The expansion of a European feudal monarchy during the 13th Century: the Catalan-Aragonese Crown and the consequences of the conquest of the kingdoms of Majorca and Valencia

Abstract

In the middle of the 13th century the Crown of Aragon conquered by military means the Muslim Mediterranean Coast of the Iberian Peninsula, incorporating it into the European feudal world; this resulted in the destruction of the Andalusí state and part of its society as well as in a redistribution of towns, villages, houses and lands among Christians. The historiography of some years ago emphasized the role of trade and urban burgesses in these new societies, but present opinion is more related to a long expansion of feudal society as well as the creation in Majorca and Valencia of a colonial society. Logically, the consequences of this process had also an effect in Catalonia and Aragon where the movement had its origins, and its effects can be verified on the re-settlers' migrations, the changes in agrarian structures due to the redistribution, the expansion of commercial towns, and the political changes that resulted from the participation of the urban patrician class in the new power structures: townships and parliaments.