The Catalano-Aragonese commercial presence in the sultanate of Granada during the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous

Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001) 289–312 www.elsevier.com/locate/jmedhist

The Catalano-Aragonese commercial presence in the sultanate of Granada during the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous夽 R. Salicru´ i Lluch CSIC, Institucio´ Mila` i Fontanals, Egipciaques 15, 08001 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

Abstract Traditionally, historiography has accepted and perpetuated the image of the existence of a predominantly Genoan commercial trade in the Nasrid sultanate of Granada. As a result, the possible importance of traders coming from the crown of Aragon was underestimated. This article analyses the presence in Granada of merchants from Valencia, Mallorca and Catalonia during the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous (1416–1458). It shows that the penetration was much deeper than was originally thought, above all in the case of the Valencians, and that, as such, it is necessary to revise the idea of Ligurian colonialism. But it also demonstrates that, contrary to what was asserted, in the kingdom of Valencia it was not the Mudejar merchants who dominated trade but the Christians who managed to obtain monopolies in Granada as significant as the exportation of silk and the importation of salt.  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Mediterranean trade; Granada; crown of Aragon; Genoa; Alfonso the Magnanimous

Abbreviations: ACA = Arxiu de la Corona d’Arago´; AEM = Anuario de Estudios Medievales; ARV = Arxiu del Regne de Vale`ncia; B. = Batllia; BRABLB = Boletı´n de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona; C. = Cancelleria; CEM = Cuadernos de Estudios Medievales; CR = Cartes Reials; LP = Lletres i Privilegis; MEAH = Miscela´nea de Estudios A´rabes y Hebraicos; MR = Mestre Racional; RC = Reial Cancelleria; reg. = register E-mail address: [email protected] (R. Salicru´ i Lluch). 夽 This study was first written in Catalan and presented at the XVI Congresso di Storia della Corona d’Aragona held in Naples in September 1997. It has been translated into English by Professor Jill R. Webster. 0304-4181/01/$ - see front matter  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 3 0 4 - 4 1 8 1 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 1 3 - 6

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1. The historiographical context The importance of the Ligurian presence in late medieval Granada is not disputed, either in quantitative or qualitative terms. However, since the publication of the studies of Federigo Melis1 and Jacques Heers2 on Italian mercantile presence during the last years of the kingdom of Granada, work on this subject has continued to perpetuate and reinforce the image that Ligurian and Italian were predominant. Such work has, in particular, emphasised Genoese influence on the commercial and economic life of the Nasrid sultanate, and created an impression of exclusivity and monopoly. This has overshadowed evidence of Catalano-Aragonese commercial activity with, and in, the kingdom of Granada, probably because information on the latter, whilst dating almost as far back as that concerning the Ligurians, is still partial and lacking in coherence. Two factors have contributed to this oversight: firstly, the almost total lack of monographic studies on commercial relations between the different Iberian states and the sultanate — especially noticeable when compared with the strong contribution of Genoese historiography — and, secondly, the nature of the many studies undertaken on this area which have projected the image of the sultanate as a Genoese economic ‘colony’3 from the late fourteenth and the late fifteenth century to the very beginning of the Nasrid state, or even earlier. As Gime´ nez Soler’s study demonstrates,4 analyses of the dealings of the crown of Aragon with the kingdom of Granada at the end of the middle ages have concentrated, for the most part, on political and diplomatic relations, and on the fourteenth century.5 They fail to refer, either directly or fully, to commercial relations, and, 1 F. Melis, ‘Malaga nel sistema economico del XIV e XV secolo’, Economia e Storia, 3 (1956), fasc. I, 19–59, fasc. II, 139–163 (reprinted in Mercaderes italianos en Espan˜ a (Investigaciones sobre su correspondencia y su contabilidad) (Seville: Publicaciones de la Universidad, 1976), 3–65). 2 J. Heers, ‘Le royaume de Grenade et la politique marchande de Geˆ nes en Occident (XVe. sie`cle)’, Le moyen age, 63 (1957), 87–121 (reprinted in Socie´ te´ et e´ conomie a` Geˆ nes (XIVe–XVe sie`cles) (London: Variorum Reprints, 1979), VII). 3 A term applied specifically to Malaga but which, for practical purposes, refers to the entire sultanate; see J.E. Lo´ pez de Coca Castan˜ er, ‘Ma´ laga’, colonia‘ genovesa (siglos XIV y XV)’, CEM. Homenaje al profesor Seco de Lucena, 1 (1973), 135–144. Regarding Western Christian Andalusia, the concept ‘colonial’ has been largely superseded; see Iradiel, ‘El Puerto de Santa Marı´a y los genoveses en el Mediterra´ neo Occidental’, in: El Puerto de Santa Marı´a entre los siglos XIII y XVI. Estudios en homenaje a Hipo´ lito Sancho de Sopranis en el centenario de su nacimiento (El Puerto de Santa Marı´a: Ayuntamiento, 1995), 18–19. 4 A. Gime´ nez Soler, ‘La Corona de Arago´ n y Granada’, BRABLB, 3 (1905–1906), 101–134, 186–224, 295–324, 333–365, 405–476, 485–496, and 4 (1907–1908), 49–91, 146–180, 200–225, 271–298, 342–375. 5 Reference should be made at least to the most pertinent studies of M.T. Ferrer i Mallol, especially La frontera amb l’Islam en el segle XIV. Cristians i sarraı¨ns al Paı´s Valencia` (Barcelona: CSIC, 1988); M. Sa´ nchez Martı´nez, La Corona de Arago´ n y el Reino Nazarı´ de Granada durante el siglo XIV: las bases materiales y humanas de la cruzada de Alfonso IV (1329–1335), unpublished doctoral thesis (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 1983); ‘La contribucio´ n valenciana a la cruzada granadina de Alfonso IV de Arago´ n’, in: Primer Congreso de Historia del Paı´s Valenciano (Valencia: Universitat de Vale`ncia, 1980), volume 2, 579–598; ‘El control del corso valenciano (1334) en el marco de la paz entre la Corona de Arago´ n y los sultanatos de Granada y Fez’, in: Homenaje al Profesor Jacinto Bosch Vila´ (Granada: Universidad, 1991), volume 1, 349–365; M. Sa´ nchez Martı´nez and S. Gassiot, ‘La ‘Cort General’ de

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despite containing certain useful contributions,6 they have not produced monographs akin to those devoted to the Maghrib.7 Following the lead of Gime´ nez Soler’s work, in which he almost entirely ignores the fifteenth century, information on political and diplomatic relations of the crown of Aragon with the kingdom of Granada in this century has until recently been virtually non-existent;8 a number of studies, however, have been carried out on their commercial links, mainly concentrating on Valencia and narrowly focused on Valencian sources. On a number of occasions, authors like Dufourcq9 or Sa´ nchez Martı´nez10 have drawn attention to the role of Barcelona (1340) y la contribucio´ n catalana a la guerra del Estrecho’, in: Les Corts a Catalunya [Actes del Congre´ s d’Histo`ria Institucional. Barcelona, 20–30 abril 1980] (Barcelona: Generalitat de Catalunya, 1991), 222–240; M. Becerra Hormigo, ‘La Corona de Arago´ n y Granada durante la Guerra de los Dos Pedros, 1356–1366. El corso’, in: Relaciones exteriores del Reino de Granada [IV Coloquio de Historia Medieval Andaluza] (Almeria: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1988), 307–321; ‘Las relaciones diploma´ ticas entre la Corona de Arago´ n y Granada durante la Guerra de los Dos Pedros: desde 1356 hasta 1359’, Acta Historica et Archaeologica Mediaevalia, 9 (1988), 243–260; ‘La conexio´ n catalana en el derrocamiento de Ismail II’, in: La frontera terrestre i marı´tima amb l’Islam, [Miscel·la`nia de Textos Medievals, 4 (1988)], 301–317; P. Cateura, ‘Notas sobre las relaciones entre Mallorca y el reino de Granada en la de´ cada de 1339–1349’, Bolletı´ de la Societat Arqueolo`gica Luliana, 830–831 (1979), 151– ` . Masia` i de Ros, Jaume II: Arago´ , Granada 165; or, embracing the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, A i Marroc (Barcelona: CSIC, 1989). 6 M. Sa´ nchez Martı´nez, ‘Comercio nazarı´ y piraterı´a catalano-aragonesa (1344–1345)’, in: Relaciones ´ rabe de Cultura, 1988), 41– de la Penı´nsula Ibe´ rica con el Magreb (Madrid: CSIC — Instituto Hispano-A 86; ‘En torno a la piraterı´a nazarı´ entre 1330 y 1337’, in: Andalucı´a entre Oriente y Occidente (1236– 1492) [Actas del V Coloquio Internacional de Historia Medieval de Andalucı´a] (Co´ rdoba: Diputacio´ n Provincial, 1988), 431–461; ‘Mallorquines y genoveses’; ‘Las relaciones de la Corona de Arago´ n con los paı´ses musulmanes en la e´ poca de Pedro el Ceremonioso’, in: Pere el Cerimonio´ s i la seva e`poca (Barcelona: CSIC, 1989), 77–97. 7 Ch.-E. Dufourcq, L’Espagne catalane et le Maghrib aux XIIIe. et XIVe. sie`cles (Paris: PUF, 1966), or M.D. Lo´ pez Pe´ rez, La Corona de Arago´ n y el Magreb en el siglo XIV (1331–1410) (Barcelona: CSIC, 1995). 8 My doctoral thesis, Relacions de la Corona d’Arago´ amb el regne de Granada al segle XV (1412– 1458) (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 1996), 2 volumes, microfiche edition, and my books El sultanat de Granada i la Corona d’Arago´ , 1410–1458 (Barcelona: CSIC — Publicacions de l’Abadia de Montserrat, 1998), and Documents per a la histo`ria de Granada del regnat d’Alfons el Magna`nim (1416– 1458) (Barcelona: CSIC, 1999), have attempted to fill this historiographical lacuna. Although there exist the valuable studies of Mariano Arribas Palau on the reign of Fernando I, the most important of which is Las treguas entre Castilla y Granada firmadas por Fernando I de Arago´ n (Tetua´ n: Centro de Estudios Marroquı´es — Editora Marroquı´, 1956), practically nothing was known of the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous. 9 ´. In his commentary on the first edition of the synthesis of the history of Granada by Ladero (M.A Ladero Quesada, Granada. Historia de un paı´s isla´ mico (1232–1571) (Madrid: Gredos, 1969); there is now a third, revised and enlarged edition, published in 1989), Dufourcq believed that the author was blinded by what he knew about Genoa and as a result minimised, albeit implicitly, the role of the merchants of the crown of Aragon: Ch.-E. Dufourcq and J. Gautier-Dalche´ , ‘Histoire de l’Espagne au moyen aˆ ge (Publications des anne´ es 1948–1969)’, Revue historique, 245 (1971), 467. Further on, in analysing the itineraries between Iberian Christendom and the kingdom of Granada and those he called routes of Malaga and Almeria (that of Malaga, directed towards the Atlantic and connected with the great international trade routes to the West, that of Almeria, also international in character but used much more intensively by Majorcans and Valencians, which, when convenient, joined up with that of Malaga), he showed that it was necessary to insist on the non-monopolistic nature of Genoese trade on these routes.

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merchants from the crown of Aragon at Granada, and also to the need to study their significance in more depth in order to establish the real position. But the lack of such full studies still makes it impossible to dismiss as unfounded the viewpoint of marginality. As a result, recent works do not take into account information obtained from the crown of Aragon,11 thus perpetuating the idea that Christian merchants resident in Granada in the fifteenth century were almost exclusively Italian.12 I hope, therefore, to show here the importance of the Catalano-Aragonese mercantile presence in the Nasrid sultanate, and, by drawing on the records preserved in the chancellery archives for the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous, to assess its importance by considering it in relation to that of the Ligurians.13 He said that the economic role the Ligurians played in Nasrid lands during the second half of the fifteenth century was well known thanks to Heers, ‘Le royaume’, and G. Airaldi, Genova e Spagna nel secolo XV: Il ‘Liber Damnificatorum in Regno Granate’ (1952) (Genoa: Universita` di Genova, 1966), but he considered that works like those of R. Arie´ , L’Espagne musulmane au temps des Nasrides: 1232–1492 (Paris: de Boccard, 1973; second edition published in 1990), and Carre`re, Barcelona 1380–1462. Un centre econo`mic en e`poca de crisi, 2 volumes, (Barcelona: Curial, 1977–1978), did not take due note of the continuing activity of the Catalans, Valencians and Majorcans in those lands, although he remarked that at the time of the capture of Granada by the Catholic Kings, the only Christians there were merchants from a variety of places who lived together in the so-called ‘street of the Catalans’: Ch.-E. Dufourcq, ‘Les communications entre les royaumes chre´ tiens ibe´ riques et les pays de l’occident musulman, dans les derniers sie`cles du Moyen Age’, in: Les communications dans la Pe´ ninsule Ibe´ rique au Moyen Age [Actes du Colloque de Pau, 28–29 mars 1980] (Paris: CNRS, 1981), 30–41. 10 M. Sa´ nchez Martı´nez, in his ‘Mallorquines y genoveses en Almerı´a durante el primer tercio del siglo XIV: el proceso contra Jaume Manfre´ (1334)’, Miscel·la`nia de Textos Medievals, 4 (1988), 104–162, had already shown that during the first third of the fourteenth century, the so-called tra`fech d’Espanya (‘trade from Spain’, which means Granada) was not a secondary route for the Majorcans and that, even then, their involvement in the networks of the Granadan export trade was much more significant that anyone could have suspected. He also repeated, agreeing with Dufourcq, that it seemed clear to him that when the Catalano-Aragonese presence was analysed in depth we would be forced to correct the image created by the historiography on the Genoese mercantile ‘monopoly’ in Nasrid lands (‘Las relaciones’, 92). In his analysis of export trade in the kingdom of Granada, Lo´ pez de Coca had also introduced a certain relativisation in the consideration of Granada as a ‘marginal area’ for the merchants of the crown of Aragon, even though he did not really question Genoese predominance (J.E. Lo´ pez de Coca Castan˜ er, ‘Comercio exterior del reino de Granada’, in: Actas del II Coloquio de Historia Medieval Andaluza (Seville: Diputacio´ n Provincial, 1982), 354–357). 11 It is true, for example, in O.R. Constable, Trade and traders in Muslim Spain: the commercial realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900–1500 (Cambridge, 1994), Castilian translation Comercio y comerciantes en la Espan˜ a musulmana: la reordenacio´ n comercial de la Penı´nsula Ibe´ rica del 900 al 1500 (Barcelona: Omega, 1996), whose bibliography makes no mention of the works of M. Sa´ nchez Martı´nez, overlooking the main works of Hinojosa referring to Granada, and some of those of Ruzafa. 12 See, for example, R. Arie´ , ‘Sociedad y organizacio´ n guerrera en la Granada nasrı´’, in: La incorporacio´ n de Granada a la Corona de Castilla [Actas del symposium conmemorativo del quinto centenario (Granada, 2 al 5 de diciembre de 1991)] (Granada: Diputacio´ n Provincial, 1993), 164–165. 13 It is in this direction that I have focussed my research in the Archivio di Stato di Genova, which derives both from the analysis of new unpublished sources and the revision of notarial records already used by Heers. Besides studies previously published, such as that of B. Garı´, ‘La advertencia del fin. Ge´ nova y el Reino de Granada a mediados del siglo XV’, in: Presencia italiana en Andalucı´a. Siglos XIV–XVII [Actas del III Coloquio Hispano-Italiano] (Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, 1989), 179–189, I refer to R. Salicru´ i Lluch, ‘Ge´ nova y Castilla, genoveses y Granada. Polı´tica y comercio en el Mediterra´ neo Occidental en la primera mitad del siglo XV’, in: Le vie del Mediterraneo. Idee,

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2. The Valencians and the role of Christian Valencian merchants in Granada in the fifteenth century It is in fifteenth-century Valencia, during the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous, that this historiographical deficiency becomes especially marked. Since the pioneer study by Hinojosa,14 there have been numerous contributions on commercial relations between Valencia and Granada.15 These have gradually served to correct the earlier opinion of the ‘unspectacular character’ of commerce between the two kingdoms, as well as the ‘secondary character’ which exchange with Granada represented in relation to the total volume of Valencian commerce,16 a perception caused by the incomplete nature of the sources originally used.17 Today, the link between the kingdom of Valencia and the Nasrid area, and its role and value with regard to Valencian commerce, are both well defined. Using Valencian maritime insurance contracts for the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries, E. Cruselles has been able to distinguish activity along the great international trade routes from the exchanges in which the Valencian financial

uomini, oggetti (secoli XI–XVI). Genova, 19–20 aprile 1994 (Genova: ECIG, 1997), 213–257; B. Garı´ and R. Salicru´ , ‘Las ciudades del tria´ ngulo: Granada, Ma´ laga, Almerı´a y el comercio mediterra´ neo de la Edad Media’, in: En las costas del Mediterra´ neo Occidental: Las ciudades de la Penı´nsula Ibe´ rica y del reino de Mallorca y el comercio mediterra´ neo en la Edad Media, ed. D. Abulafia and B. Garı´ (Barcelona: Omega, 1996), 171–211; R. Salicru´ i Lluch, ‘La embajada de 1479 de Pietro Fieschi a Granada: nuevas sombras sobre la presencia genovesa en el sultanato nazarı´ en vı´speras de la conquista castellana’, Atti della Accademia Ligure di Scienze e Lettere, LIV (1997), 355–385; and idem, ‘La Corona de Arago´ n y Ge´ nova en la Granada del siglo XV’, in: L’expansio´ catalana a la Mediterra`nia a la Baixa Edat Mitjana. Actes del Se´ minaire/Seminari organitzat per la Casa de Vela´ zquez (Madrid) i la Institucio´ Mila` i Fontanals (CSIC, Barcelona), ed. M.T. Ferrer i Mallol and D. Coulon (Barcelona: CSIC, 1999), 121–144. 14 J. Hinojosa Montalvo, ‘Las relaciones entre los reinos de Valencia y Granada en la primera mitad del siglo XV’, in: Estudios de Historia de Valencia (Valencia: Universitat de Vale`ncia, 1978), 91–160. 15 J. Hinojosa Montalvo, ‘Las relaciones entre Valencia y Granada durante el siglo XV: balance de una investigacio´ n’, in: Estudios sobre Ma´ laga y el Reino de Granada en el V Centenario de la Conquista (Malaga: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Diputacio´ n Provincial, 1987), 83–111, and ‘Armamento de naves y comercio con el reino de Granada a principios del siglo XV’, in: Andalucı´a entre Oriente, 643–657; M. Ruzafa Garcı´a, ‘La frontera de Valencia con Granada: la ruta terrestre (1380–1440)’, in: Andalucı´a entre Oriente, 659–672, and ‘Las relaciones econo´ micas entre los mude´ jares valencianos y el reino de Granada en el siglo XV’, in: Relaciones exteriores, 343–381. Much more recent are J. Hinojosa Montalvo, ‘El reino de Valencia, frontera marı´tima entre Arago´ n y Granada’, in: La frontera oriental, especially 413–416; D. Igual Luis, ‘Italianos en la frontera marı´tima nazarı´. La ruta de Valencia a Granada en el siglo XV’, in: La frontera oriental, 467–475; G. Navarro Espinach, ‘La seda entre Ge´ nova, Valencia y Granada en e´ poca de los Reyes Cato´ licos’, in: La frontera oriental, 477–483; or M. Ruzafa Garcı´a, ‘La ´ frica durante el Cuatrocientos’, in: Relaciones de la Corona Corona de Arago´ n y Castilla en el Norte de A de Arago´ n con los Estados Cristianos peninsulares (siglos XIII–XV) [XV Congreso de Historia de la Corona de Arago´ n, volume 2] (Zaragoza: Gobierno de Arago´ n, 1997), 305–314. 16 Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, 92 and 127. 17 Registers of coses vedades (forbidden products), llice`ncies (licences), guiatges (safeconducts). In analysing the ships’ armaments, Hinojosa himself already modified his initial view while affirming that, in accord with the new source, what seemed to be sporadic trade was actually being consolidated into regular contacts in which Almeria was the main focus of attraction. See both Hinojosa, ‘Armamento’, 651, and ‘Las relaciones%balance’, 96–97.

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and mercantile sector was involved. Cruselles also shows that, although the Valencian mercantile group was integrated into the international trade routes which linked Valencia with Atlantic Europe, and took advantage of distribution networks, especially Italian ones, it also organised its own circular trade route around the economic area of the Nasrids and North Africa. This was an international route primarily in the hands of the Valencians, but it was also regional in character. It was not controlled by any of the large exchange networks or Italian companies, and allowed Valencian merchants to export their own textile products.18 The importance of this network has also been indicated by M.D. Lo´ pez who, by analysing Valencian commercial involvement in North Africa in the fourteenth century, has also been obliged to investigate this circular commercial link between Valencia, the Nasrid sultanate and the coasts of the Maghrib at the turn of the century.19 However, if misconceptions concerning the scope and volume of Valencian traffic with Granada have been corrected, many still remain about those who engaged in it. The sources used previously led also to further erroneous beliefs: that trade between Valencia and Granada ‘remained in the hands of the Islamic people’20 (the Valencian Mudejars); that there was ‘an absolute monopoly of the Valencian Mudejars at least on the level of displacement and activity’;21 that there existed a commerce of exportation to Granada and North Africa controlled by this Valencian Islamic minority;22 and that even the import trade was probably carried out primarily by Valencian Saracens.23 All these suppositions were advanced even though it had already been observed that transport was in Christian hands.24 It was further believed that within a majority of Saracen guarantors, there were also some Christians (even as guarantors of Muslim merchants),25 and that, in the second quarter of the fifteenth century, there were Christian merchants from Valencia with their own property who were resident in Almeria.26 The municipal and chancellery documentation, until now only used in a marginal way, might be employed to argue for important Christian involvement in the Valencian trade with Granada, which in turn could serve as a regulatory factor of the role 18

E. Cruselles Go´ mez, ‘Jerarquizacio´ n y especializacio´ n de los circuitos mercantiles valencianos (Finales del XIV — primera mitad del XV)’, Anales de la Universidad de Alicante, 7 (1988–1989), 83– 109. As we can see in footnote 9, it is a similar viewpoint to what Dufourcq had defined as the routes of Malaga and Almeria. 19 Lo´ pez, La Corona de Arago´ n, 203–204; as the Valencian registers for the previous years have not been preserved, the sources used by the author afford facts relating to the latter quarter of the fourteenth century and the first years of the fifteenth. 20 Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, 114. 21 Ruzafa, ‘Las relaciones econo´ micas’, 350. 22 Ibid., 347. 23 Ibid., 349. 24 Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, 117; ‘Las relaciones%balance’, 98. 25 Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, 119. 26 As, for example, Nicolau Estany. In 1429, Bartomeu Salver handed over to them a silver chalice ` ries took them with paten for the church of the Christian merchants of Almeria and in 1452 Francesc d’A one rova (mesure of weight) of tallow candles. See Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%balance’, 100, and ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, 120.

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attributed to the Valencian Muslims.27 To date, it has been the notarial sources in particular which have led to a discussion of the importance of the Mudejar element in the traffic with Granada, and even of the Hebrew element in the traffic with the Maghrib.28 Even so, although there is evidence of the involvement of Christian merchants, no special attention has been paid to them, nor to their significance, so that the role of the Muslim merchants continues to be regarded as predominant.29 Systematic research in the chancellery documentation of the archives of the crown of Aragon (ACA) and the kingdom of Valencia (ARV) for the period of Alfonso the Magnanimous not only shows that the degree of Valencian commercial involvement in the Nasrid sultanate was much more important than was thought (even to the extent that it could affect, albeit indirectly, an evaluation of Genoese involvement),30 but more importantly, that this was especially due to the role played by the Valencian Christians. Clearly, that does not mean that there are no references to members of the most distinguished merchant families from the Valencian Muslim quarter, but that both quantitatively and qualitatively it was the enterprise of the Christians which was noteworthy, as I shall attempt to show.31 One of the most incontrovertible proofs which we find in the chancellery sources to demonstrate that Valencian involvement in Granada during the first half of the fifteenth century was much more intensive than previously thought, is that in 1417 a number of Christian merchants from Valencia succeeded in gaining the monopoly

27 Even though he also stated that a good part of the exchanges were monopolised by the Muslims, Hinojosa had already indicated that the sources used might have distorted the picture, and that the small amount of municipal and chancellery documentation which he had consulted suggested the possibility that the involvement of the Christian merchants in this trade might be more important than other sources depicted (‘Las relaciones%balance’, 101). Thus, among other examples, he pointed out that in December, 1459, a Valencian, Joan Rossell, was named consul of all the Catalano-Aragonese merchants in Fez, Tlemcen, and Granada, and that in 1472 the Valencian Council made reference to more than eighty Valencian merchants in Almeria who had been imprisoned as a reprisal for a robbery committed against the Granadan merchants (ibid., 100). It is pertinent to add that if this number is correct, it would far surpass that of the Genoese who, in the middle of the fifteenth century, were the victims of the reprisal which took place in the famous Compera, who were fewer than about fifty; see Airaldi, Genova e Spagna, 21–22. Ruzafa also recognised that although he had only concentrated on safeconducts of Muslims and had not found a single Christian merchant, the letters of the Valencian Council which Hinojosa published suggested an important Christian involvement (Ruzafa, ‘Las relaciones econo´ micas’, 350–351). 28 Lo´ pez, La Corona de Arago´ n, especially 180–181 and 325, in her research on the Valencian protocols of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, has been able to show the importance of Christian involvement. This has led her to pinpoint not only the supposed domination of the trade between Valencia and Granada by the merchants from the Moorish quarter of Valencia, but also the excessive involvement attributed to the North African Jews in the trade between the Maghrib and Valencia (referring here to J. Guiral, ‘Les relacions comercials de Vale`ncia amb Berberia al segle XV’, ed. A. Furio´ , in: Vale`ncia, un mercat medieval (Valencia: Diputacio´ n Provincial, 1985), 277–313). The importance of the Christian sector in the Nasrid and Maghriban areas is also evident in the notarial sources used by Cruselles, ‘Jerarquizacio´ n’, 95–102. 29 See, for example, Hinojosa, ‘El reino’, 414, or Ruzafa, ‘La Corona’, 308, 309 and 313. 30 See footnote 13, specially Salicru´ , ‘La Corona de Arago´ n’. 31 I shall mention only some of the most significant people and facts, omitting the majority which can be found in Salicru´ , El sultanat, Salicru´ , Documents and Salicru´ , Relacions, volume 1, especially 691–778.

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to export Granadan silk from Yu¯ suf III,32 and in 1426, another Christian merchant from Valencia, a relative of one of the beneficiaries of the silk monopoly, possessed a monopoly on the import and sale of salt in the kingdom of Granada.33 The qualitative significance of the two products, silk and salt,34 on which these Christian merchants from Valencia managed to acquire the monopoly,35 indicates how important Valencian involvement was in the Granadan economy; although the documents do not tell us whether it was a temporary situation, they demonstrate the degree of influence the Valencians possessed in the court of the Nasrids, at least during the first three or four decades of the fifteenth century, and they also indicate the mistaken assumption that exchanges with the sultanate were largely controlled by the Valencian Saracens. The beneficiaries of what the sources call ‘the silk contract’36 were six Valencian

32 alguns mercaders christians d’ac¸ ´ı [Valencia] han contractat ab lo rey de Granada de agabellar totes les sedes, c¸ o e´ s, que alguns altres mercaders, christians, moros ne juheus, ne altres, no puxen comprar alguna seda ne roba de seda en lo reyalme de Granada sino´ de poder dels dessu´ s dits (‘some Christian merchants from here [Valencia] have contracted with the king of Granada to gain a monopoly on all the silk, that is, so that no other merchants, Christian, Moors and Jews, and others, can buy any silk or silk cloth in the kingdom of Granada except from the above mentioned’); ACA, C., CR Alfons IV, box 4, num. 410. 1417, February, 22. Valencia (Garı´ and Salicru´ , ‘Las ciudades’, doc. 2, and Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 6). 33 ` ries] tenits la sal del rey de Granada, ab pactes que negu´ no puixa vendre sal vo´ s [Francesc d’A ` ries] have the salt from the king of Granada, with agreements that nobody sino´ vo´ s (‘you [Francesc d’A can sell salt but you’); ACA, C., reg. 2788, f. 105v. 1426, August, 22. Valencia (Garı´ and Salicru´ , ‘Las ciudades’, doc. 3, and Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 136). For a detailed analysis of the silk and salt monopolies and their composition, and the results in the case of the silk monopoly which were the partial cause of the failure of the ratification, taking effect with the truce of 1418, see Salicru´ , El sultanat, 136–164; La treva de 1418 amb Granada: la recuperacio´ de la tradicio´ catalanoaragonesa, AEM, 27/2 (1997), 989– 1019; and ‘Joan Mercader: la intervencio´ del batlle general del regne de Vale`ncia en la polı´tica granadina d’Alfons el Magna`nim’, Anales de la Universidad de Alicante, 12 (1999), 135–150. 34 As Gual Camarena and Lo´ pez de Coca stated when referring specifically to salt in the kingdom of Granada, it does not seem necessary to mention the importance of this so-called ‘white gold’ and its trade (M. Gual Camarena and J.E. Lo´ pez de Coca Castan˜ er, ‘La sal del reino de Granada. Documentos para su estudio’, CEM, II–III (1974–1975), 259–296); see, moreover, an example which could represent the salt trade in M. del Treppo, Els mercaders catalans i l’expansio´ de la Corona catalano-aragonesa al segle XV (Barcelona: Curial, 1976), 188–194. With regard to silk, it is well known, as outlined in the studies of Melis and Heers (although they were thinking of the Italians), that, besides sugar and dried fruit (products of secondary interest for the merchants of the crown of Aragon in Granada), silk was one of the three main products of the export trade from the sultanate. 35 On the role of commercial monopolies in the Muslim states of the Maghrib, see Ch.-E. Dufourcq, ‘Commerce du Maghreb Me´ die´ val avec l’Europe Chre´ tienne et marine Musulmane: donne´ es connues et proble`mes en suspens’, in: Actes du Congre`s d’Histoire et de Civilisation du Maghreb (Tunis: Centre d’E´ tudes et de Recherches E´ conomiques et Sociales, 1974), 164–168, and, with regard to the Genoese, ˆ ge’, in: La incorporacio´ n, 67–71. J. Heers, ‘L’Islam et le monde me´ diterrane´ en a` la fin du Moyen A 36 For the chancellery sources and the proceedings of the Valencian municipal Council, which include at least three references to the silk contract; see Epistolari de la Vale`ncia medieval (II) (Vale`ncia-Barcelona: Institut Universitari de Filologia Valenciana, 1998), ed. A. Rubio Vela, doc. 70, and G. Navarro Espinach, El despegue de la industria sedera en la Valencia del siglo XV (Valencia: Generalitat Valenciana, 1992), 40 and footnote 46. The latter considers erroneously the beneficiaries of the contract to be the Mudejar merchants from Valencia who traded in silk with the kingdom of Granada.

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Christian merchants: Lluı´s and Galceran d’Eixarc, Lluı´s Granollers, Joan Baiona, ` ries,37 and for the importation of salt a relative of the Joan Martorell and Pere d’A 38 ` latter, Francesc d’Aries. With the exception of Joan Baiona, for whom I can find no additional information concerning Granada,39 the names most frequently connected with the trade with the Nasrid sultanate in the chancellery sources are those already mentioned, or members of their families, but names such as those of Daniel Barcelo´ or Francesc Torrent should also be added. The connections of the d’Eixarcs with Granada go back at least to the last quarter of the fourteenth century. In 1380 Joan and Lluı´s formed a company with a registered capital of 6800 pounds with which to negotiate in Granada.40 Between 1405 and 1412, Lluı´s appears more than twenty times as a guarantor of ships which left Valencia for Almeria, or which undertook the voyage between Almeria and Malaga.41 In 1415 a recommendation from the jurates of Valencia in favour of the Valencian merchants in Malaga,42 and another from Fernando de Antequera,43 make special mention of Lluı´s d’Eixarc and his sons as residing there. In 1416 the Valencia Council asked the sultan to arrest Pere de Montblanc, an agent of Lluı´s in Granada, who had appropriated and spent a large amount of the money which had been sent to him.44 In the summer of 1421, however, Lluı´s is documented as residing in Almeria, not in Malaga.45 In addition to the involvement of Lluı´s and Galceran in the ‘silk contract’ in 1417,

37 ACA, C., reg. 2561, f. 175r, or reg. 2562, f. 30r-v. 8 February 1417, Tortosa (in two versions of the same letter, one in Catalan and the other in Aragonese; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 5A and 5B); ACA, C., reg. 2562, f. 37r. 2 March 1417, Fuentes (here Galceran d’Eixarc is omitted; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 10); and also Epistolari, doc. 70. 38 See footnote 33. 39 We know, moreover, that in May 1409 he sent a variety of merchandise to Bougie with Lluı´s Granollers (see both Lo´ pez, La Corona de Arago´ n, 435, footnote 121, and M. Ruzafa Garcı´a, ‘Los operadores econo´ micos de la morerı´a de Valencia’, in: IV Simposio Internacional de Mudejarismo. Economı´a. Teruel, 17–19 septiembre de 1987 (Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1992), 249 and footnote 17). J. Guiral-Hadziiossif, Valencia, puerto mediterra´ neo en el siglo XV (1410–1525) (Valencia: Edicions Alfons el Magna`nim, 1989), 216, 328 and 352, includes some references to Joan Baiona, although they relate to the importation of grain from Brittany, and not to Granada or Barbary. 40 The company was formed with a paraire (carder) called Bartomeu, and another merchant, Berenguer Famades. See Cruselles, ‘Jerarquizacio´ n’, 95. 41 According to the table of licences granted by the general bailiff for the kingdom of Valencia for the armament of ships destined for the North of Africa and Granada, published by Lo´ pez, La Corona de Arago´ n, 195–200. During the reign of Fernando de Antequera, Joan had taken a cargo of woollen cloth to the sultan Abu Said in Fez, in the name of King Fernando, which was worth 1385 dobles, and a certain Muhammad Sobra of Fez owed him 505 dobles more; in his attempt to recover the debts, he was beaten with a stick to prevent him from presenting a claim to the Catalano-Aragonese monarch (ACA, C., reg. 2386, ff. 27r-28v and 28v [9 August 1414, Morella] and reg. 2391, ff. 11v and 11v-12r [9 August 1415, Valencia], M. Arribas Palau, ‘Reclamaciones cursadas por Fernando I de Arago´ n a Abu Said Utman III de Marruecos’, BRABLB, 30 (1963–1964), 307–322, doc. 10 and 11). 42 Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, 106. 43 ACA, C., reg. 2391, f. 8r-v. 28 July 1415, Valencia. 44 Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, 106. 45 See Hinojosa, ‘El Reino’, 426, who does not give the reference.

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the chancellery sources indicate that in 1420, Lluı´s, Manuel and his brothers were recommended by Alfonso the Magnanimous to Muhammad IX el Zurdo (‘the lefthanded’).46 They also show that in June 1424, the Nasrid owed Galceran 4000 gold florins for a number of pieces of cloth which he had sold to him ‘at a good price’.47 Furthermore, at the end of April 1426, the royal treasurer of Granada owed Galceran another amount dating from some seven or eight years earlier when the treasurer had bought from him in the name of Muhammad IX ‘certain fine lengths of wool in a variety of colours’ valued at 18,000 bezants.48 And again, in 1427, after Muhammad VIII el Pequen˜ o (‘the little one’) had recovered the throne, Queen Maria and Alfonso recommended another d’Eixarc, Joan, who went to Granada to trade and to recover commercial debts from both Christians and Saracens.49 With regard to Lluı´s Granollers, between 1405 and 1412 both he and Miquel Granollers appear as guarantors of armed ships destined for Granada and Barbary, frequently in conjunction with Lluı´s d’Eixarc and on voyages which went directly from the Grau (the Valencian port) to Almeria and Malaga.50 In 1409 Miquel was already one of the merchants who traded with Granada,51 and in 1437 another Granollers, Vicent, also had interests in both the sultanate and Barbary.52 ` ries family are almost as numerous as those to the d’EixThe references to the d’A ` ries was also a guarantor, together with Lluı´s arcs. Between 1405 and 1412 Pere d’A Granollers, for a number of armed vessels to go to Granada and Barbary,53 but in the chancellery documentation he only appears as a beneficiary of the silk contract. In contrast, the name of Francesc, who in 1426 had the salt monopoly, is frequently found. In 1417, shortly after the silk deal closure, Queen Maria ordered from him and from Joan Martorell several silk cloths and other goods from the sultanate, specifying that they should both travel frequently from Malaga to Seville, and from Seville

46

ACA, C., reg. 2749, ff. 131v-132r. 4 May 1420, Castello´ de la Plana; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 65. ACA, C., reg. 2962, ff. 138v and 138v-139r. 29 June 1424, Barcelona; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 99. 48 ARV, RC, reg. 40, f. 26r. 25 April 1426, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 134. Even though Muhammad IX had given an order for it to be paid, Galceran had not succeeded in collecting payment for the cloth and affirmed that he had to go personally to Granada on more than five occasions to try to recover the debt. 49 ACA, C., reg. 3112, ff. 12v and 12v-13r. 8 and 9 September 1427, Valencia; and reg. 2577, ff. 43r and 57v. 12 and 30 September 1427, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 157, 158, 159 and 162. 50 See Lo´ pez, La Corona de Arago´ n, 195–200. 51 See Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, Appendix II, 152. In 1412, he himself received ´ . Santamarı´a Ara´ ndez, Aportacio´ n al estudio de la economı´a de a licence to sail to Alexandria; see A Valencia durante el siglo XV (Valencia: Institucio´ n Alfonso el Magna´ nimo, 1966), 153. 52 This is to be found in a very interesting letter from the general bailiff for the kingdom of Valencia to the jurates of the city of Majorca narrating the capture of a ship of men from Nice chartered by Saracen merchants from Valencia and Granada, which details the merchandise loaded in it by each of the Valencians (ARV, B., LP, reg. 1148, f. 315r-v. 1437. Before 17 May 1437, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 304). It deals, probably, with the same Vicent Granollers as pleaded with Joanot Martorell’s father and brother; see both J. Villalmanzo and J.J. Chiner, La Pluma y la Espada. Estudio documental sobre Joanot Martorell y su familia (1373–1483) (Valencia: Ajuntament, 1992), and J. Villalmanzo, Joanot Martorell. Biografı´a ilustrada y diplomatario (Valencia: Ajuntament, 1995). 53 See Lo´ pez, La Corona de Arago´ n, 195–200. 47

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to Malaga.54 If, as it seems, Francesc resided in Malaga as early as 1417, we can still find him in Almeria in 1452, since he brought there from Valencia one rova of tallow candles for the Christian merchants who lived there.55 The last beneficiary of the silk contract, Joan Martorell,56 previously mentioned ` ries in Malaga in 1417, appears in references from as having been with Francesc d’A November 1412 as guarantor of an armed galliot which plied the route from Valencia to Almeria and Malaga.57 In 1415 he was already resident in Malaga. From there he had sent 500 dobles to the city of Granada by means of a Granadan Saracen who was related to the alcaide of Almeria, but the Granadan had escaped with the dobles and had taken refuge in the castle of Xomina; this led to simultaneous requests from Fernando I and the Valencian jurates to Yu¯ suf III asking him to order the Saracen to give back the money.58 In about 1420 Joan Martorell still had a fixed residence in the city of Malaga, and Alfonso the Magnanimous, at a time when his relations with el Zurdo were not yet on a firm footing and was often wont to resort to Castilian mediation,59 already had complete confidence in his influence over the Nasrid officials. In mid November of 1420, after the vessel owned by the Majorcan, Bartomeu Rovira, had been captured by the Genoese in the port of Malaga with the connivance of the alcaide there, Alfonso and Maria engaged in intense diplomatic activity to try to get the goods returned and the prisoners freed. They appealed directly to Muhammad IX and the alcaide of Malaga, and demanded that the bailiff-general for the kingdom of Valencia write to them. Furthermore, to give greater emphasis to their request, they asked Joan Martorell, ‘merchant in the city of Malaga’, to do everything in his power to intercede with the sultan, the alcaide, and anyone else who might be of assistance in the case. Martorell was also to give whatever help might be deemed necessary to the Majorcan bearers of the royal letters.60

54

ACA, C., reg. 3162, f. 68r-v. 23 June 1417, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 14. See Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, 120 and footnote 53. Hinojosa himself also found him in 1402 and 1422 among the merchants who traded with Granada (Ibid., Appendix II, 152 and 153). 56 Brother of Francesc Martorell, a canon of the see of Valencia and apostolic collector (ACA, C., reg. 3162, f. 68r-v. 23 June 1417, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 14). It does not refer to his homonym, Joanot Martorell, born probably, according to the latest research, in 1410. Although it is very possible that they were related, this merchant did not belong to the direct family of the author of Tirant. He was the brother of this Francesc, canon and apostolic collector, who does not appear either in the compilations of documents referring to the direct family of Joanot, even though there is a Francesc Martorell, canon of Barcelona, among them, but he too was no relation to him. I refer, in this regard, to Villalmanzo and Chiner, La Pluma, and Villalmanzo, Joanot. 57 See Lo´ pez, La Corona de Arago´ n, 200. 58 ACA, C., reg. 2391, f. 8r-v. 28 July 1415, Valencia, regarding the letter of Fernando I. On the letter from the jurates of Valencia, see Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, 106 and footnote 36. 59 Salicru´ , El sultanat, 168 and ff. 60 On the entire affair, ACA, C., reg. 2570, f. 61r. 20 November 1420, Bonifacio’s siege; reg. 3222, ff. 28v-29r, 29r-v, 30r, 30r-v, 30v and 31r. 15 November 1420, Daroca (Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 69, 70, 71, 72 and 73). For the letter addressed to Martorell, reg. 3222, ff. 29v and 31r. 15 November 1420, Daroca (the last document, Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 72). 55

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But the show of confidence the crown gave to Joan Martorell as intermediary in Granada went even further. In the summer of 1429, during the Catalano-Aragonese war with Castile, rumours reached Alfonso that Juan II and Muhammad VIII had tried to form an alliance of armed men against him, so he decided to commission Martorell to create a similar alliance.61 Subsequently, in April 1430, Martorell was sent with Ali Xupio´ as ambassador to Muhammad IX to persuade him to provide provisions from Granada for the castle of Segura, besieged by the Castilians.62 Later, at the end of June, he had to return to Granada as emissary again, when he was to repeat to the sultan the request for provisioning the castle of Segura, and thereby put pressure on him for the release of some Granadan Saracens imprisoned in the castle of Xa`tiva who were brothers-in-law of Muhammad IX.63 Henceforward references to Martorell’s commercial activity in Granada always appear in conjunction with the Valencian, Francesc Torrent. In April 1430, when Martorell went to Granada for the first time as emissary, Alfonso had already recommended both of them to Muhammad IX and to a high official, making it clear that they were thinking of moving there or transferring their agents as they had done previously. Furthermore, they needed to recover several amounts of money already owed to them.64 Almost a year later, in mid March 1431, Alfonso the Magnanimous thanked el Zurdo for the diligence and dedication which both he and Yu¯ suf ibn alSarra˜ j had shown in these two merchants’ affairs, and for the favourable treatment which they granted to all his subjects who traded with Granada.65 Finally, on 17 April 1432, after Muhammad IX succeeded in terminating the legitimist attack by Yu¯ suf IV ibn al-Mawl, Alfonso once again recommended to him the two Valencian merchants and all the goods and merchandise they had in the sultanate.66 Among the Christian merchants from Valencia who traded with Granada, special mention should be made of the converso, Daniel Barcelo´ , royal taulatger (tariff collector) in Valencia. Even though we have no detailed information about his activi-

61

ACA, C., reg. 2677, ff. 114v-115r. 2 August 1429, Calatayud (Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 193). Finally, however, the general bailiff for the kingdom of Valencia made the monarch abandon his plan. See Salicru´ , El sultanat, 233–234, and Salicru´ , Joan Mercader, 148–150. 62 ACA, C., reg. 2686, ff. 71r and 71v. 21 April 1430, Valencia, reg. 2684, f. 108r. 24 April 1430, Valencia (Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 199 and 200) and, for the memorandum on the errand, reg. 2692, f. 52r. [10/22 April 1430, Valencia] (partial edition in Gime´ nez, ‘La Corona de Arago´ n’, BRABLB, 4 (1907– 1908), 473, and complete edition in Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 198). 63 Consult Salicru´ , El sultanat, 263–264, 269–270, 276 and 279. 64 ARV, RC, reg. 40, ff. 121r and 121v. 24 April 1430, Valencia (Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 201 and 202). Muhammad IX had returned to power at the end of March 1430, so that this recommendation, which made special mention of Martorell and Torrent but which referred to all the merchants who were vassals of Alfonso the Magnanimous, constituted a kind of general recommendation to the new sultan in favour of the Catalano-Aragonese merchants engaging in trade. 65 In accord with what the Magnanimous had asked them in his letters of recommendation of 1430; in a proper exchange of correspondence, he informed him that he also would hold all the Granadans engaged in any kind of business in the Crown of Aragon in due regard and favour (ACA, C., reg. 2687, ff. 57v and 58r. 17 March 1431, Lleida; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 228 and 229). 66 ARV, RC, reg. 47, f. 112r. 17 April 1432, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 267, quoted by Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%balance’, 87–88, who refers to register 40 instead of 47.

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ties in the sultanate, he went there on numerous occasions throughout the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous. In some instances he went on behalf of the crown, but in others it was to see to his own affairs. It would seem that his earliest connection with Granada may go back to 1415.67 Hinojosa mentioned him in his list of merchants who traded with Granada for the years 1429 and 1432.68 And in 1424,69 142770 and 142871 at least, he also travelled to the sultanate on commercial business and to recover debts. In addition to these outstanding Valencians, we frequently find throughout Alfonso’s reign others who were also established, or resident, in the kingdom of Granada. One of those who resided in Almeria per causa de mercaderia (‘for business reasons’) in 1444 was Joan Berenguer. He had traded there since the beginning of

67 According to Cruselles, ‘Jerarquizacio´ n’, 100, in May 1415 he chartered a vessel from Alicante which was to go from Valencia to Sicily, calling in at Ibiza and Majorca; on the return voyage, when it reached Xa`bia, Barcelo´ might choose Valencia as the end of his journey, or two of the four Muslim ports of Honein, Oran, Alcudia or Malaga. 68 Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, Appendix II, 154. 69 Half way through February King Alfonso ordered to be restored to Barcelo´ several pieces of cloth and goods under embargo alleging that they belonged to Joan Sogorb, a merchant who had engaged in a lawsuit with a Lombard, Lorenzo Boccaccio, for some dobles which the Lombard said he had asked to be sent to Malaga and assigned to a Genoese, Francesco Ardimento. The qadi of the city of Granada had sentenced Sogorb to pay the Genoese and, to do so, had held goods belonging to Barcelo´ saying that they were Sogorb’s (ACA, C., reg. 2676, ff. 154v and 154v-155r. 17 February 1424, Valencia, with a duplicate in ARV, RC, reg. 32, ff. 48v and 48v-49r; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 93). In June 1424, Barcelo´ left for Granada with a recommendation from the general bailiff for the kingdom of Valencia, perhaps to recover these goods; the bailiff indicated that he was going to the sultanate for his own account and other business that probably had been entrusted to him by the king (ARV, B., LP, reg. 1146, ff. 88r and 88v. 20 June 1424, Valencia; ARV, MR, reg. 45 (1425), ff. 325v-326r; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 97, 98 and 109, the second also edited in Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, doc. 10). 70 In September 1427, some months after the second reign of Muhammad VIII el Pequen˜ o, Barcelo´ was on the point of leaving again for Granada to sell cloth and merchandise there, and to request payment for and to liquidate debts (ACA, C., reg. 2577, ff. 43r and 57v. 12 and 30 September 1427, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 159 and 162). Not long before, a number of Catalano-Aragonese merchants, both Christians and Saracens, who were in Almeria with a safeconduct from the sultan, had been ‘publicly robbed’ by Granadan vassals, and had lost all the goods and cloth they possessed there (ACA, C., reg. 2577, f. 41r. 6 September 1427, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 156). It is probable that Barcelo´ was one of those affected. Moreover, in the middle of October he probably still had not left because the Magnanimous recommended him again to Muhammad VIII (ACA, C., reg. 2577, 42r. 15 October 1427, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 165). 71 At the beginning of February 1428, he was once again in Granada (or had he still not returned?) to take care of debts which he had pending there, and other business, and also, as in June 1424, of other affairs which the Magnanimous had entrusted to him (ACA, C., reg. 2577, ff. 101r-v and 101v. 3 February 1428, Teruel; the last edited in Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 169). In November 1432, Gabriel Manresa — who at the end of August 1431 appears as an agent of the Valencian, Bernat Pe´ riz, sent to Granada to recover debts of several residents of the sultanate (ACA, C., reg. 2581, f. 167r. 30 August 1431, Barcelona; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 250) — was in Granada to recover 500 gold dobles from Pe´ riz with an ‘IOU’ from Daniel Barcelo´ and Joan Martorell (ARV, B., LP, reg. 1147, f. 611r-v. 5 November 1432, Messina [copied in a letter of 17 October 1433, Palermo]; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 275 and 280).

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the decade at least,72 and in 1458 still continued to demand payment of debts from the royal Nasrid house.73 In 1444 he sent a brigantine from Almeria to Valencia primarily laden with a cargo of Almerian silk and Almerian silk-manufactured goods; it was seized by two armed Castilian vessels and held in Cartagena.74 In 1444 Lluı´s de Gallac was also established in the kingdom of Granada, where he was the victim of a robbery. During his overland journey from Granada to Almeria he stayed overnight at an inn in Castillo de Fin˜ ana, a fact which affords us the name of one of the places inside the Nasrid kingdom where foreign merchants probably stayed when travelling overland. While he slept, Lluı´s was robbed of more than 500 florins.75 For the summer of 1453 there is further information regarding several Valencian merchants, both Christian and Saracen, who traded and had agents in the kingdom of Granada, but we do not know their names.76 In 1456, however, we know that the Valencian, Pere Aparici, had an agent in Almeria, Joan Aparici, who was probably his son,77 and that in Almeria there was also another agent called Bartomeu Trullols to whom the Valencian botiguer (tradesman), Joan Macip, ordered merchandise to be sold in his own name.78 As the Valencians were undoubtedly the most numerous in the Catalano-Aragonese colony in Granada, these merchants were the easiest target for reprisals against the subjects of the crown by the Nasrid sultans or their officials. For example, in 1413, following the capture by Rodrigo de Luna of a Genoese ship chartered by the king of Granada to carry grain from Tunis to his territory, Yu¯ suf III had seized

72 In July 1440, while his laden ship was anchored off shore, or in the port, with a safeconduct and insurance that protected it from the Genoese and Granadans, two Ligurian ships drew alongside and attacked it fiercely. Confident in the safeconduct, Joan asked for help; but a Genoese resident in Almeria who assured him that he spoke in the name of the Granadan authorities told the Saracens who went to its aid that they had to help the Genoese, not the Valencians. The Granadans succeeded in capturing the vessel which, a year later in August 1441, was still held by them (ARV, B., LP, reg. 1149, ff. 50r-v and 104v-105r. 22 August 1440 and 29 August 1441, Valencia; Hinojosa, ‘Relaciones’, doc. 18 and 19, and Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 325 and 330). 73 See footnotes 90 and 91 and the accompanying text. 74 The brigantine with ten thwarts, called Sant Antoni and owned by Simo´ de Lescar, was captured some twelve miles out from Cartagena. Repair of the damage was estimated at 10,000 royal Valencian sous. See ACA, C., reg. 3194, ff. 30v-32r. 23 December 1444, Valencia (Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 346), which details the entire cargo of the vessel. 75 ACA, C., reg. 3191, f. 47v and ARV, B., LP, reg. 1149, f. 443v. 4 and 6 March 1445, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 349 and 350; the second of these documents is mentioned by Ruzafa, ‘La frontera’, 663. 76 ARV, B., LP, reg. 1151, f. 757v. 1453 [July], Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 391. 77 ARV, B., LP, reg. 1152, f. 1247v. 26 April 1456, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 399. 78 The value of the merchandise had risen, at least twice, to 400 pounds. And around the beginning of September of that year, 1456, Bartomeu had accepted an order of two bundles (fardells) of local silk from three Almeria Muslims, weighing 200 pounds in weight, according to the weight system used by the city of Valencia, and other merchandise valued at 150 pounds of royal Valencian money. Bartomeu was expected to transport them to Barbary but they were intercepted by the galley of Galceran de Requesens (ARV, RC, reg. 57, ff. 179r-180r. 4 September 1456, Castelnuovo of Naples).

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the goods and the persons of Valencian merchants who lived there;79 and in August 1456 Sa’d also had some Valencian merchants detained as a reprisal for the damage which the galley of Galceran de Requesens had done to a number of Granadan vessels.80 Occasionally, when the Valencian jurates sent messengers to the sultanate, they asked their merchants living there to help them. As previously mentioned, this role was sometimes played by an individual, such as Joan Martorell, but the Valencian jurates asked the merchants collectively for help, for example in 1420, when Manuel de Montagut went there after the capture of the galliot owned by Cardona.81 A similar request was made on behalf of Francesc Vidal, who had left Valencia to warn all the Valencians on the Granadan coasts and in Almeria of the presence of Genoese ships, but was himself taken prisoner by the alcaide of the place.82 Valencian merchants resident in Granada looked out for the safety of their own men. In July 1425, for example, after three Genoese ships originating in Flanders had fought for eight days and captured Andreu Aparici’s vessel on the Granadan coasts, the residents in Granada warned the Valencian Council that ‘as word had it’, these Genoese ships were ‘very rich’, that they had to call at Malaga to load, and then would continue their journey to Genoa.83 It is the references to seizure of vessels in Granadan ports, or while they were en route thence, which bear witness to the constant mercantile activity between Valencia and Granada. Throughout the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous it is so regular as to become almost annual, as indicated by the chancellery sources. Many of these references tell of journeys Valencia-Almeria, or Valencia-Malaga, in essence direct connections with the sultanate. But often, these itineraries are connected with ports in the Maghrib, demonstrating both the circular nature of the trade and the intensive direct traffic between Granada and Barbary that the Valencian merchants undertook — and that like the Genoese the Catalano-Aragonese merchants also chartered vessels to local Muslim merchants. For example, the flat-bottomed ship (coca) called ‘Santa Maria’ and ‘Sant Antoni’, owned by Pere de Ruti or de Ruzia, alias Peruxa, from the Bay of Biscay, in which several Christians and Saracens were involved,84 was anchored off Oran early in 1423 ready to sail to Granada. At least two Valencian

79 See Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, 105–106 and footnote 35. On the capture of Rodrigo de Luna see S. Fossati Raiteri, ‘Il processo contro Rodrigo de Luna per l’atto di pirateria ai danni di una nave genovese nel 1414’, in: Atti del I Congresso Storico Liguria — Catalogna (Bordighera: Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri, 1974), 387–396. 80 See Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, doc. 16, 139. 81 Ibid., 101 and footnote 24. On the galliot of Cardona and the message service of Montagut, see also Salicru´ , El sultanat, 172–174. 82 It happened when he was ready to leave Almeria, despite having a safeconduct, and this led the Council to make a claim to the king of Granada (see Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, 127 and footnote 58). 83 ACA, C., reg. 2680, f. 16v and 2679, ff. 41v-42r. 17 July 1425, Borja; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 116 and 117. 84 Guillem Rana, merchant, Ramon Castrallenes, money-changer, Joan Saragossa, sailor, and Galip and C¸ ahat Ripoll, Saracens belonging to the Moorish quarter in Valencia.

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Muslims, Mahomat and Ahamet C¸ uleymen, loaded it with a cargo which was to be unloaded in the sultanate;85 and several Moorish pilgrims on their way to Barbary from Granada also sailed in it.86 In the summer of 1453, several Christian and Saracen merchants with business and agents in Granada had also chartered a ship to take a cargo to Oran and Granada but, while the ship was preparing to leave the port of Oran on the beach called Hazenhia, it was seized by a Genoese vessel.87 We also know that in September 1456, the sultan Sa’d had taken steps to ensure that some Genoese gave back the booty they had gathered from a number of Valencians in the port of Oran while the calavera owned by the Valencian, Miquel Turull, was anchored there and on the point of departing for Almeria,88 and that some time before November 1457, the galley owned by Martı´ de Va`guena was at Almeria en route to Barbary and back to the Nasrid port.89 At the same time the Valencian, Joan Berenguer (who has been mentioned previously as residing in Almeria in the 1440s),90 a servant and member of the royal household of Queen Maria and scribe of the galley of the city of Valencia, succeeded in getting Sa’d to express his willingness to pay him, or to negotiate, a dee, dae or tallamiento of the royal house of Granada which had been granted to him by previous monarchs (ya lo tenı´a de los otros reyes passados). This signifies a dahir or decree from the sultan which Berenguer must have received from one of Sa’d’s predecessors, and which was probably connected with the payment of a debt of mercantile origin.91 In addition to the debts which merchants and individual Granadans might contract directly with Valencian traders, this last reference, like others on debts which had been contracted by the sultans or Nasrid officials,92 shows us the degree of confidence 85 300 pieces of ox leather, one ca`rrega (mesure of weight) of henna seed, 30 costals (large bundles) of carpets, burnous, trelic¸ os (lenghts of cotton) and Moorish baize (three pieces of which were especially beautiful), a black Moorish slave-girl, and a box with 500 Moorish dobles. 86 ACA, C., reg. 2962, f. 45r. 12 March 1423, Barcelona; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 90. 87 The Genoese ship, owned by Domenico Dentuto, had been chartered by the Nasrid sultan and by different Saracen merchants from Malaga (ARV, B., LP, reg. 1151, f. 757v. 1453 [July], Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 391). 88 ARV, RC, reg. 20, f. 65r-v. 11 September 1456, Saragossa; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 412. 89 This prompted the alcaide of the castle to have a merchant from Almeria embark in it, who was later to return to Almeria in the same vessel. In this instance, contrary to previous plans (‘because of the bad weather or for his own requirements’), the owner went directly from Barbary to Valencia without passing through the sultanate (ARV, RC, reg. 13, ff. 90v-91r. 23 November 1457, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 422). And, as he did not keep his promise, the alcaide of Almeria not only had all his property in Almeria seized but, when the galley returned, he also arrested another five Valencian merchants who were on board (see Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, doc. 17, 139–140). 90 See footnotes 72–74 and the accompanying text. 91 ACA, C., CR Alfons IV, box 18, num. 2351 and 2352. 20 August 1457, Saragossa (letters registered also in ARV, RC, reg. 278, ff. 147r-v and 147v-148r), Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 419 and 420; and ARV, RC, reg. 22, f. 127r-v. 24 March 1458, Valencia, Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 424. 92 We have already found several but I want to add here the information which Ruzafa gives in ‘Las relaciones’, 351 and 359, footnote 34, on the request by a group of Christian Valencian merchants in Almeria to the governor of Valencia that he write to the king of Granada to ask him for legal recognition of the debts which the Nasrid subjects had contracted with them.

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the authorities had in Valencian merchants, and the extent of the latter’s presence and involvement in the sultanate. This is also apparent in cases where the debts concern foreign merchants established in those lands, such as in the example of a Genoese merchant resident in Almeria who refused to pay Ferrando Eixime´ nez what he owed him, and as a result of which the latter wanted him to appear before the sultan, Sa’d, or before the officials of the city.93 The references to products are, on the other hand, rather scarce. The most interesting are those which appear in connection with debts or the capture of vessels, which can be quite detailed, accurately describing the cargo. However, although the information collected is minimal, it confirms the brief report made by the bailiff-general for the kingdom of Valencia, and addressed to King Alfonso, in which he told him about the signing of the ‘silk contract’. It reads that ‘the merchants%are wont to carry cargoes of cloth and other goods from this city [Valencia] to Granada’ and that ‘no large undertaking can leave Granada without silk’.94 This signifies, above all, an exchange of Valencian cloth for Granadan silk.

3. Majorcans at Granada during the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous Compared with Pierre Macaire’s studies on the fifteenth century,95 the chancellery records afford a more positive view of trade relations between Majorca and Granada in the 1400s. Even if at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century the intense tra`fech d’Espanya undertaken by Majorcans — which had been so strong during the fourteenth century96 — declined and fell primarily into the hands of Valencian merchants,97 that still does not invalidate the conclusion that during the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous the references to Majorcans in Granada continue to be numerous and significant, although of course not so overwhelming as for Valencia. And even if from the second half of the fourteenth and during the early years of the fifteenth century the sultanate of Granada (with its centre in Almeria, not in Malaga) might have played a marginal role in commercial exchanges of the kingdom of Majorca,98 that does not mean that Majorcans were no longer found in the sultanate, nor that, viewed from a Granadan standpoint, their presence ceased to

93

ARV, B., LP, reg. 1152, f. 1176v. 17 [November] 1455, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 398. l[o]s mercaders%acostumen p[or]tar drapades et altres avers d’aquesta c¸ iutat a Granada; no·[s p]ot exir esmerc¸ gros de Granada sens la seda, ACA, C., CR Alfons IV, box 4, num. 410. 22 February 1417, Valencia; Garı´ and Salicru´ , ‘Las ciudades’, doc. 2, and Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 6. 95 P. Macaire, Majorque et le Maghrib au XVe sie`cle (Paris: Universite´ de Paris-Nanterre, 1977), doctoral thesis in 2 volumes, and Majorque et le commerce international (1400–1450 environ) (Lille: Universite´ de Lille III, 1986), 431–435, lacking in both information and conclusions on the Majorcan trade with Granada. 96 See Sa´ nchez, ‘Mallorquines y genoveses’, and ‘Las relaciones’. 97 See Lo´ pez, La Corona de Arago´ n, 223–267, and also, Macaire, Majorque et le commerce, 431–435, and Majorque et le Maghrib. 98 Lo´ pez, La Corona de Arago´ n, 223–267. 94

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be continuous and forceful, even if it was relegated to second place with regard to other groups such as the Genoese and the Valencians. However, in contrast to the Valencian case where we can still find chancellery records making direct reference to the trade, most of the information demonstrating the presence of Majorcans in the sultanate derives from claims made by them for losses sustained in Granada. This usually means that the victims appear by accident in a specific market, and rarely are we given the origin or destination of the vessels.99 In spite of this, however, there are several references to the circular commerce between Majorca, Granada and the Maghrib, which could also have an effect on the Grau of Valencia, and also, as in the case of Valencia, to the direct traffic between Barbary and Granada in which Majorcans established in Maghrib markets engaged. We know, for example, that in September 1439, the owner of a ship, Bernat Valls, a citizen of Valencia, had left the Grau for Oran and, after unloading his cargo, chartered the ship from Bernat Guasch, an agent of the Majorcan, Pere Pardo, for a return voyage to Almeria.100 A further example, during the latter part of 1457, shows a caravelle of the same Pere Pardo, in this instance owned by the Valencian merchant Joan Rossell,101 also going from Valencia to parts of Barbary and the kingdom of Granada.102 Similarly, it can be noted that Valencia, Granada and Barbary were also ports of call for the caravelle of the merchant, Antoni Gilet, of Barcelona, in 1448, and that in the same year 10 quintars and 7.5 pounds in weight of Turkish cotton had to be sold to Cherchell and to Almeria; the cotton, belonging to the Majorcan merchant, Jordi Cha, had been loaded by the merchant, Jaume Sastre,

99 Thus, for example, towards the end of 1420 we know that the Majorcan owner, Bartomeu Rovira, was in the port of Malaga with his ship on which were merchants from Majorca, among them Antoni Cirera. The ship was mainly laden with a large quantity of oil and had been attacked and seized by the Genoese with the connivance of the alcaide there, despite the fact that it had a safe conduct and its own insurance. The alcaide ordered the return of the ship but allowed the Genoese to unload the merchandise in the city. Faced with this situation, Cirera appealed to the sultan, but in August 1422 he had still not succeeded in recovering the goods nor the money which he had received from a Granadan merchant for 100 pieces of cloth bought before the ship was captured (ACA, C., reg. 2570, f. 61r; reg. 3222, ff. 28v29r, 29r-v, 29v, 30r, 30r-v, 30v, 31r; and reg. 2675, ff. 115v-116r; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 and 87). 100 Valls reached the sultanate without any problem but, on his return to Barbary, he was pursued, attacked and taken prisoner near Cape Falcon by Gilabert de Llupia`, the owner of an armed galliot from Majorca who took possession of the goods belonging to Pardo’s agent, sixteen men and a new sail, leaving the ship disarmed (ARV, B., LP, reg. 1149, ff. 21v-22r. 28 February 1440, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 323). 101 It could be the same man who, according to Hinojosa, in December 1459, was named consul of all the Catalano-Aragonese at Fez, Tlemcen and Granada; see Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%balance’, 100. 102 ACA, C., reg. 3315, ff. 44v-46v. 23 October 1457, Teruel (Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 421). Pau, a brother of Rossell, procurator general of the royal patrimony and escriva` de racio´ of the court of Juan of Navarre, had to load several bales of cotton and other merchandise which they had to send to Barbary, Granada and Naples on the caravelle, the city defence galley — which also had to be ready to sail on the same route — or any other ship.

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of Barcelona, and the corredor d’orella (middleman), Francesc Luner, in the whaler (balener) of another Barcelona man, Miquel Prat.103 Some Majorcans, like many Valencians, were also established or residing in Almeria. But the reason any record survives for two of them is because they were assassinated there. The first, Guillem Despou, was assassinated ‘in a cruel and ugly way in his room’ by ‘some Christian merchants led by the spirit of the Devil’. Guillem’s father, also called Guillem and also from the city of Majorca, was his son’s legal heir as the latter had died without descendants. So Guillem senior entrusted another Majorcan merchant, Andreu Boni, with the task of going to Almeria as his procurator, to recover the deceased’s possessions.104 The second man’s death occurred in 1424, and on this occasion Granadan Saracens were guilty of the crime. The victim was Pere Puigdorfila who was also probably a permanent resident of Almeria. He had received the ransom money for three Granadan captives owned by Bernat Nicolau, a merchant from Ibiza, who had sent them to Almeria so that they could be ransomed. After the death of Puigdorfila, and in accordance with the orders of the sultan, the alcaide of Almeria had placed an embargo on all his goods so that Bernat Nicolau had to go personally to Almeria to try to recover what belonged to him.105 Two decades later, in December 1443, there is a reference to another Majorcan merchant, Joan Pi, who had been unable to recover the debt which a Saracen from Almeria named Mahomat Algazi owed him. This was recorded in a promissory note written in the Muslim’s handwriting, but as Algazi refused to pay, Queen Maria had to intercede on behalf of her subject, requesting the infante of Granada in Almeria, Muhammad ibn Yu¯ suf, to make the debtor pay up.106 This debt, as also the one referred to above for the 100 pieces of cloth that a Granadan merchant had bought from Antoni Cirera around 1420,107 shows that Majorcans dealt with Nasrid merchants and thus became involved in the sultanate. However, a qualitative difference should be noted regarding the Valencians: the Valencian debtors are often the Nasrid 103 See O. Vaquer, ‘Navegacio´ i comerc¸ a Mallorca. Segle XV, segona meitat’, Fontes Rerum Balearium (Palma: 1990), 118. Miquel Prat could be the same Miquel Prats whose vessel in 1461 also carried 30 bales of Turkish cotton, 26 of Sicilian cotton and 96 of woad from Syracuse to Barcelona; see del Treppo, Els mercaders, 155, footnote 91, and the other references which the work gives concerning this owner and his whaler, together with those which appear in Carre`re, Barcelona. 104 malament e fea dentro en su ca´ mera; algunos mercadores christianos induzidos de spirito dyabo´ lico; ACA, C., reg. 2962, f. 40v. 4 March 1423, Barcelona (Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 89). It concerns a letter from Queen Maria to Muhammad IX the Zurdo asking him to release the goods to the procurator, and pointing out that it is the duty of the Nasrid officials to punish the homicides. 105 The general bailiff for the kingdom of Valencia and King Alfonso recommended him to the Zurdo, confident that he would do justice (ACA, C., reg. 2573, f. 48r-v. 18 August 1424, Barcelona, and ARV, B., LP, reg. 1146, f. 137v. 20 October 1424, Valencia; Hinojosa, ‘Las relaciones%en la primera mitad’, doc. 14, 137–138, and Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 101 and 103). A third and earlier reference to deceased merchants in Granada in the reign of the Magnanimous, dated 1416, makes reference to the Valencian, Francesc de Tona, who died in the city of Granada, where someone went later to recover his property and merchandise (ACA, C., reg. 2561, f. 154v. 8 December 1416, Barcelona; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 4). 106 ACA, C., reg. 3269, ff. 157v-158r. 23 December 1443, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 338. 107 See foonote 99.

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sultans themselves, or their main officials, but in the case of the Majorcans there is no record of trade or direct contact with the authorities.

4. The Catalans and Granada during the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous If the quantitative and qualitative differences of the records relating to Granada are quite obvious between Valencians and Majorcans, in the case of the Catalans references are almost non-existent, both in the chancellery sources with which we are dealing and in the published works. In the two monographs on Barcelona and the Principate by Carre`re and del Treppo, in which notarial sources play a fundamental role, there are almost no references to the Nasrid sultanate. The predominant view in Carre`re’s work suggests a lack of direct maritime relations between Barcelona and the kingdom of Granada. Furthermore, she maintains that the latter never represented more than a marginal section of Barcelona’s commercial enterprise.108 When commenting on this, Dufourcq stated his conviction that, although the author had only devoted one page to Barcelona’s trade with the Nasrid sultanate, archival research still had much to contribute to a knowledge of Catalan trade with Granada, in particular for the period comprising the latter part of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.109 Del Treppo, on the other hand, regarded the Nasrid sultanate as a self-contained area, linked to Barcelona through its own shipping lines,110 and Catalan ships as having called at Almeria and Malaga before reaching the Maghrib.111 In his opinion, the Western Catalan route which tended simply to link, as quickly as possible, Barcelona, Majorca and Valencia with Flanders, did not touch any of the Andalusian ports, and thus neither Almeria nor Malaga, so that the kingdom of Granada was not involved in this traffic.112 However, the author added that when in 1451 Alfonso the Magnanimous wished to organise a long voyage in the West with his large galley ships, he envisaged ports of call lasting six days in Palermo and Majorca, ten in Barcelona and eight in Valencia, with one day in Malaga and a second in Cadiz, on both the outward and return journeys.113 For del Treppo, the integration of the ports of call at Malaga and Cadiz responded more to traditional Italian itineraries than Catalano-Aragonese, and the brevity of the stops, compared with the three and six days of the Florentine galleys, indicated that the prospects of loading there were not promising.114 Thus del Treppo concluded that the presence in Barcelona of silk from

108

Carre`re, Barcelona, volume 1, 333, volume 2, 30. Dufourcq and Gautier-Dalche´ , ‘Histoire de l’Espagne’, 468–469. 110 del Treppo, Els mercaders, 101–102. 111 Ibid., 353. 112 Ibid., 101–102. 113 On the return the itinerary was the same but it expanded the calls at Valencia and Barcelona to ten and twelve days in length; it also stopped for two at Cagliari to unload before proceeding direct to Naples. 114 del Treppo, Els mercaders, 114. 109

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Almeria or sugar from Malaga should be attributed more to the crossing of the great international routes in the Catalan capital than to direct contacts with the sultanate.115 Furthermore, the most significant references within the handful I have found in the chancellery sources for Catalonia indicate that, at least from the second quarter of the fifteenth century, there were already Catalan galleys plying the route to Flanders, stopping at Malaga, or even managing to put in at Cadiz. There is no doubt that this was true in July 1435 when the armed trading galley of the city of Perpignan had to stop at Malaga after making a call at Valencia,116 and it could well have been the case in March 1426 with a galley of merchandise from the city of Barcelona, owned by Joan de Junyent.117 Aside from these references, the chancellery sources make it possible only to add that in 1415 (and thus still during the reign of Fernando de Antequera), some men from Barcelona seized a Granadan vessel in the Straits of Gibraltar at the time of a truce, and led thirteen Saracens captive to Barcelona;118 that in 1417, when Joan de la Cavalleria went to Granada on royal business, he also had to look after his own interests;119 and that in April 1458 Juan of Navarre granted a licence to the Barcelona citizen, Pere Satorra, owner of the ship ‘Santa Maria’ and ‘Sant Pere Ma`rtir’, to sail both to Naples and to Barbary, ‘Spain’ (meaning Granada) and Migjorn (‘South’), giving him permission to load and unload cloth and goods there without incurring a penalty, provided he did not carry prohibited goods.120 A different picture emerges from other sources. These show us Catalan ships and

115

Ibid., 232–233. On the way to Flanders, before arriving in Malaga, the armed trading galley from Perpignan had stopped at Valencia. There, Pau Callar, a Majorcan converso who, with many other Majorcan Jews, had converted to Christianity a short time before and whom, it was said, had a Jewish wife in Oran, had already tried to embark in the armed ship of Franc¸ oy Martı´, a Valencian sailor who left the Grau directly for Oran. But, as he had not succeeded in doing so, he tried to go to Malaga with the ship from Perpignan. When the Valencian bailiff became aware of his attempts, he had him arrested and sent back to Majorca so that the governor of the kingdom could do what he willed with him, for he believed that if he went to a Muslim land and joined his Jewish wife, he might renege (ARV, B., LP, reg. 1148, f. 118r. 30 July 1435, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 290). 117 Joan Mercader, the general bailiff for the kingdom of Valencia, had prevented his counterpart della` Xixona, acting on behalf of the king, from issuing a licence in Alicante or any other place within his jurisdiction, from loading cloth or merchandise in any ship which went to Flanders, Cadiz, Malaga or Alcudia until the galley of merchandise, which Antoni d’Alago´ owned and which had just begun its journey to Flanders, had left port. Eight days afterwards, again acting on the king’s behalf, he countermanded the order; notwithstanding the previous letter, the merchant galley from Barcelona was allowed to load all the cloth and goods it wanted to go to Flanders (ARV, B., LP, reg. 1146, ff. 367r and 369r. 21 and 29 March 1426, Valencia; Salicru´ , Documents, doc. 130 and 131). Some days earlier Joan Mercader had given similar orders to the bailiff at Denia, adding this port and Xa`bia (Javea) to the list of prohibited places (see Ruzafa, ‘La Corona’, 310, footnote 25). 118 ACA, C., reg. 2391, ff. 1v-2r. 26 July 1415, Valencia (M. Arribas Palau, ‘Dos reclamaciones de Yusuf III de Granada a Fernando I de Arago´ n por incumplimiento de treguas’, Tamuda, 4 (1956), doc. 10, and ‘Una reclamacio´ n de Yusuf III de Granada a Fernando I de Arago´ n’, MEAH, 9 (1960), doc. 2). On the same subject, ACA, C., reg. 2386, ff. 167v-168r. 26 September 1415, Perpignan. 119 ACA, C., reg. 2562, f. 90v. 17 June 1417, Valencia. 120 ACA, C., reg. 3318, ff. 91v-92r. 12 April 1458, Saragossa. 116

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merchants, specifically those from Barcelona, with interests in Granada in general, or in Almeria in particular. These interests, however, were integrated in the commercial network and routes connecting the Nasrid sultanate, North Africa, Valencia and Majorca. The Majorcan documentation indicates that in 1448 this was the case for the caravelle belonging to Antoni Gilet, for the whaler owned by Miquel Prat, and for the merchant, Jaume Sastre, all of whom were from Barcelona.121 However, we also find Catalan ships linking the coasts of the Maghrib to the Nasrids. There is the example of another man from Barcelona, Pere Despla`, who transported Saracen merchants from Tunis to Granada in 1446.122 Therefore, the activities of the Catalans had no particular reason to be limited to direct relations between Catalonia and Granada. These examples, gleaned from a variety of notarial sources, show that their activities could integrate and connect the interests of the three most westerly maritime areas in the crown of Aragon, that is, Valencia, Majorca and Catalonia, and thus need not necessarily have left any trace in Catalan notarial archives.

5. Conclusion The prospects for analysis of the Catalano-Aragonese presence in fifteenth-century Granada are therefore both promising and still wide open. The information drawn from the chancellery registers which I have consulted is primarily qualitative in character, but in the case of Valencia, given its copious nature, is also potentially quantifiable. This alone constitutes a considerable contribution, although it would be advisable to be able to complement it with facts derived from other sources, especially from Valencian notarial records. For the present, it is clear that the Catalano-Aragonese presence in fifteenth-century Granada was not as marginal as it once appeared, and also that the importance and involvement in trade mainly by the Valencians both in the sultanate and in its structures were very much more significant than had hitherto been understood. If this was indeed true, and if we can confirm that the Valencians played a significant role in Granada which complemented, and was no necessarily less important than, that of the Genoese, then we can attribute it to the involvement there by Christian merchants, evidenced in particular by such obvious examples as the acquisition of the monopolies on silk and salt. It is not possible to say that it was due to the role of the merchants of the Moorish quarter of Valencia. This, of course, should not allow us to make the opposite mistake of underrating the activity of the Valencian Saracens; they also played an important part, frequently together with the Christians themselves. Moreover, it is equally clear that the relative role of the Valencian Saracens must be subjected to continuing re-assessment alongside that of the Christians.

121

Examples which link, in the first instance, Valencia, Granada and Barbary, or in the second, Barbary (Chercell) and Almeria. See footnote 103 and the accompanying text. 122 See Carre`re, Barcelona, volume 2, 111 and footnote 75. The ship was captured by the Genoese.

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We are faced with a similar situation in relation to the relative importance that the Catalano-Aragonese merchants in general, or the Valencians in particular, had in fifteenth-century Granada vis-a`-vis the merchants and the involvement of the Genoese. We are in no position at present to establish even tentatively, either quantitatively or qualitatively, comparative terms for either of them. The archives still hold many surprises for us.123 The relativisation of the Genoese ‘mirage’, which as a monopoly at least can be completely challenged henceforth, must nonetheless be subject to a further re-assessment of the role of the Valencians. The Valencians were for the Genoese the most vexatious competitors, not only as the ‘Catalan’ enemy in the Mediterranean, but also as direct rivals in Granada, a situation which is evident in the repeated Genoese attacks they suffered in Granadan ports.124 Furthermore, in the case of the Genoese, it is also necessary to continue reviewing the ‘myth’ from within. As the fifteenth century unfolds, and coinciding with the renewal of Castilian military campaigns against the sultanate, the Ligurian presence in Granada seems to have been eroded in itself, not only in respect to the Valencian and CatalanoAragonese progress.125 With regard to Majorcans and Catalans, we must still continue to emphasise the need, pointed out by Dufourcq and M. Sa´ nchez, to widen our perspective. The chancellery documentation does not cause many modifications but it does allow us to insist on the relative importance of Majorcan commerce in Granada, and that for Catalonia we might expect something more than the sources have so far permitted us to glean. It is also necessary to delve more deeply into the hypothesis that the main attraction for Catalano-Aragonese commerce to Granada was the market of Almeria, just as for the Genoese it was Malaga. In this case, one might talk of the distribution of areas of influence in the sultanate — which, of course, would not have prevented the Valencian merchants from having their important interests in Malaga. It is clear that the records on Almeria become particularly persistent on this fact. So, if this hypothesis could be confirmed, the commercial superiority of Almeria for the merchants of the crown of Aragon might serve to parallel the intensification of political and diplomatic relations of that crown with the same Nasrid oriental sector. The latter can be observed clearly throughout the fifteenth century in the context of political swings in the Granada of Muhammad IX el Zurdo and of the internal struggles which territorially and politically divided the sultanate (or shared out it, in the case of the infantes of Almeria).126 This last aspect leads us to note the evident interrelation and mutual incentive

123

See, for example, Salicru´ , ‘La embajada’. See R. Salicru´ i Lluch, ‘Ge`nova i la Corona d’Arago´ a la Mediterra`nia del segle XV: manifestacions de la rivalitat directa en terres nassarites’, Acta historica et archaeologica mediaevalia, in press. 125 Besides the references given in footnotes 13 and 124, we can also see some cases of Genoese ‘desertion’ from Granada (that is, the option taken in favour of Castilian policy, and the defence of the Genoese interests in Castile in preference to those in Granada), concerning the conquest of Malaga, in M. Ruzafa Garcı´a, ‘Los mude´ jares valencianos y la conquista de Ma´ laga’, in: Estudios sobre Ma´ laga, 402–403. 126 See, in this respect, Salicru´ , El sultanat. 124

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which existed during the reign of Alfonso the Magnanimous between the CatalanoAragonese commercial involvement in Granada and the political and diplomatic entente in place for more than three decades (and which often bordered on an unspoken alliance) between Muhammad IX and Alfonso. It becomes difficult to understand this commercial involvement without considering this political relationship. Roser Salicru´ i Lluch is a tenured scientist in the Department of Medieval Studies at the Mila` and Fontanals Institute of the Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). A specialist in relations between Christianity and Islam in the western mediterranean in the late middle ages, she has developed her research in Spain as well as in Italy (University of Genoa). Her primary publications revolve around the political-diplomatic and mercantile contacts between the crown of Aragon, Castile, Genoa, the Nasrid sultanate of Granada and North Africa in the fifteenth century.