Mallorca for sale... literally
650 years ago, Isabel, daughter of James III, transferred her rights to the Balearic kingdom to the brother of the King of France for the equivalent of about 113 million euros today.
Palm'Mallorca is not for sale', 'Mallorca is not for sale'... these are slogans we hear and see painted on walls today in connection with the pressure of tourism and the purchase of homes by foreigners. But the kingdom of Mallorca was literally sold in August 1375—650 years ago—when Isabella, daughter of James III, transferred her rights to the crown of the Islands to a brother of the King of France for 120,000 gold florins: approximately the sum of 1.
In February 1375, James—James IV, to his supporters—the only son and heir of James III, died in Soria. He had tried unsuccessfully to recover the 'kingdom in the middle of the sea,' which his uncle Peter the Ceremonious—or Peter of the Puñalet—restored to the Crown of Aragon in 1343. His sister Isabella had accompanied him on a failed invasion of Catalonia due to the dispersion of his misdeeds. James left her as his sole heir in his will.
We don't know much about Isabella's life, nor do we even know for sure when and where she was born. It must have been around 1338 in Perpignan, the continental capital of the kings of Majorca, where they usually resided. This may seem strange today, when the media chronicles the lives and miracles of princesses.
Isabella was married in 1358 to John Palaiologos, of the Byzantine imperial family and Marquis of Montferrat, a state in northern Italy. They had four sons and one daughter. Uncle Pedro agreed to pay her a substantial dowry in exchange for her renouncing her hypothetical rights to her father's estate. But Pedro, who in addition to Punyalet must also have been a close friend, didn't pay the money he'd promised, so she considered herself free from the renunciation.
After her brother's death, Isabella became the new heir to the kingdom of Majorca. However, the will of James I (1272), dividing his dominions between Peter the Great and James II, established that if the "direct male and legitimate line descendants" of one of the two were exhausted, their share would pass to the heirs of the other. After James's death, the Ceremonious was at that time the legitimate monarch of the Islands.
The transfer of rights to Majorca
With all this, who was James I, Conqueror that he was, to determine who should inherit in the future? There were a few queens in the Spanish monarchies, in the absence of a male heir. Her great-grandmother Peronella, for example, had been sovereign of Aragon. Isabella had to have some right, or else Uncle Pedro wouldn't have been so insistent on making her renounce it.
What could Isabella do? Widowed—her husband had died in 1372—practically alone, without resources... and a woman. A woman leading an army of rough soldiers was inconceivable. Joan of Arc, the one who would break this rule, hadn't even been born yet. Isabella had to find a man—of royal lineage, of course, and with a full purse.
This was Louis of Anjou, Count of Provence, brother of the King of France. In August 1375—650 years ago—Isabel transferred her rights to the crown of Majorca for a financial compensation of 120,000 gold florins. According to medievalist Antonio Ortega, a royal official—a civil servant—was then paid about 35 pounds annually. That is, this amounted to approximately 3,428 salaries. The florin was worth 10% more than the pound, Ortega points out. So, based on an average salary of about 30,000 euros per year, this would be equivalent to approximately 113 million euros in today's money.
In return, the new ruler of the kingdom of Majorca agreed to wage war against his hated Uncle Pedro within two years. Isabel reserved for herself, of all the territories that had made up the old dominions—if they were recovered, of course—the counties of Cerdanya and Conflent, which were a direct nod from a family that, not surprisingly, was usually on the mainland and only occasionally resided in the islands.
Towards the spring of 1377, drums of war were beating on the borders between what is now southern France and the Crown of Aragon. In Mallorca, a conspiracy in favor of Louis of Anjou's cause was detected. However, J. Ernest Martínez Ferrando clarifies that the figure of the pretender generated rather "indifference" on the island, very much in keeping with the stoic attitude attributed—and rightly so—to its inhabitants.
Other matters occupied Louis's mind. His brother, the king, died, and he had to take over the regency for his nephew. Furthermore, France was immersed in the Hundred Years' War against its English neighbors. Another even more attractive—and much more attainable—objective presented itself. Queen Joan of Naples, a relative of his, had no children. So she adopted him as her heir. Incidentally, Joan had been married to James IV, Isabella's brother, so everything remained in the family. Louis arrived to be crowned king by the pope—Naples was a fief of his—but died shortly after, in 1384, without ever taking possession.
Of course, the Majorcan venture was fading, and so was the collection of the agreed-upon financial compensation. So Isabella put her rights to the Majorcan inheritance up for sale again. This time, the interested party was another Frenchman: John of Armagnac. The Armagnacs were powerful nobles. In the following century, one of the sides in the French Civil War would bear her name.
The wedding that sank a dream
Around 1390, the new candidate for the Majorcan crown led an expedition to one of the territories that had formed part of it: Roussillon, which is now Northern Catalonia. He did so in such a way that it seemed unlikely he would win the sympathy of his hypothetical subjects: his troops, made up of mercenaries, entered the territory with blood and fire. John died the following year, so this second attempt also came to nothing.
Martínez Ferrando adds a few more attempts to revive the claims of the Majorcan dynasty, which also came to nothing. Around 1395, a merchant from northern Italy, one Luigi Scarampo, was in contact with troops "suspiciously concentrated" in Avignon (France) "on behalf of the Infanta of Majorcas." When King John the Hunter of Aragon died in 1396, his son-in-law Mateo de Foix attempted to succeed him and obtained the support of the indefatigable Isabella: there had always been a good relationship between the Foix family and hers, and if Mateo became king, he might return the islands to her.
The final blow to all those dreams of the Mallorcan princess came in 1400 – the last year of the 14th century – with the marriage of Violante of Aragon, daughter of John the Hunter and granddaughter of Peter the Ceremonious, and Louis II, son and heir of Luis de Anjo, although he never actually married. It was the reconciliation between two dynasties that had been systematically at odds with each other and, at the same time, the final farewell to Isabella's hopes.
Isabella had done all she could. Disappointed, she sold her last remaining rights to Montpellier—another possession that had been part of the Kingdom of Majorca—to the King of France in exchange for a pension to spend her remaining years. A seal of hers bearing the inscription 'Sigillum Isabelis, regine Maioricareum' ('Seal of Isabella, Queen of Majorca'), claiming the title held by her ancestors.
It is also not clear when or where she died. Eusebia Rayó suggests that it was in the castle of Gallargues, in Occitania. Gabriel Alomar Esteve estimates that it was shortly before 1408 and that she was buried in the monastery of Santa Caterina (Paris), which was demolished in 1767 to make way for a market named after this same saint. Thus, all traces of anyone who could have been Queen of Majorca would have vanished.
Information compiled from studies by Carlos A. Willemsen, Eusebia Rayó, J. Ernest Martínez Ferrando, Pau Cateura, Gabriel Alomar Esteve, Miquel Àngel Casasnovas and Josep Mas y Llaneras.
Around this same time, around 1375, Isabella of Majorca (widow) married a German knight, Conrad of Reichach, for the second time. It was a secret marriage. Perhaps she didn't want to interfere with these proposals to third parties to recover the lost kingdom, with a new potential candidate in the running. Curiously, a German—a nationality now so closely linked to Majorca—would thus have been the last "king"—albeit a consort—of the private dynasty.
It seems that Reichach had been in the service of Isabel's brother, Jaume. Apparently, it was an unequal marriage: she was a princess and he was merely a knight. But Gabriel Alomar claims, on the contrary, that he was "a nobleman of rank." The fact is that he returned home, taking with him their only son, Miquel.
Neither Miguel nor any of the four children from his first marriage showed much interest in the mania that plagued their mother—and Uncle Jaume—throughout their lives. Three of them died before their mother, which was not unusual at the time, when wars and disease were constant. Miguel seems to have devoted himself to religious life.
Only the only daughter, Margaret of Montferrat, was to demonstrate political ambitions in the future. Since her son James, Count of Urgell, could aspire to the crown of Aragon upon the death of Martin the Humane, his mother urged him to be "either king, or nothing." In fact, nothing happened: he lost the bet and was imprisoned until his death.
According to Alomar, when Jaime was already imprisoned, the fearsome Margarida still attempted to conquer Mallorca "with the help of a Portuguese fleet."
As for the descendants of Louis of Anjou, that unsuccessful candidate for the crown of the Islands, when the Foreign Revolt of 1450 broke out in Mallorca, attempts were made to accuse the rebels of treason, claiming they were seeking to make Louis's grandson, René of Anjou, king. A few years later, in 1466, Renat himself accepted the crown offered to him by the Catalan rebels against Joan Sense Fe.