Kingdom of Valencia
Encyclopedia
The Kingdom of Valencia , located in the eastern shore of the Iberian Peninsula
, was one of the component realms of the Crown of Aragon
. When the Crown of Aragon merged by dynastic union
with the Crown of Castile
to form the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Valencia became a component realm of the Spanish monarchy.
The Kingdom of Valencia was formally created in 1238 when the Moorish taifa
of Valencia was taken in the course of the Reconquista
. It was dissolved by Philip V of Spain
in 1707, by means of the Nueva Planta decrees
, as a result of the Spanish War of Succession.
During its existence, the Kingdom of Valencia was ruled by the laws and institutions stated in the Furs (charters) of Valencia
which granted it wide self-government under the Crown of Aragon and, later on, under the Spanish Kingdom.
The boundaries and identity of the present Spanish Autonomous Community of Valencia
are essentially those of the former Kingdom of Valencia.
, James I
, called Jaume I el Conqueridor or the Conqueror, took Morella, mostly with Aragonese troops. Shortly after, in 1233, Borriana
and Peniscola
were also taken from the بلنسية Balansiyya (Valencia in the Arabic language
) taifa
.
A second and more relevant wave of expansion took place in 1238, when James I defeated the Moors from the Balansiya taifa. He entered the city of Valencia on 9 October 1238, which is regarded as the dawn of the Kingdom of Valencia.
A third phase started in 1243 and ended in 1245, when it met the limits agreed between James I and the heir to the throne of Castile, Alfonso the Wise
, who would succeed to the throne as Alfonso X in 1252. These limits were traced in the Treaty of Almizra
between the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon, which coordinated their Reconquista efforts to drive the Moors southward by establishing their respectively desired areas of influence. The Treaty of Almizra established the south line of Aragonese expansion in the line formed by the villes of Biar and Busot, today in the North of the Alicante province. Everything South of that line, including what would be the Kingdom of Murcia, was reserved by means of this treaty for Castile.
The matter of the large majority of Mudéjar
population, left behind from the progressively more southern combat front, lingered from the very beginning until they finally were expelled en masse in 1609. Until that moment, they represented a complicated issue for the newly established Kingdom, as they were essential to keep the economy working due to their numbers, which inspired frequent pacts with local Muslim populations, such as Mohammad Abu Abdallah Ben Hudzail al Sahuir
, allowing their culture various degrees of tolerance but, on the other side, they were deemed as a menace to the Kingdom due to their lack of allegiance and their real or perceived conspiracies to bring the Ottoman Empire
to their rescue.
There were indeed frequent rebellions from the Moor population against Christian rule, the most threatening being those headed by the Moor chieftain Mohammad Abu Abdallah Ben Hudzail al Sahuir, also known as Al-Azraq. He led important rebellions in 1244, 1248 and 1276. During the first of these, he briefly regained Muslim independence for the lands South of the Júcar
, but he had to surrender soon after. During the second revolt, king James I was almost killed in battle, but Al-Azraq also was finally subjugated, his life spared only because of a long time relationship with the Christian monarch. During the third rebellion, Al-Azraq himself was killed but his son would continue to promote Muslim unrest and local rebellions remained always at sight.
James II
called Jaume II el Just or the Just, a grandson of James I, initiated in 1296 a final push of his army further southwards than the Biar-Busot pacts. His campaign aimed at the fertile countryside around Murcia
and the Vega Baja del Segura
whose local Muslim rulers were bound by pacts with Castile and governing by proxy on behalf of this kingdom; Castilian troops often raided the area to assert a sovereignty which, in any case, was not stable but was characterized by the typical skirmishes and ever changing alliances of a frontier territory.
The campaign under James II was successful to the point of extending the limits of the Kingdom of Valencia well South of the previously agreed border with Castile. His troops took Orihuela
and Murcia. What was to become the definite dividing line between Castile and the Crown of Aragon was finally agreed by virtue of the Sentencia Arbitral de Torrellas (1304), amended by the Treaty of Elche
(1305), which assigned Orihuela (also Alicante
and Elche) to the Kingdom of Valencia, while Murcia went to the Crown of Castile, so drawing the final Southern border of the Kingdom of Valencia.
At the end of the process, four taifas had been wiped out: Balansiya, Alpuente, Denia and Murcia. Taking into account the standards of the day, it can be considered as a rather rapid conquest, since most of the territory was gained in less than fifty years and the maximum expansion was completed in less than one century. The toll in terms of social and politic unrest which was to be paid for this fast process was the existence of a large Muslim population within the Kingdom which neither desired to become a part of it nor, as long as they remained Muslim, was given the chance to.
efforts by the Crown of Castile
: as a fight led by the King in order to gain new territories as free as possible of serfdom
to the nobility. The new territories would then be only accountable to the King, thus enlarging and consolidating his power versus that of the nobility. Making it part of a growing trend evident in Spain in the Middle Ages
(said to end in 1492 with the final acts of the Reconquista in the capitulation of Kingdom of Granada and the expulsion of the Jews) and well into the era of Habsburg Spain
.
It is under this approach that the repopulation of the Kingdom is assessed today. The new Kingdom population was initially overwhelmingly Muslim
and often subjected to revolts and the serious threat of being taken by any given fellow Muslim army put together for this purpose in the Maghreb
.
The process by which the monarchy strove to free itself from any noble guardianship was not easy as the nobility still held a big share of power and was determined to retain it as much as possible. This fact marked the Christian
colonization of the newly acquired territories, ruled by the Lleis de Repartiments. Finally the Aragonese nobles were granted several domains but only managed to obtain the inland, mostly mountainous and sparsely populated parts of the Kingdom of Valencia.
The king reserved the fertile and highly populated lands in the coastal plains to free citizens and incipient bourgeoisie
whose cities were given Furs or royal charters regulating civil law and administration locally, always accountable to the king.
This had linguistic consequences.:
Another possibly primary driving force, but likely to be understated by modern historiography, was religious faith. In this regard, Pope Gregory IX
recognized the fight as a Crusade and James I was known for being a devout king.
The Kingdom of Valencia achieved its height during the early 15th century. The economy was prosperous and centered around trading through the Mediterranean, which had become increasingly controlled by the Crown of Aragon, mostly from the ports of Valencia and Barcelona
.
In the city of Valencia the Taula de canvis was created, functioning partly as a bank and partly as a stock exchange
market; altogether it boosted trading.
The local industry, especially textile manufactures, achieved great development and the city of Valencia turned into a Mediterranean trading emporium where traders from all Europe worked. Perhaps the best symbol which summarizes this flamboyant period is the Silk Exchange, one of the finest European examples of civil Gothic architecture
and a major trade market in the Mediterranean by the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century.
Valencia was one of the first cities in Europe to install a movable type
printing press
as per the designs of Johannes Gutenberg. It was Valencian authors such as Joanot Martorell
or Ausiàs March
who conformed the canon of classic Valencian literature.
, the modern Kingdom of Spain was born. Valencia began a slow process of integration with the rest of Spain. When Ferdinand and Isabella
's grandson Charles came to the throne, the crowns were permanently joined together in personal union
. The kings of Habsburg Spain
(January 23, 1516 – November 1, 1700) maintained the privileges and liberties of the territories and cities which formed the kingdom and its legal structure and factuality remained intact. A new position, Viceroy of Valencia, was created to manage the officially independent Kingdom. Meanwhile the rising Spanish Empire
had left behind its former status as a Kingdom of the Iberian Peninsula
and had emerged as a Great power
. The Empire shifted its focus to the Spanish colonization of the Americas
and its possessions in Europe, rather than its Iberian territories.
During the 16th century Valencia lost its status as a preeminent commercial center of Europe to the rapidly developing cities of Northern and Central Europe. Within Spain, the Atlantic trade favored the cities of Andalusia such as Cádiz
. This was largely due to diminishing profits from the Mediterranean trade. The Spanish Empire was in frequent conflict with the Ottoman Empire
which controlled most of the eastern Mediterranean. They prevented each other from reaching certain ports while Ottoman privateer
s such as Barbarossa preyed on trade ships. The Barbary pirates such as Dragut, operating out of Tunis
, Tripoli
, Algiers
, Salé
and ports in Morocco
, attacked shipping in the western Mediterranean, which included destructive raids in Christian ports along the coast. This decline in trade greatly inhibited the economy in Valencia, which had already been economically affected by the Alhambra decree
which had expelled the Jews back in 1492.
In 1519, the young King Charles I
granted the Germanies
(literally "brotherhoods") permission to arm themselves to fight off the Muslim raiders. The Germanies were artisan guilds who also, at first with the government's permission, served as civilian militias to fight raiding pirates. However, the Germanies also had an economic agenda favoring the commoner-dominated guilds that clashed with the aristocracy. After the recently appointed Viceroy of Valencia Diego Hurtado de Mendoza refused to seat elected officials who favored the Germanies in 1520, a full fledged revolt broke out, the Revolt of the Brotherhoods (Revolta de les Germanies). It lasted well into 1522, and shared many traits as the contemporaneous Revolt of the Comuneros in Castile. Aside from economic resentment of the aristocracy, the revolt also featured a strong anti-Muslim aspect, as the superstitious populace blamed Muslims, homosexuals, and other outcasts for a plague that struck the city. The mudéjar
s (Muslims) were seen as allies of the aristocracy, as they worked in the nobility's large farms and undercut the Valencians on wages making them competitors for scarce jobs. During the revolt, the agermanats killed many Muslims and forcibly baptized the rest. Even after the Germanies were suppressed it was ruled that these baptisms were valid, sparking a new revolt of the Morisco
s (Muslim "converts").
As a result of the exhausted forces left by the clashes between nobles and high bourgeoisie versus the general populace and lesser bourgeoisie, the king used this power vacuum to enlarge his share of power and gradually diminish the ones of the local authorities; this meant that his requests for money in order to enlarge or consolidate the disputed possessions in Europe were progressively more frequent, more imperative and, conversely, less reciprocated for the Kingdom of Valencia, just as they were elsewhere for the rest of the Spanish Kingdom territories.
Then the expulsion of the Moriscos
in 1609 was the final blow for the Kingdom of Valencia, as thousands of people were forced to leave, entire villages were deserted, and the countryside lost its main labor force, in all, some 125,000 people are supposed to have left the land. The expulsion was broadly welcome with the Valencian citizenry, especially for its more popular segments. Since the expulsion meant the loss of a cheap workforce for the nobility, themselves and the upper bourgeoisie had to turn to the king seeking protection from the general populace, which meant that they had to renounce their former check and balance role before the requests of the kings, which was one of the driving forces of the Kingdom's autonomy.
The Kingdom of Valencia as a legal and politic organization was finally terminated in 1707 as a result of the Spanish War of Succession. The local population mostly took side and provided troops and resources for Archduke Charles
, the pretender who was arguably to maintain the legal status quo
. His utter defeat at the Battle of Almansa
, near the borders of the Kingdom of Valencia, meant its legal and politic termination, along with other autonomous parliaments in the Crown of Aragon, as the Nueva Planta Decrees
were passed and the new King Philip V of Spain
of the House of Bourbon
created a centralized Spain.
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
, was one of the component realms of the Crown of Aragon
Crown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon Corona d'Aragón Corona d'Aragó Corona Aragonum controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain and southeastern France, as well as some of the major islands and mainland possessions stretching across the Mediterranean as far as Greece...
. When the Crown of Aragon merged by dynastic union
Dynastic union
A dynastic union is the combination by which two different states are governed by the same dynasty, while their boundaries, their laws and their interests remain distinct...
with the Crown of Castile
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
to form the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Valencia became a component realm of the Spanish monarchy.
The Kingdom of Valencia was formally created in 1238 when the Moorish taifa
Taifa
In the history of the Iberian Peninsula, a taifa was an independent Muslim-ruled principality, usually an emirate or petty kingdom, though there was one oligarchy, of which a number formed in the Al-Andalus after the final collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031.-Rise:The origins of...
of Valencia was taken in the course of the Reconquista
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...
. It was dissolved by Philip V of Spain
Philip V of Spain
Philip V was King of Spain from 15 November 1700 to 15 January 1724, when he abdicated in favor of his son Louis, and from 6 September 1724, when he assumed the throne again upon his son's death, to his death.Before his reign, Philip occupied an exalted place in the royal family of France as a...
in 1707, by means of the Nueva Planta decrees
Nueva Planta decrees
The Nueva Planta decrees were a number of decrees signed between 1707 and 1716 by Philip V—the first Bourbon king of Spain—during and shortly after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession which he won....
, as a result of the Spanish War of Succession.
During its existence, the Kingdom of Valencia was ruled by the laws and institutions stated in the Furs (charters) of Valencia
Furs of Valencia
Furs of Valencia were the laws of the Kingdom of Valencia during most of Middle Ages and Early modern Europe. They were a series of charters which, altogether, worked similarly as a modern Constitution does now. Thus, they defined the position, and the checks and balances between the Royal House,...
which granted it wide self-government under the Crown of Aragon and, later on, under the Spanish Kingdom.
The boundaries and identity of the present Spanish Autonomous Community of Valencia
Valencian Community
The Valencian Community is an autonomous community of Spain located in central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Valencia...
are essentially those of the former Kingdom of Valencia.
Conquest
The conquest of what would later become the Kingdom of Valencia started in 1232 when the king of the Crown of AragonCrown of Aragon
The Crown of Aragon Corona d'Aragón Corona d'Aragó Corona Aragonum controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain and southeastern France, as well as some of the major islands and mainland possessions stretching across the Mediterranean as far as Greece...
, James I
James I of Aragon
James I the Conqueror was the King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona, and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276...
, called Jaume I el Conqueridor or the Conqueror, took Morella, mostly with Aragonese troops. Shortly after, in 1233, Borriana
Borriana
Borriana is a commune in the province of Biella, Piedmont ....
and Peniscola
Peñíscola
Peníscola or Peñíscola is a municipality in the province of Castellón, Valencian Community, Spain. The town is located on the Costa del Azahar, north of the Serra d'Irta along the Mediterranean coast...
were also taken from the بلنسية Balansiyya (Valencia in the Arabic language
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
) taifa
Taifa
In the history of the Iberian Peninsula, a taifa was an independent Muslim-ruled principality, usually an emirate or petty kingdom, though there was one oligarchy, of which a number formed in the Al-Andalus after the final collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031.-Rise:The origins of...
.
A second and more relevant wave of expansion took place in 1238, when James I defeated the Moors from the Balansiya taifa. He entered the city of Valencia on 9 October 1238, which is regarded as the dawn of the Kingdom of Valencia.
A third phase started in 1243 and ended in 1245, when it met the limits agreed between James I and the heir to the throne of Castile, Alfonso the Wise
Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X was a Castilian monarch who ruled as the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1252 until his death...
, who would succeed to the throne as Alfonso X in 1252. These limits were traced in the Treaty of Almizra
Treaty of Almizra
The Treaty of Almizra was the third of a series of three treaties between the Crowns of Aragon and Castile meant to determine the limits of their expansion into Andalusia so as to prevent squabbling between the Christian princes. Specifically, it defined the borders of the Kingdom of Valencia...
between the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon, which coordinated their Reconquista efforts to drive the Moors southward by establishing their respectively desired areas of influence. The Treaty of Almizra established the south line of Aragonese expansion in the line formed by the villes of Biar and Busot, today in the North of the Alicante province. Everything South of that line, including what would be the Kingdom of Murcia, was reserved by means of this treaty for Castile.
The matter of the large majority of Mudéjar
Mudéjar
Mudéjar is the name given to individual Moors or Muslims of Al-Andalus who remained in Iberia after the Christian Reconquista but were not converted to Christianity...
population, left behind from the progressively more southern combat front, lingered from the very beginning until they finally were expelled en masse in 1609. Until that moment, they represented a complicated issue for the newly established Kingdom, as they were essential to keep the economy working due to their numbers, which inspired frequent pacts with local Muslim populations, such as Mohammad Abu Abdallah Ben Hudzail al Sahuir
Mohammad Abu Abdallah Ben Hudzail al Sahuir
Mohammad Abu Abdallah Ben Hudzäil al Sähuir , popularly known as Al-Azraq الأزرق , was an Arab Moorish commander in the Iberian Peninsula in the south of the Kingdom of Valencia.He was son of a Muslim father, Hudzäil al Sähuir and of a Christian mother...
, allowing their culture various degrees of tolerance but, on the other side, they were deemed as a menace to the Kingdom due to their lack of allegiance and their real or perceived conspiracies to bring the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
to their rescue.
There were indeed frequent rebellions from the Moor population against Christian rule, the most threatening being those headed by the Moor chieftain Mohammad Abu Abdallah Ben Hudzail al Sahuir, also known as Al-Azraq. He led important rebellions in 1244, 1248 and 1276. During the first of these, he briefly regained Muslim independence for the lands South of the Júcar
Júcar
The Júcar or Xúquer is a river on the Iberian Peninsula of Spain. The river runs for approximately 509 km from its source at Ojuelos de Valdeminguete, on the eastern flank of the Montes Universales, Sistema Ibérico...
, but he had to surrender soon after. During the second revolt, king James I was almost killed in battle, but Al-Azraq also was finally subjugated, his life spared only because of a long time relationship with the Christian monarch. During the third rebellion, Al-Azraq himself was killed but his son would continue to promote Muslim unrest and local rebellions remained always at sight.
James II
James II of Aragon
James II , called the Just was the King of Sicily from 1285 to 1296 and King of Aragon and Valencia and Count of Barcelona from 1291 to 1327. In 1297 he was granted the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica...
called Jaume II el Just or the Just, a grandson of James I, initiated in 1296 a final push of his army further southwards than the Biar-Busot pacts. His campaign aimed at the fertile countryside around Murcia
Murcia
-History:It is widely believed that Murcia's name is derived from the Latin words of Myrtea or Murtea, meaning land of Myrtle , although it may also be a derivation of the word Murtia, which would mean Murtius Village...
and the Vega Baja del Segura
Vega Baja del Segura
Vega Baja del Segura is a comarca in the province of Alicante, Valencian Community, Spain.To the North its neighbouring comarcas are the Baix Vinalopó and Vinalopó Mitjà...
whose local Muslim rulers were bound by pacts with Castile and governing by proxy on behalf of this kingdom; Castilian troops often raided the area to assert a sovereignty which, in any case, was not stable but was characterized by the typical skirmishes and ever changing alliances of a frontier territory.
The campaign under James II was successful to the point of extending the limits of the Kingdom of Valencia well South of the previously agreed border with Castile. His troops took Orihuela
Orihuela
Orihuela is a city and municipality located at the feet of the Sierra de Orihuela mountains in the province of Alicante, Spain. The city of Orihuela had a population of 32,472 inhabitants in the beginning of 2006...
and Murcia. What was to become the definite dividing line between Castile and the Crown of Aragon was finally agreed by virtue of the Sentencia Arbitral de Torrellas (1304), amended by the Treaty of Elche
Treaty of Elche
The Treaty of Elche was an agreement between the Crowns of Castile and Aragon signed in 1305. The treaty revised the borders put down by the Treaty of Torrellas in the previous year. The borders under dispute were those created by the conquests of James II of Aragon in Murcia between 1296 and 1300....
(1305), which assigned Orihuela (also Alicante
Alicante
Alicante or Alacant is a city in Spain, the capital of the province of Alicante and of the comarca of Alacantí, in the south of the Valencian Community. It is also a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city of Alicante proper was 334,418, estimated , ranking as the second-largest...
and Elche) to the Kingdom of Valencia, while Murcia went to the Crown of Castile, so drawing the final Southern border of the Kingdom of Valencia.
Forging
Modern historiography sees the conquest of Valencia under the light of similar ReconquistaReconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...
efforts by the Crown of Castile
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
: as a fight led by the King in order to gain new territories as free as possible of serfdom
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
to the nobility. The new territories would then be only accountable to the King, thus enlarging and consolidating his power versus that of the nobility. Making it part of a growing trend evident in Spain in the Middle Ages
Spain in the Middle Ages
After the disorders of the passage of the Vandals and Alans down the Mediterranean coast of Hispania from 408, the history of Medieval Spain begins with the Iberian kingdom of the Arianist Visigoths , who were converted to Catholicism with their king Reccared in 587...
(said to end in 1492 with the final acts of the Reconquista in the capitulation of Kingdom of Granada and the expulsion of the Jews) and well into the era of Habsburg Spain
Habsburg Spain
Habsburg Spain refers to the history of Spain over the 16th and 17th centuries , when Spain was ruled by the major branch of the Habsburg dynasty...
.
It is under this approach that the repopulation of the Kingdom is assessed today. The new Kingdom population was initially overwhelmingly Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
and often subjected to revolts and the serious threat of being taken by any given fellow Muslim army put together for this purpose in the Maghreb
Maghreb
The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
.
The process by which the monarchy strove to free itself from any noble guardianship was not easy as the nobility still held a big share of power and was determined to retain it as much as possible. This fact marked the Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
colonization of the newly acquired territories, ruled by the Lleis de Repartiments. Finally the Aragonese nobles were granted several domains but only managed to obtain the inland, mostly mountainous and sparsely populated parts of the Kingdom of Valencia.
The king reserved the fertile and highly populated lands in the coastal plains to free citizens and incipient bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
whose cities were given Furs or royal charters regulating civil law and administration locally, always accountable to the king.
This had linguistic consequences.:
- The innerland was mostly repopulated by speakers of the Aragonese languageAragonese languageAragonese is a Romance language now spoken in a number of local varieties by between 10,000 and 30,000 people over the valleys of the Aragón River, Sobrarbe and Ribagorza in Aragon, Spain...
, a Western Romance language of the Pyrenean–Mozarabic group. Their language was a close relative of the Mozarabic languageMozarabic languageMozarabic was a continuum of closely related Romance dialects spoken in Muslim-dominated areas of the Iberian Peninsula during the early stages of the Romance languages' development in Iberia. Mozarabic descends from Late Latin and early Romance dialects spoken in the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th...
and a close relative of the Castilian language, which would evolve into the Spanish languageSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
also by adding treats from neighbouring Romance languages such as Aragonese.
- The coastal lands were mostly repopulated by speakers of the Catalan languageCatalan languageCatalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
from the Principality of CataloniaPrincipality of CataloniaThe Principality of Catalonia , is a historic territory in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula, mostly in Spain and with an adjoining portion in southern France....
. Theirs was a Romance language of the Gallo-IberianGallo-Iberian- Gallo-Italic languages :* Gallo-Italic group ** Piedmontese** Ligurian** Lombard*** Western Lombard*** Eastern Lombard** Emiliano-Romagnolo*** Emiliano*** Romagnolo**Gallo-Italic of Sicily...
group. In particular, part of the Iberian Romance languagesIberian Romance languagesThe Iberian Romance languages or Ibero-Romance languages are the Romance languages that developed on the Iberian Peninsula, an area consisting primarily of Spain, Portugal, and Andorra....
. The language of these set of settlers would evolve into ValencianValencianValencian is the traditional and official name of the Catalan language in the Valencian Community. There are dialectical differences from standard Catalan, and under the Valencian Statute of Autonomy, the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua has been established as its regulator...
, a distinctive variant of Catalan which has gained its own currency within the Catalan domain.
Another possibly primary driving force, but likely to be understated by modern historiography, was religious faith. In this regard, Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX, born Ugolino di Conti, was pope from March 19, 1227 to August 22, 1241.The successor of Pope Honorius III , he fully inherited the traditions of Pope Gregory VII and of his uncle Pope Innocent III , and zealously continued their policy of Papal supremacy.-Early life:Ugolino was...
recognized the fight as a Crusade and James I was known for being a devout king.
Height of power
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
.
In the city of Valencia the Taula de canvis was created, functioning partly as a bank and partly as a stock exchange
Stock exchange
A stock exchange is an entity that provides services for stock brokers and traders to trade stocks, bonds, and other securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for issue and redemption of securities and other financial instruments, and capital events including the payment of income and...
market; altogether it boosted trading.
The local industry, especially textile manufactures, achieved great development and the city of Valencia turned into a Mediterranean trading emporium where traders from all Europe worked. Perhaps the best symbol which summarizes this flamboyant period is the Silk Exchange, one of the finest European examples of civil Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
and a major trade market in the Mediterranean by the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century.
Valencia was one of the first cities in Europe to install a movable type
Movable type
Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....
printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
as per the designs of Johannes Gutenberg. It was Valencian authors such as Joanot Martorell
Joanot Martorell
Joanot Martorell was a Valencian knight and the author of the novel Tirant lo Blanch, which is written in Valencian...
or Ausiàs March
Ausiàs March
Ausiàs March was a Valencian poet who was born in Gandia towards the end of the 14th century. He was the son of Pere March, nephew of Jaume March II, and cousin of Arnau March....
who conformed the canon of classic Valencian literature.
Modern Era, the Germanies, and decay
In 1479, Ferdinand ascended to the throne as King of Aragon. With his earlier marriage to Queen Isabella I of CastileIsabella I of Castile
Isabella I was Queen of Castile and León. She and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon brought stability to both kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. Later the two laid the foundations for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor...
, the modern Kingdom of Spain was born. Valencia began a slow process of integration with the rest of Spain. When Ferdinand and Isabella
Catholic Monarchs
The Catholic Monarchs is the collective title used in history for Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; they were given a papal dispensation to deal with...
's grandson Charles came to the throne, the crowns were permanently joined together in personal union
Personal union
A personal union is the combination by which two or more different states have the same monarch while their boundaries, their laws and their interests remain distinct. It should not be confused with a federation which is internationally considered a single state...
. The kings of Habsburg Spain
Habsburg Spain
Habsburg Spain refers to the history of Spain over the 16th and 17th centuries , when Spain was ruled by the major branch of the Habsburg dynasty...
(January 23, 1516 – November 1, 1700) maintained the privileges and liberties of the territories and cities which formed the kingdom and its legal structure and factuality remained intact. A new position, Viceroy of Valencia, was created to manage the officially independent Kingdom. Meanwhile the rising Spanish Empire
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
had left behind its former status as a Kingdom of the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
and had emerged as a Great power
Great power
A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions...
. The Empire shifted its focus to the Spanish colonization of the Americas
Spanish colonization of the Americas
Colonial expansion under the Spanish Empire was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions...
and its possessions in Europe, rather than its Iberian territories.
During the 16th century Valencia lost its status as a preeminent commercial center of Europe to the rapidly developing cities of Northern and Central Europe. Within Spain, the Atlantic trade favored the cities of Andalusia such as Cádiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
. This was largely due to diminishing profits from the Mediterranean trade. The Spanish Empire was in frequent conflict with the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
which controlled most of the eastern Mediterranean. They prevented each other from reaching certain ports while Ottoman privateer
Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
s such as Barbarossa preyed on trade ships. The Barbary pirates such as Dragut, operating out of Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
, Tripoli
Tripoli
Tripoli is the capital and largest city in Libya. It is also known as Western Tripoli , to distinguish it from Tripoli, Lebanon. It is affectionately called The Mermaid of the Mediterranean , describing its turquoise waters and its whitewashed buildings. Tripoli is a Greek name that means "Three...
, Algiers
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
, Salé
Salé
Salé is a city in north-western Morocco, on the right bank of the Bou Regreg river, opposite the national capital Rabat, for which it serves as a commuter town...
and ports in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
, attacked shipping in the western Mediterranean, which included destructive raids in Christian ports along the coast. This decline in trade greatly inhibited the economy in Valencia, which had already been economically affected by the Alhambra decree
Alhambra decree
The Alhambra Decree was an edict issued on 31 March 1492 by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.The edict was formally revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second...
which had expelled the Jews back in 1492.
In 1519, the young King Charles I
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
granted the Germanies
Germania (guild)
were guilds of artisans in the Kingdom of Valencia in Spain. Each germania represented a single trade. The germanies are similar to the of Castile, which were paramilitary law-enforcement militias...
(literally "brotherhoods") permission to arm themselves to fight off the Muslim raiders. The Germanies were artisan guilds who also, at first with the government's permission, served as civilian militias to fight raiding pirates. However, the Germanies also had an economic agenda favoring the commoner-dominated guilds that clashed with the aristocracy. After the recently appointed Viceroy of Valencia Diego Hurtado de Mendoza refused to seat elected officials who favored the Germanies in 1520, a full fledged revolt broke out, the Revolt of the Brotherhoods (Revolta de les Germanies). It lasted well into 1522, and shared many traits as the contemporaneous Revolt of the Comuneros in Castile. Aside from economic resentment of the aristocracy, the revolt also featured a strong anti-Muslim aspect, as the superstitious populace blamed Muslims, homosexuals, and other outcasts for a plague that struck the city. The mudéjar
Mudéjar
Mudéjar is the name given to individual Moors or Muslims of Al-Andalus who remained in Iberia after the Christian Reconquista but were not converted to Christianity...
s (Muslims) were seen as allies of the aristocracy, as they worked in the nobility's large farms and undercut the Valencians on wages making them competitors for scarce jobs. During the revolt, the agermanats killed many Muslims and forcibly baptized the rest. Even after the Germanies were suppressed it was ruled that these baptisms were valid, sparking a new revolt of the Morisco
Morisco
Moriscos or Mouriscos , meaning "Moorish", were the converted Christian inhabitants of Spain and Portugal of Muslim heritage. Over time the term was used in a pejorative sense applied to those nominal Catholics who were suspected of secretly practicing Islam.-Demographics:By the beginning of the...
s (Muslim "converts").
Then the expulsion of the Moriscos
Expulsion of the Moriscos
On April 9, 1609, King Philip III of Spain decreed the Expulsion of the Moriscos . The Moriscos were the descendants of the Muslim population that converted to Christianity under threat of exile from Ferdinand and Isabella in 1502...
in 1609 was the final blow for the Kingdom of Valencia, as thousands of people were forced to leave, entire villages were deserted, and the countryside lost its main labor force, in all, some 125,000 people are supposed to have left the land. The expulsion was broadly welcome with the Valencian citizenry, especially for its more popular segments. Since the expulsion meant the loss of a cheap workforce for the nobility, themselves and the upper bourgeoisie had to turn to the king seeking protection from the general populace, which meant that they had to renounce their former check and balance role before the requests of the kings, which was one of the driving forces of the Kingdom's autonomy.
The Kingdom of Valencia as a legal and politic organization was finally terminated in 1707 as a result of the Spanish War of Succession. The local population mostly took side and provided troops and resources for Archduke Charles
Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles VI was the penultimate Habsburg sovereign of the Habsburg Empire. He succeeded his elder brother, Joseph I, as Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia , Hungary and Croatia , Archduke of Austria, etc., in 1711...
, the pretender who was arguably to maintain the legal status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...
. His utter defeat at the Battle of Almansa
Battle of Almansa
The Battle of Almansa, fought on 25 April 1707, was one of the most decisive engagements of the War of the Spanish Succession. At Almansa, the Franco–Spanish army under Berwick soundly defeated the allied forces of Portugal, England, and the United Provinces led by the Earl of Galway,...
, near the borders of the Kingdom of Valencia, meant its legal and politic termination, along with other autonomous parliaments in the Crown of Aragon, as the Nueva Planta Decrees
Nueva Planta decrees
The Nueva Planta decrees were a number of decrees signed between 1707 and 1716 by Philip V—the first Bourbon king of Spain—during and shortly after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession which he won....
were passed and the new King Philip V of Spain
Philip V of Spain
Philip V was King of Spain from 15 November 1700 to 15 January 1724, when he abdicated in favor of his son Louis, and from 6 September 1724, when he assumed the throne again upon his son's death, to his death.Before his reign, Philip occupied an exalted place in the royal family of France as a...
of the House of Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
created a centralized Spain.
See also
- Conquest of Valencia by El Cid
- List of Valencian monarchs