The Story of Majorca and Minorca

by Sir Clements R. Markham

The Master of the Templars in Majorca, Friar Ramon Serra, was the first to suggest to the King that his galleys should be sent to Minorca, demanding immediate submission and threatening that the King would himself come with a large army to punish any disobedience. The three knights, Torrella, Maza, and Serra himself, were accordingly ordered to proceed to Minorca with an interpreter, and the King’s demand written in Arabic. The Moorish Alcaide and headmen of the town received the knights with much respect. The letter was read to them, and they asked for time to deliberate. This was granted. On that very evening the King, with only six knights, was stationed on Cape Pera, the eastern extreme of the island of Majorca, near Arta, with Minorca clearly in sight. As soon as the sun set they fired some immense piles of lentisco bushes, to make the Minorcans believe that a great army was encamped there. When the chief men of Minorca saw the fires, they hurried to the Catalan knights to inquire what they were. ‘It is the great army,’ they were told, ‘that will come directly the King hears of a refusal of his demands.’ Next day they submitted, surrendered all their strong places, and declared that they trusted in the clemency of the King. Meanwhile En Jayme remained on the Cape of Pera, continuing the stratagem of the bonfires for four days, when the news of the submission of Minorca without bloodshed was brought and gave him great satisfaction. Iviza and Formentera submitted in the following year.

The King was in Majorca during July and August 1232. He granted very liberal Fueros to the people and completed the settlement of the island. The final document in which the distribution of lands among the conquerors is recorded was signed on July 1, 1232. The lands were divided into jovadas, and these were subdivided into cuarteradas, a cuarterada being a certain portion of squared land, with each side forty brazas in length. A braza was the length of King Jayme’s arms from finger-tips to finger-tips, and, as he was over six feet, this was a good fathom. The length of each side of a cuarterada was therefore eighty English yards. A jovada was originally the portion of land that a yoke of bullocks could plough in one day; but in the Majorca division it was counted at sixteen cuarteradas. The Arabic names were used, rahal being a house or property near a town; alqueria a farm, a word still in use; beni preceding a place-name meaning ‘the house of.’ As many as 573 rahales and alquerias were thus granted by the King, the grantees paying certain dues to the four great feudatories, En Nuño, Count of Roussillon, the Count of Ampurias, Gaston de Moncada, and the Bishop of Barcelona. But this only includes half the grants, the rest having been made by the great feudatories themselves to their own followers. Altogether upwards of fifteen hundred farms must have been distributed. There was also a division of the mills, and of the rights to running water. The number of farms gives an idea of the flourishing condition of the island in the time of the Moors. They were succeeded by an equally energetic and intelligent race of farmers and artisans.

The Knights Templars received the strong castle near the south-eastern angle of the city walls, afterwards called the Temple, and a great number of farms. The Knights Hospitallers also acquired very considerable landed property.

On a small island the population, under circumstances like the conquest of Mallorca, is soon changed. A great number of the Moors perished, many escaped to Muhammadan Spain or Africa, many were taken away by their new masters. There is certainly no trace of Moorish blood among the present inhabitants.

The government of Majorca, according to the Fueros of King Jayme I., granted in 1240, consisted of six persons, elected annually, called Jurados, who formed the municipal authority. The president, called Jurado en cap, belonged to the class of nobles; two were citizens liable for military service, two were of the merchant class, and one of the labouring class. Until 1447 the Jurados were co-opted, but afterwards a sort of ballot was adopted. There was a General Council of 143 deputies, the Jurado en cap presiding. The deputies consisted of a fixed number of representatives of the capital and other towns, and of knights, merchants, and artisans. There was one judge, called the Bayle General, until the institution of the Audiencia in 1576.

This was a remarkably liberal constitution for the thirteenth century, and indicates the trust and reliance felt by King Jayme in the loyalty and good sense of his people. In this, as in other respects, we are reminded of our own Edward I., his parliaments and legislation.

The conquest of Majorca was a matter of the greatest importance to the island, but it was only a brief episode in the long reign of more than sixty years. En Jayme showed ceaseless activity in the work of government, consulting assemblies of his people, framing laws and granting privileges, and settling complicated disputes. Popular representation was strengthened under Jayme I. He sometimes met the Cortes of Aragon in the capital or one of the towns, and the Council of Catalonia separately; at other times the representatives, for special reasons, met in one assembly, usually at Monzon. In one case the meeting was called a parliament, in the other ‘Cortes Generales.’ Mr. Hallam, in his ‘Middle Ages,’ has given a good general account of the Aragonese Constitution. En Jayme frequently visited the whole of his dominions, and thus became intimately acquainted with his people and their needs. In 1238, nine years after the conquest of Majorca, King Jayme found it necessary, owing to the frequent and audacious inroads of the Moors, to undertake the conquest of the rich and important kingdom of Valencia. The capital city was taken at Michaelmas, and a Christian population substituted; but it was a much longer military operation to reduce the numerous strongholds up to the frontier of Murcia. The work was finally completed, and King Jayme, well named ‘El Conquistador,’ granted Fueros to his new kingdom of Valencia, and a representative assembly, or Cortes.

It now becomes necessary to allude to the King’s children and family relations. By his wife Violante of Hungary Jayme I. had eight children. Pedro, his successor in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, was born in 1243. In July 1262, at the age of nineteen, he was married to Constance, daughter of Manfred, King of Sicily, son of the Emperor Frederick II., by Beatrice, daughter of Amadeo, Count of Savoy. The marriage took place at Montpellier. The second son was Jayme, who was to succeed his father as King of Majorca, as well as to the possessions in the south of France. King Jayme married his second son to Esclaramunda, sister of the Count of Foix, the most powerful nobleman in Gascony. The third son, Fernando, did not turn out well. Of the daughters, Violante married Alonso X., King of Castille, in 1248; Isabel became the wife of King Philip III. (le Hardi) of France; and Constance of the Infante Don Manuel of Castille. Maria was a nun, and Leonor, the youngest, died in childhood.

The Infante Pedro of Portugal died childless in 1244, and was buried in the cathedral at Palma. En Nuño, the King’s cousin and most able general, also dying childless, left all his vast possessions to the master he had served so long and so well. He was Count of Roussillon, Cerdaña, and Conflent.

After the marriages of his children, the last great enterprise of En Jayme was undertaken at the earnest request of his son-in-law, Alonso X. of Castille. This was the conquest of the Muhammadan kingdom of Murcia, in which his son Pedro took a prominent part. The campaign was a complete success, and King Jayme honourably handed over to Alonso X. the prize he had won at great cost and no little trouble. He also made some liberal grants in the south of Valencia to his other son-in-law, the Infante Manuel.