Crusade of Aragon

The Croisade of Aragon is a conflict opposing between 1284 and 1285 the armies of the king de France Philippe III Bold the to those of the king d' Aragon Pierre III.

Causes and alliances

The papacy organized the war, giving him its name of Croisade , because it worried about the conquests of Pierre in Sicily. It withdrew the crown of Aragon to him, the kingdom being vassal of the Holy See, to give it to Charles de Valois, wire of Philippe the Bold one. With the conflict free-Catalan was grafted a family conflict in the house of Barcelona, since the king de Majorque Jacques II, brother of Pierre III, was combined in Philippe the Bold one. Indeed Jacques, as a count de Roussillon, was wedged between the two monarchs and could only be combined to the French sovereign to make obstacle with the ambitions of its elder, which had never hidden its dissatisfaction to see part of its heritage from going away to his/her younger brother.

Unfolding

The French Armies thus entered to Roussillon in 1284 with the blessing of the lord of the region, but encountered local resistances, like that of the city of Elne, ordered by a knight named the bastard of Roussillon , undoubtedly an illegitimate son of Nuno Sanche, lord of Roussillon, which had to be reduced by the force. In spite of the presence of pontifical legates, Philippe the Bold one did not hesitate to put fire at the doors of the cathedral and to massacre there the inhabitants who had found refuge there. In 1285, Philippe the Bold one put the seat in front of Gérone, which he managed to take in spite of a strong resistance of the city. Charles de Valois was then crowned king, but one could not find of crown and one had to crown it with a cardinal's hat, which was worth to him the not very flattering nickname of “king of the hat”.

At sea, Roger de Lauria, the admiral of Pierre III, destroyed the French fleet with the naval Bataille of Formigues. This defeat and the epidemic of Dysenterie which settled in the French camp reversed the situation. Philippe Bold, itself touched by the disease, had to raise the camp

His/her son and heir Philippe, negotiated with Pierre III a sure passage through the Pyrenees for him and the members of his family, but not for his sick troops, which were decimated with the Bataille of the collar of Panissars. Philippe Bold the died in Perpignan and was buried with Narbonne. Pierre III besides survived to him only little.

Continuations

If the conflict had few consequences for the kingdom of France, it had some much for the kingdom of Majorque: the Balearic Islands were confiscated by the son and successor of Pierre III, the king Alphonse III '' Pure the ''.

It is only in 1295 that the Traité of Anagni put a term at the conflicts born of this crusade, the Traité of Tarascon (1291) not having known an application following the death of Alphonse III of Aragon-Catalonia, one of the signatory parties.

Sources

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