Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a nationality by its Statute of Autonomy. Its territory is situated on the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, to the south of the Pyrenees mountain range. Catalonia is administratively divided into four provinces or eight vegueries, which are in turn divided into 43 comarques. The capital and largest city, Barcelona, is the second-most populous municipality in Spain and the fifth-most populous urban area in the European Union.
Modern-day Catalonia comprises most of the medieval and early modern Principality of Catalonia, with the remainder of the northern area now part of France's Pyrénées-Orientales. It is bordered by France and Andorra to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the east, and the Spanish autonomous communities of Aragon to the west and Valencia to the south. In addition to its approximately 580 km of coastline, Catalonia also has major high landforms such as the Pyrenees and the Pre-Pyrenees, the Transversal Range or the Central Depression. The official languages are Catalan, Spanish, and the Aranese dialect of Occitan.
In 1137, the County of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon formed a dynastic union, resulting in a composite monarchy, the Crown of Aragon. Within the Crown, Barcelona and the other Catalan counties merged in to a state, the Principality of Catalonia, with its distinct institutional system, such as Courts, Generalitat, and constitutions, being the base and promoter for the Crown's Mediterranean trade and expansionism. Catalan literature flourished. In 1516, Charles V became monarch of the crowns of Aragon and Castile, retaining both their previous distinct institutions and legislation. Growing tensions led to the revolt of the Principality of Catalonia, briefly as a republic under French protection. By the Treaty of the Pyrenees, the northern parts of Catalonia were ceded to France. During the War of the Spanish Succession, the states of the Crown of Aragon sided against the Bourbon Philip V, but following Catalan capitulation he imposed a unifying administration across Spain via the Nueva Planta decrees which suppressed Catalonia's institutions and legal system, thus ending its separate status. Catalan as a language of government and literature was eclipsed by Spanish.
In the 19th century, Napoleonic and Carlist Wars affected Catalonia, however, it experienced industrialisation, as well as a cultural renaissance coupled with incipient nationalism and several workers' movements. The Second Spanish Republic granted self-governance to Catalonia, restoring the Generalitat as its government. After the Spanish Civil War, the Francoist dictatorship enacted repressive measures, abolishing self-government and banning again the official use of the Catalan language. After a harsh autarky, from the late 1950s Catalonia saw rapid economic growth, drawing many workers from across Spain and making it a major industrial and touristic hub. During the Spanish transition to democracy, the Generalitat and Catalonia's self-government were reestablished, remaining one of the most economically dynamic communities in Spain.
In the 2010s until the 2020s, there was growing support for Catalan independence. On 27 October 2017, the Catalan Parliament unilaterally declared independence following a referendum that was deemed unconstitutional. The Spanish State enforced direct rule by removing the Catalan government and calling a snap regional election. The Spanish Supreme Court imprisoned seven former Catalan ministers on charges of rebellion and misuse of public funds, while several others—including then-President Carles Puigdemont—fled to other European countries. Those in prison were pardoned in 2021.
Etymology and pronunciation
The name "Catalonia", spelled Cathalonia, began to be used for the homeland of the Catalans in the late 11th century and was probably used before as a territorial reference to the group of counties that comprised part of the March of Gothia and the March of Hispania under the control of the Count of Barcelona and his relatives. The origin of the name Catalunya is subject to diverse interpretations because of a lack of evidence.One theory suggests that Catalunya derives from the name Gothia ''Launia, since the origins of the Catalan counts, lords and people were found in the March of Gothia, known as Gothia, whence Gothland > Gothlandia > Gothalania > Cathalaunia > Catalonia theoretically derived. During the Middle Ages, Byzantine chroniclers claimed that Catalania derives from the local medley of Goths with Alans, initially constituting a Goth-Alania.
Other theories suggest:
History
Prehistory
The first known human settlements in what is now Catalonia were at the beginning of the Middle Paleolithic. The oldest known trace of human occupation is a mandible found in Banyoles, described as pre-Neanderthal, that is, some 200,000 years old; other sources suggest it to be only about one third that old. There are important remains from the Epipalaeolithic or Mesolithic, dated between 8000 and 5000BC. The most important sites from these eras, all excavated in the region of Moianès, are the Balma del Gai and the Balma de l'Espluga. The Neolithic era began in Catalonia around 5000BC, although the population was slower to develop fixed settlements thanks to the abundance of woods, which allowed the continuation of a fundamentally hunter-gatherer culture, for example, La Draga at Banyoles, an "early Neolithic village which dates from the end of the 6th millenniumBC".The Bronze Age occurred between 1800 and 700BC. There were some known settlements in the low Segre zone. The Bronze Age coincided with the arrival of the Indo-Europeans through the Urnfield Culture, whose successive waves of migration began around 1200BC, and they were responsible for the creation of the first proto-urban settlements. Around the middle of the 7th centuryBC, the Iron Age arrived in Catalonia.
Pre-Roman and Roman period
In pre-Roman times, the area that is now Catalonia was populated by the Iberians. The Iberians tribes – the Ilergetes, Indigetes and Lacetani – also maintained relations with the peoples of the Mediterranean. Some urban agglomerations became relevant, including Ilerda inland, Hibera or Indika. Coastal trading colonies were established by the ancient Greeks, who settled around the Gulf of Roses, in Emporion and Roses in the 8th century BC.After the Carthaginian defeat by the Roman Republic, the north-east of Iberia became the first to come under Roman rule and became part of Hispania, the westernmost part of the Roman Empire. Tarraco was one of the most important Roman cities in Hispania and the capital of the province of Tarraconensis. Other important cities of the Roman period are Ilerda, Dertosa, Gerunda as well as the ports of Empuriæ and Barcino. As for the rest of Hispania, Latin law was granted to all cities under the reign of Vespasian, while Roman citizenship was granted to all free men of the empire by the Edict of Caracalla in 212AD. It was a rich agricultural province, and the first centuries of the Empire saw the construction of roads and infrastructure like aqueducts.
Conversion to Christianity, attested in the 3rdcentury, was completed in urban areas in the 4thcentury. Although Hispania remained under Roman rule and did not fall under the rule of Vandals, Suebi and Alans in the 5thcentury, the main cities suffered frequent sacking and some deurbanization.
Middle Ages
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the area was conquered by the Visigoths and was ruled as part of the Visigothic Kingdom for almost two and a half centuries. In 718, it came under Muslim control and became part of Al-Andalus, a province of the Umayyad Caliphate. From the conquest of Roussillon in 760, to the conquest of Barcelona in 801, the Frankish empire took control of the area between Septimania and the Llobregat river from the Muslims and created heavily militarised, self-governing counties. These counties formed part of the historiographically known as the Gothic and Hispanic Marches, a buffer zone in the south of the Frankish Empire in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, to act as a defensive barrier against further invasions from Al-Andalus. File:Genealogía Casa de Aragón.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, Petronilla of Aragon and their son Alfonso II of Aragon and I of Barcelona, dynastic union of the Crown of Aragon These counties came under the rule of the counts of Barcelona, who were Frankish vassals nominated by the emperor of the Franks, to whom they were feudatories. At the end of the 9thcentury, the Count of Barcelona Wilfred the Hairy made his titles hereditaries and thus founded the dynasty of the House of Barcelona, which reigned in Catalonia until 1410.In 988 Borrell II, Count of Barcelona, did not recognise the new French king Hugh Capet as his king, evidencing the loss of dependency from Frankish rule and confirming his successors as independent of the Capetian crown. At the beginning of eleventh century the Catalan counties experienced an important process of feudalisation, however, the efforts of church's sponsored Peace and Truce Assemblies and the intervention of Ramon Berenguer I, count of Barcelona in the negotiations with the rebel nobility resulted in the partial restoration of the comital authority under the new feudal order. To fulfill that purpose, Ramon Berenguer began the modification of the legislation in the written Usages of Barcelona, being one of the first European compilations of feudal law. The earliest known use of the name "Catalonia" for these counties dates to 1117.
In 1137, Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona decided to accept King Ramiro II of Aragon's proposal to receive the Kingdom of Aragon and to marry his daughter Petronila, establishing the dynastic union of the County of Barcelona with Aragon, creating a composite monarchy later known as the Crown of Aragon and making the Catalan counties that were vassalized or merged with the County of Barcelona into a principality of the Aragonese Crown. During the reign of his son Alphons, in 1173, Catalonia was regarded as a legal entity for the first time, while the Usages of Barcelona were compiled in the process to turn them into the law and custom of Catalonia, being considered one of the "milestones of Catalan political identity". In 1258, by means of the Treaty of Corbeil James I of Aragon renounced his family rights and dominions in Occitania, while the king of France, Louis IX, formally relinquished to any historical claim of feudal lordship he might have over the Catalan counties. This treaty confirmed, from French point of view, the independence of the Catalan counties already established the previous three centuries.
As a coastal land, Catalonia became the base of the Aragonese Crown's maritime forces, which spread the power of the Crown in the Mediterranean, turning Barcelona into a powerful and wealthy city. In the period of 1164–1410, new territories, the Kingdom of Valencia, the Kingdom of Majorca, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Kingdom of Sicily, and, briefly, the Duchies of Athens and Neopatras, were incorporated into the dynastic domains of the House of Aragon. The expansion was accompanied by a great development of the Catalan trade, creating an extensive trade network across the Mediterranean which competed with those of the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice.
At the same time, the Principality of Catalonia developed a complex institutional and political system based in the concept of a pact between the estates of the realm and the king. The legislation had to be passed by the Catalan Courts, one of the first parliamentary bodies of Europe that, after 1283, officially obtained the power to pass legislation with the monarch. The Courts were composed of the three estates organized into "arms", were presided over by the monarch, and approved the Catalan constitutions, which established a compilation of rights for the inhabitants of the Principality. In order to collect general taxes, the Catalan Courts of 1359 established a permanent representative body, known as the Generalitat, which gained considerable political power over the next centuries.
The domains of the Aragonese Crown were severely affected by the Black Death pandemic and by later outbreaks of the plague. Between 1347 and 1497 Catalonia lost 37percent of its population. In 1410, the last reigning monarch of the House of Barcelona, King Martin I died without surviving descendants. Under the Compromise of Caspe, the representatives of the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia and the Principality of Catalonia appointed Ferdinand from the Castilian House of Trastámara as King of the Crown of Aragon. During the reign of his son, John II, the persistent economic crisis and social and political tensions in the Principality led to the Catalan Civil War and the War of the Remences that left Catalonia exhausted. The Sentencia Arbitral de Guadalupe liberated the remença peasants from the feudal "evil customs".
In the later Middle Ages, Catalan literature flourished in Catalonia proper and in the kingdoms of Majorca and Valencia, with such remarkable authors as the philosopher Ramon Llull, the Valencian poet Ausiàs March, and Joanot Martorell, author of the novel Tirant lo Blanch, published in 1490.