The name of the Aragonese king Jaime I is associated with the peak period of the conquest of peninsular territories from Muslim domination by the Christian kingdoms. His long reign (1213-1276) coincided with that of another great monarch, Fernando III el Santo (who dynastically unified the kingdoms of Castile and León). In this period the conquest by the king of Aragon of Majorca and Valencia took place, while on the Castilian-Leonese side such important places as Seville and Cordoba were conquered; In addition, both kingdoms collaborated in the conquest of Murcia, which was incorporated into Castile.
The beginning of the reign of Jaime I had not been easy. Unwanted fruit of the union of his father Pedro II with María de Montpellier, which the Aragonese only accepted for political reasons (legend has it that María had to lure her husband to bed with a deception), little Jaime was soon in the hands of the leader of the crusade against the Cathars, Simon de Montfort, after a conference held in Narbonne in 1211. And the infant was only five years old when the crown passed to his head after the death of his father at the Battle of Muret (1213).
It is not the purpose of this entry to narrate the reign of Jaime I. Suffice it to say that not only did he manage to get ahead, but over the years he added to his inheritance of the kingdom of Aragon and the Catalan counties, the aforementioned kingdoms of Valencia and Mallorca. In addition, during his government, the interest of Aragon stopped focusing on the south of France (after the aforementioned battle of Muret) and began to focus on the Mediterranean. This territorial expansion eventually raised the question of his succession. And it was by no means an easy matter to resolve.
Jaime I first married Eleanor of Castile, daughter of Alfonso VIII and Eleanor Plantagenet. The marriage was a resounding failure and ended up being annulled with the usual excuse of consanguinity, not before our protagonist, the infante Alfonso, was born from the union. Jaime I had various lovers. The best known, to the point of signing an official concubinage contract, was Aurembiaix de Urgel; By virtue of what was established in said document, the county of Urgel became part of the Crown of Aragon when she died without issue in 1231. The Aragonese king would remarry Violante of Hungary for the second time, who would give him sons to the future Pedro III of Aragon, Violante, who would be queen of Castile, and Jaime II of Malloca, among others.
As I said, in 1227 Jaime I requested and obtained a divorce from Eleanor of Castile, although their son, the infante Alfonso, was recognized as legitimate and sworn in Daroca as heir of the Crown. In September 1234, at a meeting in the Huerta monastery (to which Leonor had retired after the divorce along with Alfonso) and in the presence of Fernando III, Jaime ratified the transfer of all the towns and rights that he had given him as a deposit. marriages, adding Ariza in exchange for her not contracting a new marriage and guaranteeing her right to choose residence and for Alfonso to accompany her while she was a minor.
Jaime I remarried on September 8 from 1235 with Violante of Hungary. As part of the dowry, in December of that year, he gave her the city and the lordship of Montpellier and for his future children, the kingdom of Majorca, the conquests already made and future in the kingdom of Valencia and the counties of Roussillon and Millau. Later he would add the county of Sardinia and some more towns.
A remarkable event occurred in Teruel in May 1236:a prominent Muslim leader converted to Christianity and recognized himself as a vassal of Jaime I and his sons. The king made his secretary note that "his sons" referred exclusively to those with Violante of Hungary, without mentioning the infante Alfonso. It would not be the only occasion in which acts and documents of vassalage were omitted to the eldest son of the king.
In the following years Jaime I granted different testaments in which the differences between the territories that made up the Aragonese crown and the lack of awareness of a feeling of unity between the same (the courts of Aragon and Catalonia began to meet separately from 1244, when those of Barcelona decided that the Cinca would be the limit between both territories). The monarch's first testament (1241) contemplated the cession of Aragon and Catalonia in favor of the infante Alfonso and of Mallorca, Valencia, Montpellier, Roussillon and Cerdanya in favor of his second son, Pedro. The subsequent births of children from his marriage to Violante caused various variations in his testamentary dispositions.
In 1248 Jaime I granted a new testament, in which the following hereditary provisions were reflected:Alfonso would receive the old kingdom of Aragon, except Ribagorza, which would be integrated into the principality of Catalonia, which would be for Pedro, along with Mallorca; the kingdom of Valencia would be for the infante Jaime and the ultra-Pyrenean possessions for his other son, Fernando.
For its part, the meeting of the courts of Alcañiz held in 1250 agreed that the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia were considered inseparable and entrusted to the infant Alfonso, and that the principality of Catalonia would be to Pedro.
It is difficult to know how events could have evolved in the following years, especially considering that there were differences between the king and the infant Alfonso that led to his exile to Castile in 1250. Alfonso's coat of arms at the head of this entry is a declaration of intent regarding the feelings of the infant, son of an Aragonese king and a Castilian princess.
In any case, we will never know what would have happened if the infant Alfonso had succeeded Jaime I the Conqueror, since our protagonist died before his father, in the year 1260. is buried in the Monastery of Veruela. As for Jaime I, who outlived his eldest son by sixteen years, he had time to rethink his testamentary dispositions... but that's another story.
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Vicente Ángel Álvarez Palenzuela (Coordinator). History of Spain in the Middle Ages