Vegueria

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The vegueria (pl. vegueries; Castilian: veguería, Latin: vigeria) was the territorial jurisdiction of a veguer (Latin: vigerius). The veguería was an important feudal land division in the Principality of Catalonia, Kingdom of Sardinia, and Duchy of Athens during the Middle Ages and into the Modern Era until the Nueva Planta decrees of 1716. It was the primary division of a county in Catalonia and the basic territorial unit of government in Sardinia and Athens after those countries became part of the Crown of Aragon. The office of a veguer was called a vigeriate (Latin: vigeriatus).

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[edit] History

[edit] Origins and functions

The origins of the vegueria go back to the era of the Carolingian Empire, when vicars (Latin: vicarii, singular vicarius) were installed beneath the counts in the Marca Hispanica. The office of a vicar was a vicariate (Latin: vicariatus) and his territory was a vicaria. All these Latin terms of Carolingian administration evolved in the Catalan language even as they disappeared in the rest of Europe. The Catalan terms were even subsequently Latinised: vicarius → vigerius.

The original functions of the vigeriate were feudal and it was probably initially hereditary. The veguer was appointed by his feudal lord, the count, and was accountable to him. He was the military commander of his vegueria (and thus keeper of the publicly-owned castles), the chief justice of the same district, and the man in charge of the public finances (the fisc) of the region entrusted to him. As time wore on, the functions of the veguer became more and more judicial in nature. He held a cort del veguer or de la vegueria with its own seal. The cort had authority in all matter save those relating to the feudal aristocracy. It commonly heard pleas of the crown, civil, and criminal cases. The veguer did, however, retain some military functions as well: he was the commander of the militia and the superintendent of royal castles. His job was law and order and the maintenance of the king's peace: in many respects an office analogous to that of the sheriff in England.

[edit] Spread

At the end of the twelfth century in Catalonia, there were twelve vegueries. By the end of the reign of Peter the Great (1285) there were seventeen, and by the time of James the Just there were twenty one. These administrative divisions remained until 1716. Some of the larger vegueries included one or more sotsvegueries, which had a large degree of autonomy.

While Catalonia continued to use vegueries as subdivisions of counties, elsewhere in the Iberian peninsula there were the merináticos (Kingdom of Aragon) and the corregimientos (Kingdom of Castile) whose functions were similar to those of the Catalan vegueries. When the Kingdom of Sicily became a Catalan-run state, it was not subdivided into vegueries, since a similar Italian institution was already entrenched there: that of the capitania and the capità. The capità had similar to identical functions as the veguer. When the Catalans conquered Athens, they subdivided that duchy into three vegueries: Athens, Thebes, and Livadia. In the Duchy of Neopatria which the Athenian Catalans conquered in 1319, the institution of the capità appeared instead of the vigeriate, but the captaincies (Siderocastron, Neopatras, and Salona) were similar to identical in function to the veguerias of Athens. In Athens, the offices of captain and veguer were often held by the same individual as capitaneus seu vigerius and variants. Once the Aragonese crown had finally subdued most of the Kingdom of Sardinia to their rule by the end of the fourteenth century, they had subdivided its government into vegueries. All the vegueries of the Catalan possessions were, by the Usages of Barcelona, constrained to be held for only three years by any individual, though in practice some kings ignored this. In Athens, a vicar general on the Italian model was instituted above the veguers.

[edit] Today

In 1936, Catalonia was reconstituted into comarques. Each comarca was grouped with two to four others into a vegueria, of which there were eight, with their capitals at Barcelona, Girona, Vic, Manresa, Lleida, Reus, Tarragona, and Tortosa. Under the 2006 Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia, the four provinces which make up Catalonia are due to be replaced by seven vegueries, which will also take over many of the functions of the comarques. As of February 2007, the final boundaries of the new vegueries had yet to be approved.

[edit] Historical vegueries

The vegueries of Catalonia at the time of James the Just were:

Later, during the fourteenth century, a few more vegueries were created:

In Athens, there were always three vegueries:

[edit] Sources

  • Setton, Kenneth M. Catalan Domination of Athens 1311–1380. Revised edition. London: Variorum, 1975.