While the origin of the Crown of Aragon can be traced back to the dynastic union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Catalonia, in 1137—giving birth to the Catalan-Aragonese Confederation—this Brill Companion to European History begins in the post-Carolingian period and ends in the early eighteenth century. The majority of the nineteen essays focus on the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but the longitudinal approach effectively circumscribes a nationally centered narrative. This, as Flocel Sabaté rightfully points out, has led to a “teleological view of history” that has obscured, and even erased, the history of even as powerful a player as the Crown of Aragon (vii).

The Crown of Aragon was not technically an empire—only Byzantium or the Holy Roman Empire had the right to the title—but its expansion certainly qualifies it as such. At its largest, it included the Principality of Catalonia, the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, Sicily, Naples, and Sardinia, and the Balearic Islands, and it had control over the duchies of Athens and Neopatras in the Eastern Mediterranean. Its singularity comes from its major contradiction of being “an economic power house” in the Mediterranean—a second generation of merchants following the Italians—albeit with a decentralized political system that gave way to a mosaic of jurisdictions and autonomous local political institutions (515).

The marginalization of the Aragonese territories after the Habsburgs succeeded to the double Trastámara inheritance (Castile and Aragon), only strengthened the medieval model of participative government, culminating with the well-known Revolt of the Catalans (1640). But it was actually the settlement of Utrecht (1713) at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession that geographically severed the Crown of Aragon, with the permanent loss of Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and Minorca. The abolition of the political traditions of local autonomous government with the adoption of the Nova Planta by the Bourbon dynasty, the new ruling dynasty since 1700, caused an important part of the Crown of Aragon's identity since its inception to cease to exist. The year 1716 thus provides a coherent and satisfying ending point to this volume, effectively avoiding the worn-out—and obscuring—rise-and-decline paradigm of imperial histories.

Regional coverage is also effective and balanced, and while the volume does not shy away from identifying Catalonia as the dominant player within the Crown, other regions—the islands and constitutive kingdoms of Valencia, Aragon, Naples—receive meaningful attention. Scholars of Jewish and Islamic history will also find the volume useful; not only are there chapters specifically dedicated to these groups, but references to them are incorporated throughout the volume, as an integral part of the history of the Crown. There are some excellent chapters, such as that by Lola Badia and Isabel Grifol on Jewish influence on the royal court during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. A lucid concluding essay by David Abulafia reminds us that Valencia became a laboratory where Christian rulers figured out how to deal with the Muslim population, the implications of which lasted for centuries and were felt in the Mediterranean and even across the Atlantic. In turn, this highlights the advantages of producing historical narratives focusing on process rather than outcomes. Economic and cultural historians will find much useful material on urban manufacturing and long-distance trade, which facilitated the dissemination of Aragonese culture, and solid discussions of Aragon's role in the spice and silk trades. Original maps, such as the ones depicting the Aragonese consulates in the Mediterranean, add to the value of the collection. All the authors place the political, literary, linguistic, artistic, architectural, regional, social, and economic history of the Crown of Aragon within a larger regional history of the Mediterranean, making this a recommended read for medievalists, Renaissance scholars, and early modernists.

Women and gender receive marginal coverage in the volume, and it is surprising that no specific chapters were commissioned on the topic. This is particularly problematic given that recent and groundbreaking work on medieval and Aragonese queenship (by Theresa Earenfight and others) has been so critical in the reconceptualization of kingship and monarchy. Despite this major blind spot, this important volume will be of great value to any student of European history.