The Revolt of the Catalans 
The Revolt of the Catalans
John H Elliott
'The Revolt of the Catalans' was published in English in 1963 and was translated into Catalan in 1966. The English edition is that I have read 2006, but I believe it is simply a reprint of the revised version of 1977, without any exchange. Its author, John H Elliott, was actually investigating the figure of Count Duke of Olivares, but "I realized that the best way to approach at that time to the internal politics of the Conde Duque was through an episode of major importance for seventeenth-century English history: the Catalan rebellion 1640. "And so was born this tome of 487 pages of history and nearly one hundred additions to wages, prices, coins, lists of MPs, glossary, sources and index.
is a typical British Hispanist work starts complaining lack of materials and how little has been done on the subject matter and just copy a book on the issue after years of research and manage hundreds of sources and files. Starting with the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1469, shows us step by step, detail by detail how the snowball Catalan discontent grew over 170 years until the Thursday, June 7 , 1640, the feast of Corpus Christi, the viceroy of Philip IV in Catalonia, Dalmau de Queralt, Count of Santa Coloma, was stabbed to death by two reapers on a beach in Barcelona when he tried to find a boat to flee the principality. The anthem of Catalonia today, "Els segadors', composed in the late nineteenth century, was inspired by this episode. "You shake the enemy / the waving of the banner: / as the ears of gold, / and chains fall!" Precisely
Catalan historians of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are among the objectives of Elliott. Without attempting to argue too much with them or want to get even, yes it clear that you feel your conclusions were too biased in favor of Catalan nationalism to want to take all the blame for the rebellion to Olivares and politics. Indeed, the whole issue can be reduced to that Catalonia was a law, certain privileges and certain laws to their masters, the successive counts of Barcelona, \u200b\u200bwhich incidentally were also kings of Spain, tried to break constantly asking money and soldiers without addressing the complaints and requests for the Catalans. All that is true, but so is that before they started the battles and sieges in 1640, the riots that occurred in Catalonia Catalan consisted mainly of poor stealing and burning the houses of rich Catalan, shouting "traitors to the nation "to justify their crimes. And also, nearly always" death to bad government, "along with" Long live the king ", just in case.
is also true that when the French Cardinal Richelieu began attacking the frontiers English in Hondarribia, people from all domains of Philip IV Spaniards came to the aid of the Basque population, except in Catalonia. It is also true that when the French tried to attack Catalonia itself, almost no one signed up to defend their own turf, and soldiers had to bring out that nobody wanted to sleep, and the resulting unrest and riots was what made a fire to the flame deposited dry leaves century and a half earlier. And finally, it is also true that when you hated both English Habsburgs who sought help from the French Bourbons, Catalonia was subjected to a far more oppressive occupation by the "Gavatx" than "castellà." In the end, it would be an Austria-born Felipe IV Valladolid who take away their privileges to the Catalans and the Crown of Aragon (in fact, at the end of the rebellion were reaffirmed and re-sworn), but a Bourbon Felipe V was born in Versailles.
But reducing everything to details is the opposite of what books are as necessary as this. The degree of detail with which the process has sometimes may seem too neat, but there always comes a time when after spending a couple of pages a bit convoluted, it shows why it is necessary to take all this into account. For example, some positions in Catalonia is granted by lottery, not by election or by appointment of a senior. Or that the Catalonian to which the king had to go for any important negotiation could be blocked by any assistants to them by the simple expedient of "dissent" at any point, and could not continue to address the issue until the "dissentiment" was resolved. Thus, a simple minority of one was close to pass an entire empire. Therefore, Cortes sessions lasted months but getting very little, and so the kings of Spain used to leave them tired of waiting, often when they were taking a run and starting to do something useful.
we also learn that while there were clashes as inevitable as he sees two trucks encounter of each other from afar, there were other times when things could have been vastly different had changed just a detail. For example, in the same week that the Viceroy Santa Coloma was killed, the court of Madrid had finally given in to one of the petitions complaining of the Catalans, of encouraging more natural outside Castile could access relevant charges in court real, and that this does not appear that the king ignored the other provinces. Over a hundred years long in this decision process, and the week is done, a calamity occurs impossible to ignore. The four days it took for mail to be made then the airlift proved fatal.
Another example is that during the rebellion Catalonia was made a republic ... for a week. It was the time it took to move from the yoke of Austria not feel able to govern alone and therefore find another king of France, which offer protection in exchange for loyalty. Search for the example of medieval feudal rather than progress. And by the way, conversations between Catalan and French representatives made ... in Castilian, the language of the common enemy.
What lesson from this historical episode can be drawn today? What we can teach Magistra vitae this time? Fortunately, there are many differences between the Iberian Peninsula 450 years ago, and most of what happened then could not happen today. But occasionally you see something that makes the reader think that the more things change the more they stay the same. The money, the desire to prosper, pride, make a living in difficult times, views on foreigners, prejudice, taking the law into their own hands (or not) and ignorance displayed, including universal thread in this story, as in many others. The reviled Olivares perhaps summed it up better than anyone writing to Santa Coloma three months before his murder: "Truly (...), the Catalans have more world must Catalonia." That can apply to all, yesterday, today and forever.
