History of the Crusades

the Crusades Episode 148, the Crusade, the Crusade against the Cathars Muray Aftermath.

Hello again. Last week we analysed the Battle of Muray and its disastrous surprise defeat for the Southern French

rebels.

In this episode we will take a look at the consequences of the battle.

Of course the major shock outcome of the battle was the death of King Peter the second of Aragon.

Now as we all know the ruler of Aragon was constantly having to perform a

balancing act between maintaining healthy relations with the other Spanish

kingdoms and the caliphate in Al-Andalus.

This was tricky at the best of times, but in September 1213 following the Battle of Muray,

the Kingdom of Aragon suddenly found itself without a king. The heir to the throne, Peter's son James, was only five years old and wasn't even in Aragon.

He was living at the court of the man who bettered his father on the battlefield, Simon de Monfort.

To add to the kingdom's problems, its barons started getting restless and considering their options to see whether they

may be able to gain an advantage from the situation.

King Peter had risked everything on one roll of the dice at Muray.

As a result, the kingdom was close to bankruptcy and the cream of Aragonese fighting men, its knights and its most talented sons

were lying dead on a battlefield in southern France.

It was no wonder then that the noble families of the kingdom, with only an absent

child king to keep them in check, were having whispered conversations in the halls of power, testing their allegiances and assessing

their chances of making a grab for power.

Really to survive, the kingdom of Aragon needed its child king back, and it needed someone

competent to rule Aragon on James' behalf, and it needed these things as quickly as possible.

...