Coordinates: 42°19′09″N 3°20′00″E / 42.31917°N 3.33333°E / 42.31917; 3.33333

Principality of Catalonia

From Hispanopedia
Principality of Catalonia
Principat de Catalunya
12th century–1714
(as a territorial division until 1833)
Location of Principality of Catalonia
StatusPart of the Crown of Aragon and of the Hispanic Monarchy
CapitalBarcelona
Common languagesCatalan, Latin
Unofficial: Occitan
Religion
Catholic
GovernmentPactist monarchy
LegislatureCatalan Courts
History 
• Reign of Alfonso I
1162
1716
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
County of Barcelona
County of Empúries
County of Urgell
County of Pallars Sobirà
Early modern France
Bourbon Reforms

The Principality of Catalonia (Catalan: Principat de Catalunya; Occitan: Principat de Catalonha) was the political entity[1] that existed during much of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period in the territory corresponding to the present-day Spanish autonomous community of Catalonia and the present-day French department of Pyrénées-Orientales, except for the district of Fenouillèdes. It ceased to exist as a political entity with the Nueva Planta decrees. The expression the principality is still used today to refer to Catalonia, especially when contrasting it with other Catalan-speaking territories.[citation needed]

It is a legal term[citation needed] (in Latin principatus) used from the 14th century onward to name the territory whose sovereign (in Latin, princeps) was the Count of Barcelona, a title that coincided with that of sovereign of the Crown of Aragon and later of the Crown of Spain during most of the history of the Principality. An exception to this was the period between 1641 and 1659, when, in the context of the Reapers' War, the General Assembly of Estates declared Louis I Count of Barcelona, a title that was later granted to his son.[2]

The principality was legally and institutionally on a par with the other states that made up the Crown of Aragon[3] (the kingdoms of Aragon, Majorca and Valencia, among others), whose only common bond was the figure of the Monarch.[4][5][6]

The noble title of prince has often been used for the heir to the crown. In the case of the Crown of Aragon, the heir held the title of Duke of Girona, later changed to Prince of Girona. The Principality of Catalonia should therefore not be confused with a noble title.

Historical use of the term

The first explicit reference to the Principat de Cathalunya is found in the dispute of King Peter IV the Ceremonious with the Kingdom of Majorca over the ownership of the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya, in 1343.[7] The term was reaffirmed (Principatus Cathaloniae) in the convocation of the Catalan Courts of Perpignan of 1350, presided over by Peter IV.

Nevertheless, there are precedents for the use of the term princeps to refer to the Count of Barcelona. Thus, in Usatge 65 of the Courts of Barcelona of 1064, in the time of Count Ramon Berenguer I, the whole formed by the counties of Barcelona, Girona and Osona is already called a principatus.[8]

Ramon Berenguer I himself is called Prince of Barcelona, Count of Girona and Marquis of Osona (princeps Barchinonensis, comes Gerundensis, marchio Ausonensis) in the Acts of consecration of the cathedral of Barcelona, in 1058.[9]

Use of the term in the modern era

Coin minted in Barcelona in 1837, during the reign of Isabella II, with the legend «Principado de Cataluña» on the reverse.

The name Principality continued to be used in the Nueva Planta decrees of the Bourbon administration and remained fully in force until the 19th century. However, in the Royal Decree of November 30, 1833 by which Javier de Burgos's provincial division of Spain was established, the only principality mentioned is that of Asturias, with Catalonia being mentioned simply as such.

Republican movements preferred to abandon the name Principality, but, by contrast, pan-Catalanist movements preferred to keep it to refer to Catalonia proper, as distinguished from the Catalan Countries.

Today, although the term Principality is not included in the Statute of Catalonia, it is a traditional designation.[10]

History

Main article: History of Catalonia

Institutionalization

Title page of the Usatges of Barcelona.

Between 1276 and 1285, under the reign of Peter III of Aragon and Count of Barcelona, the Catalan Courts took institutional form. At the Courts of Barcelona in 1283, the King bound himself to hold a General Court once a year, with the representative participation of the time, to deal with the good state and reform of the land. The King himself established:

"if we and our successors wish to make a constitution or statute in Catalonia, we shall submit them to the approval and consent of the prelates, barons, knights and citizens...".[11]

In 1289, at the Courts held in Monzón, the first steps were taken to institutionalize the first Diputación del General in the Crown of Aragon, as a temporary commission to collect the "service" or tribute granted to King Alfonso III of Aragon, a tax popularly known as the Generalidad, a name that was exported to France, where the généralités or fiscal districts were created; over time, the unofficial name of Generalidad ended up supplanting the official name of the Diputación del General.

Catalonia experienced a period of prosperity during the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th. The population tended to increase; the Catalan language spread to the islands of the western Mediterranean. The reign of Peter III of Aragon included the conquest of Sicily and the successful defense against a French crusade; his son and successor Alfonso III conquered Minorca; and Peter's second son, James II, conquered Sardinia; Catalonia was one of the centers of the dominion, expanding and organizing it, frequently establishing institutional systems analogous to its own. Barcelona, at that time one of the most frequented royal residences, was consolidated as an administrative center with the creation of the Royal Archive (the present-day Archive of the Crown of Aragon) in 1318.[12]

The second quarter of the 14th century witnessed crucial changes for the Principality, marked by a succession of natural catastrophes, demographic crises, relative stagnation and decline of the Catalan economy, and rising social tensions. The year 1333 was known as Lo mal any primer (Catalan: "The first bad year") because of the poor wheat harvest. The dominions of the Crown of Aragon were severely affected by the Black Death pandemic and by later outbreaks of the plague. Between 1347 and 1497 the Principality of Catalonia lost approximately 37 percent of its population.[13]

In 1410, King Martin I died without living descendants. By the Compromise of Caspe (1412), Ferdinand of the Castilian house of Trastámara received the Crown of Aragon as Ferdinand I. Ferdinand's successor, Alfonso the Magnanimous, promoted a new stage of expansion, this time toward the Kingdom of Naples, which he finally occupied in 1443. However, he aggravated the social crisis in the Principality of Catalonia, both in the countryside and in the cities. During the reign of John II, social and political tensions eventually brought about the Catalan Civil War (1462-1472) and the Remença wars ("remença" was a form of serfdom), 1462-1485. In 1493, France returned the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya, which it had occupied during the conflict. John's son, Ferdinand II, recovered the counties of northern Catalonia without war, and during his reign the Constitution of Observance (1481) was approved, which established the subjection of royal power to the laws approved in the Catalan Courts. After decades of conflict, the remença peasants were freed from most feudal abuses by the Arbitral Sentence of Guadalupe (1486), in exchange for a payment.

Uprising of Catalonia

The Corpus de Sang of June 7, 1640, according to H. Miralles (1910).

In 1626, the Count-Duke of Olivares, favorite of King Philip IV of Spain, proposed the project of the Union of Arms of the peninsular kingdoms, under which each territory of the Crown was required to contribute a number of soldiers proportional to its population, but the Courts of Catalonia refused. The Courts were suspended and a conflict with the Principality of Catalonia began.

In 1640 the uprising of Catalonia took place, led by peasants and segadors ('reapers') who had rebelled because of the abuses committed by the royal army —made up of mercenaries of various origins— deployed in the Principality during Spain's war against the Monarchy of France, framed within the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).

On January 16, 1641, the General Assembly of Estates of Catalonia (the Courts without the King) accepted the proposal of Pau Claris, President of the Diputación del General of Catalonia, to place Catalonia under the protection of King Louis XIII of France under a republican government; the Catalan Republic was a transitional solution to force an agreement with the government in Madrid in the face of the threat of French intervention; however, Du Plessis-Besançon, plenipotentiary envoy of the King of France, managed to persuade the Catalan authorities that French involvement could only take place if the King of France was recognized as sovereign.

On January 23, 1641, Pau Claris conveyed this proposal to the Assembly of Estates, which accepted it, and the Council of One Hundred did so the following day, so that the King of France became the new Count of Barcelona. Both the Assembly of Estates and the Council of One Hundred agreed to establish a War Council, which would not be answerable to either body and would be presided over by the conseller en cap Joan Pere Fontanella.[14][15][16] Days later, on January 26, 1641, a Franco-Catalan army defeated the Spanish army at the Battle of Montjuïc.

In 1643, the army of King Louis XIII conquered Roussillon, Monzón and Lleida. A year later King Philip IV recovered Monzón and Lleida, where the King swore obedience to the Catalan laws. In 1648, with the Treaty of Westphalia and the withdrawal of France's allies (the Netherlands) from the war, they began to lose interest in Catalonia. Aware of the discontent of the Catalan population with the French occupation, King Philip IV considered that the moment to attack had come, and in 1651 an army led by Juan José de Austria began a siege of Barcelona. The Franco-Catalan army in Barcelona surrendered in 1652, and King Philip IV of Spain was recognized as sovereign, and Juan José de Austria as Viceroy in Catalonia, although France managed to retain control of Roussillon. This led to the signing in 1659 of the Treaty of the Pyrenees (Peace of the Pyrenees) between the kings of France and Spain, which certified the cession of Roussillon to the French Crown.

Boundaries of the Principality

Cataloniae principatus novissima et accurata descriptio. Map published in 1608 in Antwerp by J. B. Vrients.

The first setting of boundaries between the two member territories of the Crown of Aragon took place in 1214: when a general truce was being declared throughout Catalonia, it was considered to extend as far as the Cinca River, although that border would undergo several modifications over the course of that same century.[17]

A term used, both in a provision of James I[18] of 1244 and at the Courts of Barcelona of 1283, is Cathalonia universa to refer to the territory as a whole. The term was institutionalized in the local governments of Ibiza, Majorca and Perpignan.

In 1325 the County of Empúries was incorporated.

In 1411 the Val d'Aran was joined to the Principality.[19]

In 1413 the County of Urgell was incorporated.

In 1491 the County of Pallars Sobirà was incorporated.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ferro, Víctor, El Dret Públic Català. Les Institucions a Catalunya fins al Decret de Nova Planta; Eumo Editorial; p. 442
  2. ↑ Gelderen, Martin van; Skinner, Quentin (2002). Republicanism: Volume 1, Republicanism and Constitutionalism in Early Modern Europe: A Shared European Heritage. Cambridge University Press. p. 284. ISBN 9781139439619
  3. ↑ Jocelyn Nigel Hillgarth (1976). The Spanish Kingdoms 1250-1516. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019822530x. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  4. ↑ Alan Ryder (2007). The Wreck of Catalonia. Civil War in the Fifteenth Century. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-920736-7. This group of states comprised the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, and Majorca, the principality of Catalonia, and the counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne; further afield it embraced the kingdoms of Sicily and Sardinia. These states had no common institutions or bonds save allegiance to a common sovereign
  5. ↑ Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte. "La unión de reinos (1319)". Privilegio de la unión de los reinos de Aragón, Valencia, Mallorca y condado de Barcelona (in español). Retrieved September 19, 2020. Hoy, la opinión más común es que consistió en una unión dinástica de reinos y principados heterogéneos (Cataluña, Aragón, Valencia, Mallorca, Cerdeña, Sicilia, Nápoles, Rosellón, Cerdaña y otros), vinculados por compartir un mismo soberano de una misma dinastía.
  6. ↑ J. H. Elliot (1984). The revolt of the Catalans. A study in the decline of Spain (1598-1640). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521278902. The Crown of Aragon [...] consisted of three territories, each with its own institutions but governed by a single dynasty; the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia and the Principality of Catalonia
  7. ↑ Bofarull, Manuel de (ed.) (1866). Colección de documentos inéditos del Archivo General de la Corona de Aragón, vol. 30. Barcelona: Imprenta del Archivo. pp. 303–308.
  8. ↑ Fita Colomé, Fidel, El principado de Cataluña. Razón de este nombre., Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, vol. 40 (1902), p. 261.
  9. ↑ Fita Colomé, Ibid., p. 263.
  10. ↑ «In modern times, there is a tendency to include under this designation the whole formed by the Catalan-speaking districts under French administration (Northern Catalonia), those included under Aragonese administration (Franja de Poniente), Andorra and the districts of Catalonia. Nevertheless, it is also often used as a synonym for Catalonia.» In l'Enciclopèdia: Principat de Catalunya Archived (Date missing) at enciclopedia.cat (Error: unknown archive URL).
  11. ↑ "Las Cortes Catalanas y la primera Generalidad medieval (s. XIII-XIV)" (in español). Archived from the original on February 19, 2010. Retrieved January 21, 2013. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; October 19, 2010 suggested (help)
  12. ↑ Carlos López Rodríguez (2007). Qué es el Archivo de la Corona de Aragón? pp. 32-33, 35-38, 41. ISBN 978-84-8465-220-5.
  13. ↑ According to John H. Elliott, "Between 1347 and 1497 the Principality [Catalonia] had lost 37% of its inhabitants, and was reduced to a population of something like 300,000." John H. Elliott. The revolt of the Catalans: a study in the decline of Spain (1598–1640), Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 26. ISBN 0-521-27890-2.
  14. ↑ [1]
  15. ↑ [2]
  16. ↑ "Copia archivada" (in español). Archived from the original on October 22, 2016. Retrieved April 10, 2017.
  17. ↑ Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa (ed.). "Corona de Aragón" (in español). Retrieved January 29, 2009.
  18. ↑ See the Latin text in Joaquim Miret, Itinerari de Jaume I el Conqueridor, facsimile ed. of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans, 2007, p. 166.
  19. ↑ Conselh Generau d'Aran, Notes sobre l'encaix territorial de la Vall d'Aran, February 2010.

Notes


Bibliography

42°19′09″N 3°20′00″E / 42.31917°N 3.33333°E / 42.31917; 3.33333

Retrieved from "https://en.hispanopedia.com/index.php?title=Principality_of_Catalonia&oldid=2169"