(1162-1213) - New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Pp. Xiv, 263. Isbn: 978-1-349

ERNEST E.
JENKINS, The Mediterranean World of Alfonso II and Peter II of Aragon
(1162-1213). New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012. Pp. xiv, 263. ISBN: 978-1-349-
29065-9.
This was a unique work in many ways as it highlighted a new historiographical field of
discussion: how early Aragonese regional networks were formed by Alfonso II and his son
Peter II. A relatively new kingdom during this monograph’s timeframe of 1162-1213, Jenkins
also successfully added valuable source material and discussion to the notion of why Aragon
became involved in the Albigensian Crusade. Themes of existing regional family networks
and the broader societal (but explicitly Christian) structures within Aragon make up the first
two chapters as Alfonso II’s initial connections with southern France became important.
Moving between the importance of pilgrimages and the ethics of royal enactments, Jenkins
then moved towards Peter II and his ties to southern France which formed the chapters of
greatest importance for scholars. Marriage contracts in Montpellier offset narrative accounts
of fighting in Iberia and in the Albigensian Crusade as Jenkins finally tied Aragon to the
Mediterranean in a final concluding chapter involving Pope Innocent III. These chapters
successfully became part of the wider picture portrayed by Jenkins that monarchical socio-
political decisions were consciously made by father and son to expand Aragon’s regional
community.
Themes of connectivity and controlling alliances ran throughout the monograph. The
clarity of Jenkins’s analysis became an analytical asset as utilizing an in-depth focus on the
monarchy allowed for sources such as marriage certificates, charters, and saints's lives to
indicate the success of their policies. Jenkins argued that the achievement of matrimonial ties
in France enabled Alfonso II to forge a regional community across the Pyrenees and establish
a Mediterranean basis of future exploration and control. However, Jenkins’s Mediterranean
remained almost explicitly narrow and seemed to include only southern France and
Aragonese territory until the final chapter. Chronologically shifting to Peter II, Jenkins
liberally shifted the focus from the pilgrimage attempts of Alfonso to Peter’s movements
from peace to war alongside marital attempts to expand the regional Aragonese community.
Jenkins treated Peter’s decision to fight crusading forces in France with a keen administrative
eye the following year in 1213. The crusaders had taken the Aragonese vassal county of
Toulouse from the Count of Toulouse and this social desire was seen as reason enough,
according to Jenkins, to march into France and lose his own life in the ensuing battle with the
crusaders. Indeed, The Mediterranean World remained explicitly diplomatic and political in
analytical approach, concerning wedding affairs and the extensive alliance systems forged
with French counties, and the kings continually sought opportunities to enhance their social
and political connectivity (173). Even a significant amount of Christian texts such as
Augustine’s City of God transpire to construct a methodology that revolved around the
political rather than religious considerations of the monarch. The decisions taken by the
crusader Peter II when joining the battles against a crusading force were interesting and
worthy of more discussion. The Jewish and Muslim influence on Aragonese politics was not
mentioned in his analysis or even, troublingly, in his bibliography despite the key concurrent
events of the Reconquista. The author intended to place the socio-political motivations of the
Christian Aragonese crown at the forefront of the monograph, that much was clear, but the
extensive analysis of marriage agreements in place of religious motivations in a diverse
peninsula felt too limited.
This monograph was explicit in highlighting the major land claims that Aragon had in
Montpellier and the Languedoc region as well as revealing the Albigensian Crusade for the
political land grab it was becoming in historiographical discussion. Preceding publications
such as Lawrence Marvin’s The Occitan War: A military and political history of
the Albigensian Crusade, 1209–1218 (2008) had begun to implicate the political rather than
religious goals of the Crusade and Jenkins successfully incorporated an external case study of
Aragon to this discussion. Despite the clear naval interests of the Aragonese sphere of
influence within a highly multicultural Iberian area, Jenkins highlighted the expansion of
intangible social networks and political control through vassalage. The chronological
approach of the father-son dynasty undertaken in this monograph forced Jenkins to approach
the idea of regional expansion being tied to crusading. However, the important moment of
religious conflict in Spain for the Reconquista, the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) was
considered as little more than a political expansion to the south of Aragonese territory.
Indeed, the marriage alliance with Montpellier was seen as more important for Peter II as
Jenkins continually returned to social and diplomatic analysis to further his aim for showing
the monarchs creating a peaceful community (37). With this, it can feel like an older social
work such as Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324 (1975)
which focused specifically on one location. Nonetheless, the Aragonese concentration here
also straddled social themes over a longer time period. The chapters in particular promised a
line of analysis that was notably avoided by the author. ‘Mediterranean Communities in
Competition and Conflict’ explicitly focused on Peter II’s internal Iberian conflict and the
two-part chapters concerning ‘Fracturing a Regional Community’ more accurately reflected
this approach where the expanded region of Aragon was threatened by the Albigensian
Crusade. Jenkins most strongly achieved his intention when concentrating on the Albigensian
Crusade case study in southern France. He clearly avoided Mediterranean analysis despite the
promises in the first chapter and title of a wider expanding Mediterranean influence and
settled instead for wider regional political discussion involving a relatively small European
community as it sought to expand its grounded sphere of influence.
That this was a short work of only 174 pages indicated the introductory nature of this
work for scholars to consider. There was an abundance of explicitly Christian source material
in the eighty pages of notes and bibliography at the end, but these only serve the socio-
political focus of the analyzed monarchy. Jenkins did successfully achieve his aim of raising
the importance of social connectivity and monarchical determination of Alfonso II and Peter
II to expand their regional community. Certainly, his monograph should be considered as an
important contribution to the limited historiography surrounding the reigns of the two
Aragonese kings. All but the last chapter that exposed the role of Innocent III in Peter II’s
expansion missed vital opportunities to incorporate the Mediterranean into his analysis.
However, this work introduced scholars persuasively through an illumination of intangible
social networks in a north-eastern Spanish region and connections to south-western France in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
JONATHAN WRIGHT, University of New Mexico

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ERNEST E.

JENKINS, The Mediterranean World of Alfonso II and Peter II of Aragon

a Mediterranean basis of future exploration and control. However, Jenkins’s Mediterranean

extensive analysis of marriage agreements in place of religious motivations in a diverse

peninsula felt too limited.

political land grab it was becoming in historiographical discussion. Preceding publications

such as Lawrence Marvin’s The Occitan War: A military and political history of

two-part chapters concerning ‘Fracturing a Regional Community’ more accurately reflected

community as it sought to expand its grounded sphere of influence.

II to expand their regional community. Certainly, his monograph should be considered as an

However, this work introduced scholars persuasively through an illumination of intangible

social networks in a north-eastern Spanish region and connections to south-western France in

the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

JONATHAN WRIGHT, University of New Mexico

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