Peter IV of Aragon

Peter IV of Aragon, called the Ceremonious or the Punyalet ('el del puñalete', due to a dagger he used to carry), III of Barcelona, II of Valencia and I of Mallorca (Balaguer, September 5, 1319-Barcelona, January 5, 1387), was king of Aragon, Valencia and Mallorca (1344-1387); Duke of Athens (1380-1387) and Neopatria (1377-1387); Count of Barcelona (1336-1387) and of Ampurias (1386-1387), son of Alfonso the Benigno. By the pact of Madrid of 1339, he helped Alfonso XI of Castile in the conquest of Algeciras (1344) and in the attempt to conquer Gibraltar (1349).

Youth

He was educated among Aragonese, an aspect consistent with the most common language of his time as an infant. While still an infant, he lived in Zaragoza, in Ejea de los Caballeros and in the vicinity of Jaca. During an illness of Alfonso IV he began to act as lieutenant of the kingdom of Aragon (a position that in the future will receive the name of viceroy), supported by the Archbishop of Zaragoza Pedro López de Luna, who was in charge of the education of the royal infant.

Following the traditional customs of the royal house, on the death of his father in 1336 Pedro IV prepared to be crowned in Zaragoza, although the count Pedro de Ribagorza y Ampurias and the count of Prades Ramón Berenguer de Aragón advised him to I had first to go to Barcelona to swear the Usatges. Pedro IV only swore them in later and in Lérida, which provoked the discontent of the Catalans, who took political retaliation. However, from 1338, Pedro de Ribagorza managed to temporarily remove Pedro López de Luna from his public positions, and occupy the royal chancery, beginning to have a decisive ascendancy over the king, who went from having a close "continentalist" political idea Aragonese interests to one more prone to the Mediterranean, which benefited the Catalans.

Reign

Sarde coin of King Peter IV.

At the beginning of his reign, the Kingdom of Mallorca was governed by his brother-in-law Jaime III of Mallorca, great-grandson of Jaime I the Conqueror. In January 1279, the two sons of the Conqueror had signed the Treaty of Perpignan, by which the Mallorcan king Jaime II had acknowledged being a vassal of Pedro III, a vassalage that the Mallorcan king secretly opposed and which was only recognized as a result of the campaign of conquest of Alfonso III of Aragon (1285), which ended with the treaty of Anagni (1295), in which a defeated Jaime III renounced the sovereignty of the kingdom of Mallorca.

After confronting each other over various issues, Pedro IV declared the Mallorcan king guilty of the process opened against him (1343) and, in compliance with the sentence, invaded Mallorca and defeated Jaime III's troops in Santa Ponsa. He later he also conquered Roussillon. After surrendering, Jaime III was dispossessed of the throne. He was respected the lordship of Montpellier, from where he tried to recover the Cerdagne and the Conflent. He attacked Majorca (1349) and was definitively defeated in the battle of Lluchmayor in which Jaime III died.

After the death of Jaime III, Pedro allowed Jaime IV (prisoner until 1362) to retain this title in a purely formal way, but on his death in 1375, Pedro IV himself assumed the crown of the Balearic Islands. In doing so, he expanded the & # 34; Union Statute & # 34; of Jaime II, by which whoever was King of Aragon, that would also be King of Valencia and Count of Barcelona, turning it into a "Union and Incorporation Statute", thus making perpetual the incorporation of the Regnum Maioricarum to the Crown of Aragon.

He was an energetic and hard monarch who reorganized the court, the administration and the army, directing his activities to increase the royal power within his kingdom and to increase his domains in the Mediterranean Sea, which he achieved with the expedition of the almogávares, when they conquered the duchies of Athens and Neopatria. As a sign of his interest in classical culture, he ordered that a permanent guard of eleven crossbowmen remain on the Acropolis of Athens, stating that the monument was "the most beautiful jewel that exists in the world, such that not even all Christian kings together they could do something similar."

He defeated the union of nobles in Épila, supported Enrique de Trastámara against Pedro I of Castile, seized Roussillon from his brother-in-law Jaime III of Mallorca and sought to incorporate Sicily into his kingdom.

In 1347 and 1348 he had to quell the revolt of the Union of Aragon, allied with the Union of Valencia and led by his half-brother the Infante Fernando de Aragón, who did not accept that he had named their eldest daughter heir to the crown, Constanza de Aragón, since at that time she did not have any male children.

The Black Death caused the death of Queen Eleanor of Portugal (1348) whom Pedro had married a year earlier. When widowed, he contracted a new marriage with Leonor of Sicily, with whom he had three children: Juan, Martín and Leonor, wife of Juan I of Castilla.

In 1351 he went to war against Genoa, supporting Venice, since the Genoese promoted revolts in Sardinia. The Genoese occupied Alghero, from where they were expelled by the crown of Aragon in 1354. The city was later repopulated with Catalans, which explains why Catalan is still spoken in the Sardinian city. Pedro IV also had to face a rebellious chronicle of the Arborea on the island from 1364 until almost the end of the reign of 1386.

He also faced Pedro I the Cruel of Castile in the so-called "war of the two Pedros". Pedro I wanted to recover the Murcian territories that had passed to the Kingdom of Valencia. The conflict ended with the peace of Almazán in 1375 without winners or losers. The disasters of this war were added to the Black Death and other natural disasters such as drought or locusts.

During his reign, the Deputation of the General of Catalonia was established in the Cortes held in Barcelona, Villafranca del Panadés and Cervera in 1358-1359. Castilla had invaded Aragon and Valencia, which gave rise to various warfare that caused great expenses to the crown. For this reason, the Cortes appointed twelve deputies with executive powers in tax matters, as well as some "auditors of accounts" who controlled the administration under the authority of Berenguer de Cruïlles, considered the first president of the Diputación del General.

Peter IV of Aragon, who instituted himself Peter the Third, ordered to canonize the ceremony of the coronation of the kings of Aragon in Aragonese in the Ordinacion feyta por el muyt alta e muyt excellent Princep e Senyor el Senyor Don Pedro third King dAragon, de la manera como los Reyes dAragon se faran consecr y ellos se coronaran.

He ordered the construction of the Royal Tombs of the Poblet Monastery.

Marriages and offspring

In 1338, he married María de Navarra (1326-1347), daughter of the kings of Navarra Felipe III and Juana II. Offspring:

• Constance (1343-1363), married in 1361 with Federico III of Sicily.
• Juana (1344-1385), married in 1373 with Juan I de Ampurias.

In 1347 he married Eleanor of Portugal (1328-1348), daughter of King Alfonso IV of Portugal. He died the following year of the Black Death.

In 1349 he married Eleanor of Sicily (1325-1375), daughter of King Peter II of Sicily. Offspring:

• John I (1350-1396).
• Martin I (1356-1410).
• Leonor (1358-1382), married to King John I of Castile. It was Fernando I's mother of Antequera.

In 1377 he married Sibila de Fortiá (1350-1406), daughter of the Empordà nobleman Berenguer de Fortiá. Offspring:

• Isabel (1380–1424), who married the future prospective Jaime II of Urgel.

Predecessor: Alfonso IV	King of Aragon and Valencia Count of Barcelona 1336-1387	Successor: Juan I
Predecessor: Mary of Sicily	Duke of Athens and Neopatria 1381-1387	Successor: Juan I
Predecessor: Jaime III de Mallorca	King of Mallorca 1343-1387	Successor: Juan I

Ancestors

Used bibliography

• González Ollé, Fernando (2007). «Poptions and linguistic preferences of King Peter IV of Aragon». Revista de Filología Española (RFE) LXXXVII (2): 293-322. ISSN 0210-9174.