Abstract
The tradition that the Mercedarians, a Catalan ransoming order dating from the reign of Jaume I, was established by the monarchy is traced to the fourteenth century and seen within the context of church–state relations. The royal legend was originated by Jaume II for purely fiscal reasons, and was not intended as a challenge to papal prerogatives. For very different reasons, the legend was taken up and elaborated by Pere III just after the Black Death. At first the king's intention was merely to prevent a Mercedarian merger with the Trinitarians, a redemptionist order with strong roots in France and Castile. Soon, however, the king argued that this royal foundation gave the monarchy a ius patronus, and on this basis the king began to seek the nomination of loyalists to offices within the Order. At the same time, the king assumed extraordinary powers over individual Mercedarians, who as chaplains and familiars served as royal agents. This royal appropriation of the Mercedarians was part of a broader strategy to use ecclesiastical corporations as sources of revenue and as political counters to royal opponents, foreign and domestic. The Mercedarian experience stands out only in the degree of the king's success.
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