James I, byname James The Conqueror, Spanish Jaime El Conquistador (born Feb. 2, 1208, Montpellier, County of Toulouse—died July 27, 1276, Valencia, Valencia), the most renowned of the medieval kings of Aragon (1213–76), who added the Balearic Islands and Valencia to his realm and thus initiated the Catalan-Aragonese expansion in the Mediterranean that was to reach its zenith in the last decades of the 14th century.

Excerpted from Encyclopedia Britannica.