Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez (Apr 2008)
Régence et continuité de l’œuvre royale
Abstract
Traditionally, the kings of Aragon and their contemporaries drew up several wills in the course of their reigns. This was the case with Pedro IV (1336-1387), seven of whose wills, drawn up between 1356 and 1379, were known until now. This article examines a bundle of papers from 1354, consisting of a will and two codicils to it, hitherto unpublished, drawn up by the monarch before leaving the Peninsula to command a military expedition to Sardinia. In addition to royal orders on his burial, religious donations, organisation of his succession and his children’s inheritance, these papers contain a very detailed proposal for a regency in the event that the monarch should die before his first-born, the Infante Juan, then three years old, reached his majority. This original plan reveals a mature concept of the exercise of royal power and Pedro’s fears for the future of the Crown of Aragon.
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