Peter Iv Of Aragon
PETER IV OF ARAGON., king. of Aragon (d. 1387), son of Alphonso IV. and his wife Teresa d'Enteca, is known as " The Ceremonious " and also as " he of the dagger." He acquired the first title by the rigid etiquette he enforced, as one means of checking the excessive freedom of his nobles. The second name was given him because he wounded himself with his dagger in the act of cutting to pieces the so-called " charter of the Union," which authorised the rebellions of his nobles, and which he forced them to give up, after he had routed them at the battle of Epila in 1348. Of no man of the 14th century can it be more truly said that his life was a warfare on earth. He had first to subdue his nobles, and to reannex the Balearic Islands to the crown of Aragon. When he had made himself master at home, he had to carry on a long and fierce contest with his namesake Peter the Cruel of Castile, which only terminated when Henry of Trastamara succeeded, largely with Aragonese help, in making himself king of Castile in 1369. Peter succeeded in making himself master of Sicily in 1377, but ceded the actual possession of the island to his son Martin. He was three times married: to Mary, daughter of Philip of Evreux, king of Navarre; to Eleanor, daughter of Alphonso IV. of Portugal; and to Eleanor, daughter of Peter II. of Sicily, his cousin. The marriage of his daughter by his third marriage, Eleanor, with John I. of Castile, carried the crown of Aragon to the Castilian line when his male representatives became extinct on the death of his son Martin in 1410.
See Zurita, Angles de Aragon (Saragossa, 1610).
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
