With, Without or Against the King: Communities as Actors of Diplomacy, with a Special Focus on the Iberian Peninsula in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

This paper aims to analyse in a comparative perspective diplomatic exchanges involving the Christian realms of the Iberian peninsula, especially the crown of Aragon, during the later middle ages. In a framework of legal pluralism, two types of community—kingdoms and towns—were especially important in diplomatic practice. The diplomacies of kings, communities within kingdoms and towns interacted in complex entanglements. When kings were absent or became the enemy of communities, the diplomatic role of the latter could increase dramatically. This phenomenon is explored in two case-studies: the so-called ‘great division’ of the Mallorcan king’s lands (1324–26) and the Catalan civil war (1462–73). Some communities appear to have had an expert knowledge of diplomatic codes, practices and languages. The execution of diplomacy could be challenging and crucial for the resilience of communities but it could also reveal the fragility of their unity.