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James I of Aragon

King of Aragon from 1213 to 1276

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 6, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

James I the Conqueror was the 11th King of Aragon, 38th Count of Barcelona, and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276; King of Majorca from 1231 to 1276; and King of Valencia from 1238 to 1276. His long reign of 62 years is not only the longest of any Iberian monarch, but one of the longest monarchical reigns in history, ahead of Hirohito of Japan but remaining behind Elizabeth II of Britain, Queen Victoria of Britain, Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, and King Louis XIV of France.

Editorial summary

“James I of Aragon” enters the record as king of Aragon from 1213 to 1276. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what James, Aragon and King can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1213, 1276, 1231, 1238—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around James, Aragon and King.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“James I of Aragon” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, James, Aragon and King provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1213, 1276, 1231 and 1238.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “James I of Aragon”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow James I of Aragon primary sources, James I of Aragon archive and James research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “James I of Aragon”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “James I of Aragon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.