Why call it the Principality of Catalonia?
Why call it the Principality of Catalonia?
The debate is constant and returns cyclically: why do they say 'Principality' when referring to the current Autonomous Community of Catalonia? Among ignorant or pranksters appear immediately the question about who is the prince who were either or the past, but the reality is that this has nothing to do. The expression 'Principality' not from 'prince' and, indeed, the Principality never had any prince. Everything has another explanation.The expression 'Principality' originates from the Latin word meaning 'principatus', which means 'sovereignty'. From a legal point of view 'principatus era any territory where the sovereign had no specific title or it was under another title. For Catalan, the kings had no title to govern it jointly, they did as kings of the Crown of Aragon. And so they said 'Principality' scattered territories that were under the control jurisdiction under 'sovereignty' of the kings of Aragon and Counts of Barcelona.
The word principatus' in any case state that the definition was accompanied Catalonia word. Catalonia as a state was a 'Principality', because no king ruled as monarch own country using a title that refers. They used 'Principality of Catalonia' So in the same way that you could have used 'Kingdom of Catalonia' and 'Republic of Catalonia' if he'd been a different legal form. Which actually happened Catalan republic proclaimed five times throughout history (1641, 1810, 1871, 1931 and 1934).
Some authors argue, moreover, that the fact that Barcelona was the real capital of the Confederacy, a title only played in some time for Valencia, led to organizing the Principality as what today we would call a 'federal district' neutral territory respect of the kingdoms of the crown: Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, Sardinia and the two Sicily. The hypothesis is highly speculative, but really interesting.
The recovery of the hand of John Carpenter
Question Names Joan FusterDesprés Decree of New Plant and the creation of the provinces expression 'Principality' remained unused and 'Catalonia' became the usual way of referring to the territory of the four provinces Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida and Girona. In fact, the expression 'Catalonia' even remained reduced to Spanish Catalonia, and entered into disuse in northern Albera, the current North Catalonia.
That until John Carpenter resumed debate in 1962, with its booklet 'Question of Names'.
Between the onset of the Spanish provinces in 1833 and the publication of the book by Carpenter in 1962 passed a hundred and twenty-nine long years, during which the Principality appeared especially clearly differentiated national consciousness of Spain. This awareness, however, at no time took into account the possible existence of Catalan national officially out of the four Catalan provinces. At most there must be some rhetorical appeals, but little else.
Franco, however, cut it all, but at the same time did everything recomençàs. From Swedish, Joan Fuster took advantage to underline the existence of a Catalan nation that went beyond the limits of official Catalonia. And the 'name issue' appeared very quickly: the word 'Catalonia' should refer to the four provinces and nothing or everything? Carpenter chose a Solomonic decision. It seemed very difficult word 'Catalonia', which should be the logical name of the entire nation, would accept to own all territories and asked for it to use the old definition of state 'Principality' to refer Rid the territory defined by Catalonia Spain. With the desire to 'save' the name of Catalonia for all. Hoping that someday it would be done using less controversial.
Successful proposals Carpenter relaunched, especially among the left nationalist supporters of the Catalan, the common use of the word 'Principality'. In fact, its terminology acquired an undeniable success: Catalan Countries Principality, Valencia, Balearic Islands, Northern Catalonia and eastern Aragon became names used naturally by many people and even became official.
And with that the old name of the central state in the country, 'Principality' reaches a significant recovery, which is still some controversy arguing so poor that Catalonia never had a prince.
In fact, the expression 'Principality of Catalonia' only abolished, like so many other things, in 1833, when Javier de Burgos designed the current provincial division of Spain. He took to remove the names of historical precedents states, including the Principality of Catalonia, Valencia and the United Kingdom of Majorca.
The decree De Burgos made it clear that 'Spain Peninsula and adjacent islands' would remain divided into forty-nine provinces, with the exception of the four Basque provinces, had to adopting the name of the city which was its capital. Thus was created a reference hitherto nonexistent and loyalty 'provincial' who wanted to actually eliminate loyalty previous states that while over a hundred years ago that had been abolished were still well present in the popular imagination. Until the provincial division nobody considered 'Alicante' and 'Girona'. Breaking loyalty to territorial structures which until then had been undisputed, the Kingdom of Valencia and the Principality of Catalonia for example, was the primary purpose of De Burgos. It reinforced the idea of Spain jumping on the status of the province.
The decree makes reference to the Spanish territory of the peninsula 'is anecdotal, however. At that time there were also Spanish provinces outside the peninsula. Specifically, the provinces called the Sahara of Ifni and the Gulf of Guinea, in Africa (besides the Protectorate of Morocco); Province of the Philippines, the Mariana Islands and the Carolinas in Asia, US and the provinces of Santo Domingo, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Recall also that at the time of signing the decree that Spain has not yet recognized the unilaterally proclaimed independence in 1813 from New Spain (Mexico, the United States and much of the Caribbean).
The decree De Burgos and the appearance of the provinces need to locate them, then, in this context, the loss of the Spanish empire and the withdrawal of the peninsula in search of a new identity for Spain was losing the empire. Recall, consequently, the Cadiz Constitution of 1812, written just twenty-one years earlier, still spoke of the Spaniards of both hemispheres. " In fact, eighty-six MPs who drafted belonged to the then Spanish provinces, but soon to be independent, such as Peru and Mexico.
Burgos mostly tried to reorganize the territory was Spanish and at the same time, modernize the functioning of the state. He took the basic division in the French departments had done decades earlier. The Catalan case, however, was very special because the Principality had been officially part of France between 1812 and 1814, also incorporating part of the current Franja and Andorra. The Catalan case was, therefore, very sensitive and De Burgos wanted to avoid the decree referring to the Principality of Catalonia with the name to emphasize that Catalonia 'only' was a geographical name and had no political entity that could hinder Spanish project.