ABSTRACT
During the 12th century, many city-based Mediterranean magnates were consolidating their rule as trade with the Middle East and Asia quickened. Through the work of marriage and inheritance, in 1162 the counts of Barcelona also became kings of Aragon. Within ten years, they had begun new conquests across the Pyrenees. Among other territories, they annexed the small town of Perpignan and its hinterland, Roussillon. Roussillon remained attached, more or less, to Aragonese crowns (and therefore eventually to the Spanish crown) for the next half millennium.
