Owing to the alternate separations and unions of the Spanish kingdoms and their picturesque activities within their own realms as well as with each other and with foreign countries, the arrangement of the earlier chronicle has always puzzled historians. To carry one realm too far forward before going back to bring forward the other is destructive of a sense of synchronology, while the attempt to carry them simultaneously is as bewildering as it is difficult. To carry Castile forward to that well-known time when Isabella wed Ferdinand of Aragon is to be compelled to retrace our steps for three centuries. It seems most convenient to do as follows: Leaving Castile at the moment of the death of that easily remembered monarch Pedro the Cruel, to take up Aragon and bring its history to the same point. But once reaching there it leaves but little more to be said to bring Aragon definitely to the marriage of its prince Ferdinand with the Castilian princess Isabella. This, then, we shall do, returning thence to take up the story of Castile after the death of Pedro the Cruel, after which time the chronicle lies straight and single.[a] [Sidenote: [1196-1276 A.D.]] That gallant monarch Alfonso II, the liberal art-loving patron of the troubadours, who was endowed with such brilliant princely qualities, had either by right of inheritance or success in arms extended his sway over a great part of southern France and curbed the might of the Saracens. In 1196 he was succeeded in Aragon, Catalonia, and Roussillon by his first-born son Pedro II, while the county of Provence and the rest of his possessions in France fell to Alfonso the younger brother. Pedro had himself crowned by Pope Innocent III, perhaps with the object of investing the authority of the crown with greater prestige in the eyes of the nobles. At his coronation he swore fealty to the pope and pledged himself to pay an annual tribute to the apostolic see. In order to defray this expense he introduced a new property-tax, the _monedaje_, to be levied upon the nobles, who had hitherto been exempt from taxation. The nobles and cities, incensed at the new impost and the abasement of the crown, formed a “union” in consequence of which the king was compelled at least to reduce the tax.