Bernard Desclot

Bernard Desclot was a Catalan chronicler whose work covering the brief reign of Peter III of Aragon (1276-1285) forms one of the four Catalan Grand Chronicles through which the modern historian views thirteenth- and fourteenth century military and political matters in the Kingdom of Aragon and the Principality of Catalonia, including the "Aragonese Crusade". Desclot's Chronicle begins in the eleventh century but gains especial interest when he comes to describe events current within living memory. Bernard's literary model was Romance, and his account is spiced with dramatic monologues of the central characters and thrilling episodes, such as the escape of Peter's brother, James II of Majorca, from the fortress of Perpignan, through the castle's drains.