Chroniclers say he used gunpowder in the siege of Museros castle. Guerau IV de Cabrera had occupied the County of Urgell in opposition to Aurembiax, the heiress of Ermengol VIII, who had died without sons in 1208. [5] In the end, James accepted Theobald's succession. The troubadour Olivier lo Templier composed a song praising the voyage and hoping for its success. James I, byname James The Conqueror, Spanish Jaime El Conquistador, (born Feb. 2, 1208, Montpellier, County of Toulouse—died July 27, 1276, Valencia, Valencia), the most renowned of the medieval kings of Aragon (1213–76), who added the Balearic Islands and Valencia to his realm and thus initiated the Catalan-Aragonese expansion in the Mediterranean that was to reach its zenith in the last decades of the 14th century. The regency was exercised by his great-uncle, Count Sancho of Roussillon (in Aragon, now in France), until 1218, when Sancho resigned in the face of opposition from some Aragonese and Catalonian nobles. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. By the Treaty of Corbeil, signed in May 1258, he ended his conflict with Louis IX of France, securing the renunciation of French claims to sovereignty over Catalonia. In 1233 James began a second war of reconquest—against the Saracen rulers of the Kingdom of Valencia. [8] Pope Clement IV tried to dissuade James from crusading, regarding his moral character as sub-par, and Alfonso X did the same. The occupation of the kingdom was completed later with the capture of other towns, and in 1244 a treaty was signed by which the boundaries of Aragon and Castile were delimited in the newly conquered areas. As with the much earlier Visigothic attempt, this policy was victim to physical, cultural, and political obstacles. As a child, James was a pawn in the power politics of Provence, where his father was engaged in struggles helping the Cathar heretics of Albi against the Albigensian Crusaders led by Simon IV de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who were trying to exterminate them. James was the son of Peter II of Aragon and Mary of Montpellier. James signed it on that date, but Alfonso did not affirm it until much later. When Peter, allied with the Albigensian heretics, died fighting against the crusaders sent against them at the Battle of Muret, James was only five years old and was at Carcassonne, Fr., in the hands of the crusaders’ leader, Simon de Montfort. Born Jaime Perez, heir of the Aragonese house as the son of Peter II the Catholic, he held the titles of Count of Barcelona, Valencia and Majorca. Pope Gregory IX was required to intervene. A storm, however, drove him off course, and he landed at Aigues-Mortes. The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia – Robert Ignatius Burns, S.J. James compiled the Llibre del Consulat de Mar,[1] which governed maritime trade and helped establish Aragonese supremacy in the western Mediterranean. A soldier of extraordinary courage and great gifts of leadership, James was a stout man, strong and handsome; he has been criticized for his many love affairs that caused him to be described as an home de fembres (“lady’s man”). By a treaty with Louis IX of France, he wrested the County of Barcelona from nominal French suzerainty and integrated it into his crown. On 5 September 1229, the troops from Aragon, consisting of 155 ships, 1,500 horsemen and 15,000 soldiers, set sail from Tarragona, Salou, and Cambrils[6] to conquer Majorca from Abú Yahya, the semi-independent Almohad governor of the island. [1] He also founded a studium at Valencia in 1245 and received privileges for it from Pope Innocent IV, but it did not develop as splendidly. He bought Guerau off and allowed Aurembiax to reclaim her territory, which she did at Lleida, probably also becoming one of James' earliest mistresses.