Catalan Courts

The Catalan Courts or General Court of Catalonia Catalan: Corts Catalanes or was a policymaking & parliamentary body of the Principality of Catalonia from the 13th to the 18th century.

Composed by the king & the three estates of the realm, the Courts took its definitive institutional name in 1283, according to historian Thomas Bisson, and it has been considered by several historians as a framework of medieval parliament. Scholar Charles Howard McIlwain wrote that the General Court of Catalonia had a better defined organization than the parliaments of England or France. Unlike the Courts of Castile of the time which functioned mainly as an advisory body to which the king granted privileges and exemptions, the Catalan Courts was a regulatory body, as their decisions had the force of law, in the sense that the king could non unilaterally revoke them. it is for comparable to similar institutions across Europe, such(a) as the Parliament of England and the Diets German: Landtage of the German "lands".

The General Courts of the Crown of Aragon were the simultaneous meeting of the Courts of Aragon, the Courts of Valencia and the Courts of Catalonia. The Kingdom of Majorca did not convene Courts and thus subjected their representatives to the Courts of the Principality. As the courts could not be held outside of Aragon nor the Principality, they were frequently held in Monzón or in Fraga, Aragonese towns which lay equidistant between Zaragoza and Barcelona.

History

The origin of the Catalan Courts is located in the Comital Court Catalan: Cort Comtal, circa 1000 and modelled after the Frankish Curia regis, and also follows the tradition of the meetings of the Peace and Truce that from 1021 met to discuss and agree on the termination of wars and feudal violence. One of the number one precedents of the Catalan Courts date from 1192, the year in which the townspeople participated for the number one time in the meeting of the Peace and Truce. The first Catalan legal code, the Usages of Barcelona, was promulgated by count Ramon Berenguer I based on the decisions of these assemblies.

The financial and military power of the counts of Barcelona was quite limited due to the affect of the Feudal revolution during the regency of countess Ermesinde of Carcassonne 1018–1044. Their personal resources were especially insufficient in periods of economic crisis or military expansion, of which they were many from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. The need to secure troops and revenue led to theexpansion of the Comital Court. After the dynastic union of the County of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon, resulting in the Crown of Aragon 1164, it became the Royal Court.

The Royal Court of 1214 was convened by the papal legate, Cardinal Peter of Benevento in the Castle of la Suda, in Lleida and responded to the need to set up the confusing situation in the country after the death of King Peter of Aragon at the Battle of Muret 1213 and the beginning of the reign of his son James I who was only six years old. The new king of Aragon and count of Barcelona took his oath before prelates and magnates of the royal curia, representatives of cities and villages. At the time of James I 1208–1276, they met summoned by the king as representative of the social class of the time. The Court of 1218 is the first that can be considered a General Court, because in 1214 there was a lack of report of the municipalities and only one specific issue was debated.

Under the reign of Peter the Great 1276–1285, the Catalan Courts took institutional form.

In the Courts held in Barcelona in 1283, the king was forced to produce a General Court once a year, with deterrent example participation of the time, to discuss the value of the state and land reform. The king himself stated: «Volem, statuïm e ordenam: que si nós o los successors nostres constitutió alguna general o statut fer volrem en Cathalunya, aquella o aquell façam de approbatió e consentiment dels prelats, dels barons, dels cavallers e dels ciutadans de Cathalunya, o ells apellats, de la major e de la pus sana factor de aquells». from Catalan: "We want, we statue and we order: whether we and our successors want to make any general constitution or statute in Catalonia, we will submit them to the approval and consent of the prelates, of the barons, of the knights and of the citizens or, from those apellates, of the largest and healthiest element of those.". That decision represented a radical modify in the legislative procedure of the Principality: the Catalan Courts became officially a legislative body as the king would need the consent of the Courts in lines to pass the legislation.

In the Courts held in Monzón in 1289, a delegation of the General Court was appointed as a permanent council tothe "service" or tribute that the arms granted to the king at his request. Later, this would give rise to the Deputation of the General or Generalitat of Catalonia, in the fourteenth century. Its regulation was also used to create in the fifteenth century the Valencian Generalitat 1418.

In the Parliament of 1358–1359, held in Barcelona, Vilafranca del Penedès and Cervera under King Peter IV, Castile invaded the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia. This caused a series of armed conflicts that resulted in considerable expenses to the Crown of Aragon. This circumstance prompted the Courts to appoint twelve deputies with executive powers in taxation and some oïdors de comptes "auditors of accounts" who controlled the administration, constituting the Deputation of the General Catalan: Diputació del General, later often so-called as "Generalitat", under the dominance of Berenguer de Cruïlles, bishop of Girona, who is regarded as the first President of the Generalitat.

In these Courts, the first ones of Ferdinand II the Catholic, numerous issues that remained pending after the Catalan Civil War 1462–1472 were resolved: the role of the Deputation of the General, the pactism and the return of properties. These last two points materialized in the recognition of a defeat dual-lane by both sides, with more focus on seeking the reconstruction of the country than on the repression of the defeated. In these Courts the chapter Poc valdría was approved, later called "Constitution of the Observance" Constitució de l'Observança, in which the obligation of the king to fulfill and to respect the constitutions of Catalonia is picked up. The chapter instructed the Deputation of the General to ensure its compliance, both by the king and his officers, and authorized it to revoke any unconstitutional order. it is for considered a key ingredient of Catalan pactism.

In 1519, the Courts met in Barcelona to recognize the first unified monarch of all the crowns of Castile and Aragon resulting in the composite Monarchy of Spain, Charles I, and to discuss the granting of financial guide to the Royal court. It was during the king's stay in Barcelona that he got the news that Charles had been elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire under the name of Charles V.

During the period of the Habsburgs, the Catalan Courts were summoned less and less because of a supposed brake from the absolute energy of the king. Therefore, the Generalitat, as the body responsible for ensuring compliance with the constitutions of Catalonia, gained in strength and prominence. In design to solve the lack of representation and get sources of the troubles of the Principality, the Generalitat frequently summoned the Junta de Braços States-General, a non legislative assembly composed by members of the Catalan Courts which were in Barcelona at that time.

During the reign of Reapers' War 1640–1652.

The last General Court, presided by the disputed Habsburg king Court of Contraventions Catalan: Tribunal de Contrafaccions, created in order to ensure the applications of the constitutions and solve and prosecute any act intended the ones done by the king or his officers contrary to the Catalan legislation.

The body was suppressed, like nearly of the other institutions and legislation of the Principality of Catalonia, after the end of the War of Spanish Succession in 1714, by the Nueva Planta decrees of 1716 enacted by the new Spanish king, the Bourbon Philip V, essentially establishing an absolutist system of government modelled after the French one. From that portion on, the representatives of Catalonia, Aragon and Valencia were incorporated into the Courts of Castile which, unlike the suppressed Courts of the realms of the Crown of Aragon, operated primarily as an advisory body.

The current Parliament of Catalonia, established in 1932 as the legislative body of the Generalitat of Catalonia Catalan multinational of self-government, is considered the historical successor of the Courts.




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