These are portraits made many years after his death, so do not try to look for similarities. However in the chronicle of Bernat Desclot (Catalan medieval historian) there is a detailed description of James I.
To put us in context, I will explain the situation in this part of Europe at that time..
We are in the year 1207. And this is the territorial situation in this part of Europe..
The Crown of Aragon is facing a really serious problem, Peter II of Aragon is married with María de Montpellier for the last three years and have not yet had any offspring. This makes his subjects very nervous as the king may die without offspring and put the stability of the kingdom in serious trouble.
So in Montpellier, the queen and her counselors meet.
The conception of James I is wrapped in the legend. His father, Peter II of Aragon, did not want to lie with his wife, Maria of Montpellier, which worried everyone about the lack of an heir. So that from Montpellier devised a stratagem to deceive the King and get him to lie with the Queen.
Peter II had a reputation for being impulsive, a drinker, and a womanizer. When the king was in Lattes, near Montpellier, to visit one of his lovers, he was convinced to move to another town where the Queen was, with the deception that his lover was waiting for him there.
Meanwhile the Queen and her vassals prepared the trap. Once the King was in the bedroom with his supposed lover, who would actually be the Queen. At the door of the bedroom they would stay, as Ramon Muntaner (historian and Catalan knight) says in his chronicle:
They took the mistress to the king's chamber. One of the conditions put by the alleged lover was that there was no light to be seen by anyone. So when the king was in his room, and probably half drunk, the mistress entered in the gloom. And on this crazy night the future James I was sired.
At dawn all entered the chamber and asked the king to recognize the woman who slept beside him. The king's face must have been a poem, first when he saw all these people enter the room where he was with his lover, and then discover that his lover was actually the queen. If the queen had had a mobile phone, she could have made a 'selfie' of her and in the background the stupid face of the king. It would have been 'top trending' throughout the Crown of Aragon and the rest of Europe.
The king had no other option than to recognize the queen and beg because the purpose of the nobles, to have an heir, was fulfilled.
But the king's anger must have been enormous, that same day he took his horse and galloped out of the city. 9 months later his son was born, the future James I. Peter II did not see his son until he was 2 years old, and when he was 3 years old he sent him under the tutelage of Simon of Monfort, because James's marriage was agreed upon. the daughter of the Lord of Monfort, Amicia. For which he would be held in the Castle of Cascasona until he was 18 years old.
As you can see, the king did not seem to feel a special affection for his son, perhaps he suspected something?
As we have said before, Peter II of Aragón was a drunk and womanizer. Their drunkenness and raids through the bedrooms of different damsels were common. However, apart from James I, no other legitimate son is known.
| Peter II of Aragon | James I of Aragon |
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So we have Peter II, an inveterate womanizer, according to the words of his own son (he was a man of femme ). That in spite of his numerous sexual relations, he has no more son than James, begotten in a crazy night, in which probably the king was drunk.
The indifference he seems to feel towards his son is evident. He does not see James until he is 2 years old, and with only 3 years, he leaves him under the tutelage of Simón de Monfort.
2 years later, when James is 5 years old, Peter II of Aragon enters into war with Simon de Monfort, despite the fact that his son is in the possession of the Lord of Monfort.
On the morning of the Battle of Muret, Peter attends mass. The night before he spent a night with a damsel, and he is so drunk that they have to put a chair because he can not stand up.
In a moment of the battle, Peter sees how Simon de Monfort flees along with some of his knights. He climbs his horse and goes after him, but he has done so quickly that his knights can not follow him, when he reaches the Lord of Montfort and his knights, he is surrounded and killed. When they arrive their knights can only pick up their corpse.
We can ask ourselves if this is the act of a desperate father, who knows that if Simon de Monfort manages to escape, his son's life will be in danger. Or is it the action of an impulsive fool?
As we have said, Peter II never seemed to feel a special affection for his son. He does not see it until he is 2 years old and a short time later he is secluded in the castle of the Lord of Montfort, with whom he will later enter the battle. And considering his repeated attempts to annul his marriage to Maria de Montpellier, something to which the Pope refused. Perhaps the fate of his son was something that mattered little to him, it could even be an obstacle for the Pope to finally grant him the annulment.
Knowing the womanizing character of Peter II and the only legitimate offspring of James, Beginted from the relationship of a single night. It seems doubtful that James I was the son of Peter II. His supposed father did not have much appreciation, and after the death of his father, his paternal uncles showed no affection for his nephew either, on the contrary. He had an assassination attempt while still a baby, and during his childhood he endured the contempt of his father's family, he was even kidnapped by his family.
In the middle ages, people were quite ignorant and easily manipulated, but they were not stupid. A son conceived in the relationship of a single night and in strange circumstances. That the queen said that it was God's will, you can believe it or not, but I suspect that her father's family had more than reasonable doubts.
What his uncles were proposing was that James would remain with his mother's possessions in Montpellier, and that they would share the Crown of Aragon.
In Bernat Desclot's chronicle there is a famous passage where Alí, a Majorcan native, talks to James I when he is on the Island of Pantaleu, in Sant Elm.
And when he came out of the sea, he came before the king, and knelt before him, and greeted him in his Latin. The king made him give clothing, and then asked him about the facts of the land and the Saracen king. The Saracen told him: "Sir, you know for certain that this land is yours and to your command, that my mother asks me to come and tell you, since she is a wise woman and has known in her art of astronomy ( today we would call it astrology, which is not the same), that this land you must conquer. "
Some historians describe this passage as an adornment that Desclot uses to imply that Jaume I was destined to conquer Majorca. Although the art of astronomy it looks like a Bernat Desclot ornament, if we investigate more, if we study everything that surrounds the character, we will discover something very interesting.
Most historians have focused on the paternal inheritance of James I, but if we deepen in his maternal inheritance we will discover that Maria of Montpellier, mother of James, was the daughter of Eudokia Komnena, at that time it was mistakenly thought that Eudokia was a daughter of Manuel I Komnenos, Emperor of Byzantium, when in fact it was his niece.
However, for Ali's mother, Maria was heir to the Byzantine Empire , and her son James was his legitimate successor.
You will ask, and what does the Byzantine Empire have to do with this story?
When the Roman Empire fell, in the fifth century, the Iberian Peninsula became Visigothic Kingdom, while the Balearic Islands, first passed through a period of Vandals domination and from the sixth century was part of the Byzantine Empire, until the arrival of Muslims, in the tenth century. So that for the mother of Ali, the legitimate king of Majorca had returned, the arrival of James I in Majorca meant, the Return of the King.
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