CASE STUDY 2: FRANQUITAS AND FACTIONALISM IN DAROCA: THE LUÇERA FAMILY VS. THE ALJAMA (1267–1302)

Summary

The situation in Zaragoza was anything but unique, and in the town of Daroca the Temple and its Muslim subjects were also fighting for their rights to tax exemption – a conflict which was only one aspect of the complicated factional dynamic of the aljama. Here the battle centered on Faraig de Luçera, a Templar vassal whose franquitas had been under fire from the aljama as early as the reign of Jaume I, who had upheld the family's rights. With the administrative discontinuity inherent in a change of sovereign, however, in 1279 the aljama successfully petitioned Pere II, who was apparently unaware of his father's precedent, for the right to collect taxes from all of its members. The stage was set for a litigational battle.

More than in Zaragoza, here the aljama and the Christian officials clearly cooperated in their efforts to bring the Temple's Muslim vassals under their jurisdiction. Hence, in 1280 the Commander of Alfambra accused Michael Petri de Sancho Aznar, the local baiulus Sarracenorum, of levying taxes on the Order's Darocan subjects and denying them the right to Islamic justice. Pere II ordered his official to cease the persecution and return the goods which had been seized. The aljama had apparently decided to respond to what it perceived as a failure to contribute to its costs with a boycott of services, and the Christian official happily complied, given that he would probably have been entitled to a percentage of whatever taxes the family could be made liable for.