L'empresa de la correge et la conquête de la Sicile: Le royaume errant de Martin de Montblanc

Abstract

The empresa of the Correge instituted by Martín, Duke of Montblanc, appears as a motto that attaches, to the Duke, a reduced group of knights, who dedicate their lifes to military exploits, single combats, pilgrimages, armed passage, around the central vow, defense of the ladies. The status, adopted before 1390 and adapted in 1392, after the occupation of Palermo, are the manifestation of a curial and royal order. Composed by twenty-one paragraphs and strongly influenced by French models, the status build up the solid architecture of a power and combat group, who seeks the conquest of Sicily, and guarantee solidarity, mutual payment of ransoms, arbitration jurisdiction, unity and efficiency at the service of the State of conquest whose soul is Martín the Young and that is governed by the Duke. When Martin of Montblanc ascended the throne of Aragon, he did not maintain the motto in his politic function. He attributed it to Catalan barons, but also to the ladies of the aris­tocracy, creating or reactivating on the other hand other pleasures of Society, without, from then on, cultivating a real politic of symbolism, that the Aragonese State did, in fact, not need.