Peter II (Aragon)

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Peter the Catholic ( Catalan Pere el Catòlic , Spanish Pedro el Católico ; * 1178; † September 13, 1213 before Muret ) was from 1196 to 1213 as Peter II a king of Aragón and as Peter I a count of Barcelona , Girona , Osona , Besalú , Cerdanya and Roussillon from the house of Barcelona .

Seal of Peter II of Aragon.

King of Aragon

The extent of the possessions of the Crown of Aragon in the middle of the 12th century was roughly the same as that of the reign of King Peter II the Catholic.

The Crown of Aragon

Peter II was the eldest son of King Alfonso II the Chaste and his wife Sancha of Castile . He was probably born around the years 1176/1177, since according to his father's will drawn up in April 1196 he was to remain under the tutelage of his mother until he was twenty. Since the mother is first mentioned in a document on April 23, 1197 as a nun of Santa María de Sigena , Peter is likely to have reached the age of majority by this point at the latest and taken over the business of government himself.

As the eldest son of his father, who died on April 25, 1196, Peter inherited him in the most important territories of his house, the Kingdom of Aragón and the Catalan county of Barcelona , both of which had in fact represented a closed rulership since the marriage of his grandparents. In addition, he also took over the county of Gévaudan and vice-county of Millau , located in what is now southern France, then Occitania ( Languedoc ), over which the French crown claimed suzerainty, but in fact had not exercised it for generations. Furthermore, the county of Provence , which belonged to the Holy Roman Empire, was owned by the Catalan house, although Peter's younger brother Alfons was endowed with it. Furthermore, the house had exercised the feudal lordship over the vice-counties of Béziers and Carcassonne ( Trencavel ) and the Pyrenees highlands of the counties Foix and Comminges . Through his marriage, Peter had still earned the right to rule Montpellier .

The power of the House of Barcelona was concentrated in two geographical domains, with the land between the Iberian Mountains and the Pyrenees on the one hand and the French Massif Central and the lower Rhône Valley on the other. The powerful and de facto independent county of Toulouse had squeezed between the two spaces, thus preventing the formation of a geographically closed area ruled from Barcelona in what is now southern France, which modern historians often refer to as the "Midi Kingdom" or "Pyrenees Empire". The House of Toulouse had therefore appeared in previous generations as the main rival of the House of Barcelona for supremacy in Languedoc. However, this constellation was to undergo a fundamental change initiated from outside during the lifetime of Peter II.

First years of rule

Ownership of the Counts of Toulouse (green) and their vassals (light green) in the 12th century. Properties of the Crown of Aragon (yellow) and their vassals (brown).

When he took over government in 1197, Peter II immediately plunged into the power struggles of the Christian kings of Spain and, as an ally of his cousin Alfonso VIII of Castile, waged war against the kings Alfonso IX. of León , who was excommunicated because of his marriage, and Sancho VII of Navarre , both of whom made open pacts with the Muslim Almohads . The fighting continued until the former was politically sidelined and the latter was forced into the Castilian-Aragonese coalition, which saw its priority in the continuation of the Reconquista against the Muslims. The peace between Aragón and Navarre was not sealed until 1209. Since 1189 Peter II had got into a conflict with his mother about their Wittum , which included several castles along the border with Castile. They were once transferred from Alfonso II to his wife on the condition that they were transferred to their son when he came of age. Despite this arrangement, a dispute arose as Alfonso VIII of Castile interfered in favor of his aunt, through whom he sought to preserve the Castilian influence in Aragon. After his mother also won the Pope's intercession, Peter ended the dispute in 1201 with a compromise with her.

In order to be free for the fight against the Almohads in the south of the Iberian Peninsula , Peter had to rely on orderly conditions in the north of the Pyrenees, which above all required a compromise with the old Tolosan rival. The willingness of the peaceably minded Count Raimund VI to compromise . came to meet him, with whom he, through the mediation of Archbishop Berengar of Narbonne , his uncle, and Count Bernard IV of Comminges , was able to agree on a contractual status quo of their property relations in Languedoc in Perpignan in February 1198 . With a wedding between Peter's sister Eleanor and the Count of Toulouse, also celebrated in Perpignan in 1204, the peace was deepened and expanded into a real political alliance in Millau in April of the same year , in which Peter and his brother Alfonso of Provence and Raimund VI . of Toulouse to form a defensive alliance in which the contracting parties undertook to provide mutual arms aid against any aggressor. Immediately thereafter, Peter strengthened his position in Languedoc through his marriage to Maria von Montpellier on June 15, 1204 , through which he was able to take over the co-rulership of the great Seigneurie of Montpellier . Before that, Mary was in the line of succession by Pope Innocent III. who had declared their younger half-siblings illegitimate in the Decretal Per Venerabilem .

Relationship to Pope Innocent III.

Throughout his life, Peter II was a devoted son of the Roman Catholic Church, to which he gave legally privileged and materially rich gifts in his kingdom. This turn should not, however, hide their purely power-political nature, because privately he cultivated anything but a pious lifestyle. Gloriously loving and generous, he pursued a libertarian lifestyle that was inconsistent with the Christian morals of his time, strongly influenced by a chivalric ethos and the courtly culture that he promoted as the patron saint of trobadors . Regardless of his marriage, Peter was known for his countless amorous affairs, which resulted in at least two illegitimate children. And yet the Pope, who was elected in 1198, recognized Innocent III. in him one of his most important political allies, which is evident from Peter's attitude towards the Cathar religious community, which is particularly widespread in Languedoc and condemned by the Roman Church as a heresy threatening existence . In the Kingdom of Aragón, Catharism was only represented in the periphery, especially in the valleys of the Pyrenees and in the county of Urgell , otherwise it was hardly present south of the mountains. Nonetheless, in an edict issued in February 1198, Peter set up the most restrictive legislation on the prosecution of heresy in all of Europe, in which, in addition to the usual confiscation of property, the cremation of convicted heretics was included as a regular punishment. With that Peter had a letter of recommendation for Innocent III's politics of interests. whose top priority was the destruction of heresy. The fact that his actions against heresy were of an ambivalent nature is made clear by the fact that during his entire reign there were no executions of convicted heretics on record. On the occasion of his stay in Languedoc in 1204 he had invited Waldensians and Cathars to a dispute with Catholics in Carcassonne that although the heretics ended after a three-day dispute with the condemnation of the heretics, despite the edict of 1198 they had no consequences to fear. Nonetheless, Peter has been considered by the Church to be one of its most loyal sons, and it should be the tragic irony of history that he will first offer his kingdom as a gift to the Roman Church and attain the highest Catholic reputation as its champion, just for the sake of himself End to turn against the crusaders of this very church to die fighting against them.

Pope Innocent III (Fresco in the monastery of San Benedetto in Subiaco , Latium , around 1219).

After the family quarrel in the house of Aragón was settled, Innocent III. endeavored to win Peter II as the protector of his ward, King Frederick of Sicily , who at that time, as an orphan, had become the plaything of various factions fighting for power, which had put the Sicilian kingdom into a state of anarchy. With this, the Pope had taken up a wish made by Empress Konstanze , who died in 1198 . In the summer of 1202, Peter had signaled his willingness to the Pope and offered to marry his sister Sancha with the young Staufer King , for which he held out the prospect of sending 200 Aragonese knights to Sicily , who should restore royal authority there. Although this marriage project did not materialize due to adverse circumstances, the Pope was able to present another sister of Peters, the Hungarian Queen Konstanze , as the intended bride of his ward in October 1204, even though her first husband, King Emmerich, had not yet died.

On the occasion of the defensive pact of Millau in April 1204, Peter had borrowed 120,000 sous from the Count of Toulouse in Melgorien and willingly left the income of the counties of Millau and Gévaudan to this. He needed the money to finance his elaborately planned coronation ceremony in Rome by the Pope, which he wanted to celebrate that same year. Accompanied by the highest-ranking prelates and nobles of his kingdom, he went ashore with five galleys at the mouth of the Tiber near Ostia on November 9th, 1204 to be celebrated by Pope Innocent III on November 11th, for the feast of St. Martin of Tours , in San Pancrazio . to be anointed and crowned . For this purpose, Peter had taken a feudal oath to the Pope as the head of the holy church, which he thereby recognized as the secular liege of his kingdom, committed to obedience to her, to the defense of her property and to combat heresy. Furthermore, he had committed himself to paying an annual tribute of 250 mazmudins to Rome. He then moved into Saint Peter to lay his crown and scepter on the grave of his namesake and prince apostle , thus offering his kingdom as a gift. The exact motives for Peter to become a voluntary vassalist to the Roman Catholic Church remain unclear, but this act represented a high point in the traditional relationship of the Aragonese Kingdom to the Holy Church. His ancestor, King Sancho Ramirez (1063-1094 ), had personally traveled to Rome in 1068 to take the oath of fief to the Pope, but this act had not led to any far-reaching political consequences, except for the opening of Aragon as the first Spanish kingdom to the Roman liturgy . An essential motive for this close association with the Holy See was probably the need of the kings, whose position vis-à-vis their own nobility was more like that of a primus inter pares , for a general increase in their prestige with the achievement of divine right based on the Frankish model. Also in relation to his fellow Spanish rulers, especially the kings of Castile, Peter II will have intended a demonstration of the political sovereignty of his house, if one only considers that a few generations before him the Castilian kings had claimed an empire over all of Spain.

In contrast to 1068, Peter's fief was not limited to a mere symbolic gesture, but was linked to concrete political consequences for the further history of Aragon, which was ultimately expressed in his act of coronation. He was the first Aragonese king to be crowned; this type of rulership initiation was unusual for Spanish kings until then. By making himself a vassal of the Holy Church, he had given the Pope authority over questions of secular feudal law over himself and his kingdom, which had a lasting effect on Aragón, especially in the 13th century, and its consequences for the biography of Peter II. were consequential. He himself had primarily relied on political and financial support from the Pope for the crusade he planned against the Almohads, which was to be crowned with the conquest of the Balearic Islands .

Marital problems

After his return in March 1205, Peter started planning a campaign against the Almohads, but internal political and intra-dynastic conflicts prevented him. His brother Ferdinand, who had been abbot of the monastic fortress of Montearagón since that year , had got into a conflict with the Bishop of Huesca , García de Gúdal, over the property rights on Almudévar , which culminated in a violent escalation. The conflict could only be resolved in May 1206 after an intervention by Peter.

At about the same time there was a dispute in the royal house after Infanta Sancha was born in September 1205, who Peter immediately betrothed to the son of the Count of Toulouse. The maternal inheritance, the dominion of Montpellier, should be given to her as a dowry in the marriage, against which Queen Maria again defended herself with the support of her vassals. In a written and public manifesto in October 1205 she had declared her resistance to her de facto expropriation by her husband. After all, only a few months earlier, Peter had pledged to the city councilors of Montpellier that Mary's inheritance would be inalienable. But he had now downright threatened and "crucified" (cruciata) Maria in order to obtain her consent to the sale of her rights. The early death of Infanta did not put an end to the dispute, because now Peter sought the annulment of his marriage. In a letter to the Pope dated June 1206, he indicated that his wife's previous marriage to Bernard IV of Comminges had not been dissolved in accordance with canon law and that his own marriage to her could therefore never have been legally valid. He had written this letter in Montpellier , and here too, under the eyes of his wife, he had received a diplomatic delegation from the young Queen Maria of Jerusalem in the summer of 1206 , who was looking for a suitable husband, to which Peter immediately offered. This humiliating snub to his wife, as well as Peter's refusal to repay the taxes used in recent years to the city after a divorce, provoked an uprising among the citizens of Montpellier, who stormed the palace and forced Peter to curse in Lattes Castle, which, however, did also couldn't withstand the onslaught of the angry crowd. Only the intervention of the Bishop of Maguelone was able to calm the situation down and in a final contract with the city guides Peter promised the reimbursement of the sums involved within two years. As a result of the conflict, however, his wife's position in Montpellier had strengthened considerably, especially after she had ordered that the walls and towers destroyed in the uprising not be rebuilt as an outward sign of feudal power, which won the sympathy of the citizens for herself. Since then, Peter himself has been treated by the Montpelliérains as the unloved husband of their mistress.

From then on, Peter lived effectively separated from his wife, even if the marriage remained on paper, the legal dissolution of which continued to occupy him until the end of his life and was ultimately denied. To complete the seemingly grotesque marital situation between Peter and Maria, Infante Jakob was born on February 1, 1208 in Montpellier . According to various stories, Maria is said to have disguised herself as one of her husband's mistresses one night and thus managed to procreate her son. Jakob himself later wrote in his report of deeds ( Llibre dels fets ) that one day his father was persuaded by one of his knights to visit Maria while she was residing in the nearby Mireval castle , which led to the last night of love with serious consequences.

During the separation affair with his wife, Peter took the opportunity to consummate another marriage. In late 1206 he had a letter from Pope Innocent III. received, which announced that the young Frederick of Sicily was no longer in the hands of the enemies of the Pope and was now free for the previously agreed Aragonese marriage. In 1208 the Bishop of Mazara arrived in Aragón, who represented the Sicilian king there in October of that year in the marriage ceremony with Constanze, which was carried out as a proxy wedding.

Between crusaders and Muslims

Crusade against the Albigensians

On October 9, 1208 Pope Innocent III. called to the crusade against heresy in the "Albigensian Land" after a papal legate had been murdered there under unclear circumstances. With regard to his own crusade plan against the Almohads, Peter II did not receive a direct call for a crusade, although the "Albigenserland" also included some of his domains and feudal areas. The Albigensian Crusade inevitably had to touch the spheres of interest of the Crown of Aragon and thus make Peter II an important protagonist. After the crusade army had moved south along the Rhone in the spring of 1209 , it had initially made a stop in the Catholic stronghold of Montpellier on the recommendation of the Pope, before turning against the Aragonese vassal Raimund Roger Trencavel . July 1209 whose city Béziers was conquered in a massacre. The army then moved on to Carcassonne , where in August 1209 Trencavel was trapped. Peter had hardly been able to do anything about this attack on one of his vassals under his protection, since active action against the crusade would have put him in the wrong from the standpoint of the Pope, who had also been his secular liege since 1204, and suspected him of supporting heretics. He is also unlikely to have had the necessary military means to do this, since the knighthood of his country was in the process of preparing for the war against the Almohads, for which he had founded the Order of San Jorge in Alfama in honor of St. George as early as 1201 . Nevertheless, in August 1209, Peter had initially moved to Carcassonne with a small entourage to intervene there. But after Trencavel had rejected the crusade leaders' demand for unconditional surrender of the city with a free escort for himself and his entourage in return, Peter had withdrawn again. On August 15, Trencavel was taken prisoner during a personal interview in the camp, whereupon Carcassonne surrendered.

Immediately afterwards, the spiritual leader of the crusade, Legate Arnaud Amaury , raised the northern French lord of the castle, Simon de Montfort, to be the new Vice Count of Béziers-Carcassonne and appointed him military leader of the crusade. The basis for this act was an order issued by the Pope, according to which the property of heretics and their protectors was to be confiscated and exposed as booty for the crusaders. With this, however, Montfort had made himself lord of a fiefdom of the crown of Aragon, as which he now hoped for Peter II to be recognized as his vassal. To this end, Montfort had requested the Pope's written consent, also knowing that he was in turn the liege lord of the king, who in case of doubt could order him the desired recognition. In fact, in several letters of November 11th and 12th, 1209 to the courts of Western Europe, the Pope approved the taking of the Trencavel land by Montfort, only the letters for the Albigensian land were still on their way when Peter and Montfort met in Montpellier in the same month met for a personal interview. Until then, Peter had been ignored in all matters of secular feudal law. His vassals had either been deposed or attacked without his consent, even if, as in the case of the Count of Foix, they were under the protection of the Holy See. As a result, he temporarily refused Montfort the hoped-for recognition as his vassal. At the same time, however, he did not think of raising arms against the crusade and rejected a request for help from the Faydits Pierre Roger de Cabaret , Aimery de Montréal and Raymond de Termes in the spring of 1210 in Montréal .

By the spring of 1211, the situation in Languedoc had changed insofar as Simon de Montfort had removed almost all the resistance nests in the former Trencavel lands and thus achieved a much more comfortable political position. Bearing in mind the Pope's attitude, a personal compromise with Montfort was inevitable for Peter, also with regard to the situation in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. The initiative came from Legate Arnaud Amaury , who, under pressure from the Pope, invited all conflicting parties in the Albigensian region to a council in Narbonne in January 1211 . Here Peter finally took the feudal oath of Simons de Montfort as Vice Count of Béziers-Carcassonne and recognized him as his vassal according to all the rules of feudal law. In return, Montfort had committed to the inviolability of the Foix domains, which were a protectorate of Aragon. Just days later, the personal relationship between King and Crusade leader could in Montpellier, where the Council had adjourned, are strengthened by a marriage project by the Infant Jakob with de Amicia Montfort engaged and to the familia was handed over to the bride. Much to the annoyance of his wife and the Montpelliérains , Peter had transferred the guardianship government for Montpellier to Montfort, who was to take care of it until Jacob's eighteenth birthday. The leaders of the crusade had, however, played a double game at the Council of Narbonne-Montpellier. Because with the reconciliation between Montfort and Peter II they had the political isolation of Count Raimund VI. operated by Toulouse, which they regarded from the beginning as the real main goal of the crusade. After this had not complied with their excessive demands, they were able to excommunicate him again and recommend the expansion of the crusade to his domains. For the same reasons as in the Trencavel case, Peter could not do anything about it; the papal sanctioning of the council resolutions had allowed the continuation of the crusade against Toulouse and at the same time neutralized the assistance pact of 1204. And since Toulouse had not been a vassal of Aragon, Peter had no feudal rights to intervene.

Crusade against the Almohads

At that time, however, Peter had to deal with completely different matters than what was going on in Languedoc, so that he also ignored a request for help from the city of Toulouse ("If your neighbour's house is on fire, it's your business too ...") in June Was besieged for the first time in 1211. The Almohads under their King Muhammad an-Nasir (Miramamolín) had gone on the offensive to preventively forestall the army of Christian kings. They were able to conquer the Salvatierra castle ( province of Ciudad Real ) after a month-long siege in September 1211, against which the Christian kings could do little, also because of the disagreement among themselves. Fifty French crusaders under the leadership of Guy de Lucy had left the Peters camp during the siege and had withdrawn to the Languedoc. Simon de Montfort had to relinquish these knights in fulfillment of his feudal duties to the king, but ordered them back from Spain immediately when he got into trouble against the Count of Toulouse. Peter had perceived this as a breach of oath and high treason, which was all the more serious after the fall of Salvatierra. He intended to take care of his word-breaking vassal at a later date.

After the fall of Salvatierra, King Alfonso VIII of Castile called on the Spanish rulers to join forces against the Muslims, which the Holy See provided with all the indulgences of a crusade. In addition to Sancho VII of Navarre, Peter II also followed this call and in the spring of 1212 led his knighthood to Toledo to unite with the armies of his allies. A large number of knights and infantry troops even arrived from France, led by the Archbishop of Narbonne , the Archbishop of Bordeaux and the Bishop of Nantes . King Alfonso IX alone The coalition stayed away from León after its long conflict with Castile. In June 1212 the Spaniards took up the march against the Almohads and on June 24th they retook Malagón and on July 1st Calatrava La Vieja, the seat of origin of the Order of Calatrava, which had been conquered by the Moors in 1195. The prelates of Bordeaux and Nantes had then given up their further participation in the campaign and had withdrawn with the majority of the French troops for their homeland after they had taken offense at the free withdrawal of the Moorish garrison granted them by the Christian kings. Peter was only able to persuade the Archbishop of Narbonne, Arnaud Amaury , who had ousted his uncle Berengar from this office that same year , to stay with around 150 knights. Thereupon the Christians recaptured the Salvatierra Castle and then on July 16 they were victorious in the battle on the "Plain of Tolosa" (Las Navas de Tolosa) over the army of the Almohad king, who then fled to Marrakech . At the end of the campaign, the Christians conquered the cities of Baeza and Úbeda , which they razed to the ground, and thus secured a gateway into Andalusia . The victory at Las Navas de Tolosa marked a significant milestone in the history of the Spanish Reconquista and was the turning point in the balance of power between Christians and Muslims, as the offensive power of the latter could be finally broken 500 years after the invasion of Tariq ibn Ziyad .

Break with Simon de Montfort

Freed from the Muslim threat in the south, Peter could now turn to affairs in the north, where he was now concerned with containing the expansion of Simons de Montfort's power. By the end of 1212, he had conquered almost all of Languedoc with the exception of the city of Toulouse and had also attacked the Aragonese protectorates Foix and Comminges , much to the displeasure of Pope Innocent III, who wanted a reconciliation between Peter and Simon instead of a confrontation both united could turn their forces against the Moors in Spain. But in September 1212 Peter was in Saragossa with Raymond VI. entered into a political alliance directed against Montfort, for which they also wanted to win the Pope by means of a worked out peace plan. The plan provided that Montfort's power would be limited to the vice-county of Béziers-Carcassonne, which he was granted as early as 1211. Furthermore, Raimund VI declared himself. ready to abdicate in the county of Toulouse in favor of his son Raimund VII , for whom in turn Peter was to take care of the guardianship government until he came of age. Above all, however, the county of Toulouse was supposed to become a fiefdom of the Aragonese crown after the termination of its vassal status to France, which would have brought Peter very close to the goal of realizing a Pyrenees empire. The peace plan was actually approved by the Pope, who on January 15, 1213 ordered the suspension of the Albigensian Crusade and the convening of a council of all those involved to work out the terms of peace.

Before the Pope's letter could have reached Languedoc, the opponents met at Lavaur , probably in Verfeil (Haute-Garonne) , for a peace talks, at which Peter presented his peace plan in a memorandum on January 16, 1213. Without being aware of the Pope's attitude to it, the Occitan clergy had already rejected the Aragonese peace plan on January 18, completely and in the spirit of Montfort. In a letter to the Pope three days later, whose letter must have arrived by now, the clergy explained the motives for their decision and recommended that the crusade be resumed until the Count of Toulouse was destroyed. This decision was also supported by Arnaud Amaury, Peter's comrade in arms from Las Navas de Tolosa. On May 21, the Pope finally gave in to pressure from his prelates, lifted the suspension of the Crusade, and thus revised his own position of January 15. Regardless of this, despite the threat of excommunication from Arnaud Amaury, Peter had already accepted the fiefdom of the Count of Toulouse and his son as well as the Counts of Foix, Comminges and Béarn on January 27th and thus opposed Montfort's efforts to take over Toulouse . In response to this, he had given up his feudal oath, which he had taken in the spring of 1211, deliberately declaring himself a renegade vassal and thus making an armed conflict with Peter inevitable. Leaving behind a Catalan knight contingent under his seneschal and son-in-law Guillem Ramon III. de Montcada in Toulouse, Peter had returned to Aragón to summon the exile of his kingdom to fight the Crusaders.

The break with Montfort had broken up Peters’s marital dispute with Maria again, since he was no longer interested in marrying her son to a Montfort, which would ultimately have resulted in the loss of Montpellier. However, because the Infanta Jakob was in the Montfort entourage and Peter could no longer have any direct influence on his marriage, he now intended to oust Maria from her rule in Montpellier in favor of her half-brother, who was an enemy of Montfort and consequently for Peter must appear as a better vassal. On the other hand, Maria defended herself once more and finally received the confirmation of the legal validity of her marriage from the Pope in a letter dated January 19, 1213. Because Bernard IV von Comminges was already in the state of marriage to another woman, so would have Marriage to Mary can never be legally valid and consequently must not serve as an argument against her marriage to Peter, which, conversely, was legally valid according to canon law. In the spring of 1213 Maria had personally traveled to Rome to complete her triumph there when the Pope once again declared her father's second marriage, and thus her half-brother, to be illegitimate and thus confirmed her as the rightful owner of Montpellier. Maria had only been able to enjoy her victory for her marriage and her inheritance for a short time, as she died in Rome at the end of April 1213.

Death before Muret

At the beginning of August 1213, Simon de Montfort had dared to make another diplomatic advance and reminded Peter of the papal letter of May 21st and thus of his violation of the papal will. Peter replied on August 16, referring to the papal letter of January 15, that he "always obeyed the orders of the Pontifex Maximus." On August 28 he crossed the Pyrenees with his Catalan army and on September 8 He set up camp in front of the town of Muret , which was being held by a crusader garrison, where his Occitan allies joined him on September 10th. On September 11th, Simon de Montfort , coming from Fanjeaux , entered Muret with his troops through a free gate. And when he received the host at morning mass on the morning of the following day , Peter is said to have stood so weakly on his feet after an extravagant night of love with a mistress in the camp in front of the city at the same time that he sat down reading the Gospel had to. When the Tolosan city militia attacked the walls of Muret, the battle began. When Montfort led his troops over a tributary of the Garonne , the Louge , to the plain in front of the city held by the Occitans , signaling them the challenge to fight.

The coffins of Peter II of Aragon and his mother Sancha of Castile in the Santa María de Sigena Abbey.

The Catalan-Occitan army, with around 20,000 men, was clearly superior to the Crusaders in a ratio of around ten to one, which made the Catalans in particular embarrassed to accept the challenge of knightly combat in the open field. They rejected the Count of Toulouse's objection to a defensive approach in battle as an act of cowardice, which is not appropriate for knights. But with this they had come to a serious miscalculation, because unlike Las Navas de Tolosa the year before, they were not confronted with lightly armored and haphazardly led desert warriors, but heavily armored French knights who were led by Montfort in the strictest discipline and who, moreover, for a long time Had combat experience. Peter himself saw in this first and foremost a challenge to his knightly sense of honor, which he intended to prove by fighting in the front row. To this end, he had taken over the command of the second battle line of the Allies, while he gave the third row, which was held in reserve, to the apparently timid Raimund VI. willingly left. In addition, Peter had put on anonymous armor and thus renounced any protection and consideration of his royal status, while his armor, which was provided with royal insignia, was entrusted to another knight. In their exuberant ethos, the Catalan knights had willingly given up their advantage of numerical superiority on the battlefield by accepting knightly duels, which allowed the disciplined and unified French to assert themselves unexpectedly well despite their inferiority. After the knight of Florent de Ville fighting in royal armor was killed and his true identity was revealed, Peter had revealed himself and took up the duel with Alain de Roucy , from whom he was ultimately fatally wounded by a blow of a lance.

Peter's death sealed the defeat of his army after his Catalan knights, the heroes of Las Navas de Tolosa, as well as the reserve attacked by Montfort, had fled. With him, the idea of ​​his Catalan-Occitan-Provencal “Pyrenees Empire” came to an end, which on January 27, 1213 had become reality in Toulouse for a short time. His body, found naked, was recovered by Montfort, who gave him all knightly honors "like a new David " to the "new Saul ", and then handed him over to the knights of the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem . According to a chronicle from Marseilles , his death mourned the whole of Christendom , and in a letter to the Bishop of Urgell, Queen Constanze of Sicily expressed her mourning for the death of her brother, who was a true “Knight of the Church” (miles Ecclesie) and "fighter for faith" (pro fide bellator) . The English chronicler Matthew Paris declared the death of the king as a result of his arrogance and the prelates of the Albigensian Crusade cited Peter's support for the heretics as an explanation in a letter to the Pope. In his chronicle, Peter IV of Aragón had simply assumed that his ancestor was "stupid of his own" (per sa follia) . Various Spanish chroniclers, however, take the view that Peter had to take up the fight against the Crusaders in fulfillment of his duties as a liege lord to his vassals in need of protection and for the honor of his sisters who were married to the Tolosan counts. For Simon de Montfort, on the other hand, the love affair with a Tolosan mistress had become the doom of the King of Aragón, for whose favor he had taken up the fight against the French against the will of God. The Pope had not congratulated his crusaders on their victory, any more than words of regret for the death of the most faithful son of the Roman Church, her vassal and champion against heresy and infidels and the protector of the young Friedrich von Hohenstaufen . Innocent III. had lost one of his most important political allies at the hands of the very knights whom he himself had commanded to Occitania, with which in the end he had inflicted a serious loss on himself no less per sa follia .

Peter II was buried by the Hospitaller Knights in their house in Toulouse. Although he had opposed the papal crusade, the church leaders had never dared to impose excommunication on him. In February 1217 Pope Honorius III. ordered the transfer of the body to the convent of Santa María de Sigena , where it was laid out next to the coffin of the Sancha of Castile. Only about a year and a half later, Simon de Montfort fell outside the walls of Toulouse on June 25, 1218, against Raimund VI, who fought with defensive caution.

Familiar

ancestors

Raimund Berengar III. of Barcelona
(1082–1131)
 
 Dulcia of Gévaudan
 
 Ramiro II of Aragon
(1075-1157)
 
 Agnes of Aquitaine
 
Raymond of Burgundy (? -1107)
 
 Urraca of León-Castile
(1080–1126)
 
 Władysław II of Poland
(1105–1159)
 
 Agnes of Austria
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Raimund Berengar IV of Barcelona
(1113–1162)
 
 
 
 
 
 Petronella of Aragon
(1136–1173)
 
 
 
 
 
 Alfonso VII of Castile
(1105-1157)
 
 
 
 
 
 Richeza
(1135-1185)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Alfonso II of Aragon
(1157-1196)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sancha of Castile
(1155–1208)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Peter II of Aragon
(1177-1213)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Marriage and offspring

Since June 15, 1204, Peter II had been married to Maria von Montpellier († 1213) ( House of Montpellier ) as her third husband . Their children together were:

He was also the father of at least two children born out of wedlock:

literature

  • Martín Alvira-Cabrer, El Jueves de Muret. 12 de Septiembre de 1213 , Universitat de Barcelona, ​​Barcelona, ​​2002. ISBN 84-477-0796-2
  • Martín Alvira-Cabrer, Muret 1213. La batalla decisiva de la Cruzada versus los Cátaros , Ariel, Barcelona, ​​2008. ISBN 978-84-344-5255-8
  • Martín Alvira-Cabrer, Pedro el Católico, Rey de Aragón y Conde de Barcelona (1196-1213). Documentos, Testimonios y Memoria Histórica , 6 vols., Saragosse, Institución Fernando el Católico (CSIC), 2010 (on line). ISBN 978-84-9911-066-0
  • E. Bagué: Pere el Catòlic , in: Els Primers Comtes-Reis: Ramon Berenguer IV, Alfons el Cast, Pere el Catòlic , ed. by P. Schramm, Barcelona 1963, pp. 103-145.
  • Damian J. Smith: Soli hispani? Innocent III and Las Navas de Tolosa , in: Hispania sacra , Vol. 51 (1999), pp. 487-513.
  • Damian J. Smith: Innocent III and the Crown of Aragon: The Limits of Papal Authority. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2004.
  • Johannes Vincke: The marriage process Peter II of Aragon (1206-1213) with publication of the trial files. Aschendorffschern, 1935.
  • Michel Roquebert: The History of the Cathars, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Languedoc. German translation by Ursula Blank-Sangmeister, Philipp Reclam jun. GmbH & Co. KG, Stuttgart 2012. (French first edition, Histoire des Cathares. Hérésie, Croisade, Inquisition du XIe au XIVe siècle. Éditions Perrin, Paris 1999).
  • Jörg Oberste : The crusade against the Albigensians. Heresy and Power Politics in the Middle Ages. Darmstadt 2003.

swell

Remarks

  1. ^ Antonio Ubieto Arteta: Historia de Aragón - Creación y Desarollo de la Corona de Aragón . tape 1 . Anubar Ediciones, Zaragoza 1987, ISBN 84-7013-227-X , p. 187 (Spanish, online ). *
  2. ↑ Ex Gestis Comitum Barcinonensium , In: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France , Vol. 12 (1877), p. 380.
  3. ^ Alfonso II Rey de Aragón, Conde de Barcelona y Marqués de Provenza. Documentos (1162-1196) , ed. by AI Sánchez Casabón (1995), No. 628, p. 818.
  4. ↑ Archivo Provincial de Huesca, S-58/5: Fragmento de una historia del Monasterio de Sigena , ch. 27, fol. 60v.
  5. ↑ Itinerario del rey Pedro I de Cataluña, II de Aragón , ed. by Joaquín Miret y Sans in: Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona , Vol. 3 (1905/06), pp. 441-442.
  6. ↑ Itinerario del rey Pedro I de Cataluña, II de Aragón , ed. by Joaquín Miret y Sans in, Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona , vol. 3 (1905/06), p. 153.
  7. ↑ Itinerario del rey Pedro I de Cataluña, II de Aragón , ed. by Joaquín Miret y Sans in, Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona , vol. 3 (1905/06), p. 238 (on the marriage of Perpignan) and pp. 274–275 (on the alliance of Millau).
  8. ↑ Itinerario del rey Pedro I de Cataluña, II de Aragón , ed. by Joaquín Miret y Sans in, Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona , Vol. 3 (1905/06), pp. 278-279.
  9. ↑ Per Venerabilem issued on September 7, 1202. See: Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 214, Col. 1130-1134.
  10. ↑ Edictum contra haereticos , ed. by Giovanni Gonnet in, Enchiridion Fontium Valdensium (1958), p. 94.
  11. ↑ The documents of Empress Konstanze , ed. by Theo Kölzer in, The documents of the German kings and emperors , vol. 11, third part (1990), no. 70, pp. 277-278 .
  12. ^ Letter from Peter II to Innocent III. from June 5, 1202 in: Regesta Pontificum Romanorum , Vol. 1, ed. by August Potthast (1874), No. 1698, p. 147 = Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 214, Col. 1018-1019.
  13. ^ Letter from Innocent III. to the Duke of Brabant on October 27, 1204 with the announcement of the engagement of Constance of Aragón to Frederick of Sicily in: Regesta Pontificum Romanorum , vol. 1, ed. by August Potthast (1874), No. 2312, p. 199. Emmerich von Ungarn had only died in November 1204.
  14. ↑ Roquebert, p. 98. Melgorien are medieval deniers from the Melgueil mint.
  15. ↑ The entire coronation ceremony is described in the Ordo coronationis Petri regis Aragonum . See: Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 215, Col. 550-551.
  16. ↑ Documentos Correspondientes al reinado de Sancho Ramirez , Vol. 1, ed. by José Salarrullana de Dios and Eduardo Ibarra y Rodríguez (1907), No. 3, pp. 7-8.
  17. ↑ Peter II was crowned "King of the Aragonese" (Dei gratia, rex Aragonum) "in God's grace" . Migne, PL 215, col. 551.
  18. ^ Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 8, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), no. 132, col. 533-534.
  19. ^ Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 8, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), no. 129, col. 522–526.
  20. ^ Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 8, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), no. 133, col. 534-538.
  21. ↑ Itinerario del rey Pedro I de Cataluña, II de Aragón , ed. by Joaquín Miret y Sans in, Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona , Vol. 3 (1905/06), pp. 381-382.
  22. ↑ The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon. A Translation of the medieval catalan Llibre dels Fets , ed. by Damian J. Smith and Helena Buffery (2010), p. 20.
  23. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 215, Col. 1082.
  24. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 215, Col. 1342-1343, 1449.
  25. ↑ On the bull Ut contra crudelissimos which sanctioned the Albigensian Crusade see: Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 215, Col. 1469-1470.
  26. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 151-153.
  27. ↑ Itinerario del rey Pedro I de Cataluña, II de Aragón , ed. by Joaquín Miret y Sans in, Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona , vol. 3 (1905/06), p. 506.
  28. ↑ Catalog des actes de Simon et d'Amaury de Montfort , ed. by August Molinier in, Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes , Vol. 34 (1873), No. 41b.
  29. ↑ Catalog des actes de Simon et d'Amaury de Montfort , ed. by August Molinier in, Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes , Vol. 34 (1873), No. 41a.
  30. ↑ Itinerario del rey Pedro I de Cataluña, II de Aragón , ed. by Joaquín Miret y Sans in, Boletín de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona , Vol. 3 (1905/06), pp. 16-17.
  31. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 410-411.
  32. ^ Histoire générale de Languedoc. Vol. 5, ed. by C. Devic and J. Vaissete (Toulouse, 1842), pp. 584-586.
  33. ↑ In a letter to Peter II in October 1211, Muhammad an-Nasir had announced his intention to fight directly against the Pope. A copy of this letter has been preserved by a knight of Duke Leopold VI. from Austria , who was present in Spain in 1212, to the author of the Continuatio Lambacensis . See: Continuatio Lambacensis , ed. by Wilhelm Wattenbach in Monumenta Germaniae Historica , SS 9, pp. 557–558. Hannes Möhring : On the prehistory of Las Navas de Tolosa: An Almohadic letter to Peter II of Aragon in the Continuatio Lambacensis. In: Archiv für Diplomatik , Vol. 46 (2000), pp. 217–224. The Pope had learned of this intention and therefore had the crusade preached in Europe. See: Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 553.
  34. ↑ For the reports on the campaign against the Almohads see the letter of King Alfonso VIII of Castile to the Pope (Migne, PL 216, Sp. 699–703) and the letter of the Archbishop of Narbonne to the General Chapter of the Cistercians ( De Francorum expedition ac victoria adversus Sarracenos in Hispania reportata , in: RHGF 19, pp. 250-254).
  35. ↑ Alberich von Trois-Fontaines , Chronica , ed. by P. Scheffer-Boichorst in: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, SS 23, pp. 894–895.
  36. ↑ On the letter of congratulations Innocent III. for the Christian kings see: Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 699-703.
  37. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 215, Col. 739-741.
  38. ^ Letter from the Pope to Arnaud Amaury of January 15, 1213 in: Regesta Pontificum Romanorum , Vol. 1, ed. by August Potthast (1874), No. 4648, p. 402.
  39. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 839-840.
  40. ↑ Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio vol. 22, ed. by Giovanni Domenico Mansi (1778), col. 868-871.
  41. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 849-852.
  42. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 845-849.
  43. ↑ Innocentii III Registrorum sive Epistolarum , ed. by Jacques Paul Migne in, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Latina. Vol. 216, Col. 749-754.
  44. ↑ The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon. A Translation of the medieval catalan Llibre dels Fets , ed. by Damian J. Smith and Helena Buffery (2010), p. 24.
  45. ↑ Quoting chapters 84 and 85 of the Chronicle of Baldwin of Avesnes : Histoire générale de Languedoc avec des notes et les pièces justificatives. Vol. 7, ed. by Claude Devic and Joseph Vaissète (1879), note 17, p. 53. The duel between Peter II and Alain de Roucy was also mentioned in the Historia figuralis of Gérard d'Auvergne (Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, ms . lat. 4910, f. 91v).
  46. ↑ Vaux-de-Cernay, RHGF 19, p. 87. Puylaurens, RHGF 19, p. 209.
  47. ↑ For the chronicle from Marseille see: RHGF 19, p. 238. For the letter of Constance to the Bishop of Urgell see: Historia Diplomatica Friderici Secundi , vol. 1, ed. by JLA Huillard-Bréholles (1852), pp. 282-283.
  48. ↑ Matthäus Paris , Chronica majora , ed. by Henry R. Luard in Rolls Series , Vol. 57.2 (1874), pp. 566-568. The prelates' letter to the Pope is contained in a copy in the Chronicle of Pierre des Vaux-de-Cernay ( RHGF 19, pp. 88-89). He is also quoted by Matthew Paris.
  49. ↑ Chronicle of Pere III of Catalonia , ed. by Mary Hillgarth (1980), pp. 146-147.
  50. ↑ Puylaurens, RHGF 19, p. 208.
  51. ^ Smith 2004, p. 141.
  52. ↑ La documentación pontificia de Honorio III (1216-1227) , ed. by Demetrio Mansilla (1965), No. 34, p. 28.
  53. ↑ Spicilegium sive collectio veterum aliquot Scriptorum qui in Galliae bibliothecis delituerant , Vol. 3, ed. by Luc d'Achery (1723), p. 567.
  54. ↑ Funerary inscription: “Anno Dñi. M.CC.LIV. pridie Idus Septembris obiit Petrus de Rege Canonicus et Sacrista istius sedis, qui fuit Filius Ilmi. Domini Regis Petri Aragonum,… “cf. Los condes de Barcelona vindicados , vol. 2, ed. by Próspero de Bofarull y Mascaró (1836), p. 231.
  55. ^ John C. Shideler: A Medieval Catalan Family: The Montcadas, 1000-1230 (1983), chap. V, pp. 131-132.

Web links

Commons : Peter II.  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Alfonso II Aragon arms.svg
King of Aragón,
Count of Barcelona
1196–1213 		Jacob I.
personal data
SURNAME Peter II
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Peter the Catholic
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Aragon (1196-1213)
DATE OF BIRTH around 1176
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1213
Place of death Muret