By 1356, the Kingdom of Granada remained the only independent Islamic Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula as its Christian neighbours to the north – Castile-Leon, Portugal, Aragon, and Navarre – continuously fought one another for territory and power inside and outside of the peninsula. From the early eighth century to the late fifteenth century, the borders of Iberia’s Islamic and Christian kingdoms were constantly in flux as a series of wars, crusades, and settlements changed the Iberian map over the span of seven hundred years. Of these wars, the fourteenth century War of the Two Pedros (La Guerra de los Dos Pedros) from 1356 to 1375, pitted all of Iberia’s kingdoms against one another in an effort by Pedro “the Cruel” of Castile and Pere IV “the Ceremonious” of Aragon to settle their claim to the Kingdom of Valencia in south-eastern Iberia.[1] This rivalry and conflict lasted for two decades until it came to a close in 1375 with the signing of the Peace of Alamazan and the retainment of Valencia by Aragon.  Considering this war raged for almost twenty years and involved most of the polities in Iberia, its significance in wider Mediterranean political culture and its effects on the political ties between all of Iberia’s kingdom highlight the ways in which Iberian’s Christian and Islamic kingdoms were linked politically and diplomatically due to the threat of Aragonese expansion to the balance of power in the kingdom. To examine this history, we must first begin with the conquest of the Kingdom of Valencia in the twelfth century during the reign of James “the Conqueror” and its annexation into the growing Crown of Aragon.[2]

            The Book of Deeds (Llibre dels Fets), the autobiography of James I, describes the Aragonese “right” to Valencia and its conquest of the city in 1238 over the course of three stages – the northern campaign, the capture of the city, and the southern campaign.[3] Over the span of the year 1238, the Taifa of Valencia fell and became the Kingdom of Valencia (Regnum Valentiae) as a cadet kingdom within the larger federation of the Crown of Aragon. From the reign of James I to the 1715 Nueva Planta Decrees, the Aragonese crown existed as a collection of semi-autonomous kingdoms that were – for a period between the mid-thirteenth century and c. 1415 – ruled by cadet branches of the House of Barcelona. With Valencia entering this federation, James I and his successors claimed the city as Christian and outside of the reach of its chief rival, the Kingdom of Castile-Leon.[4]

            This 1238 conquest and its ramifications for Aragonese expansionist claims into the Mediterranean world set the scene for the later War of the Two Pedros for two important reasons. Firstly, the annexation of Valencia granted the Aragonese dominance over Iberia’s eastern Mediterranean coast and prevented Castile from controlling any Mediterranean ports. This effectively kept Castile out of Mediterranean affairs as the Crown of Aragon continued its expansionist designs into the Occitan lands of Languedoc in modern Southern France, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, and the Kingdom of Sicily. Secondly, the conquest of the Taifa of Valencia marked an important moment in Iberian history since this was the first of many sieges of the city that occurred between 1238 and 1375. The right to control Valencia, the surrounding territory, and its Mediterranean port was an important point of contention between both Castile and Aragon after 1238 as both kingdoms vied for dominance in the peninsula.

The political structure of the Kingdom of Valencia following the conquest of 1238. As an Aragonese subordinate kingdom, Valencia retained its own language and was an important seat of power for the Aragonese monarchy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

            In the century following the conquest of Valencia, tensions grew between Aragon and Castile as the interests of each region looked toward the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The tension between the two kingdoms came to a climax in 1356 when the king of Castile, Pedro “the Cruel,” asserted his claim to the Kingdom of Valencia in an effort to halt Aragonese expansion. Pedro’s startling claim – a full century after the initial Aragonese annexation of Valencia – drew in neighboring Granada to the war to prevent Valencia from, again, falling into the hands of the ever-expanding Crown of Aragon.

            In addition to halting Aragonese expansion in the Iberian Peninsula, tensions between Castile, Granada, and Aragon had been threatening an armed conflict for quite some time. A naval incident off the coast of Aragon between Genoese and Aragonese ships heightened tensions between Castile and Aragon due to Castile’s close relationship to the Republic of Genoa, Aragon’s rival in Mediterranean trade.[5] Castile’s alliance with the Northern Italian republic pitted them further against Aragon in the Mediterranean, since by 1356, both Genoa and Aragon were among the chief powers of trade and naval warfare in the Mediterranean. Additionally, Pedro of Castile’s claim to Valencia was, partially, in response to Aragon’s recent annexation to the Kingdom of Majorca. In 1349, only a few years prior to the claim, Aragon had abolished its subordinate kingdom in Majorca and taken it under its direct rule as its former king, James III, remained imprisoned in Barcelona. The entire Majorcan royal family – including Queen Violante of Vilaragut and James III’s children with his first wife: James IV and Isabella – remained locked in prisons in Barcelona and Palma until 1362. The fate of young James IV was worst of all since he remained imprisoned in an iron cage until his escape in the early 1360s.[6] Due to this clear power grab and the harshness of the confinement of the Majorcan royal family, the Crown of Aragon was increasingly becoming a threat to the authority of neighboring Iberian kingdoms and that of other Iberian monarchs themselves.

Pedro IV “the Ceremonious” of Aragon. Pedro’s expansionist goals were threatening for Castile and Granada as its influence beyond the Iberian Peninsula expanded during his long reign from 1336 and 1387. During his fifty-year reign, Pedro managed to imprison the rulers of Majorca, Sicily, and Sardinia in an effort to take each polity under his direct authority. While he was not always successful in his endeavors, Pedro’s conquests were a threat to life in Iberia.

Source: Jaume Mateu (c. 1427), Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona.

            For the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada, the outbreak of war between Castile and Aragon was not immediately threatening since the outbreak of fighting was, at first, contained to the borders between the two kingdoms in the north. It was not until the 1360s that Pedro of Castile and Muhammad V of Granada brokered a newfound alliance. This alliance was not expected, since in the decades before 1350 during the reign of Alfonso XI, Granada was the target of Castilian aggression as it attempted to expand its borders farther south. Pedro “the Cruel’s” accession in 1350 changed relations between Castile and Granada since, by 1356, Castile’s target shifted eastward towards Barcelona. As historian Clara Estow has argued in her chapter on Castilian and Granadan relations:

Pedro did not pursue the war against Granada because he held Granadans in special esteem, directing his wrath, instead, at his Christian and domestic enemies. Even if this bias had some basis in fact—his infamous cruelty may have appeared more tempered vis-à-vis his Muslim allies—a more credible explanation would seem to lie in the resilience and tactfulness of the Granadans themselves. [7]

            Therefore, this “alliance” between Castile and Granada was less about mutual respect and more about fighting a common enemy: the Crown of Aragon. This brief alliance did, however, reach its height in 1363 when a Castilian-Granadan army laid siege to the Kingdom of Valencia to take the kingdom for Castile. Ultimately, this effort proved unsuccessful since once the Aragonese army arrived in Valencia, the combined Castilian-Granadan forces retreated into Castilian controlled territory.[8] As the war raged on, the Castilian and Granadan alliance remained intact until the late 1370s at the death of Muhammad V. In the end, the War of the Two Pedros ended in a stalemate. The Peace of Alamazan ended with a marriage contract between Pedro of Aragon’s daughter, Eleanor, and the heir of Castile, Enrique. Their marriage produced a son called Ferdinand, who went on to become the first Trastamara king of Aragon following the death of the final king of the House of Barcelona, Martin, in 1410.

            Beyond this dynastic merger, the outbreak of war in the fifteenth century had a significant impact on religious and political relations between Castile, Aragon, and Granada. This conflict and its aftermath highlight how the borders of Iberia’s kingdoms were constantly changing through armed conflict, crusading, and tension between rulers. Until the merger of the Castilian and Aragonese crowns (Portuguese after 1580) in the fifteenth century, the borders of Iberia’s kingdoms were in constant flux. As the Iberian kingdoms vied for authority, their shared political interests – particularly in the case of Granada and Castile – often led to unexpected and important alliances that turned the tide of armed conflicts. As this episode and the War of the Two “Pedros” shows, alliances in Iberia across religious lines could change between generations.

Further Reading:

Thomas Bisson, The Medieval Crown of Aragon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986)

Donald J. Kagay and L. J. Andrew Villalon, eds., Conflict in Fourteenth Century Iberia: Aragon Vs. Castile and the War of the Two Pedros (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

João Gouveia Monteiro and Francisco Garcia Fitz, eds., War in the Iberian Peninsula, 700-1600. (London: Taylor and Francis, 2018)

Flocel Sabaté, The Crown of Aragon: A Singular Mediterranean E

[1] I am referring to the Castilian king as “Pedro” and the Aragonese king as “Pere” for two important reasons. First, I am choosing to call Pere/Pedro/Peter of Aragon by his Catalan name (Pere) so that he is distinguishable from the other king in Castile with the same name. In historiography, both kings are often called either “Pedro” or “Pere” depending on the language of the source, Castilian (Pedro) and Catalan (Pere). Secondly, for contemporaries living in Castile and Aragon, both kings’ names were spelled differently. In Catalan and Aragonese sources, Pere the “Ceremonious” was not Pedro since that is the Castilian Spanish spelling of the name. Therefore, in the interest of clarity and accuracy, I have decided to distinguish the spelling of their names.

[2] Donald J. Kagay and L. J. Andrew Villalon, eds., Conflict in Fourteenth Century Iberia: Aragon Vs. Castile and the War of the Two Pedros (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

[3] In the English language translation of the chronicle, see the chapters titled “Valencia – the Northern Campaign,” “Valencia – Capture of the City,” and “Valencia – the Southern Campaign.” James I, Damian J. Smith, and Helena Buffery, eds and trans., The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon: A Translation of the Medieval Catalan Llibre Dels Fets (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 137-282.

[4] Ben Eckersley, “The Myth of Minority: Cultural Change in Valencia in the Thirteenth Century at the Time of the Conquests of James I of Aragon” (MA thesis, University of St. Andrews, 2007), 33-62); Enric Guinot i Rodríguez, "The Expansion of a European Feudal Monarchy During the Thirteenth Century: the Catalan-Aragonese Crown and the Consequences of the Conquest of the Kingdoms of Majorca and Valencia." Catalan Historical Review (2009): 33-47.

[5] For more on this rivalry see: Kathryn L. Reyerson, "Montpellier and Genoa: The Dilemma of Dominance." Journal of Medieval History 20, no. 4 (1994): 359-372; Emily Sohmer Tai, Honor Among Thieves: Piracy, Restitution, and Reprisal in Genoa, Venice, and the Crown of Catalonia-Aragon, 1339-1417 (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1996); Lawrence Mott, "Trade as a Weapon During the War of the Sicilian Vespers." Medieval Encounters 9, no. 2-3 (2003): 236-243.

[6] The brutality of James IV’s imprisonment is well documented by a series of letters written in Latin and Italian by Pierre Ameilh in the court of Johanna of Naples after 1363. Upon James IV’s escape, he travelled to the Kingdom of Naples where married the young queen. Several of Pierre’s letters describe James as experiencing post traumatic stress and severe anxiety following almost twenty-years in an iron cage. Petrus Amelii, and Henri. Bresc, ed., La correspondance de Pierre Ameilh, archevêque de Naples puis d’Embrun (1363-1369) (Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1972), 37, 41, 153, and 159.

[7] Clara Estow, “War and Peace in Medieval Iberia: Castilian-Granadan Relations in the Mid-Fourteenth Century” in The Hundred Years War: A Wider Focus edited by Donald Kagay and Andrew Villalon (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 158.

[8] Ibid, 172-173.