Peter the Great was king of Aragon and count of Catalonia from 1276 – 1285. He was the primary hero of the famous chronicle of Bernat Desclot, which built upon personal memories, oral narratives and records from the royal chancellery. Bernat Desclot might have been identical to a scribe in the Royal Chancellery called Bernat Escrivà.
The chronicle, written between 1283 – 1288, established the fame of thePere el Gran to such an extent that he ended up as a singing minstrel in the Divine Comedy of Dante.
One of the defining incidents in the life of the king was his marriage to the Sicilian princess, Constance, who was daughter and heir of Manfred of Sicilia. This resulted in the war called The Sicilian Vespers, which ended in Aragonese supremacy from 1282. During the next years fighting between the Aragon and French king took place from Calabria to Northern Catalonia. This culminated when the Pope licensed the so-called “Aragonese Crusade”, which never the less ended in a route of the French Army at Girona and later at the Colde Panissars.
Exhibition
The reign of Pere el Gran is currently the theme of an exhibition at the Archive of the Crown of Aragon in the Virreyes Palace in Barcelona.
In the exhibition a number of documents are brought together, which illustrate the personality
and political behaviour of the king. Among the highlights are the treaty signed together with the King of Castille in 1281 plus a copy of the chronicle of Bernat Dusclot. Several panels, reproductions of miniatures and maps show the conquests of the king. In the shop there is a comprehensive catalogue available in Spanish, Catalan and English.
Exhumation of a king
The exhibition is a follow-up on the controversial exhumation of the remains of the king, which took place in 2010.
Pere el Gran suddenly died of plague in 1285 in Vilafranca del Penedès and was buried in the Reial Monestir de Santa Maria de Santes Creus, a twelfth-century Cistercian Abbey in Aiguamúrcia.
In 2010 it was decided to open his tomb, a Roman porphyry bath with a sculptured crown. From the tomb his body was transported to and archeological center in order to undergo a long series of technical and scientific investigations.
As a result it was discovered that he had been laid to rest in a Cistercian habit with a linen shift, a woolen tunica, a coverlet and a cope and cowl. Research on his bodily remains found that he probably suffered from TB as well as gastrointestinal parasites, stemming from the eating of less well-prepared meat. His last meal had amongst other things consisted of grapes, fruits and pepper. During his life he must have bleached his beard, probably in order to look Norman. One of his claims to the Sicilian throne was – apart from that of his wife – his descent from Mafalda de Apulia, who is presumed to have been active in connection with the production of the Girona Tapestry. We do not possess a physical description of Peter the Great. However his father was described as a typical – idealised – Norman:
“The King of Aragon, James, was the most comely of all men and was greater in stature by a handbreadth than any other. And he was well favoured and sound in all limbs. And his countenance was broad and with a ruddy color and his nose was long and straight and his mouth large and well shaped. And his eyes were black and his hair was bright as strands of gold…” (From: Jaune Aurell: Authoring the Past. History, Autobiography, and Politics in Medieval Catalonia. University of Chicago Press 2012. p. 42)
There is no doubt that the reconstruction of the face of his son must have been inspired by this description as well as the remarkable miniature of his father shown below.
The Royal Archives in Barcelona
See the video about the exhumation and scientific study of the remains of the king
Read more about Medieval Catalonia In medieval Histories 2012 4:2
Read more:
Pere El Gran: Vida, Actes i Paraula.
Stefano Maria Cingolani
Museu D’Historia de Catalunya 2010