent's debts out of his own funds: Manuel Mariano Ribera, Real patronado de los serenísimos señores reyes de España en la real y militar orden de Nuestra Señora de la Merced, redención de cautivos (Barcelona, 1725), 305.

119. ACA, Jaume I, Reg. Canc., 10: 143r.

120. The king, for example, in the guidaticum recognized that the redemption of captives held the first place among the works of charity and thus acknowledged his own responsibility to forward its progress: Documentos de Jaime I, 3:30-31, no. 169.

121. For example, at Úbeda only a Brother Miguel is listed; at Córdoba, Brother Rodrigo; at Seville, Brother Pedro; but at Soria, Brothers Miguel and Bartolomé: ACA, Monacales, 2676:324v.

122. On the role played by the Knights of Santiago as ransomers in Castile, see my "Military Redemptionism."

123. ACA, Monacales, 2703, perg. 1.

124. Ibid., A Rollo 1, ORM, no. 29.

125. Ibid., 2676: 198v.

126. The document is dated by the incarnational year, that is, January 4, 1301: ACA, Cartas Reales, 1335.

127. He appears as commander of Puig in a rental contract of May 24, 1263 (ACA, Monacales, 2663: 203), and as commander of Sarrión in another of Januarv 2, 1267 (ibid., 2676: 226r).

128. Gazulla, Merced, 360; AHN, Clero, carp. 3193, no, 11; ACA, Monacales, 2676: 214r-215v, 226v.

129. ACA, Jaume II, Reg. Canc., 340: 160v.

130. ACA, Monacales, 2679:61r.

131. Ibid., 2676:260v-262v; 2679:57rv; 2676:185r.

132. Ibid., 2679: 270r, 66v-67r.

133. The earliest known text for these is contained in a fifteenth-century manuscript: ACA, Monacales, Códice varia II, 44r-53r.

134. The Dominican Order, for example, in 1241 approved a greatlv systematized version of the primitive constitutions of 1228: William A. Hinnebusch, The History of the Dominican Order (New York, 1966-73), 1:172. The Trinitarian Order, whose primitive Rule is contained in a papal bull of 1198, amplified this with the adoption of a constitution in thirty-two capitula in 1263: PL, 214: 444-49; "Statuta ordinis saec. Xlll," Acta ordinis sanctissimae Trinitatis 1 (1929): 276-81. The Rule of the Hospitallers of St. John was amplified by statutes enacted at chapters of 1176, 1177, 1181, 1206, etc. For these, see The Rule, Statutes and Customs of the Hospitallers, 1099 -1310, ed. and trans. E. J. King (1980 ed.; London, 1934). The hospital belonging to the cathedral of Aix-en-Provence, whose rectors heretofore had enjoyed considerable autonomy, was placed ca. 1300 under the direct control of the chapter as part of a reform movement intended to preserve the hospital's revenues from fraudulent use: Pourrière, Hôpitaux d'Aix-en-Provence, 106. The Hospital of Roncesvalles, founded ca. 1132, came to be governed by statutes promulgated in 1287: Gérard Jugnot, "Deux fondations augustiniennes en faveur des pél-
erins: Aubrac et Roncevaux," in Vicaire, Assistance et charité, 326.

135. Brother Guillem is known to have been prior as early as March 4, 1271 (ACA, Monacales, 2676:64v-69v), which is also Brother Pere's first appearance as master; he is last seen in office on September 19, 1301, only two months after Pere d'Amer's death (ibid., 294rv).

136. Ibid., 380v.

137. Ibid.

138. ACA, Alfons II, Reg. Canc., 74:85. The document bears the incarnational date of 1287.

139. ACA, Jaume II, Reg. Canc., 117:212v; Monacales, 2663:36-37.

140. ACA, Monacales, 2676:290v-292r.

141. On February 25, 1299, Brother Esteve, the last surviving member of the Sack Friars of Tarragona, acknowledged that because of old age he was no longer able to maintain his house and church of Sant Antoni. Consequently, while reserving the right of ownership to the Holy See (to which all Sack property had reverted), this friar turned over his holdings to Merced on the condition that it support him and maintain the church: ACA, Monacales, 2676: 115r-116r.

142. Ibid., 105r-106v (misdated 1262) and 480r (dated correctly).

143. Ibid., 458r-459r.

144. ACA, Jaume II, Reg. Canc., 117:87v; 124:189v-190v.

145. Antonio Matilla Tascón, Guía-inventario de los Archivos de Zamora y su Provincia (Madrid, 1964.), 175.

146. ACA, Alfons II, Reg. Canc., 64:160v.

147. AHN, Clero, carp. 121, no. 10.

148. See the charters of October 13, 1292 (ACA, Monacales, 2679:60rv) and December 11, 1292 (ibid., 2676:292v).

149. In anterior documents, he appears on the rosters of Puig (October 8, 1272), Barcelona (March 15, 1276), and Gerona (October 4., 1289): ACA, Monacales, 2676: 260v-262v, 185r; 2679:57rv.

150. Bullarium de Mercede, 25-27.

151. For example, see the king's letter of January, 24, 1303, in which he orders his officials to maintain Brother Arnau and his supporters in their property and to permit no injury to be done to them: ACA, Monacales, 2663 : 35- 36.

152. See the roster of the chapter held by Brother Arnau at Calatayud on May 4,1303: AHN, Clero, carp. 3194, no. 8.

153. See his letter to the vicar of Puig, Brother Pere d'Alòs, dated September 19, 1301: ACA, Monacales, 2676:294rv.

154. Brother Pere had been Brother Guillem's procurator in his futile effort to halt the election of Arnau d'Amer: ACA, Monacales, 2679:64r.

155. Ramon Albert's election took place between April 1 and September 20, 1302, to judge by Pere Formiga's last appearance as master and Brother Ramon's first: ACA, Monacales, 2676: 300r; 2679: 64v. On Ramon Albert's background, see ibid., 2676: 232r-233r, 256rv.

156. AHN, Clero, carp. 3194, no. 8; Ribera, Centuria primera, 130- 31.

157. Bullarium de Mercede, 34.

158. Ibid., 35-36; ACA, Jaume II, Reg. Canc., 143: 161.

159. Brother Arnau's only prior notice was as a member of the small community at Castellón de Ampurias: ACA, Monacales, 2679:66v (November 22, 1306).

160. Evidence for this is suggested by the continued impoverished condition of the prior's commandery of Barcelona, where in 1310 the brothers were given royal permission to beg for food, and where in 131l they were admonished by Jaume II for selling pieces of its domain: ACA, Jaume II, Reg. Canc., 144:234r; 146:96v.

161. ACA, Monacales, 2676:309r-311v.

162. Ibid., 2679:69rv.

163. Bullarium de Mercede, 37.

164. ACA, Monacales, 2679:97v-98r.

165. ACA, Jaume II, Reg. Canc., 146:96v; 131: 37rv

166. Vicente Salavert y Roca, Cerdeña la expansión mediterránea de la Corona de Aragón, 1297-1314 (Madrid, 1956), 2:403-4, no, 323.

167. ACA, Monacales, 2682:98r.