The Origins of Catalan Nationalism, 1770-1898

A. Smith

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137354495
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

This book looks at the reasons behind the emergence of a Catalan nationalist movement from the late 1880s, one of the most important developments that took place in nineteenth-century Spain, with the 'Catalan question' thereafter never far from the centre of the Spanish political stage.

1

King, Patria and Nation: Catalonia from the Ancien Régime to Liberalism

The aim of this chapter is to trace both changes and continuities in territorially based identities in Catalonia from the Middle Ages through to the crisis of the ancien régime between 1808 and 1814. To set the scene, it opens with an overview of relations between Catalonia and Spain, and of the identitarian interplay between the two geographical ambits, from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Developments in the medieval and early-modern eras would inevitably condition attempts at nation-building and the obstacles they faced in the nineteenth century. And past events would be used by proponents and detractors of national unity, and by advocates of different constitutional arrangements, in order to bolster their claims. Furthermore, the eighteenth century would see both the rise of an Enlightenment-inspired Spanish ‘patriotism’ and also the elaboration of proposals for the modernization of Spain based on the Catalan economic and social model. Both would have a great impact on Spain’s subsequent political and cultural development.

The chapter will then go on to analyse the revolutionary conjuncture of the years 1808 to 1814. This period was crucial in the construction of modern Spain. The country was pulled into the post-French-revolutionary European maelstrom following its invasion by the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1808. What was known at the time as the ‘war with the French’ (and was rebaptized by Spanish nationalists the ‘War of Independence’ from the late 1820s) was an opportunity to build bonds of national unity. The new ideology of liberal nationalism made an impact amongst more educated sectors of the population in particular, who borrowed the doctrine of national sovereignty from their French neighbour. The forces of tradition mobilized in defence of the old order, but began to deploy their own brand of anti-liberal nationalism. Concepts like ‘nation’ and ‘pàtria’ were henceforth both reworked and contested.¹ At the Cortes of Cadiz Spanish liberals would force through a rather centralized constitution based on the doctrine of national sovereignty, while from Catalonia the argument was advanced that representatives should, in part, be accountable to their province. This set the scene for debates and conflict over the cultural and political role of the regions in the articulation of Spain.

The medieval legacy: cultural pluralism and political tension

Catalonia grew out of the territories that were seized by the Frankish forces of King Charlemagne from the Moors in the north and north-east of the Iberian Peninsula from the late eighth century onwards, forming what became known as the Marca Hispanica. Over the next century they were to become increasingly independent, with the county of Barcelona establishing itself as the most powerful territorial unit by the twelfth century. In 1137 the Count of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer IV, married the heiress of the Aragonese throne, thereby establishing a confederation under the House of Barcelona. At the same time, what became known as the Principality of Catalonia expanded to include the Balearic Islands, and territories to the south (Lleida, Tarragona, Tortosa), while also holding land in what is today part of southern France. The Islamic kingdom of Valencia was then taken from the Moors by Catalan forces in the mid-twelfth century. Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia formed three separate kingdoms within a confederation usually referred to as the Crown of Aragon. They were allied under a single monarch, but would each have their separate medieval parliaments. Under Catalan aegis, from the mid-thirteenth century the Crown of Aragon established a major seaborne, commercial empire; its possessions including the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.²

The year 1479 was then to see a dynastic union of the Crowns of Aragon and Castile under the ‘Catholic Monarchs’, Isabel I of Castile and Fernando II of Aragon.³ The resulting territory was in geographical terms very similar to Spain today. This was part of a broader process operating in western Europe, whereby larger states were forged in order to compete with their neighbours and fight against the Ottoman and Moorish empires. Competition between states also encouraged monarchs to bolster their power and set up more effective administrative apparatuses. Hence, with France taking the lead, attempts were made from the fifteenth century to cut back the power of feudal lords and the Church, to extend bureaucratic control, and to promote a vernacular lingua franca as the language of the state. Nevertheless, most large western states remained ‘composite monarchies’, based on a pact between the elites of the old kingdoms and the monarch.⁴

The union of the Aragonese and Castilian Crowns represented such a pact, with each of the kingdoms retaining its own medieval parliament, civil laws, customs barriers and distinct monetary system. In subsequent years the vagaries of dynastic alliances and the death and incapacity of potential heirs then produced some surprising consequences. After the demise of Isabel in 1504 the union of the Crowns was almost undone. This was avoided when in 1516 the grandson of the emperor of the Habsburg Empire, Maximilian I, was crowned Carlos I. Then in 1519 on the death of the Habsburg emperor he became the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, with the result that his Hispanic possessions were integrated into the Habsburg Empire. The political structure of the Crowns was, nevertheless, maintained. The monarch was crowned in each of his kingdoms separately, and with the exception of Castile was represented in each of his dominions by a viceroy, while the interests of each kingdom were, at least theoretically, guaranteed by councils which advised the king.

The 1479 union followed a period of economic and social crisis in Catalonia and so the Crown of Castile was the major partner in the match. The latter territory comprised much of the Iberian Peninsula, including Castile in the centre, Andalusia to the south, and the northern Atlantic seaboard. Following the incorporation of Navarre in 1512, the only major Iberian kingdom to remain separate was Portugal. In terms of population, it has been estimated that the Crown of Castile had around 5 million inhabitants, compared to 1 million in the Crown of Aragon.⁵ The former’s relative strength was subsequently further enhanced because the conquest of America was largely a Castilian affair. The American colonies were directly integrated into the Crown of Castile and it monopolized the colonial trade. Its pre-eminence was confirmed from the reign of Felipe II. Madrid became the capital of the Hispanic Habsburg Monarchy from 1561.⁶ This was accompanied by a concerted effort by elites around the throne to ‘castilianize’ the monarch by ensuring that Castilian was Felipe’s native language, that he was brought up in the traditions of the Castilian court, and that he imbibed tales of Castile and Spain’s glorious past.⁷ Moreover, it seems there was a tendency for noblemen drawn from Castile to be over-represented in the higher offices of state.⁸ Hence, from this date elites from the Castilian-Andalusian axis within the Crown of Castile became, to use the phrase coined by Anthony D. Smith, the ‘core ethnie’ within the Empire.⁹ Yet the clear differentiation between the king’s various possessions remained. Furthermore, there was no attempt to forge ethnic and linguistic homogenization from the centre (outside of elite state and Church circles).¹⁰ As has frequently been pointed out, this lack of interest in trying to construct a more homogeneous cultural and linguistic community out of a given political unit was one of the key differences between the medieval and modern worlds.¹¹

As a result, amongst Iberian elites any sense of shared political or cultural identity was slow to develop. Before the 1479 union, the Iberian Peninsula appeared in cartographers’ maps as Hispania, a geographical term used to refer to the old province of the Roman Empire (España in Castilian, Espanya in Catalan). Between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, in the Christian peninsular kingdoms there was a recognition amongst elites that they were engaged in a shared struggle against the Moorish enemy, but this was overlaid by dynastic rivalry, culminating, on occasion, in outright war between the Crowns of Castile and Aragon. And in these circumstances the Christian peoples of the peninsula were marked more by their diversity than their unity.¹² In the aftermath of the union of the Crowns identitarian allegiances were to shift. A growing body of historians have argued that from the sixteenth century on, in old established European states, a number of factors increasingly led to a patriotic identification of sectors of the population with their state and dynasty. On the one hand, the growth in bureaucracy and use of the vernacular, improved internal communications, the rise of the printed word, and war with other states, produced a sense of attachment amongst clerical, bureaucratic and cultural elites. In addition, religious conflict within and between states led to the politicization of religion and its usage by the state, and sometimes opposition groups, to mobilize support against internal and external enemies. This could produce a messianic world view in which one’s own state and dynasty was invested with a religious mission.¹³

Such a process could be seen in Castile between the 1540s and 1580s. It was rooted in the crusading mentality that had developed during the ‘Reconquest’. Amongst Castilian elites pride in their kingdom was further enhanced by the conquest and evangelization of the Americas, and by Felipe II’s exploits on the European stage. They could see themselves as at the forefront of a struggle to save Christendom, on the one hand against the threat of the Ottoman Empire, and on the other against the Lutheran Reformation. And in this context the Church propagated the belief that Castilians were God’s chosen people and that they were destined for greatness. This sense of religious purpose had led to the early elaboration, between the ninth and twelfth centuries, of the ‘foundation myth’ which asserted that the Christian faith had been brought to the Iberian Peninsula by Santiago (St James in English), one of Christ’s apostles. He became the Crown of Castile’s patron saint and it was claimed that he miraculously appeared in battle at crucial times to defeat the Moors.¹⁴

Theorists of nationalism have pointed out how important ‘foundation myths’ and a sense of ethnic attachment to the territory’s supposed founders were in the subsequent construction of modern nations.¹⁵ A key question is, however, the extent to which attempts to create some sense of common identity reached beyond Castile. From the reign of Felipe II, within court circles ‘Spain’ (identified with the Iberian Peninsula) was portrayed as the heart of the empire, and a number of histories of Spain were produced between the 1540s and 1580s. However, amongst Castilian elites Spain tended to be seen simply as an extension of Castile, and the words were used interchangeably.¹⁶ Hence, fifteenth- and sixteenth-century mythical histories centred on the Visigothic nobleman, Pelayo, who from the mountains of Asturias (viewed as the root of the Crown of Castile) had purportedly begun the ‘Reconquest’ of Spain from the Moors, and on the daring exploits of the Castilian nobleman, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, ‘El Cid’ during the ‘Reconquest’.¹⁷ Indeed, in seventeenth-century Catalonia complaints were heard that Catalans were being politically marginalized and that Castilian authors were conflating Castile and Spain.¹⁸

Moreover, Catalan elites also forged a sense of ethnic territorial identity. By the seventeenth century they used terms such as principality, province, nation and pàtria to describe Catalonia. Pàtria was particularly important because it contained the powerful emotional charge of common historical genealogy, kinship ties and customs in common. A key component of this identity was Catalonia’s own body of laws (the so-called ‘constitutions’), and the precocious development and power of the Catalan medieval parliament or Corts. The monarch’s relative weakness had allowed the Corts to establish a contractual relationship, whereby its consent was essential to run the country. This contrasted with the situation in the Crown of Castile, where, under the Habsburgs in particular, the formal power of the Castilian parliament, the Cortes, was much weakened.¹⁹ In the seventeenth century identitarian identification with other territories operated as a series of concentric rings. The Aragonese and Valencians were regarded as sister ‘nations’. There was a recognition of interests in common with Castilians, but the perception that the latter were getting all the honours and privileges led to antagonism. The Hispanic Monarchy was envisaged as a political umbrella, which brought together the separate kingdoms, and loyalty was based on swearing allegiance to the monarch.²⁰

The sense of Catalan identity within elite circles was bolstered by the territory’s own ancestral legends. These focussed on the struggle against the Moors. From the twelfth century onwards, Count Guifré el Pilós (Wilfred the Hairy), the ninth-century count of Barcelona and the surrounding counties, was mythologized as the leader who had defeated a Saracen invasion and in return had been granted territorial independence by the Carolingian Empire. To this was subsequently added the colourful legend that, fighting valiantly for King Louis the Pious (in subsequent versions Charles the Bald) against the latter’s Norman foes, Guifré was injured in battle. In recognition Louis the Pious dipped his fingers in Guifré’s blood and ran his fingers down his golden shield giving the country its coat of arms, and promised that if Guifré survived, which he did, he would grant Catalonia independence. In the early fifteenth century, a further legend, which had its roots in the thirteenth century, became popular. This told of the Frankish knight, Otger Cataló (or Catalón), and his nine companions, who during the reign of Charlemagne had from their base in the Pyrenean mountains led the reconquest of northern Catalonia from the Moors. Otger was killed in battle, but his companions continued the struggle alongside Charlemagne, and on achieving success named the new territory after him in his honour. More importantly, in the 1580s the claim was made that the Catalans had originally been independent of the Franks and had begun the struggle against the Moors separately. They subsequently asked the Carolingian Empire for protection but retained their own laws and privileges. These legends were brought together in two major works; Jeroni Pujades’ Coronica Universal del Principat de Cathalunya in the early seventeenth century, and Narcís Feliu de La Penya’s Anales de Cataluña y epílogos breves de la nación catalana a century later. They were significant for two interrelated reasons. They affirmed that Catalonia’s origins were separate from those of Castile and linked the territory to the glorious name of Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire.²¹

Nevertheless, Castilian influence could be seen in both the linguistic and cultural sphere. The linguistic situation was highly complex. While Castilian was spoken in the Crown of Castile, another neo-Latin language, Catalan, was the tongue of the people of Catalonia, Valencia and the Balearic Islands. From the union of the Crowns, Castilian became the language of the central administration (with Latin used in elite Church circles and in part within the judiciary). This royal connection imbued the language with cultural and political prestige and Catalan elites began increasingly to publish in Castilian during the sixteenth century. Furthermore, Madrid was the cultural heart of the empire, and its literature, theatre, dance and music made a big impact. However, Catalan was the language of the Catalan administration, and its maintenance in this sphere became bound up with the defence of Catalonia’s ‘privileges and constitutions’. Moreover, a whole host of Church institutions and private tutors taught Catalan and it was used in normal everyday transactions and in private letters. Finally, all sections of Catalan society continued to speak in Catalan.

In sum, in the seventeenth century Castilian had become the language of high culture. To be considered an educated Catalan one should be able to read and write Castilian, and perhaps also address Castilian officials in the language. But at the same time, when addressing Catalonian institutions and in all other contexts one would use Catalan.²² This linguistic and cultural assimilation was not seen as a problem. In the pre-nationalist age there was no sense that language and culture were precious commodities that had to be preserved for their own sake. However, Catalan elites were very concerned to protect their ‘constitutions’, and this did lead to conflict with the central state.

As noted, under the rule of the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Acronyms
• Notes on Style
• Introduction
• 1. King, Patria and Nation: Catalonia from the Ancien Régime to Liberalism
• 2. Catalonia in the Spanish Nation-Building Project, 1815–68
• 3. Liberalism, Romanticism and the Consolidation of a Cultural Catalan Identity, 1815–74
• 4. Centralization, Decentralization and the Construction of a Catalan Political Regionalism, 1815–74
• 5. The Catalan Haute Bourgeoisie and the State, 1875–98
• 6. The Travails of Liberal Catalanism, 1875–98
• 7. The Church, the Right and the Forging of a Catalan Nationalist Movement, 1875–98
• Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index