Kingdom of Valencia
Kingdom of the Crown of Aragon and part of the Hispanic Monarchy | |||||
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| Capital | Valencia | ||||
| Main language | Valencian | ||||
| Other languages | Aragonés, Spanish and Arabic Andalusí | ||||
| Religion | Catholic | ||||
| Government | Monarchy | ||||
| King | |||||
| • 1239-1276 | Jaime I | ||||
| • 1700-1746 | Felipe IV (V de Castilla) | ||||
| History | |||||
| • Conquest of the city of Valencia | 28 September 1238 | ||||
| • New Plant Decrees | 29 June 1707 | ||||
| Surface | |||||
| • 1239 | 24 000 km2 | ||||
| Population | |||||
| • 1239 est. | 50 000 | ||||
| Density | 2,1 rooms/km2 | ||||
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The Kingdom of Valencia (in current Valencian, Regne de València) was a kingdom within the Crown of Aragon, which spanned from the reconquest of the taifa of Valencia in 1238 by James I the Conqueror, King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona, until 1707, the year in which, with the promulgation of the Nueva Planta Decrees for the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, their institutions were abolished and their privileges replaced by the Castilians; From that date until the territorial division of Spain in 1833 undertaken by Javier de Burgos, the kingdom of Valencia maintained that name as a territory within the different administrations of Bourbon Spain.
After the initial conquest, it was extended to the south of the Biar-Busot line and a process of repopulation of the kingdom with Catalans and Aragonese began. In 1261 the Fueros de Valencia (Els Furs), from which the conquered territory was constituted as a kingdom in itself, integrated within the Crown of Aragon but with its own legal entity and administration, at the same level as the other member territories of the crown. The creation of the kingdom provoked an angry reaction from the Aragonese nobility, who thus saw the extension of their lordships to Valencian lands as impossible.
History
Middle Ages
After having been the cradle of the Iberian culture, and receiving different ancient cultures (Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Visigoths, Muslims, etc.), in the year 1233 King James I the Conqueror began the conquest of the Valencian territory marked then by five centuries of presence of the Saracens: the taifa kingdoms of [[taifa of Valencia|Valencia], Alpuente, Denia and Murcia.
Once the Balearic Islands had been conquered, Jaime I's military efforts were redirected towards the Islamic territories of the south. In the year 1233 the Alcañiz campaign was planned, developed in three stages:
- The first to the lands of "the Plana" north, with the take of Burriana in 1233 and other enclaves, such as Peñíscola.
- The second covers the central area with the conquest of Valencia (1238) and the plain lands to the Jucar, to do so the general courts of Monzón of 1236 granted the necessary help and Pope Gregory IX gave the company the character of crusade. The Puig was taken in August of 1237, with the failure of a squadron sent by the king of Tunisia to aid Valencia. The capitulations were signed on 28 September and the king entered the city on 9 October.
- The third phase spans from 1243 to 1245 and reaches the limits stipulated for the conquest between Aragon and Castile in the Treaty of Almizra in 1244, signed between Jaime I and Alfonso X el Sabio, at that time Spanish infant, to delimit the areas of reconquest of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon. The lands south of the Biar-Busot-Villajoyosa line were reserved to Castile, keeping the Kingdom of Murcia (with all the alicantins south of Biar-Busot) in Spanish territory. Later, taking advantage of the death of Sancho IV of Castile and the age minority of his successor, Fernando IV, the territories of the Kingdom of Murcia located north of the shore of the Segura are incorporated into the kingdom of Valencia with the invasion of these Castilian lands by Jaime II, following the Arbitral Judgment of Torrellas (1304) and the Elche Treaty (1305).
In 1283, Pedro III of Aragon authorized the installation of the Consulate of the Sea in Valencia, this being the first in Spain.
In 1305 this kingdom would be divided, leaving the western zone for Castile, which would constitute the Kingdom of Murcia within the Castilian crown, and the eastern zone for Aragón, which would become part of the Kingdom of Valencia, by virtue of the Judgment Arbitration of Torrellas and the Treaty of Elche.
The kingdom was made up, at first, of a Mudejar, Muslim and Mozarabic majority. With the conquest, the kingdom of Valencia received Christians mainly from the Crown of Aragon and Navarre, but also from other European countries. The settlement process of the Kingdom of Valencia was a long process that did not end until the XVII century, after the expulsion of the Moors. The population of the Kingdom of Valencia, from the beginning, was of diverse origin, although the bulk of the settlers came from Catalonia and Aragon, which were distributed in unequal percentages in each region. To a lesser extent, settlers from other provenances, most of which were of Castilian origin.
These populations, along with the Jews, resulted in a multi-denominational and multi-cultural society, with Christians having full rights compared to other cultures. These same create the bases of an economic system taking advantage of the existing Muslim infrastructures (weirs, terraces, irrigation systems, mosques, watchtowers, etc.), as well as settled agricultural products (citrus, raisins, almonds, rice, tiger nuts, vegetables, palm trees, etc.).
Despite sharing a king with the territories of the Crown of Aragon (Kingdom of Aragon, Kingdom of Mallorca and Catalan Counties), King Jaime I establishes the privileges of Valencia, thus founding a kingdom with its own political identity, with its own institutions, with its currency, administration, and tariffs. These fueros would be maintained until 1707, with the Bourbon centralization.
Between 1356 and 1365, King Pedro I of Castile and King Pedro IV of Aragon fought a bloody war that had its main stage in the Kingdom of Valencia, due to the Aragonese monarch's interest in controlling the Kingdom of Murcia. Cities like Alicante were besieged for several years, and as a reward for its bravery for twice resisting the assault of the Castilians, the city of Valencia received the two "L" of his shield (doubly loyal), and to his royal flag the royal crown was added. From this concession the Valencian flag was born that has survived to this day. During this war, in addition, the towns of Villena and Sax, which had passed to Valencia through the Torrellas Judgment in 1304 (although they remained in the Castilian Señorío de Villena), would be returned to Castile and would not return to Valencia until the XIX.
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Modern Age
The Kingdom of Valencia financially financed the expansion of the Crown of Aragon during the XV and XVI, which is why it reached its maximum splendor during the Golden Age, thanks to the consequent maritime trade with the new extra-peninsular territories of the Crown (Sardinia, Sicily, Naples, etc.). This period also coincides with a notable literary explosion in Valencian, being one of the first societies to enter the Renaissance, with important writers, humanists and philosophers.
With the effective dynastic union of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon under Emperor Carlos I, the Kingdom of Valencia continues to maintain its political independence. However, the kingdom began to be subjected to the pressure of an increasingly centralist policy on the part of the hegemony of the Castilian Crown, giving rise to important social conflicts such as the Revolts of the Germanías of the Valencian guilds and farmers against various viceroys. and lieutenants. Another important problem is the drastic demographic reduction, up to a third of the population, as a consequence of the different expulsions of Jews and Moors from the Kingdom, which causes its economy to enter into a serious crisis due, mainly, to the lack of labor. cheap work that existed with the Valencian Moorish population (called tagarins), and the flight of capital and assets accumulated by the Sephardim.
In 1700, with the death of Carlos II, Felipe de Anjou was proclaimed King of Castile and Aragon, which provoked the War of the Spanish Succession. The Crown of Aragon sided with Archduke Carlos, the other claimant. The resistance of the Kingdom of Valencia was concentrated especially in Játiva, Denia, Altea and Alicante, which were repeatedly set on fire (hence the name socarrats, "burned" in Spanish, proper of the city of Játiva), and its population massacred. When the war ended, Felipe V promulgated the Decrees of Nueva Planta, by which all the institutions of the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdoms that comprised it were abolished, which disappeared and were integrated into the Crown of Castile, becoming the fueros de this last kingdom extensive to the entire territory; However, to be assimilated into the Castilian legislation and political system, the king had to put down numerous uprisings and social revolts throughout the territory led by ex-combatants from the Habsburg side, the Migueletes.
Territorial division: the governorates and the viceroyalty
The Kingdom of Valencia was divided into two governorates from the XIV century, Valencia and Orihuela. The Governorate of Valencia was divided into three territories: the Governorate of Játiva or dellà Xúquer, for the area between Jijona and Júcar, the Governorate of Castellón or dellà Uixó, for the territory north of the Uixó, and the governor of Valencia who He had jurisdiction between Júcar and Uixó, in addition to the supervision of his lieutenants in Játiva and Castellón.
In 1520, maintaining the governorships, which lost much of their political importance, the Viceroyalty of Valencia was established with the appointment of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza y Lemos, who was the trigger for the War of the Germanías.
The different attacks that showed the weakness of the coastal defense led to the creation in 1594 of the Effective Militia Battalion of the Kingdom of Valencia, a defensive army of the kingdom, with ten thousand men destined to respond to any attack; but with the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609 and the support and information provided by the attackers, the number and virulence of the attacks decreased, and the battalion also reduced in size over the years.