In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Wreck of Catalonia: Civil War in the Fifteenth Century
  • Mark D. Meyerson
Alan Ryder. The Wreck of Catalonia: Civil War in the Fifteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. viii + 286 pp. index. tbls. map. bibl. £55. ISBN: 978-0-19-920736-7.

With this book, the first complete history of the Catalan civil war (1462–72), Alan Ryder has performed a valuable service for historians of late medieval and early modern Spain. Remarkably, no Catalan historian had successfully undertaken this task; indeed, most seem to have avoided grappling with events the effects of which were so momentous and so tragic for Catalonia. The war caused the decline of Catalonia and its capital, Barcelona, within the federated Crown of Aragon and facilitated the rise, especially in economic terms, of the kingdom and city of Valencia. It also contributed to the decision of the embattled Juan II to marry his son Fernando to the Castilian princess Isabel in 1469; the resultant union of the Crown of Aragon to the much larger Castile only further diminished the status of a devastated Catalonia. The pattern of relations between the Catalan political elites and the Trastámara monarchs, so ably treated here by Ryder, would be perpetuated into the era of the Habsburg dynasty, against whom the Catalans again disastrously rebelled. Ryder’s work provides us with a detailed account of the first act of a long tragedy.

Ryder’s previous studies of the reign of Alfonso V, “the Magnanimous” (1416–58), prepared him well for writing this history. His research is as thorough as one could expect, considering the vastness of extant archival documentation in Catalonia as well as the extensive edited material, and he deals judiciously with nationalist historiographies, modern and medieval. Ryder writes lucidly and serves as an expert guide through the complexities of Catalan politics and international diplomacy. Though the conflict was a civil war, it attracted the interest, and sometimes intervention, of other European powers, and pitted against each other two of the shrewdest rulers of the period, Juan II (1458–79) and Louis XI of France. The rich detail and depth of Ryder’s narrative can only be hinted at in one short review. The work is neither controversial nor revisionist; rather, filling such a huge gap in the literature, it will be the standard account that others may attempt to revise, but only after much further archival exploration.

The book begins with several essential chapters on the background to the civil war. Ryder analyzes the long, difficult relationship between the kings of the Castilian Trastámara dynasty, who had come to the Aragonese throne in 1412 with Castilian traditions of a more authoritarian monarchy, and the Catalan political elites — led by Catalonia’s parliament, the Corts, its executive organ, the Diputació, [End Page 537] and the patricians of Barcelona — who were accustomed to a contractual relationship with the monarchy in which the Corts controlled legislation and extraordinary taxation and the king was bound to observe the privileges and liberties of the principality. Alfonso V’s long absence in Naples and apparent subordination of Catalan interests to those of his own dynasty did little to endear him to the Catalan elites. In Barcelona the Busca party, composed largely of merchants and artisans, challenged the economic policies and authority of the Biga, an oligarchy of patrician rentiers who exercised great influence in the Corts. In 1453 the Busca acquired power with royal support, but in 1460 the Biga regained control. In the meantime King Alfonso had died and been succeeded by Juan II, whose identification with remensa (peasants) and Busca interests earned him the fierce opposition of the Catalan ruling classes. The latter found a pretext for rebellion in Juan’s arrest in December 1460 of Charles, Prince of Viana, the son of his first marriage whose cause the Catalan opposition espoused. Charles’s death in September 1461 pushed both parties toward armed confrontation. A desperate Juan II turned to Louis XI of France for military aid and had to pawn the Catalan counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne in return. Louis subsequently annexed the counties and sided with the Catalan rebels when it suited him.

Most...

pdf

Share