Catalan Republic (1640–1641)

The Catalan Republic (Catalan: República Catalana, IPA: [rəˈpubːlikə kətəˈlanə]) was a short-lived independent state under French protection which began to be established after the autumn of 1640 by the Junta de Braços (assembly of Estates) of the Principality of Catalonia led by the President of the Generalitat, Pau Claris, during the Reapers' War (1640–1652), and being acknowledged by the same institutions between January and December of 1641.

As the conflict with the Spanish Monarchy escalated, the Junta de Braços of Catalonia, headed by the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Pau Claris, assumed the sovereignty and the effective rule of the Principality after September 1640 and ultimately, while the royal armies approached to Barcelona, accepted the establishment of the Catalan Republic on 16 January 1641. On 23 January 1641, due to the desperate military situation and French pressure, the Junta de Braços proclaimed Louis XIII as Count of Barcelona, beginning the process to put the Principality of Catalonia in a personal union with the Kingdom of France, culminated after December 1641. Louis XIII was succeeded upon his death in 1643 by Louis XIV, who remained Count of Barcelona until 1652, when Catalonia was reincorporated into the Spanish Monarchy.

History

At the beginning of the Reapers' War which started in 1640 (part of the wider Franco-Spanish War of 1635–1659) the President of the Generalitat, Pau Claris, summoned the 10 September the Junta de Braços or Braços Generals (assembly of Estates or States-General) of Catalonia, an extraordinary body made up of the representatives of the three Estates of the realm in the Catalan Courts (the parliament), presided by the Generalitat. The Junta was a response to the power void created by the Corpus de Sang events in Barcelona (7 June), in which the viceroy of Catalonia, Dalmau de Queralt, and the royal officers were assassinated by a multitude of peasants. The reaction of the Count-Duke of Olivares, the king's minister, was to prepare the military occupation of the Principality, punish those allegedly responsible of the revolt (both peasants and Catalan politicians) and then summit the Catalan Courts in the town of Montblanc, in order to obtain his project of Union of Arms and various centralizing measures under military pressure as it already happened in the Kingdom of Aragon in 1592.

The summit of the Junta de Braços was a success and an extraordinary improvement of representation by standards of the time in the European context, as it was also attended by representatives of cities which usually weren't invited to the Courts, as well as from various feudal towns and, in addition, it mostly worked under the basis of individual vote instead of the traditional single vote per Estate. The new assembly began to assume the sovereignty, enacting a series of revolutionary measures. Those included the establishment of its own Council of Justice in replacement of the Royal Audience of Catalonia (the royal judges were also assassinated during the Corpus de Sang), the Council of Defense in order to raise an army to respond the expected Royal counter-attack, as well as the Council of Treasury which began to issue debt and a special tax to the nobility, while sought support in France.