If “Africa begins at the Pyrenees” (a shaky truism that far too many medi-evalists still adhere to), the discussion of a Spanish ruler's reconquest career as a prime example of military leadership during the European Middle Ages may seem at worst pointless and at best ill-conceived. Since such geo-cultural divisions themselves would surely have seemed beyond the pale in the thirteenth century, however, this paper will proceed to assess the accomplishments of one of southern Europe's greatest generals of the high Middle Ages, Jaime (Jaume) I “the Conqueror” (r.1214–76).

Early Life

The stellar military record of this long-lived Aragonese sovereign was clearly the result of a fiery determination that transcended and redefined both royal and martial traditions of the day. Coming to the thrones of upland Aragon and maritime Catalonia as a six-year-old orphan who had lost his father, Pedro II (r.1196–1213), at the battle of Muret (12 September 1213), he quickly understood and took as his own the prevalent royal cant that made the ruler in eastern Spain into the principal protector of the “homeland’ (patria) and its “commonwealth” (cosa publica). Despite the possibilities inherent in the royal office, the young king, surrounded by over-mighty relatives who hoped to claim the Aragonese throne for themselves, spent the next decade in defending his royal rights while attempting to direct the energies of his querulous barons toward more profitable activities that he could control.