Talk:History of Catalonia

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[edit] Nonsense map

The map of the catalan countries is pure fantasy. There is actually a fascist current in Catalonia that wants to include territories as Valencia or Balears in a invented entity called Catalan Countries. Valencia and Balears are different countries and communities inside Spain, with their own governments.


[edit] Union with Aragon

I've encountered a sentence in the Spanish-lamguage article, which has me rather confused.

After saying "Más tarde, bajo el gobierno del conde Ramón Berenguer IV (1131-1162), se produjeron diferentes hechos fundamentales para la historia de Cataluña," which I'm turning into "During the reign of Ramón Berenguer IV (reigned 1131-1162), several events occurred that would be crucial for the future of Catalonia," we get the following monstrous sentence:

Por un lado, su boda con Petronila de Aragón, lo que supuso la unión del condado de Barcelona y el reino de Aragón en un nuevo Estado, como matizó Pedro IV en el siglo XIV, que tenía Aragón como título y nombre principal Casa reinante que absorbió a la casa de Barcelona, extinguida en 1150 por mutua conveniencia y deseo del titular de esta última, el conde Ramón Berenguer; adquiriendo como propio un linaje superior, pero renunciando al suyo, no titulándose más que princeps junto a su esposa regina; de modo que el hijo de ambos, ya con Barcelona incorporada a la corona, se tituló rex de Aragón, y no de Cataluña.

I'm trying to translate it. Here's what I've got, but it is unclear about just what Peter IV of Aragon is said to have done that is different from what Ramón Berenguer IV did. I think it means that it was not until the time of Peter IV that Aragon and Barcelona became a single state, and up to that time they retained their own laws, but, if so, we don't have a word of that in our article on Peter IV. "...como matizó..." literally just means "...as mixed..." (in this case I assume "...as was mixed by...") but even that is not exactly clear.

On the one hand, his marriage with Petronila of Aragon, which implied the union of the County of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon in a new state, como matizó Peter IV of Aragon in the 14th century, which [or who?] had Aragon as principle title and name of the royal dynasty that absorbed the House of Barcelona, extinguished in 1150 by mutual convenience and desire of the title-holder of this last [the House of Barcelona?], Count Ramón Berenguer [IV]; acquiring as his own a superior lineage, but renouncing his own, not titling himself more than prince (princeps) together with his wife, the queen (regina), in such a manner that their son, now that Barcelona was incorporated into the crown, titled King (rex) of Aragon, and not of Catalonia.

So is it dynastic union in 1150 and union of states under Peter IV? I believe the statement in our article about dynastic union in 1137 is wrong: that seems to be the date of Ramón Berenguer IV's betrothal to the then 3-year-old Petronila.

Jmabel | Talk 06:27, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)


This long sentence actually lacks a main verb, making it semi-incomprehensible. The relevant information needs to be extracted and expressed as more than one English sentence:

His marriage to Petronila of Aragon implied the union of the County of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon in a new state — this union being later confirmed by Peter IV of Aragon, who used "Aragon" as his primary title and name of his ruling house — which absorbed the House of Barcelona, abolished in 1150 for reasons of mutual convenience and by the will of the Count himself, as he relinquished his own lineage to benefit from a higher one. Thus, he took the simple title Princeps (Prince) beside his wife with her title of Regina (Queen); and their son, now that Barcelona was incorporated into the Crown, took the title Rex (King) of Aragon, and not Catalonia.

Chameleon 12:55, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's clearer, but I bet it's not quite accurate. I bet it's:

...this union being later confirmed by Peter IV of Aragon. Ramón Berenguer IV used "Aragon" as his primary title and name of his ruling house, which absorbed the House of Barcelona, abolished in 1150 for reasons of mutual convenience and by the will of the Count himself...

Thanks a lot for your help! I'm particularly glad to have confirmation that this was tortured syntax in the Spanish original. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:32, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] CNT crisis?

From the article: "As for the workers' movement, there was the CNT crisis with the break-away faction in the 1930s..." I don't know the story on this, it's not in our article on the CNT, nor in Anarchism in Spain. I doubt we clarify it anywhere. Can someone who knows what this is about write it up in a relevant article and link from here? Thanks. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:21, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "Prohibited"

In the following passage, the portion I have bolded here was recently and anonymously added: "…the maritime expansion into the Atlantic and the conquest of Central and South America was essentially not a Catalan enterprise (even prohibited in doing so by Castille)…" That makes no grammatical sense, and the first interpretation I can come up with makes no historical sense, at least not to me. I'm guessing that what it is saying is that somehow Castille prevented Catalans from participating in the enterprise, but that doesn't make sense to me: this is post 1492, and while Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon remained nominally distinct, they were embodied in the same people (well, I suppose that as long as the Reyes Católicos lived, Isabella was tecnnically queen of Castille and Ferdinand King of Aragon, but as far as I know they did not in any meaningful way have separate policies, merely separate laws). So in what sense is it Castile that prevented Catalans from participating in the expansion and conquest? Can someone with more knowledge of this aspect of Spanish history than I have please help sort this out? - Jmabel | Talk 05:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


Castile and Aragon were separate states until 1716, in spite of the dynastic union, and had separate laws and customs administration. An exemple of that policy was that the new established colonies in America were Castilian (note that were not Spanish). They were administered as appendages of Castile, and the Aragonese were prohibited from trading or settling there. Seville was the only authorized port to trade in America, and the Casa de Contratacion and Consejo de Indias controlled all trades. This prohibition last until 1778, reversed by Charles III of Spain, and its said to be one of the reasons of the catalan decline in 16th century. When american trading was liberalizated, catalan economy improved. --Joan sense nick 01:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That's clear. The text in the article wasn't, so I'll fix it. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:24, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] latest edits claiming Catalonia persecuted Spanish-speakers

This is categorically "nonsense". During the period in question, Catalán prospered at the expense of Aragonés, not that of Castellano (what we now call "Spanish"). Tomertalk 01:50, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


The map with commentary 'Muslim conquest of Iberian Peninsula in 711-719' is absolutely false.

Never was existed the 'reine goto de argó', and the muslims conquired all the territorie of actual catalonia during about 1 siecle, and about 2/3 of the territory of actual Catalonia about 450 years.

However, the nortwest of Spain (Galice anda Asturies) are the zones that never was conquired by muslims.

As the map is a historic manipulation, i think must be deleted in Wikipedia. —This unsigned comment was added by Pispiribis (talkcontribs) 24 March 2006.

Technically the map makes sense in itself, but not in the article. A visigothic king Ardo struck coins in Zaragoza, Barcelona and Narbonne -i.e. seems to have controlled at least partially Tarraconensis and Septimania-, aprox. during this timeframe (cf. Roger Collins' "Early Medieval Spain"). But using it in a History of Catalonia article is evidently a manipulation.
BTW, Pispiribis, If Asturies never was conquered, how could Pelayo defeat the Muslim Governor of Gijon ? ;-) --Wllacer 10:23, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] That mandible: how old?

"the mandible of a pre-Neanderthal found in Banyoles, some 250,000 years old": I'm not saying that this is right or wrong, but it would seem to deserve a citation. - Jmabel | Talk 06:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi. The mandible is not accurately dated : according to morphology, it looks like a pre-Neanderthal (which means at least 200,000 years) but according to a recent ESR dating it could be younger (see http://www.naturalsciences.be/mars/litterature/bibliography/bibtest/Grun2005). The question now is to know if morphological study is more trustworthy than ESR dating. Anyway 25,000 is definitely wrong since Neanderthal disappeared around 30,000 years ago. Best, I20 10:54, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sentence fragment

The following sentence fragment was sitting in a paragraph of its own: "In 1235 born Catalonia". Since its meaning was unclear and it lacked context, I cut it. If this means something, please feel free to return it to the article, but please expand and clarify. If (as I suspect) it was written by someone without much English, please feel free to explain here in Spanish, Catalan, or even French. There are plenty of people working on this article who will be able to read those languages. - Jmabel | Talk 19:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Underreferenced

This is very underreferenced. It was initially translated from the Spanish Wikipedia, where it was utterly unreferenced. - Jmabel | Talk 19:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)