Crown of Aragon

From Hispanopedia
Not to be confused with Kingdom of Aragon.
Crown of Aragon
1164–1707
Flag of Crown of Aragon
Royal Standard of Aragon
Royal Standard of Aragon of Crown of Aragon
Royal Standard of Aragon
Crown of Aragon in 1441.
Crown of Aragon in 1441.
CapitalItinerant (at first)[1] / (later, see section Capital of the Crown of Aragon)
Official languagesRoyal chancery:[2]
Aragonese
Catalan/Valencian[3][4][5]
Latin[3]
Non-official languagesNeapolitan, Sardinian, Sicilian, Occitan, Castilian, Arabic,[6] Greek
Religion
Catholic
GovernmentMonarchy
King 
• 1164–1196
Alfonso II
• 1700–1724; 1724–1746
Philip IV and V of Castile
History 
• Dynastic union between Aragon and Barcelona
1164
• Conquest of Majorca
1229
• Conquest of Valencia
1238–1245
• Conquest of Sicily
1282
• Conquest of Naples
1504
• Union of Castile and Aragon
March 14, 1516
June 29 1707
CurrencyOf account: pound, sueldo, Dinero.
In circulation: alfonsí, aragonés, armellino, carlino, cavallo (Naples), cornado or coronado, croat, dinar, Aragonese real, sestino (Naples), timbre.
Billon: ardite, dobler, meaja, menudo or menut, obol, ecclesiastical pellofa,[9] Jaca dinero.
Gold: agostar or gold pirrial, mancuso, Aragonese florin, Ducat and Escudo.[10][11]
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
Kingdom of Aragon
Catalan counties
Kingdom of Naples
Kingdom of Sicily
Third taifa kingdoms
Bourbon Reformism
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies

The Crown of Aragon (in Aragonese: Corona d'Aragón; in Catalan: Corona d'Aragó; also known by other alternative names) encompassed the set of territories that were under the jurisdiction of the King of Aragon, from 1164 to 1707.[7][8] On November 13, 1137, Ramiro II the Monk, King of Aragon, in what is known as the Renunciation of Zaragoza, entrusted the kingdom (though not the dignity of king) to his son-in-law Ramon Berenguer, who thereafter signed as Count of Barcelona and Prince of Aragon. Petronilla took the title of "Queen of Aragon" and Ramon Berenguer that of prince and ruler of Aragon. According to some modern historians, the marriage was carried out in the form of a Matrimonio en Casa ("marriage into the house"; this means that, in the absence of a male descendant, the husband performs the function of government, but not that of head of the house, which is granted only to the heir),[12] although there is no historiographical consensus on the matter.[13] In 1164, Alfonso II of Aragon would inherit the joint patrimony.

Later, through the conquest of new territories and through marriage, this union of the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona under a single crown (the so-called «Crown of Aragon») would expand its territories to include other dominions: chiefly the kingdoms of Majorca, Valencia, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia and Naples, as well as the duchies of Athens (from 1331 to 1388) and Neopatria (between 1319 and 1390).

With the wedding of the Catholic Monarchs in 1469, the process of convergence with the Crown of Castile began, forming the basis of what would later become the Catholic Monarchy, although the different kingdoms would retain their legal systems and characteristics. With the Nueva Planta decrees of 1705–1716, Philip V finally eliminated most of these privileges and fueros.

Some present-day historians tend to refer to the monarchs by their epithet rather than by their number, because some of them had a different number depending on the territory being referred to. For example, "Peter the Catholic" instead of "Peter II of Aragon".

Alternative names

The name «Crown of Aragon» is applied in present-day historiography from the dynastic union between the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona onward,[14] although it was not used historically until the reign of James II the Just at the end of the 13th century, and between the 12th century and the 14th the most widespread expression for referring to the dominions of the King of Aragon was «Casal d'Aragó».[15]

Between the 13th and 15th centuries, the King's possessions as a whole were designated by various names such as «Corona regni Aragonum» (Crown of the Kingdom of Aragon), «Corona Regum Aragoniae» (Crown of the Kings of Aragon), «Corona Aragonum» (Crown of Aragon) or «Corona Regia», and Lalinde Abadía points out that there are not many more reasons to speak of the «Crown of Aragon» than of the «Crown of the Kingdom of Aragon» or other denominations whose common element is that they designate the set of lands and peoples subject to the jurisdiction of the King of Aragon.[16] Other names from the end of the 13th century are «Royal Crown» and «Royal Patrimony», and exceptionally, in the context of the Privilege of annexation of Majorca to the Crown of Aragon of 1286, the expression «regno, dominio et corona Aragonum et Catalonie» appears (Kingdom, dominion and Crown of Aragon and Catalonia, alluding to the Kingdom of Aragon and the Catalan counties integrated within the Crown of Aragon), although only five years later, in 1291, in the renewal of these privileges, the text already speaks of «Kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia and county of Barcelona».[17] From the 18th century onward, the term «Crown of Aragon»,[18] «Kingdoms of Aragon» or simply «Aragon» was used more.

On the other hand, there is a sector of historiography that considers the territorial structure of the Crown of Aragon equivalent to that of a present-day confederation.[19] However, this conception is disputed, since it applies present-day political concepts to political structures of the Middle Ages. Another point of dispute is referring to the Crown of Aragon as the Catalan-Aragonese crown,[20][21] since this denomination was established in the 19th century and arose from the Renaixença,[21] in works such as the monograph by Antonio de Bofarull, La confederación catalano-aragonesa (Barcelona, Luis Tasso, 1872).[22] Finally, it should be noted that the term Crown of Aragon itself, despite being more deeply rooted and widely used in present-day historiography in Castilian, is not free of controversy among specialists either.[18]

The formation of the Crown of Aragon

The formation of the Crown has its origin in the dynastic union between the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona.

After the death without issue of Alfonso the Battler in 1134, during the siege of Fraga, his will ceded his kingdoms to the military orders of the Holy Sepulchre, of the Hospital of Jerusalem and of the Templars. In the face of this unprecedented event, the inhabitants of Navarre, which at that time formed part of the possessions of the King of Aragon, proclaimed García V Ramírez king and separated definitively from Aragon. In this context, the Aragonese nobles did not accept the will either, and named as new king Ramiro II the Monk, Alfonso's brother, who was then Bishop of Roda-Barbastro. In view of this situation, Alfonso VII of León took the opportunity to claim succession rights to the throne of Aragon, while García V made his aspirations known and the Pope demanded that the will be carried out.

The claims of León created a problem for the Count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer, since they coincided with the rivalry between the county and the Kingdom of Aragon over the conquest of the Muslim lands of the taifa of Lérida. King Alfonso VII made his intentions clear when, in December 1134, he entered Zaragoza with a daring expedition and made Ramiro flee. However, these events did not end up favoring the aspirations of the Leonese King, who would finally have to renounce his claims to the Aragonese kingdom. For his part, Ramiro II, despite his ecclesiastical condition, married Agnes of Poitiers,[23] a marriage from which they had a daughter, Petronilla, in 1136. This made it necessary to plan the girl's future marriage, which meant choosing between the Castilian dynasty and that of Barcelona.

Anales de la Corona de Aragón, by Jerónimo Zurita.

The County of Barcelona was at that time in the hands of Ramon Berenguer IV. Previously, he had already consolidated his supremacy over other Catalan counties such as Osona, Gerona or Besalú. At the same time, the power of the Barcelonan fleet had become evident, with events such as the temporary conquest of Majorca (1114) or the expeditions carried out by the counts of Barcelona into Moorish lands of Valencia, although their intentions were thwarted by the intervention of Castile, personified by Alfonso VI and El Cid (defeat of Berenguer Ramon the Fratricide at the Battle of Tévar). At the same time, a policy of alliances beyond the Pyrenees was initiated, which would culminate in the union of Barcelona and Provence through the marriage of Ramon Berenguer III to Douce of Provence.

Alfonso VII put forward the candidacy of his son Sancho, the future Sancho III of Castile, but the Aragonese nobility ended up choosing the House of Barcelona, with which the terms of the agreement were negotiated in detail, under which Ramon Berenguer IV would receive the title of "prince" and "ruler" of Aragon. It was specified that if Queen Petronilla died before Berenguer, the kingdom would not pass into the hands of the Count until after Ramiro's death. In addition, the Kingdom would indeed pass into the hands of Berenguer if Petronilla died without issue, or had only daughters, or had sons who died without issue.

Ramon Berenguer agreed with the Aragonese King Ramiro: And may I, King Ramiro, be king, lord and father in my kingdom of Aragon and in all your counties for as long as it pleases me, handing over to the Crown of Aragon all his dominions as "ruler" or princeps[24] to exercise the royal potestas, but he ceded neither the title of King nor the dignity nor the surname or lineage.

Ramon Berenguer's capacity to exercise the royal potestas in Aragon is shown in facts such as that it is to the Count of Barcelona (venerande Barchinonensium comes), as ruler of Aragon,[25] that the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, the Hospitallers and the Templars granted their rights as heirs of King Alfonso in accordance with his will, thus recognizing him as the reigning sovereign over the Aragonese territories.[26]

In 1164, the son of Ramon Berenguer and Petronilla, Alfonso II of Aragon, would become the first king of the Crown, and both he and his successors would inherit the titles of "King of Aragon" and "Count of Barcelona".

The resulting entity was a mere dynastic union, since both territories kept their usages, customs and currency, and from the 14th century onward they developed their own political institutions. In the same way, the territories annexed later through the expansionist policy of the Crown would create and keep their own institutions separate. The work of Jerónimo Zurita of 1580, Anales de la Corona de Aragón, contributed decisively to the spread of this denomination, which would prevail from the 16th century onward. The term «Crown of Aragon» reflects the pre-eminence of the principal title of dignity by which the set of territories was known, already recognized by Peter IV the Ceremonious: «the kings of Aragon are obliged to receive the anointing in the city of Zaragoza, which is the head of the Kingdom of Aragon, which kingdom is our principal designation and title».[27] Thus, apart from the common figure of the monarch, the various political entities that made up the Crown always maintained their respective administrative, economic and juridical independence.[28]

The territories of the new Crown

Peninsular and Balearic expansion of the Crown of Aragon.
Peninsular territories of the crown, within present-day Spain. In pink: Roussillon, handed over to France by the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659); the Principality of Andorra, which was part of the County of Urgell; the present-day municipalities of Santa Cruz de Moya (present-day Province of Cuenca), which belonged for a brief period to the Kingdom of Valencia, and Caudete (present-day Province of Albacete), which also historically belonged to the Kingdom of Valencia. Note that the present-day Alicante municipalities of Villena and Sax are excluded because they historically belonged to the Kingdom of Murcia (Crown of Castile) until 1836, as is part of the present-day comarca of Requena-Utiel, which also belonged to the Crown of Castile until 1851.
As a result of the testamentary resolutions of 1243 and 1244, James I of Aragon defined the limits between Catalonia and the Kingdom of Aragon. The limits of Catalonia were extended «from Salses to the Cinca» and the limits of the kingdom and land of Aragon were set «from the Cinca to Ariza»:
Incipit: «Quia super limitibus Cathalonie et Aragonum (...) predecessorum nostrorum vestigiis inherentes comitatum Barchinone cum Cathalonia universa a Salsis usque Cincham ex certa scientia limitamus (...) Regnum autem terram Aragonum a Cincha usque ad Ferizam consituimus»[29]
(ACA, Canc. Perg. Jaime I, n. 935 d.)
The Crown of Aragon at its greatest extent.

The territories that became part of the Crown of Aragon were the following:

As for juridical status, the new acquisitions of Ramon Berenguer IV (Daroca, Monreal del Campo, Montalbán) and Alfonso II (Teruel, Alcañiz) in the Aragonese territories south of Zaragoza, which had already been subdued and later lost by Alfonso I the Battler, were incorporated without interruption into the Kingdom of Aragon and its usages and customs, obtaining fueros and settlement charters inherited from those of Jaca and Zaragoza.

As regards the independent counties: Urgel, the Counties of Pallars (which had no border with the County of Barcelona, being separated from that house by the powerful County of Urgel, and which consisted of Pallars Sobirá or Upper Pallars and Pallars Jussá or Lower Pallars), Roussillon and the County of Ampurias, each was incorporated into the Crown in different ways from the second half of the 12th century to the 14th century. Some, such as that of Urgel, maintained an independent comital dynasty until 1314, although from the 13th century it was bound by ties of vassalage to the King of Aragon.[31]

  • The County of Roussillon was ruled by Count Girard II of Roussillon, who died without succession in 1172. His will established that Roussillon «I give it all in its entirety to my lord the king of the Aragonese» because of the faith he placed in his sovereign Alfonso II, who was immediately recognized as King in Perpignan.[32]
  • Lower Pallars was an independent county with greater economic resources than Upper Pallars, and its count Arnal Mir of Pallars Jussà was a feudatory of Alfonso I the Battler and played an important role in the union of Queen Petronilla and Count Ramon Berenguer IV. In 1193 Alfonso II of Aragon intervened militarily in Lower Pallars in defense of the interests of the descendants of Arnal Mir, who (as Martin Aurell points out in 1995)[34] handed it over to «tibi Ildefonso, venerabili rege Aragonis et comiti Barchinone et marchio Provincie» because of the fidelity and homage rendered to Aragon for more than a century.[35]

The expansion of the Crown of Aragon

Arms of Aragon and Sicily

During the government of Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronilla, the cities of Tortosa, Lérida, Fraga and Mequinenza were conquered, in addition to the Sierra de Prades, Siurana, Miravet...

Also during the government of Ramon Berenguer IV, the episcopal see of Tarragona recovered in 1154 the rank of metropolitan see, thus separating itself from the see of Narbonne. Its suffragan bishoprics became the sees of the County of Barcelona, of the County of Urgel and of the Ebro Valley as far as Calahorra and Pamplona. This is, according to Ubieto, a key element in the formation of a political identity.[38]

Under the reign of Alfonso II of Aragon, more lands were conquered to the south, reaching as far as Teruel, and with the treaties of Tudilén (1151) and Cazora (1179), the Crown set its line of peninsular expansion over the Muslim kingdoms of Valencia and Denia.

Conquests of the Crown of Aragon in the Iberian Peninsula.

To consolidate his monarchy, Peter II of Aragon had appeared before Pope Innocent III in 1205 in order to enfeoff Aragon to the papacy. However, shortly afterwards the Aragonese King clashed with the interests of Rome by defending his vassals beyond the Pyrenees against the crusade against the Cathars promoted by the Holy See. The defeat of Peter II in 1213 at the Battle of Muret forced the Crown to renounce its interests beyond the Pyrenees and direct its expansive energy toward the Mediterranean and the Levant.

During the reign of James I, the conquest of Majorca and of the Kingdom of Valencia took place, during the first half of the 13th century. Once the conquest of the former Kingdom of Denia as far as Biar, the limit agreed in the Treaty of Cazola, was completed, the Levantine lands were not incorporated into Catalonia or Aragon, but instead constituted a new kingdom, that of Valencia, which would acquire its own Cortes, fueros and currency, the dinero of Valencia;[39][40][41] and an army made up of militias. It would maintain a linguistic duality between the territories closest to the coast (Catalan speech in its Valencian variety) and those of the interior (Aragonese speech in its Valencian variety). The process of settlement of the Kingdom of Valencia was a long one that would not end until the 17th century, after the expulsion of the Moriscos. The population of the Kingdom of Valencia was from the beginning of diverse origin (Catalans, Aragonese, Navarrese, Occitans...), but that of Catalan origin predominated, initially counting 1,018 households against 597 of the Aragonese,[42] and with the expulsion of the Moriscos the Catalan-speaking element was strengthened even further. Likewise, after the death of the Conqueror, his will would give rise to the Kingdom of Majorca, which was inherited by his son James and which included the Balearic Islands, the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya and the Lordship of Montpellier. This Kingdom of Majorca would prove politically very unstable and would finally be annexed anew and definitively to the Crown by Peter the Ceremonious.

Expansion of the Crown in the Mediterranean around 1385.

From the end of the 13th century the expansion of the Crown across the Mediterranean also began. James II retained the dominion over the crown of Sicily obtained by Peter III of Aragon, although until the 15th century it would remain under the rule of a secondary branch of the dynasty. James II also received the investiture of Sardinia, which he would conquer in 1324 and which would require a hard effort of domination during the following years. Likewise, he extended the limits of the Kingdom of Valencia southward, which through the Arbitral Sentence of Torrellas (1304) would reach their definitive boundaries.

The Llibre del Consolat de Mar (The Consulate of the Sea), a code of maritime customs, was created. In addition, various maritime companies were founded, such as the Magnas Societas Cathalanorum (Great Catalan Company), thanks to which in 1380 territories such as the duchies of Athens and Neopatria would be conquered, coming under the sovereignty of Peter the Ceremonious. In this way, the ensign of the four bars of Aragon flew for almost a century over the Acropolis of Athens.

The royal chancery

Main article: Aragonese royal chancery

During this historical moment of great territorial expansion and political influence, the Crown of Aragon equipped itself with a bureaucratic and administrative structure, the royal chancery, which reached its fullness from the time of Peter the Ceremonious, who reformed it and structured it rigidly, incorporating, among others, scribes, secretaries and protonotaries and strictly fixing their functions. Upon it fell the responsibility of drafting the correspondence of the King and that of his council, both in matters of internal and international policy, as well as preserving the corresponding copies in the royal archive, which has survived practically intact to our day, so that it constitutes one of the most important medieval documentary collections in the world.[43]

All members of the chancery had to be extremely skilled in drafting texts in Latin, Catalan and Aragonese, the working languages of the chancery, which in modern terms we would call official. The origin of the present-day extension of Catalan lies in the Crown of Aragon, where Catalan was the dominant and most widely spoken language, since it was spoken by 80% of the population [citation needed]. This joint mastery of the vernacular languages and the learned one had various effects of great significance for the history of Aragonese and Catalan:

  • Stylistic, rhetorical and grammatical elements were transferred to the vernacular languages, which acquired a special precision and formal elegance.[44]
  • The territorial capillarity of the chancery's documentation shaped a linguistic model that was adopted in the respective territories, exerting a unifying and supra-dialectal influence both in the administrative sphere and in literary prose, which the other vernacular languages would take centuries to acquire with the establishment of the academies.[45]
  • The officials of the chancery approached learned literature in Latin, from Cicero to Petrarch, translating their works and constituting one of the earliest manifestations of humanism, and later of the literary Renaissance. Without these precedents it is not possible to explain the appearance of figures such as Juan Fernández de Heredia in the Aragonese case or Bernat Metge and the Valencian Golden Age, particularly as regards the Valenciana prosa, for Valencian.[43]

Capital of the Crown of Aragon

The seat of the coronation was the Seo of Zaragoza from the time of Peter II (12th century).[27][46][47] The General Cortes almost always met in Monzón (13th–16th centuries); on the remaining occasions they took place in Fraga, Zaragoza, Calatayud and Tarazona. The seat of the chancery (13th–15th centuries) was Barcelona,[48] and Naples was so during the reign of Alfonso V.[49] In a period between the end of the reign of Martin the Humane and the beginning of that of Alfonso V, Valencia is considered to have been the de facto capital of the Crown of Aragon. On the other hand, the General Archive of the Crown of Aragon, which was the official repository of the Crown's royal documentation from the reign of Alfonso II (12th century),[50] was located first in the Monastery of Sigena until 1301[51] and afterwards definitively in Barcelona. The historian Domingo Buesa identifies Zaragoza as the permanent de facto political capital, though not so in other spheres such as the economic or administrative.[52]

The kings of the Crown were buried mainly in the Poblet Monastery. Other places were the Santes Creus Monastery, the Monastery of Sigena, the Convent of Saint Francis of Barcelona, the Cathedral of Lérida and the Cathedral of Granada (Ferdinand the Catholic, last exclusive king of Aragon before the union with Castile).

From the change of dynasty to the dynastic union with Castile

Equestrian heraldic representation of the King of Aragon in the Equestrian Armorial of the Golden Fleece, 1433–1435.

After the death of Martin the Humane in 1410, the Crown was plunged into a period of interregnum, since he died without having named a successor. In that context, six candidates for the throne appeared: the infante Frederick of Luna, Alfonso of Aragon the Elder (and on his death his brother, John of Prades), Louis of Anjou, James of Urgell and Ferdinand of Antequera, whose aspirations to the throne were resolved by means of the Compromise of Caspe. The difficulty of the governing bodies of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia in reaching an agreement revealed a serious division within the Crown, which would evolve favorably for Ferdinand of Antequera, of the Castilian dynasty of the Trastámara. The juridical rather than military resolution was helped by the action of Pope Benedict XIII, who, in the midst of the Western Schism, chose to promote a consensus in which a limited group of jurists and experts in matters of State, recognized for their ethical integrity, would determine which claimant had the greater rights to the throne. Thus, in 1412, Ferdinand was named Monarch of the Crown. The new dynasty would persist in the expansionist policy, so that his successor, Alfonso V, would conquer the Kingdom of Naples in 1443.

The growth of the patrimony of the Aragonese Crown led to ever more prolonged absences of the Monarch from the different kingdoms of the Crown, which increased the Crown's weakness and made relations with its subjects difficult. Thus was created the figure of the lieutenant, as alter ego of the Monarch, a temporary office to cover the absences of the Monarch, which were not supposed to be permanent.[53] These lieutenants belonged not only to the blood family but also to the domestic household linked to the King's family.[54]

In 1460, the Cortes of Fraga recorded the oath of the new king John II and a declaration that the kingdoms of Sardinia and Sicily would be in perpetual and indivisible union within the Crown of Aragon, but governed separately; and in 1503 Ferdinand II acquired the Kingdom of Naples. The kingdoms of Sicily, Naples and Sardinia were configured as singular states of the Crown of Aragon, with the presence of a Viceroy holding regal powers, so that they had a royal household (vice casa) and he could preside over the Parliaments, which the lieutenants in the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula could not do; this meant that the viceroyalty in the Italian kingdoms was a figure to cover the permanent absence of the King, recreating a permanent presence by means of the Viceroy.[55]

The wedding between Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella the Catholic, celebrated in 1469 in Valladolid, and the consequent alliance allowed the Castilians to support Aragon's expansionist line in the Mediterranean, as they had a common foreign policy. Despite the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs of 1469, both kingdoms largely kept their political institutions, and the courts, laws, public administrations and currency were maintained, although they unified foreign policy, the royal treasury and the army. They reserved political matters for the Crown, and acted jointly in internal policy. The effective union of the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon and Navarre took place under the reign of Charles I, who was the first to adopt, together with his mother Joanna, the abbreviated title of King of the Spains and of the Indies.[56][57][58]

The territories of the Crown of Aragon in the Modern Age

Catalan constitutions based on the old Usatges of Barcelona

The integration of the territories of the Crown of Aragon into the Hispanic Monarchy of the House of Austria was marked by the hegemonic power of Castile within the Crown. It was articulated fundamentally through two institutions: the Council of Aragon and the Viceroy. The Supreme Council of Aragon was a consultative body of the crown created in 1494, as a result of a reform of the Royal Chancery carried out by Ferdinand the Catholic, which from 1522 would be composed of a vice-chancellor and six regents, two for the Kingdom of Aragon, two for the Kingdom of Valencia and two for the Principality of Catalonia, Majorca and Sardinia. For their part, the viceroys assumed military, administrative, judicial and financial functions.

Conflicts followed one another throughout the modern centuries, up to the War of Succession. In 1521 the Germanías took place, a movement that arose in Valencia among the incipient bourgeoisie and lasted until 1523. In Majorca another similar movement took place in the same years, led by Joanot Colom. The final defeat of the agermanados brought harsh repression and the reaffirmation of seigneurial dominion. During the reign of Philip II, subjects of the Crown of Aragon were prohibited from studying abroad, in view of the risk of Calvinist contagion (1568). Likewise, in 1569, all the deputies of the Diputación del General were imprisoned on charges of heresy, within the framework of the dispute over the payment of the excusado tax.

In 1591, the Alterations of Aragon took place, produced when the King's former secretary, Antonio Pérez, convicted for the death of the secretary of Don John of Austria, took refuge in Aragon by availing himself of the Privilege of Manifestation; in response, the Monarch for his part used the jurisdiction of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition to arrest him in the Aljafería, which was stormed by Zaragoza militias, provoking a confrontation between troops armed by the Generalidad and led by the Justicia Mayor, Juan V de Lanuza, and the royal Tercios. Finally, after the King's victory, the Justicia Mayor de Aragón was executed and cortes were convened in Tarazona in 1592, which seriously curtailed Aragonese privileges, abolishing the competence of Defense and Guard of the Kingdom held by the Diputación and preventing it from using the revenue obtained from the impuesto de Generalidades to raise an army of its own, with a «reparo» (reform) that sought to prevent the Diputación del General from exceeding the fiscal competences for which it had been created.

During the 17th century, the tensions were considerably greater. The financial needs of the monarchs led them to try by every means to increase the fiscal pressure on the territories of the Crown of Aragon, whose fueros imposed important restrictions on the revenue needs of the Hispanic Monarchy. After the crown went to war with France in 1635, the deployment of the tercios in Catalonia generated serious conflicts that triggered the Reapers' War in 1640. Thus the Diputación del General, first proposing the formation of a Catalan Republic, ended up recognizing Louis XIII of France as Count of Barcelona. The conflict was finally overcome with the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659), by which the County of Roussillon and the northern half of the County of Cerdanya passed forever to French dominion, and Spain retained the region of Lower Cerdanya. At the end of the century, in 1693, the Second Germanía would also break out in Valencia, an anti-seigneurial peasant uprising over the division of harvests.

The extinction of the Crown of Aragon: the War of Succession

Royal Cédula of Charles III (1768).

Despite the gravity of the Reapers' conflict, Catalonia and the rest of the territories of the Crown preserved their fueros, their own institutions and political autonomy. However, the events following the proclamation of Philip V as heir of Charles II would mark the end of the institutional model that had characterized them since the Middle Ages.

When Charles II died and finally left Philip of Anjou, Philip V, as his heir, the Grand Alliance of The Hague was formed in Europe between England, the United Provinces and Austria, which did not accept the establishment of the Bourbon monarchy in Spain and supported the aspirations of another claimant, Archduke Charles of Austria. Philip had initially been sworn in as King by the Catalan cortes (1701–1702) and the Aragonese ones; in 1705, the strength of the Archduke's supporters and the conflicts with the Viceroy Francisco Antonio Fernández de Velasco led to a new armed uprising of the Catalans, which, supported by an English fleet, allowed the Archduke's triumphal entry into Valencia and Barcelona. The following year, 1706, Charles was proclaimed King in Zaragoza and in the Kingdom of Majorca. However, the allies did not find support in their advances on Castile, which led them to withdraw to the Kingdom of Valencia. The military reaction of Philip V in the following year brought the conquest of the Kingdom of Valencia, after the Battle of Almansa (April 25, 1707). The same happened with Zaragoza and the Kingdom of Aragon, which were quickly taken. After this, Philip of Anjou signed the Nueva Planta decrees, with which he abolished the fueros, the civil law and the customs borders of those kingdoms. A new incursion of the allies into Castile in 1710, despite their entry into Zaragoza and Madrid, did not serve to consolidate their positions either, and forced them to abandon Aragon. In September the Archduke left Barcelona and, through the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, the allied troops progressively left Catalonia. On September 11, 1714, Barcelona was taken, and in 1715 the Island of Majorca. The Bourbon triumph was followed by a radical remodeling of the political system of the kingdoms of the Crown, assimilating them to the regime of Castile by means of the Nueva Planta decrees.

The Crown after the Nueva Planta

Spain on an 1852 map, according to the prevailing regime. Marked in green, the "incorporated or assimilated Spain", formed by the eleven provinces of the crown of Aragon, «still different in the manner of contributing and in some points of private law».

With the Nueva Planta decrees promulgated between 1707 and 1716, a Captain General was placed at the head of the territory, a successor of the former viceroy who would no longer be subject to the territory's own laws. The intendants came to control the financial and fiscal system, in which were combined the traditional revenues of the Crown, the old taxes of the Diputaciones del General and the new taxes applied to equalize the fiscal burden of the territories of the former Crown of Aragon with that of the Castilians. The Nueva Planta also brought the suppression of municipal autonomy and of every kind of municipal assembly, the appointment of all offices by royal authority and the replacement of administrative units by corregimientos. Castilian became the sole language of the Real Audiencia, to the detriment of Latin and of the vernacular languages (Catalan and Aragonese) in the administration of justice of the Bourbon Monarchy. This whole set of reforms meant the homogenization of Castile and Aragon within the framework of a new, almost centralized, absolute state, and the foral particularities were maintained only in private law (civil, commercial, procedural and criminal), the Consulate of the Sea and in the territories that had not fought against Philip V in the War of Succession: the Aran Valley, the Basque provinces and Navarre.

The Austracist exiles from the former Crown formed some temporary settlements in Europe, as in the case of New Barcelona, active from 1735 to 1738. For its part, the Memorial of Grievances of 1760 was a document of demands presented jointly by the deputies of the cities of Zaragoza, Valencia, Palma de Mallorca and Barcelona in political representation of the «four kingdoms» of the extinct Crown. In the Cortes convened at the beginning of the reign of Charles III of Spain, the deputies representing the former Crown of Aragon denounced the grievances to which they had been subjected since the Nueva Planta decrees of Philip V, and the remedies to resolve them.[59] The Catalan politician Antoni de Capmany championed the constitutional monarchy of the Crown of Aragon[60] during the Cortes of Cádiz in 1812. But the collapse of the Bourbon absolutist Ancien Régime in 1833 did not bring about the recovery of the constitutional system proper to the states of the Crown of Aragon. Subsequently, the memory of the Crown of Aragon would occasionally be revived, as in the case of the newspaper La Corona de Aragón, founded in 1854, and it would be a concept used in politics by some parties, as in the case of the Pact of Tortosa of 1869.

Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion as it was proposed in 2003. Created in 2004, the Valencian Community ultimately did not join the project. In 2006 Aragon suspended its participation in the euroregion.

More recently, the President of Catalonia Pasqual Maragall called in 2003 for the creation of a euroregion corresponding to the former Crown of Aragon, also incorporating the French regions of Languedoc-Rousillon and Midi-Pyrénées. Pasqual Maragall stated that the Spanish state should not see a threat in this, since «it is perfectly in line with the concerns and priorities of the European Union», constituting «a group of regions that come together to manage a series of common interests».[61] Pasqual Maragall's proposal triggered the opposition of the Spanish President José María Aznar, who accused Maragall of wanting to reinvent the Crown of Aragon in search of a new way of relating to Spain, «as if it were different from Spain». The First Vice President Mariano Rajoy spoke along the same lines, attacking the proposal of a euroregion of the Crown of Aragon and stating that it would be a threat that «would endanger Spain's model of coexistence».[62] Finally, in 2004 the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion was created, which the Valencian Community did not join, but which Aragon, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, Languedoc-Rousillon and Midi-Pyrénées did. In 2006 Aragon suspended its participation in the euroregion because of the differences over the goods of the Franja.[63][64]

The kings of the House of Bourbon continue to use in their titles, among many others, those of King of Aragon, of Valencia, of Majorca, Count of Barcelona, Lord of Molina, etc. and, like the Austrias, the abbreviated form of King of the Spains and of the Indies.

Numbering of the monarchs

The numbering of the monarchs varies depending on the territory being referred to. Hence some present-day historians prefer to use the epithets to refer to them: Peter the Catholic (Peter II of Aragon), Peter the Ceremonious (Peter IV), Alfonso the Magnanimous (Alfonso V). However, the ordinal refers to the principal royal title, which was that of Aragon, as even the aforementioned Peter IV declares:

...and since the kings of Aragon are obliged to receive the anointing in the city of Zaragoza, which is the head of the Kingdom of Aragon, which kingdom is our principal designation, [—that is, surname— (Author's note)] and title, we consider it fitting and reasonable that, in the same way, the kings of Aragon receive in it the honor of coronation and the other royal insignia, just as we saw the emperors receive the crown in the city of Rome, head of their empire.

— Apud Domingo J. Buesa Conde, El rey de Aragón, Zaragoza, CAI, 2000, pp. 57–59. ISBN 84-95306-44-1.

Sovereigns of the Crown of Aragon

Royal House Lineage / branch Aragon County of Barcelona Valencia Majorca Sardinia Sicily Naples
House of Aragon House of Aragon-Barcelona
Alfonso II the Chaste or the Troubadour (1164–96)
Peter II the Catholic (1196–1213)
James I the Conqueror (1213–76)
Peter III the Great (1276–85) James II of Majorca (1276–1285)  
Alfonso III the Frank (or the Liberal) (1285–91)
James II the Just (1291–1327) (1291–1295)   (1285–1295)
James II of Majorca (1295–1311) Frederick II of Sicily (1295–1337)
Sancho I of Majorca (1311–1324)
Alfonso IV the Benign (1327–36) James III of Majorca (1324–1343/46)  
Peter IV the Ceremonious (1336–87) Peter II of Sicily (1337–1342)
Louis of Sicily (1342–1355)
Frederick III of Sicily (1355–1377)
John I the Hunter (1387–96) Maria of Sicily (1377–1401)
Martin the Younger (1395–1409)
Martin I the Humane (or the Ecclesiastic) (1396–1410)
Interregnum - Compromise of Caspe
House of Aragon House of Aragon-Trastámara Ferdinand I of Antequera (1412–1416)
Alfonso V the Magnanimous (1416–1458)
John II the Great (1458–1479) Ferdinand I of Naples (Ferrante) (1458–1494)
Ferdinand II the Catholic (1479–1516)
Alfonso II of Naples, (1494–1495)
Ferdinand II of Naples (Ferrandino) (1495–1496)
Frederick IV of Naples (1496–1501)
 
(1504–1516)
House of Habsburg House of Austria Charles I of Aragon (1516–1556)
Philip I of Aragon (1556–1598)
Philip II of Aragon (1598–1621)
Philip III of Aragon (1621–1665)
Charles II of Aragon (1665–1700)
Disappearance of the Crown of Aragon
War of Succession between Philip IV of Aragon and Archduke Charles of Austria (1702–1715)
Philip IV of Aragon (1700–1746).
Between 1705 and 1708 he lost all the territories of the Crown of Aragon except Sicily.
As he regained control of the territories of the Crown of Aragon, they lost their fueros and privileges through the Nueva Planta decrees and came to be governed by the laws of Castile: on June 29, 1707 for the territories of Aragon and Valencia, on November 28, 1715 for Majorca and on January 16, 1716 for Catalonia.
For its part, the House of Savoy obtained Sicily through the Treaty of Utrecht. 		Charles III of Aragon (Claimant to the throne, 1703–1725)
Recognized as sovereign in Catalonia and Valencia in 1705, Aragon and Majorca in 1706, Naples in 1707 and Sardinia in 1708.
During the war he lost Valencia and Aragon in 1707, Catalonia in 1714 and Majorca in 1715, but saw his possession of the rest of the territories recognized by the Treaty of Rastatt.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Cf. Manuel Aragón Reyes, «El significado jurídico de la capitalidad», Revista Española de Derecho Constitucional, year 7, no. 50, May–August 1997, Ministerio de la Presidencia-Centro de estudios políticos e institucionales. [Accessed 18-09-2008]:

    for some time the Court of those (late medieval) States would be itinerant until, as a consequence of the juridification of the State that took place from the 16th century onward, permanence was given to the royal seat and, by the same token, to the seat of the modern nation-states.

    — Manuel Aragón Reyes, loc. cit.
  2. ↑ Riquer i Morera, Martí (1977). Actas del VI Congreso de la Asociación Internacional de Hispanistas (in español). Instituto Cervantes. ISBN 0-9690025-0-5.

    The secretaries and scribes who served in the Chancery, and who entered it after rigorous examinations, had to master three languages, Latin, Catalan and Aragonese, since they had to draft the royal correspondence in all three (notable, for example, is the elegance of the Aragonese prose written by the Barcelonan Bernat Metge, and there are Aragonese secretaries who write in Catalan with complete perfection).

    — loc. cit., Martí de Riquer i Morera, p. 16
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ricardo García Moya (March 7, 1997). "Covarrubias, la lengua valenciana y la Cancillería Real" (in español). Archived from the original on November 18, 2007. Retrieved April 17, 2008.. Originally published in Las Provincias, March 7, 1997
  4. ↑ Ricardo García Moya (May 16, 1999). "Las lenguas oficiales de la Cancillería" (in español). Archived from the original on November 18, 2007. Retrieved April 17, 2008.. Originally published in Las Provincias, May 16, 1999
  5. ↑ Ricardo García Moya (May 16, 1999). "Lerma, traductor de lengua valenciana" (in español). Archived from the original on November 18, 2007. Retrieved April 17, 2008.. Originally published in Las Provincias, September 24, 1996
  6. ↑ Epalza, Mikel de (1992). "Los moriscos antes y después de la expulsión" (in español). Retrieved April 23, 2014.. Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2001.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Josefina Mateu Ibars, María Dolores Mateu Ibars (1991), Colectánea paleográfica de la Corona de Aragón: siglos IX-XVIII, Edicions Universitat Barcelona, pág.96" (in español).
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 José A. Armillas Vicente, Carlos E. Corona Baratech (1984), La España de las reformas : hasta el final del reinado de Carlos IV Archived 2012-04-19 at the Wayback Machine, Ediciones Rialp, p. 114
  9. ↑ "Pellofa" (in español). Museu Etnològic de Barcelona. Retrieved December 25, 2015.
  10. ↑ Josefina Mateu Ibars, María Dolores Mateu Ibars, Colectánea paleográfica de la Corona de Aragón I, Edicions Universitat Barcelona, 1991, p. 63
  11. ↑ "MONEDA MEDIEVAL Acuñaciones Catalano-Aragonesas en su Expansión por el Mediterraneo" (in español). Comunidad Numismática. Retrieved December 25, 2015.
  12. ↑ Esteban Sarasa Sánchez, La Corona de Aragón en la Edad Media, Zaragoza, Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada, 2001, pp. 31–56. ISBN 84-95306-85-9.
  13. ↑ Professor J. Serrano Daura has questioned the theory of the casamiento en casa as applied to the betrothal of Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronilla of Aragon, on the grounds that there are no references to this customary institution of Aragonese law before the 15th century, and that the clauses established by Ramiro II on the succession to the crown of Aragon do not conform to the peculiarities of this institution, so that it could not be transferred to the pacts of 1137. See his article La donación de Ramiro II de Aragón a Ramón Berenguer IV de Barcelona, de 1137, y la institución del "casamiento en casa", published in Higalguía, 270, Madrid, 1998, pp. 709–719).
  14. ↑ "Nacimiento y expansión de la Corona de Aragón. Tema 1: Surge la Corona" (in español). Gran Enciclopdia Aragonesa. Retrieved June 23, 2008.
  15. ↑ Cf. «La expansión: el Casal d'Aragó (1213-1412) / L'expansió: el Casal d'Aragó (1213-1412)», in Ernest Belenguer, Felipe V. Garín Llombart and Carmen Morte García, La Corona de Aragón. El poder y la imagen de la Edad Media a la Edad Moderna (siglos XII - XVIII), Sociedad Estatal para la Acción Cultural Exterior (SEACEX), Generalitat Valenciana and Ministerio de Cultura de España - Lunwerg, 2006. ISBN 84-9785-261-3:

    Between the 12th and 14th centuries, the documentation speaks little of the Crown of Aragon and more of the Casal d'Aragó, although the expression Crown of Aragon is already found under James the Just, thus giving precedence to the hierarchical title of the kingdom over that of county and principality.

    — Belenguer, Garín Llombart and Carmen Morte, «La expansión: el Casal d'Aragó (1213-1412) / L'expansió: el Casal d'Aragó (1213-1412)», op. cit. 2006.
  16. ↑ Jesús Lalinde Abadía, «Las Cortes y Parlamentos en los Reinos y tierras del Rey de Aragón», in Esteban Sarasa Sánchez et al., Aragón: Historia y Cortes de un Reino, Cortes de Aragón and Ayuntamiento de Zaragoza, 1991, pp. 89–90. ISBN 978-84-86807-64-1.
  17. ↑ According to Ferran Soldevila, the terms «regno, dominio et corona Aragonum et Catalonie» and «domini Aragonum et Catalonie» appear exceptionally in the Privilege of annexation of Majorca to the Crown of September 16, 1286 (see: Ferran Soldevila, Història de Catalunya, Barcelona, ed. Alpha, 1962, p. 383, note 29), and it is translated as Corona d'Aragó i Catalunya. In the entry «corona catalanoaragonesa» of the online Enciclopèdia.cat of the Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, the term is translated as «Corona d'Aragó i de Catalunya». The Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa transcribes the Latin expression as it appears in Ferran Soldevila's monograph in the context of the names that were tried out but did not prevail: «The name Crown of Aragon only took hold from the 14th century, after other more generic expressions had been tried out, such as Reyal Corona or Corona Aragonum et Catalonie.»
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Ricardo García Cárcel, La Inquisición en la Corona de Aragón, Revista de la Inquisición, 7, Madrid, 1998, pp. 151–163, ISSN 1131-5571:

    [T]he term Crown of Aragon is controversial, and not only because of Lalinde's reservations about the historical-political concept of the Crown of Aragon. It is well known that Lalinde does not recognize the use of the term until the 15th century to designate the political form that appeared as a consequence of the marriage between Petronilla of Aragon and Ramon Berenguer of Catalonia. References to the Crown of Aragon in the 16th and 17th centuries are rare (probably even the title of Zurita's work was not the original one) and confined exclusively to the most royalist circles in situations of conflict (as in the Catalan revolution of 1640), which tried to generate the image of an institutional bond between the Aragonese kingdoms. Curiously, it will be in the 18th century, when there were no longer specific institutional peculiarities of the Aragonese kingdoms, that the term was used more, and afterwards, in the 19th and 20th centuries, it has been reworked with new political connotations by the historiography of these last centuries.

    — Ricardo García Cárcel, loc. cit., p. 151.
  19. ↑ Marqués de Lozoya, "Tomo Segundo de Historia de España", Salvat, 1952 edition, page 60: "The Kingdom of Aragon, the Principality of Catalonia, the Kingdom of Valencia and the Kingdom of Majorca constitute a confederation of States".
  20. ↑ On the territorial structure of the Crown of Aragon: On the use of Catalan-Aragonese Crown:
    • La corona catalano-aragonesa que nunca existió Article in Heraldo de Aragón in which historians D. Buesa and J. A. Sesma speak: "The problem arises when someone begins to deal with myths, because myths can never be resolved with rational arguments"; "That kind of trickery is very common in a certain Catalan historiography, but at the strictly university level that problem does not arise, because historical reality is accepted as it is". José Luis Corral: "I have even read the expression 'Catalan-Aragonese confederation', which is a historical outrage as great as calling Tartessos Spain"
    • Article in the newspaper ABC Historian Enric Ucelay-Da Cal (Professor of Contemporary History, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona): «Despite the tendency of Catalan nationalist historians to twist the "Catalan-Aragonese" nature of the Crown of Aragon, there has never existed anything, in medieval history, and much less in modern times, that could be considered even remotely an embryo of the Catalan State, except in the most romantic and dreamy imaginations»
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Blanco, Patricia R. (January 21, 2018). "El "invento" de la corona catalano-aragonesa". EL PAÍS (in español). Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  22. ↑ Antonio Bofarull y Broca, La Confederación Catalano-Aragonesa, realizada en el periodo más notable del gobierno soberano del conde de Barcelona, Ramón Berenguer IV: estudio histórico, crítico y documentado por D. Antonio de Bofarull y Broca, premiado por unanimidad en el Certamen abierto en 15 de diciembre de 1869 por el Ateneo Catalán, Barcelona, Casa Editorial de D. Luis Tasso, 1872.
  23. ↑ Although historiography has insisted that Ramiro II needed a papal dispensation in order to marry, the express and categorical nullity of the marriage of religious was not incorporated into Canon Law until the Second Council of the Lateran in 1139. Cf. Antonio Ubieto Arteta, «El matrimonio de Ramiro II de Aragón», Creación y desarrollo de la Corona de Aragón, Zaragoza, Anubar (Historia de Aragón), 1987, pp. 128–132.
  24. ↑ The title of princeps had already been in frequent use since the end of the 10th century to refer to the counts of Barcelona, as Frederic Udina Martorell and Antoni Mª Udina i Abelló confirm; however, in a debate on the term princeps at the end of the cited article, J. Mª Salrach and A. M. Mundó qualify that the title of prince was used by several counts and bishops from the 10th century onward with an ideological sense intended to emphasize the authority of the powers of the time (Salrach, art. cit., p. 107), and that the meaning of «princeps» in the 10th century was vague, since anyone who governed in one way or another was so named (A. M. Mundó, art. cit., p. 107); cf. Consideracions a l'entorn del nucli originari dels "Usatici Barchinonae", originally published in Estudi General, 1986, no. 5-6, pp. 92–94 (text in Catalan). In any case, in 1137 and applied to Ramon Berenguer IV, the sense of princeps alternates with dominator and is always joined to Aragonensis, while the dignity of comes is always applied to Barchinonensis (in reference to authority in the counties of Barcelona). Cf. Ferran Soldevila, Història de Catalunya, Barcelona, Editorial Alpha, n. d., p. 159 Archived 2012-04-18 at the Wayback Machine.
  25. ↑ Neither the documents of concession of the military Orders nor the papal bull of approval of 1158 refer to Ramon Berenguer as "prince" or "ruler" of Aragon; thus, they showed that they continued to consider valid the will of King Alfonso I, which bequeathed the kingdom in equal parts to the military orders of Jerusalem. Only this recognition of the will made it possible to conclude the agreements for the cession of rights. That recognition entailed the rejection of the election of Ramiro the Monk as king by the Aragonese nobles, as well as of his edicts and decisions. According to the research of P. Kehr (1946), cited by J. Cabestany: "[Pope Innocent II] did not recognize the Monk's marriage nor, therefore, the legitimate succession of Petronilla. Kehr confirms this hypothesis with the fact that the renunciation of the military orders to the inheritance of Alfonso the Battler was made in favor of the person of Ramon Berenguer of Barcelona, without a single mention of Ramiro or of his daughter Petronilla. The same happened in the confirmation of these dealings granted by Pope Adrian IV." (Cabestany, "Alfons el Cast", in Els primers Comtes Reis, Vicens-Vives, 1991, p. 64). According to P. Schramm, with the decision of the Orders to negotiate with Count Ramon Berenguer "the usefulness of the old principle of the Church according to which government belonged to the best was demonstrated: this principle of suitability, in this specific case, helped to legitimize (...) a reign which, in the eyes of the Church, was illegal." (Schramm, "Ramon Berenguer IV", in Els primers Comtes Reis, p. 16). However, the military Orders were fully aware of the situation consolidated in the kingdom of Aragon and county of Barcelona since 1137, since they had not taken any interest in exploiting the will of Alfonso I the Battler between 1134 and 1140. Pressing economic needs led the military Orders to negotiate with Ramon Berenguer IV, six years after the will of Alfonso I of Aragon, certain compensations in exchange for settling the testamentary question of the Battler. The negotiation began on September 16, 1140, and the Orders obtained several concessions of honors and tenancies in Aragon, including the rights to the castle of Corbins (located eight kilometers north of Lérida) «when God should permit it to be conquered». They were likewise granted tithes and various other levies on everything that might be conquered thereafter. Once the agreements with the military Orders were concluded, Pope Adrian IV confirmed the agreed terms on June 24, 1158. In this way, the Pope fictitiously complied with the legality arising from the will of Alfonso I the Battler and made it appear that the kingdom of Aragon had passed from him into the hands of the military Orders, who would subsequently have ceded it to the prince or ruler of Aragon, Ramon Berenguer IV. See Antonio Ubieto Arteta, Creación y desarrollo de la Corona de Aragón, pp. 160–165, where the text of Raymond, master of Jerusalem, which begins the negotiations (September 16, 1140), is translated into Spanish.
  26. ↑ See the Latin texts of the concession of the knights of the Holy Sepulchre and of the Hospitallers, as well as the bull of approval of Adrian IV (1158), in the Archivo Virtual Jaume I of the Universidad Jaume I de Castellón.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Domingo J. Buesa postulates Zaragoza as the political capital in El rey de Aragón (Zaragoza, CAI, 2000, pp. 57–59. ISBN 84-95306-44-1 ). He defends the political capital status (though not economic nor administrative, since the courts were itinerant in the 14th century) of Zaragoza for the Crown of Aragon on the basis of the mandates of Peter IV of Aragon established for his own coronation:
    Peter IV starts [...] from the acceptance of the capital of the Ebro as "head of the Kingdom". [...] that is why he made known to his subjects that

    We command that this sacrosanct sacrament of anointing be received from the hands of the metropolitan in the city of Zaragoza

    while recalling:

    ...and since the kings of Aragon are obliged to receive the anointing in the city of Zaragoza, which is the head of the Kingdom of Aragon, which kingdom is our principal designation (that is, surname) and title, we consider it fitting and reasonable that, in the same way, the kings of Aragon receive in it the honor of coronation and the other royal insignia, just as we saw the emperors receive the crown in the city of Rome, head of their empire.

    Zaragoza, the former capital of the kingdom of Aragon, has become the political capital of the Crown [...].
  28. ↑ Agustín Ubieto (1989). "La Reconquista aragonesa". Historia de Aragón (in español). Vol. I. Zaragoza: 'Institución Fernando el Católico', Excelentísima Diputación de Zaragoza. pp. 168–69. ISBN 84-7820-046-0.. Available online: http://ifc.dpz.es/recursos/publicaciones/15/73/15ubieto.pdf. Retrieved November 8, 2011. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  29. ↑ Udina i Martorell, Frederic (1985). Documents cabdals de la història de Catalunya. Vol. I (in català). Enciclopèdia Catalana. ISBN 84-85194-58-6., p. 69
  30. ↑ Antonio Ubieto Arteta, Creación y desarrollo de la Corona de Aragón, Zaragoza, Anubar (Historia de Aragón), 1987, pp. 233–241. ISBN 84-7013-227-X.
  31. ↑ José Ángel Sesma Muñoz, La Corona de Aragón, Zaragoza, CAI (Colección Mariano de Pano y Ruata, 18), 2000, pp. 58–66.
  32. ↑ José Ángel Sesma Muñoz, op. cit., 2000, pp. 59–60.
  33. ↑ Bisson, T. N., The Medieval Crown of Aragon: A Short History, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1986. ISBN 0-19-821987-3. For Centule, see p. 37.
  34. ↑ Martin Aurell, Les noces du Comte. Mariage et pouvuoir en Catalogne (785-1213), Paris, 1995. Apud José Ángel Sesma Muñoz, loc. cit., 2000.
  35. ↑ José Ángel Sesma Muñoz, op. cit., 2000, p. 58.
  36. ↑ José Ángel Sesma Muñoz, op. cit., 2000, p. 60.
  37. ↑ S. Sobrequés, Els Barons de Catalunya, Ed. Vicens-Vives, 4th ed., 1985, pp. 7–14.
  38. ↑ Antonio Ubieto Arteta, Creación y desarrollo de la Corona de Aragón, Zaragoza, Anubar (Historia de Aragón), 1987, p. 203. ISBN 84-7013-227-X.
  39. ↑ Tutorial de Dineros Valencianos, at www.identificacion-numismatica.com (Foro OMNI)
  40. ↑ "Apartado IV Monedas en la Corona de Aragón" (in español). Retrieved April 4, 2017.
  41. ↑ "Dinero de Valencia" (in español).
  42. ↑ González Antón, Luis, Las uniones aragonesas y las cortes del reino (1283-1301), Zaragoza, CSIC, 1975, ISBN 84-0004-151-8, p. 90. Of the 1,215 grants of residency registered in the city of Valencia throughout the 14th century, only 173 came from Aragon (14.23%): Ramón Ferrer Navarro, «La emigración aragonesa a la ciudad de Valencia», Aragón en la Edad Media, XX (2008), pp. 321–334, ISSN 0213-2486, p. 328.
  43. ↑ 43.0 43.1 de Riquer, Martí; Comas, Antoni; Molas, Joaquim (1984). "XII.- Prosa parlamentària i cancelleresca". Història de la literatura catalana tomo 3 (in català) (4th ed.). Barcelona: Ariel. pp. 9–29. ISBN 84-344-7600-2. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  44. ↑ In the case of Catalan, prose had already reached a great development with the Four Great Chronicles and, especially, with Ramon Llull, who enriched the language with the influence of Latin, but from the sphere of scholasticism
  45. ↑ This is especially visible when contrasting chancery texts with the judicial statements of plaintiffs, defendants and witnesses, which were transcribed literally, and in which the popular language of the moment and the different dialectal features can be perceived. In the case of Catalan, only from the middle of the 15th century, coinciding with the transfer of the royal residence to Naples, the Catalan crisis and Valencian commercial hegemony, do dialectal elements of Valencian appear in literary production, imperceptible previously, as they would continue to be in administrative documentation.
  46. ↑ "Coronación real". Gran Enciclopedida Aragonesa (in español).
  47. ↑ Español, Francesca (2008). Hagiografia peninsular en els segles medievals (in català). Universitat de Lleida. p. 180. ISBN 8484093573.
  48. ↑ Cahner, Max (1980). "Llengua i societat en el pas del s.XV al s.XVI". Actes del cinquè Col·loqui Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes: Andorra, 1-6 d'octubre de 1979 (in català). L'Abadia de Montserrat: 198. ISBN 8472024091.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
  49. ↑ Cahner, Max (1980). "Llengua i societat en el pas del s.XV al s.XVI". Actes del cinquè Col·loqui Internacional de Llengua i Literatura Catalanes: Andorra, 1-6 d'octubre de 1979 (in català). L'Abadia de Montserrat: 189. ISBN 8472024091.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
  50. ↑ "Cancillería real aragonesa". Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa (in español). Zaragoza: El Periódico de Aragón.
  51. ↑ Carlos López Rodríguez (April 2007). Qué es el Archivo de la Corona de Aragón? (in español). Mira Editores. pp. 32–33, 35–38, 41. ISBN 978-84-8465-220-5.
  52. ↑ J., Buesa Conde, Domingo. El rey de Aragón (in español). Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada. ISBN 8495306441. OCLC 433127091.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  53. ↑ Rivero Rodríguez, Manuel (2011). La edad de oro de los virreyes: El virreinato en la Monarquía Hispánica durante los siglos XVI y XVII (in español). Akal. pp. 41–42. ISBN 9788446037057.
  54. ↑ Rivero Rodríguez, Manuel (2011). La edad de oro de los virreyes: El virreinato en la Monarquía Hispánica durante los siglos XVI y XVII (in español). Akal. p. 43. ISBN 9788446037057.
  55. ↑ Rivero Rodríguez, Manuel (2011). La edad de oro de los virreyes: El virreinato en la Monarquía Hispánica durante los siglos XVI y XVII (in español). Akal. pp. 42–43, 45–46, 59. ISBN 9788446037057.
  56. ↑ «Carlos y Juana. The (almost) first type of Americas», Oregon Coin Clubs.
  57. ↑ «Varios ejemplos de numismas de 1 Real de ceca México a nombre de Carlos I y Juana»[dead link], at www.wikimoneda.com
  58. ↑ [1] «Real de Juana y Carlos I (México, 1538-1540)»], at www.identificacion-numismatica.com
  59. ↑ Suárez (1984:396)
  60. ↑ Ferreres i Calvo, Ernest; La Guerra de Successió i Catalunya
  61. ↑ Maragall demana una "euroregió" econòmica que es corresponga amb l'antiga Corona d'Aragó i sume el Rosselló i Midi
  62. ↑ Aznar ironitza amb el suport de Zapatero a Maragall per voler "reinventar la Corona d'Aragó"
  63. ↑ "Cataluña pedirá una reunión con Rudi por los bienes de la Franja". El Periódico de Aragón (in español). July 16, 2011. Retrieved December 20, 2011.
  64. ↑ "Aragón no rompe sus relaciones con Cataluña pero suspende su participación en la Eurorregión". Aragón TV (in español). March 23, 2006. Retrieved December 20, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)

Specialized bibliography

Wikimedia Commons logo
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ancient Crown of Aragon.
Retrieved from "https://en.hispanopedia.com/index.php?title=Crown_of_Aragon&oldid=1822"