Sancho I ruled Majorca as a vassal of the Aragonese crown, a political arrangement established by the Treaty of Perpignan in 1279 that kept the island kingdom in perpetual tension between genuine autonomy and feudal subordination. His reign was further complicated by severe asthma — documented as debilitating by contemporary sources — which forced him to spend much of his time at high altitude in the Pyrenean territories rather than in Palma. The billon diner was the workhorse denomination of his small realm, circulating across Majorca, Roussillon, and Montpellier, the three geographically disconnected pieces of a kingdom held together largely by dynastic obligation.
Sancho I ruled Majorca as a vassal of the Aragonese crown, a political arrangement established by the Treaty of Perpignan in 1279 that kept the island kingdom in perpetual tension between genuine autonomy and feudal subordination. His reign was further complicated by severe asthma — documented as debilitating by contemporary sources — which forced him to spend much of his time at high altitude in the Pyrenean territories rather than in Palma. The billon diner was the workhorse denomination of his small realm, circulating across Majorca, Roussillon, and Montpellier, the three geographically disconnected pieces of a kingdom held together largely by dynastic obligation.