Barcelona County

Barcelona County in the context of the peninsular expansion of the Crown of Aragon.

The county of Barcelona corresponds to the territory ruled by the counts of Barcelona between the IX and the 12th century.

Origins

Its origins date back to the VIII century, when due to the Muslim expansion of the domains of the Visigothic Kingdom and its Later expansion on present-day France, the confrontation between the Franks and the Muslim forces led to a defensive response from the Carolingian monarchs, consisting of the creation of the so-called Hispanic March. This was done through the domination of the territories in the south of France and the north of the Iberian Peninsula and led to the formation of a group of small counties. The Frankish domination became effective after the conquest of Gerona (785) and mainly, when, in the year 801, the city of Barcelona was conquered by the king of Aquitaine Luis the Pious (or Ludovico Pío) and was incorporated into the Frankish kingdom, establishing in it the county of Barcelona, dependent on the Frankish king. The first count of Barcelona was Bera (801-820).

Initially, the authority of the county fell to the local, tribal or Visigothic aristocracy, but Bera's policy, favorable to preserving peace with Al-Andalus, led to his being accused of treason before the king. After losing a duel, according to the Visigothic legal tradition, Bera was dismissed and exiled, and the county government passed to Frankish nobles, such as Rampon or Bernardo de Septimania. However, the Visigothic nobility regained royal confidence with the appointment of Sunifredo I of Urgell-Cerdanya as Count of Barcelona in 844. Despite everything, the ties of dependency of the Catalan counties with respect to the Frankish monarchy gradually weakened. Autonomy was consolidated by affirming inheritance rights among county families. This trend was accompanied by a process of uniting the counties to form larger political entities. Count Wifredo the Hairy (840-897), son of Sunifredo and the last count appointed by the Frankish kings, represented this orientation. He managed to gather under his command a series of counties and pass them on as an inheritance to his sons. Although Wifredo, who died at the hands of the Muslims, divided his counties among his sons, the nucleus formed by the counties of Barcelona, Gerona and Osona remained undivided (although some historians, such as Ramón Martí, question whether Gerona initially remained under the domain of Wifredo's sons, and suggests that the house of Ampurias dominated the county until the year 908).

The county before the Crown of Aragon

During the X century, the counts of Barcelona strengthened their political authority and gradually moved away from the influence frank. In 985 Barcelona, then governed by Count Borrell II, is attacked and burned by Muslims, led by Almanzor. The count then takes refuge in the mountains of Montserrat, awaiting the help of the Frankish king, but the allied troops do not appear, which causes great discomfort. In the year 988, the Carolingian dynasty ended in the Frankish kingdom and was replaced by the Capetian dynasty. Borrell II is required to take an oath of allegiance to the new Frankish king, but there is no record that the Barcelona count responded to the call, since the Frankish king had to go north to resolve a conflict. This has been interpreted as the starting point of the de facto independence of the county. Count Ramón Borrell, son of the former, already rules as a sovereign with all his powers, such as the free disposal of tax assets, granting privileges and minting coins with his effigy and name, Raimundus .

Subsequently, the county of Barcelona grew in importance and territory with the successive counts. It gradually absorbed other counties of the Hispanic March and slowly expanded to the south thanks to the battles against al-Andalus and the repopulation of territories such as Tarragona and the surrounding countryside.

After the government of Ramón Borrell, followed by that of his weak son Berenguer Ramón I, dominated by the energetic figure of his mother Ermesenda de Carcasona, with Ramón Berenguer I the county's power was reinforced: he subdued the rebellious nobles of Panadés, establishes alliances with the counts of Urgel and Pallars, acquires the counties of Carcassonne and Rasez, collects pariahs from the taifas of Lérida and Zaragoza and renews the legal bases of the county by starting the compilation of the Usatges de Barcelona, a set of provisions, uses and customs that will increase in subsequent years. In the Usatges reference is made on various occasions to the sovereign, that is, the Count of Barcelona, as princeps (prince), and they call principatus (principality) the set of counties of Barcelona, Gerona and Osona.

In his will, Ramón Berenguer I decides not to divide his territories, but to transmit them in condominium to his two twin sons, Ramón Berenguer II and Berenguer Ramón II.

After the crisis caused by the murder of Ramón Berenguer II and the accusation of fratricide launched against his brother, who died in the First Crusade, the son and successor of the first, Ramón Berenguer III, knew how to consolidate and expand the limits of the county. He conquered part of the county of Ampurias and, at the head of a broad coalition, also undertook the conquest of Mallorca, narrated in the Pisan document called Liber maiolichinus (1117), in which Ramón Berenguer III is named Dux Catalanensis and catalanicus heros, while their subjects are called christicolas catalanenses, in what is considered the oldest documentary reference to Catalonia. However, the count had to abandon his conquests before the advance of the Almoravid troops on the peninsula. He also inherited the counties of Besalú and Cerdanya, progressively forming a territorial space very similar to that of the so-called Old Catalonia, in addition to advancing towards Lleida and repopulating border territories such as the city of Tarragona, effectively restoring it as episcopal see. He also expanded his trans-Pyrenean domain by incorporating the county of Provence thanks to his marriage to Countess Dulce.

The county in the Crown of Aragon

However, another marriage, that of Ramón Berenguer IV of Barcelona and Petronila de Aragón, heiress to the throne of Aragon, constitutes a dynastic union between the Barcelona count dynasty and the royal house of Aragon and is reliable proof of the power political and socioeconomic that the county already represented. Ramón Berenguer IV, twenty-three years older than Petronila, arranged the marriage when she was barely one year old, and thus received an entire kingdom as a dowry from the celebration of the wedding in 1150 Ramón Berenguer IV was Count of Barcelona and Prince of Aragon until his death. Their son, Alfonso II, was the first King of Aragon who in turn was Count of Barcelona, titles that will be inherited from then on by all the Kings of the Crown of Aragon. Each one of the territories that will form the union will maintain its uses, customs and own currency and with time will create private government institutions.

The de iure separation of the county from the French monarchy was obtained in the Treaty of Corbeil (1258) by King James I, who was then King of Aragon, Valencia and Majorca, as well as Count of Barcelona. According to this treaty, James I relinquished his rights to the northernmost territories of Roussillon, Conflent and Cerdagne, with the exception of the Lordship of Montpellier which he had inherited from his mother, while the King of France, Louis IX, relinquished these counties. and those further south, including Barcelona.

The survival of the specificity of the Barcelona county within the Crown is manifested, among other things, in ceremonial gestures. Thus, as cited in the Chronicle of Ramón Muntaner, King Peter the Great, on the occasion of his entry into Barcelona in 1283, received "la garlanda d'on fo coronat comte de Barcelona e senyor de tota Catalunya», and years later the Council of One Hundred demanded from King Martín the Human that, on the visit he was to make to the city in 1400 together with Queen María, «he should not carry crown», but rather the garlanda or diadem worn by the counts of Barcelona «abans que el comptat de Barcelona fos unit al regne d'Aragó».

As a result of the Caspe Compromise, ownership of the county passed to the Trastámara dynasty, originally from Castile, through the coronation of Ferdinand I of Aragon. Subsequently, the dynastic union between the crowns of Castile and Aragon would entail the inclusion of the county in the territories ruled by the Habsburgs.

The extinction of the county of Barcelona

Despite the county's link to the Spanish monarchy, the proper law of the county of Barcelona remained in force until it was abolished in 1714 with the Nueva Planta Decrees, after the war of the Spanish succession. Since then, the county has ceased to be a distinct political and legal entity and the political space of current Catalonia would only be defined as such again through the constitution of the Commonwealth of Catalonia (1914-1925) and later as the autonomous community of Catalonia, with based on the autonomy statutes of 1932, 1979 and 2006.

On the other hand, the sovereign title of Count of Barcelona continued to be linked to the holder of the Spanish crown. Juan de Borbón used it preferentially as head of the House of Bourbon and continued to use it until his death after having abdicated his dynastic rights in favor of his son Juan Carlos I, then reverting to the crown. It is currently one of the titles of King Felipe VI.