The Usages of Barcelona were the customs that form the basis for the Catalan Constitutions

Catalan constitutions

The Catalan constitutions were promulgated by the Corts of Barcelona . The first constitution was promulgated by the court of 1283. The last ones were promulgated by the court of 1702...

. They are the fundamental laws, furs

Charter

A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...

(charter in English), and basic rights of the Catalonia

Catalonia

Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

, dating back to their codification in the twelfth century.

The Usages combined fragments of Roman

Roman law

Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...

 and Visigothic law with the resolutions of the comital court of Barcelona and the religious canon

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....

s of ecclesiastic synods. The first Usages were compiled and codified by Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona

Ramon Berenguer I, Count of Barcelona

Ramon Berenguer I the Old was Count of Barcelona in 1035–1076. He promulgated the earliest versions of a written code of Catalan law, the Usages of Barcelona....

 (1035–1076), to repair the deficiencies of Gothic law. However, the evidence for Ramon's work dates from the codes of James the Conqueror of a later date (reigned 1213–1276). James, seeing that some judges ruled by Gothic law and some by Roman law, according to a tradition of usus terrae (local custom), approached the Corts

Parliament

A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...

 in 1251 to establish the primacy of the Usages. Though the Usages applied legally only to the Barcelona

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...

n county, in practice they were applied to the entire Principality of Catalonia

Principality of Catalonia

The Principality of Catalonia , is a historic territory in the northeastern Iberian Peninsula, mostly in Spain and with an adjoining portion in southern France....

.

The Usages incorporated several other competing codes of the same era:

• Usages of Girona
  Girona
  Girona is a city in the northeast of Catalonia, Spain at the confluence of the rivers Ter, Onyar, Galligants and Güell, with an official population of 96,236 in January 2009. It is the capital of the province of the same name and of the comarca of the Gironès...
  
  
• Customs of Lleida
  Lleida
  Lleida is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida, as well as the largest city in the province and it had 137,387 inhabitants , including the contiguous municipalities of Raimat and Sucs. The metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants...
  
  
• Customs of Tortosa
  Tortosa
  -External links:* *** * * *...
  
  
• Furs 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,...
  
  
• Franquesas of Majorca
  Kingdom of Majorca
  The Kingdom of Majorca was founded by James I of Aragon, also known as James The Conqueror. After the death of his first-born son Alfonso, a will was written in 1262 which created the kingdom in order to cede it to his son James...
  
  
• Chapter of Athens
  Duchy of Athens
  The Duchy of Athens was one of the Crusader States set up in Greece after the conquest of the Byzantine Empire during the Fourth Crusade, encompassing the regions of Attica and Boeotia, and surviving until its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century....
  
   (and Neopatria)

The oldest manuscript containing the Usages dates from the end of the 12th century. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, they were copied frequently. 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....

 superseded them with the central legislation of the Bourbons, though continued to have some force.

External links

• The Usatges of Barcelona: The Fundamental Law of Catalonia.