Ramon Muntaner

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Ramon Muntaner (* 1265 in Peralada in northern Spain, † September 1336 in Ibiza ) was the third of the four great Catalan chroniclers of the late Middle Ages, royal official and member of the Catalan company . He is the author of the Crònica de Ramon Muntaner , which is one of the four great Catalan chronicles .

Life

Ramon Muntaner was born in Peralada in Empordà in 1265 . In 1275/76 he took part in the journey of the Infante Peter III , probably as a companion of the Admiral Roger de Llúria . from Aragon to the French court of Orléans.

Around 1280 he stayed in Montpellier for a long time, probably for educational purposes . Nothing more can be said about Muntaner's training and activities from 1287 to 1300, but his report on the deeds of Admiral Roger de Llúria indirectly suggests that he had something to do with him. Due to a war against the French, he lost all of his property in Peralada and never returned there. In 1298 he was in Valencia and appeared here as a citizen of Mallorca, which does not have to mean, however, that he has been constantly on Mallorca in the meantime. In Sicily he was in the service of King Frederick II of Sicily from December 1300 . In the conflict between Charles II from the House of Anjou and Frederick II from the House of Barcelona took part in the defense of Messina . Apparently he joined the Ansch Roger de Flor , who directed the Sicilian naval operations. In doing so, Muntaner became his procurador general , in other words the person responsible for recruiting mercenaries and head of his private law firm. In 1303 Muntaner moved as treasurer and chancellor and later as captain and lord of Gallipoli with the Catalan company to Asia Minor, until he and Ferdinand von Mallorca went west again from 1307/08 .

From 1308 to 1315 Muntaner was governor of the island of Djerba and Kerkennah on the Tunisian coast for King Frederick II of Sicily . However, when he learned in 1315 that Ferdinand of Mallorca was planning a train into the eastern Mediterranean to conquer the Duchy of Morea, he rushed to Sicily to join him. After Muntaner had done the job, Ferdinand's son Jakob, who later became Jakob III. from Mallorca to bring him to safety at his father's court, he began to recruit mercenaries for him in Valencia . Ferdinand died in 1316 and Muntaner stayed with his family, two sons and a daughter, in Valencia, where he was responsible for recruiting the Sicilian fleet for several years.

From 1324 he was in the service of Jacob II in Valencia. In addition, he held various higher magistrate offices in Valencia until 1331 and was part of the Valencian delegation at the coronation of Alfonso IV of Aragon in 1328 in Saragossa .

After Muntaner in 1329 by Jakob III. was appointed advisor by Mallorca , he moved to Mallorca in 1331, where his eldest son held a high position at the court. Muntaner was appointed royal chamberlain and Bajulus of Ibiza in 1332/33 , raised to the knight's beach and worked in administrative and commercial activities before he died in Ibiza in September 1336.

plant

From May 15, 1325 to 1328, Muntaner wrote his Crònica , a chronicle of the rise of the Catalan-Aragonese dynasty and, in part, a real experience report of Muntaner. The chronicle begins with the most important episodes from the time of Jacob I (1205–1276), becomes more detailed after 1280 and forms the main part with the Expedicio a Orient . He describes his stay on Djerba, the warlike undertakings of Jacob II until his death in 1327 and the coronation of Alfonso IV in Saragossa in 1328 . The aim of this book is not an autobiography, but the praise of the "casal d'Aragó" , the house of Aragon. Muntaner's intention is to show the special divine favor and grace under which Jacob I and his descendants stand and still will stand. Muntaner wanted to show the future kings of Aragon with this work a kind of set of rules for a future great rule. Along with the other Catalan chronicles, it influenced the development of later chronicles and the Catalan writings Curial e Guelfa and Tirant lo Blanc .

In 2006 Robert D. Hughes published an edition of the Chronicle of Ramon Muntaners.

literature

  • Ramon Muntaner: Chronicle of the noble En Ramon Muntaner . Edited by Karl Lanz, Stuttgart 1844.
  • Roger Sablonier: War and Warriorism in the Crònica of Ramon Muntaner. A study of the late medieval warfare based on Catalan sources . Bern / Frankfurt 1971.
  • Carmen Batlle: Muntaner, Ramon . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Vol. 6, Sp. 919-920, Stuttgart 1993.
  • Muntaner, Ramon: The Catalan Expedition to the East: from the Chronicle of Ramon Muntaner , translated by Robert D. Hughes with an Introduction by JNHillgarth, Barcelona / Woodbridge 2006.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d Carmen Batlle: Muntaner, Ramon . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages . Vol. 6, Sp. 919-920, Stuttgart 1993.
  2. ^ Roger Sablonier: War and Warriorism in the Crònica of Ramon Muntaner. A study of the late medieval warfare based on Catalan sources . Bern / Frankfurt 1971, pp. 18-19.
  3. ^ A b Roger Sablonier: War and Warriorism in the Crònica of Ramon Muntaner. A study of the late medieval warfare based on Catalan sources . Bern / Frankfurt 1971, p. 19.
  4. ^ A b Roger Sablonier: War and Warriorism in the Crònica of Ramon Muntaner. A study of the late medieval warfare based on Catalan sources . Bern / Frankfurt 1971, p. 20.
  5. The Catalan Expedition to the East: from the Chronicle of Ramon Muntaner, translated by Robert D. Hughes with an Introduction by JNHillgarth, Barcelona / Woodbridge 2006, pp. 9-10.