The Catalan kingdom of Majorca is a perplexing entity. It stood in the middle of an emergent association of kingdoms and principalities that historians have, with an excess of zeal, labelled the ‘Aragonese–Catalan Empire’, whereas in fact the various rulers of this ‘empire’ seem to have been almost as often at war with one another as at peace. Majorca's brief period of independence, from 1276 to 1343, was marked by constant attempts by the neighbouring kings of Aragon to assert their authority over its own rulers; indeed, for several years, from 1285 to 1298, the kingdom of Majorca to all intents ceased to exist, as a result of the hostile Aragonese invasion of the Balearics. The kingdom is perplexing, too, in its combination of territories strung out across a considerable distance, from the island of Formentera in the far south to the small enclave of Carlat on the edge of Auvergne; its three principal cities, Ciutat de Mallorca (now generally known as Palma), Perpignan and Montpellier, were very different in character, though all serviced the trade routes linking northern Europe, southern France and Mediterranean Spain to Africa and Italy. It is easy to dismiss the kingdom as a motley assortment of territories, awkwardly placed, lacking any viability as an autonomous state.

The aim of this book is to see how coherently this kingdom functioned, particularly as a commercial crossroads between Europe and Africa.