Over the course of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries – at the heart of the Spanish Reconquest – thousands of Muslim cavalry soldiers, whom the Catalans called jenets, entered the service of the Christian Crown of Aragon. This study attempts to explain how and why these soldiers joined the army of a Christian king as well as what their alliance may mean to the broader and on-going project of theorizing the connection between violence, religion, and political authority in the Middle Ages.

The dissertation is divided into five main chapters, which together follow the journey of the jenets into and ultimately out of the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon. Chapter Two examines the pre-history of the alliance of the jenets with the Crown of Aragon. In short, it asks who the jenets were. On the basis of treaties and records of negotiations, Chapters Three and Four map the contexts in which and the processes by which the Crown of Aragon recruited Muslim soldiers for service in its armies. Chapter Five examines in detail the relationship between the Catalan kings and their Muslim soldiers. More particularly, it explores the military, legal, and symbolic significance of the jenets to the political authority of the Crown of Aragon. Finally, Chapter Six examines the life of the jenets beyond the Christian sovereign and the limits of their service. It asks how Christian soldiers, administrators, and villagers reacted to the presence of the Muslim jenets as agents of the Crown of Aragon. Most significantly, it explores the relationship of the jenets to the Crown's Mudéjars and the potential for resistance and rebellion in their shared religious identity.