Crown of Aragon at its greatest extent in the 1380s.
Standard of the Crown of Aragon
The
Crown of Aragon was a
permanent union of multiple titles and states in the hands of the
King of Aragon.
At the height of its power by the 14th and 15th centuries, the Crown of Aragon was a
thalassocracy controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern
Spain,
Southwestern France, as well as some of the major islands and mainland possessions stretching across the
Mediterranean Sea as far as
Greece. The component realms of the Crown were not united politically except at the level of the king. Put in contemporary terms, it functioned more as a
confederacy rather than as a single
country. In this sense, the larger Crown of Aragon must not be confused with one of its constituent parts, the
Kingdom of Aragon, from which it takes its name.
In 1479, a new dynastic union merged the Crown of Aragon with the
Crown of Castile, creating what would become the
Kingdom of Spain. The component titles of the Aragonese Crown as subsidiary titles of the Spanish monarch were used until 1716, when they were abolished by the
Nueva Planta decrees as a consequence of the defeat of the preferred pretender of the former components of the Crown of Aragon in the course of the
War of the Spanish Succession.
Context
The leading economic centres of the Crown of Aragon were the
cities of
Barcelona and
Valencia. Another political centre was
Zaragoza, where kings were crowned in the
La Seo Cathedral. Finally,
Palma (
Majorca) was an additional important
city and
seaport.
The Crown of Aragon eventually included the
Kingdom of Aragon, the
Principality of Catalonia, the
Kingdom of Valencia, the
Kingdom of Majorca,
Sicily,
Malta, the
Kingdom of Naples and
Sardinia. For brief periods also controlled
Montpellier,
Provence,
Corsica, the
Duchy of Neopatria and the
Duchy of Athens.
The countries that are today known as
Spain and
Portugal spent the
Middle Ages after 722 in an intermittent struggle called the
Reconquista. This struggle pitted the northern Christian kingdoms against the Islamic
taifa petty kingdoms of the
South and against each other.
In the Late Middle Ages, the expansion of the Aragonese Crown southwards met with the
Castilian advance eastward in the region of
Murcia. Afterward, the Aragonese Crown focused on the
Mediterranean, acting as far as
Greece and
Barbary, whereas Portugal, which completed its
Reconquista in 1272, focused on the
Atlantic Ocean. Mercenaries from the territories in the Crown, known as
almogàvers participated in the creation of this Mediterranean "empire", and later found employment in countries all across southern Europe.
The Crown of Aragon has been considered by some as an
empire which ruled in the
Mediterranean for hundreds of years, with the power to
set rules over the entire sea (for instance, the
Llibre del Consolat del Mar or
Book of the Consulate of the Sea, written in
Catalan, is one of the oldest compilation of
maritime laws in the
World). It was indeed, at its height, one of the
major powers in
Europe.
However its different territories were only loosely connected, in a manner that does not match well the traditional idea of
Empire. A contemporary, the Marqués de Lozoya described the Crown of Aragon as being more like a
confederacy than a centralized
kingdom, let alone an empire. Nor did official documents ever refer to it as an empire (
Imperium or any cognate word); instead, it was considered a dynastic union of autonomous kingdoms.
History
Origin
Petronilla, Queen of Aragon, and Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona (16th century
anachronous painting)
The Aragonese "empire" originated in 1137, when
Aragon and the
County of Barcelona merged by
dynastic union[BISSON T.N. chapter II. The age of the Early Count-Kings (1137-1213) (The Principate of Ramon Berenguer IV 1137-1162), page 31] by the marriage of
Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona and
Petronilla of Aragon and their titles were finally borne by only one person when their son
Alfonso II of Aragon ascended to the throne in 1162. With this merger, the
House of Barcelona inherited and took up the royal crown.
Slowly the various entities over which they ruled and came to rule came to be called the Crown of Aragon due to the greater prestige of the royal to the comital title.
Raymond Berenger IV of Barcelona, the new ruler of the united dynasty, still called himself count of Barcelona and merely "prince" of Aragón.
The son of Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronila,
Alfonso II, inherited both the titles of King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona, in a style that would be maintained by all its successors to the crown. Thus, this union was made while respecting the existing institutions and parliaments of both territories.
Expansion
Alfonso II tried to conquer Valencia due to favorable circumstances, but the opportunity was lost when
Sancho VI of Navarre invaded Aragon. Alfonso II signed the
treaties of Cazola with
Alfonso VIII of Castile in order to secure the Aragonese frontiers. The treaty also delimited anew their zones of prospective Moorish conquest: the Kings of Aragon were to have Valencia, leaving Murcia to Castile
[BISSON T.N. chapter II. The age of the Early Count-Kings (1137-1213) (Dynastic Policy 1162-1213), page 36].
King
James I (13th century) started the era of expansion, by conquering and incorporating
Majorca and a good part of the
Kingdom of Valencia to the Crown. With the
Treaty of Corbeil (1258), which was based upon the principle of natural frontiers,
French claims over Catalonia came to an end. The general principle was clear, that Aragonese influence north of the Pyrenees was to cease
. James I had realized that wasting his forces and distracting his energies in attempts to keep a footing in France could only end in disaster
. On January 1266, James I besieged and captured Murcia, settled his own men, mostly Catalans, there; and turned over Murcia to Castile by the treaty of Cazorla
[BISSON T.N. chapter II. The age of the Early Count-Kings (1213-1276) (Conquests and the Conqueror 1228-1276), page 67].
Majorca, together with the counties of
Cerdanya and
Roussillon and the city of
Montpellier, was held independently from 1276 to 1279 by
James II of Majorca as a vassal of the Crown after that date, becoming a full member of the Crown of Aragon in 1344.
Valencia was made a new kingdom with its own institutions, and so was the third member of the crown (the legal status of Majorca was not as consistent as those of Aragón, Catalonia and Valencia).
On 1282, the Sicilians raised against
second dynasty of the Angevins on the
Sicilian Vespers and massacred the garrison soldiers.
Peter III responded to their call, and landed in
Trapani to an enthusiastic welcome five months later. This caused
Pope Martin IV to excommunicate the king, place Sicily under interdict, and offer the kingdom of Aragon to a son of
Philip III of France[BISSON T.N. chapter IV. Mediterranean Expansion (1276-1336) (Pere III, II in Catalonia, 1276-1285), pages 87-88].
When Peter III refused to impose the
Fueros de Aragon in Valencia, the nobles and towns united on Zaragoza to demand a confirmation of their privileges, which the king had to accept on 1283. Thus began the
Union of Aragon, which developed the power of the
Justicia to mediate between the king and the Aragonese "ricos hombres". The
Justicia de Aragón institution and the annual Catalan General Courts date from that time.
When
James II (not to be confused with James II of Majorca) completed the conquest of the Kingdom of Valencia, the Crown of Aragon established itself as one of the major powers in Europe.
By grant of
Pope Boniface VIII to
James II, the
Kingdoms of Sardinia and
Corsica were added to the Crown in 1297, though it would not be for more than a century that they were brought under control of the Aragonese Crown. By marriage of
Peter IV to
Mary of Sicily, the
Kingdom of Sicily, as well as the
Duchies of Athens and
Neopatria, were added in 1381. The Greek possessions were permanently lost to
Nerio I Acciaioli in 1388 and Sicily was dissociated in the hands of
Martin I from 1395 to 1409, but the
Kingdom of Naples was added finally in 1442 by conquest of
Alfonso V.
It must be noted that the King's possessions outside of the Iberian Peninsula and Balearic Islands were ruled by proxy through local elites as
petty kingdoms, rather than subjected directly to a centralized government. They were more an economic part of the Crown of Aragon than a political one.
The fact that the King was keen on settling new kingdoms instead of merely expanding the existing kingdoms was a part of a power struggle that pitted the interests of the king against those of the existing
nobility. This process was also in under way in most of the European states that successfully transitioned from the medieval era to what was to be called the modern state (see
modern era). Thus, the new territories gained from the
Moors (namely Valencia and Majorca) were usually given
fueros (in Catalan
furs) as an instrument of self-government in order to limit the power of nobility in these new acquisitions and, at the same time, increase their allegiance to the monarchy proper. The trend in the neighbouring
kingdom of Castile was similar, both kingdoms giving impetus to the
Reconquista by granting self-government either to cities or territories, instead of placing the new territories under the rule of nobility.
Union with Castile
Ferdinand V and Isabella I, King and Queen of Castile and Léon, later King and Queen of Castile and Léon, of Aragon, Valencia, Sicily, and Majorca
In 1410, King
Martin I died without surviving descendants. As a result, by the
Pact of Caspe,
Ferdinand of Antequera from the Castilian dynasty of
Trastamara, received the Crown of Aragon as
Ferdinand I of Aragon.
Later, his grandson King
Ferdinand II of Aragon recovered the northern Catalan counties (Roussillon) which had been lost to France and also the kingdom of
Navarre, which had recently joined the Crown of Aragon but had been lost after internal dynastic disputes.
In 1469, Ferdinand married
Infanta Isabella of Castile, half-sister of King
Henry IV of Castile, who became Queen of Castile and Léon after his death in 1474. Their marriage was a dynastic union which became the constituent event for the dawn of the
Kingdom of Spain. At that point both
Castile and the Crown of Aragon remained distinct territories, each keeping its own traditional institutions, Parliaments and laws. The process of territorial consolidation was completed when
Charles I of Spain in 1516 united all the kingdoms on the Iberian peninsula minus Portugal under one monarch, thereby furthering the creation of the Spanish state, albeit a decentralized one.
Decline and dissolution
The literary evocation of past splendour recalls correctly the great age of centuries XII and XIII, when Valencia, Mallorca and Sicily were conquered, the population growth could be handled without social conflict, and the urban prosperity, which peaked in 1345, created the institutional and cultural achievements of the Crown.
[BISSON T.N. Epilogue, page 188-189] The Crown waned after that date: the demographic growth was offset by
the expulsion of Jews from Spain (1492),
Mudéjars (1502) and
Muslim converts (Moriscos) (1609).
It was unable to prevent the losses of Roussillon, the loss of Minorca and its Italian domains in 1707-1716, and the imposition of French language on the Roussillon (1700) and Castilian language in all the old Crown lands in Spain (1707-1716).
The Crown of Aragon and its institutions were abolished only after the
War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1713) by the
Nueva Planta decrees, issued by
Philip V of Spain.
The old regime was swept away, the administration was subsumed into the Castilian administration, the lands of the Crown were united formally with those of Castile to legally form a single state (
Spain), as it moved towards a
centralized government under the new
Bourbon dynasty.
[BISSON T.N. Epilogue, page 189] Nationalist revisionism
The punishments on the territories that had fought against
Philip V in the War of Succession are used by some
Valencian and
Catalan nationalists as arguments against the very existence of modern day
Spain. Some Aragonese took refuge in the myth of an ancient constitution dated before the beginnings or recorded medieval time, while the Catalans remembered their privileges, which they associated with their
Generalitat and resistance to Castile.
[BISSON T.N. Epilogue, page 188]The
Romanticism of the nineteenth century Catalan
Renaixença evoked a "Pyrenean realm" that corresponded more to the vision of thirteenth century
troubadours than to the historical reality of the Crown.
This vision survives today as "a nostalgic programme of politicized culture".
Pennon
The pales of Barcelona became the emblem of the kings. The Pennon was used exclusively by the monarchs of the Crown and was expressive of their sovereignty.
James III of Majorca, vassal of the Kingdom of Aragon, used a coat of arms with four bars, as seen on the
Leges Palatinae miniatures.
Institutions
Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia each had a legislative body, known as the
Cortes in Aragon or
Corts in Catalonia and Valencia. A
diputacion general was established in each, becoming known as a
Generalidad in Aragon and
Generalitat in Catalonia and Valencia.
Capital
The Crown had no capital. The courts were itinerant
[ ] until
Philip II of Spain. Buesa has argued that Zaragoza ought to be considered the political capital (but not economic or administrative), due to the obligation of the kings to be crowned at the Seo of Zaragoza.
[Domingo J. Buesa Conde, en El rey de Aragón (Zaragoza, CAI, 2000, págs. 57-59. ISBN 84-95306-44-1 ) postula la capitalidad política (que no económica, ni administrativa —puesto que las cortes eran itinerantes en el siglo XIV—) de Zaragoza para la Corona de Aragón a partir de los mandados de Pedro IV de Aragón establecidos para su propia coronación: "Pedro IV parte (...) de la aceptación de la capital del Ebro como "cabeza del Reino". [...] por eso hizo saber a sus súbditos que Mandamos que este sacrosanto sacramento de la unción sea recibido de manos del metropolitano en la ciudad de Zaragoza al tiempo que recordaba: "...y como quiera que los reyes de Aragón están obligados a recibir la unción en la ciudad de Zaragoza, que es la cabeza del Reino de Aragón, el cual reino es nuestra principal designación —esto es, apellido— y título, consideramos conveniente y razonable que, del mismo modo, en ella reciban los reyes de Aragón el honor de la coronación y las demás insignias reales, igual que vimos a los emperadores recibir la corona en la ciudad de Roma, cabeza de su imperio." Zaragoza, antigua capital del reino de Aragón, se ha convertido en la capital política de la Corona(...).] Nevertheless, the Aragonese kings lived in the city of Barcelona, therefore considered the capital by many historians.
Lands of the Crown
