The focus of this collection of articles by Donald J. Kagay is the effect of the expansion of royal government on the societies of the medieval Crown of Aragon. He traces how, in the long conflicts against Spanish Islam and neighbouring Christian states during the 13th and 14th centuries, the relationships of royal to customary law, of monarchical

Donald J. Kagay is Associate Professor of History at Albany State University Georgia, USA.

Contents: Preface; The national defense clause: Princeps namque and the emergence of the Catalan state; Army mobilization, royal administration and the realm in the 13th-century Crown of Aragon; A shattered circle: eastern Spanish urban fortifications and their repair during the war of the Two Pedros; Rule and mis-rule in medieval Iberia; The King's right must be preferred to the Lord's: sovereignty and suzerainty in the treatises of Pere Albert; Rebellion on trial: the Aragonese Unión and its uneasy connection to royal law, 1265-1301; Structures of baronial dissent and revolt under Jaime I of Aragon-Catalonia (1213-76); The 'treasons' of Bernat de Cabrera: government, law, and the individual in the late medieval crown of Aragon; Pere Albert: Barcelona canon, royal advocate, feudal theorist; Law and memory: the many aspects of the legal inquisition in the medieval crown of Aragon; Poetry in the dock: the court culture of Joan I on Trial (1396-98); The line between memoir and history: James I and the Llibre dels Feyts; The essential enemy: the image of the Muslim as adversary and vassal in the law and literature of the medieval crown of Aragon; Index.